The largest SAP solution support outsourcers in Russia. Ranking TAdviser 2022

The largest outsourcers and market estimates for 2021

Analytical center TAdviser has prepared a new rating of the largest Russian outsourcers for supporting SAP solutions in 2021. The leader of the rating was IBS. Its revenue from SAP support projects reached 769 million rubles, annual growth - 26.5%.

The top three also included TerraLink and the Digital Economy League.

The new rating brought together nine companies. Eight of them increased their income from supporting SAP solutions, only one company recorded a slight decrease in such revenue.

The volume of the Russian outsourcing market for supporting SAP solutions in 2021, according to TAdviser, increased by 7% and reached 10.7 billion rubles. Market participants associate its growth with the implementation of new projects. Moreover, some companies noticed an increase in the number of implementation projects, others recorded the implementation of large and large-scale projects.

In 2021, a large number of SAP solutions were introduced in the Russian Federation, so the support market looks very promising, - said Maria Burenkova, leading sales manager at Teamidea.

By the end of 2021, TerraLink experts estimate market growth by 5-7%. This is due to the start of quite large Russian projects, and client plans for the further development of SAP solutions, including taking into account the need to switch to current solutions, - explains Artem Redkov, director of premium services and alternative support at TerraLink.

What changed for SAP customers in 2022

Back in early January, many companies planned work and set goals for the current year. However, the change in the geopolitical situation and the emerging problems with Western software forced them to hastily revise their initiatives.

With the beginning of known events, SAP, following the policy of the European Union and the United States, began to gradually impose restrictions on access to its software to Russian customers. Those who were sanctioned by the vendor disconnected from cloud systems, stopped support and access to updates to existing solutions. Although the systems remained operational, getting updates or SAP Note has become a challenge for customers. Also, due to new control procedures, there was a problem with the speed of message processing and the provision of access to software updates. According to some decisions, many clients were refused, even if they were not on the sanctions lists, "says Artem Redkov.

Thus, the stability and continuity of business processes in companies using SAP solutions were at risk.

As of 2022, SAP solutions in Russia used about 1.5 thousand companies, including large, medium and small enterprises. Some of the contracts were concluded with SAP directly, others through partners. As one of the TAdviser sources noted in mid-2022, all SAP partners in Russia somehow prepared to support customers with the vendor's departure from the country.

There is no holy place: if SAP does not provide support, someone else will do it, - said a market representative.

By the end of 2022, it became known about SAP's plans from January 2023 to completely block Russian customers from accessing its system through which technical support is provided - receiving software updates, security patches, placing applications for solving various problems. The decision was related to the eighth package of EU sanctions against Russia, which was approved in October. The package includes, among other things, a ban on the provision of IT consulting services to Russian individuals and legal entities. SAP assessed that its technical support contains consulting elements.

However, according to a TAdviser source, customers will not be left without software updates. It is planned to deploy a special portal for Russian organizations, from where they will be able to receive software updates. This does not apply to IT consulting, which means that sanctions are not prohibited.

What tasks do Russian SAP customers set for external partners-integrators?

Customers who do not plan to migrate from SAP to other accounting systems have standard support requirements, which include services such as monitoring system performance, updating components to changing legislation and eliminating system errors, says Alexander Varfolomeev, ALPE consulting Digital SAP Transformation Project Manager.

Dmitry Potapov, senior partner of the Digital Economy League, reports that current tasks are now associated with the support and development of existing SAP solutions, but without a vendor.

In large companies, tens of thousands of users work for SAP, it is necessary to ensure stable functioning. Even with the departure of the vendor in this area, some unsolvable problems are not yet visible, system integrators will continue to support their customers on their own, - explains Dmitry Potapov.

TerraLink notes that customers are increasingly looking towards large integrators who are able to carry out the fourth support line (replacing the vendor) to solve critical problems. Most often, customers are interested in the following questions:

• Critical Incident Resolution
• SLA Compliance and Warranty
• Localization in terms of changes in legislation
• Availability of updates and SAP Note

Stanislav Malyshev, CEO of ALPE consulting, lists the current list of tasks for clients from Russia:

• Ensure full support for the industrial operation of the existing SAP ERP system.
• Carve out (separation) of the Russian division from the global business with preservation of historical data and continuity of business processes.
• Transfer master data to a data center or on-premium system in Russia.
• Partial transition to 1C (finance) with seamless integration of two systems. Transfer master data from SAP to 1C.
• Integration of SAP with Russian systems (Honest Sign, etc.)
• Complete 1C transition with SAP image business process organization. Employee training.

How Customers Can Minimize SAP Care Problems

In the coming years, many SAP customers will be able to continue working in their systems - the implemented modules function quite stably, for some time you can live without updates. Companies will be able to make small improvements to existing functionality to reflect changes in their processes, this will not require vendor support.

However, problems will arise with the introduction of new functionality, says Dmitry Potapov, senior partner of the Digital Economy League.

This may be one of the incentives for the transition to Russian developments. Plus, state-owned companies have an import substitution imperative, I think they will be the first to switch to domestic platforms, Potapov notes.

Almost all customers, in response to the vendor's departure, closed external access to systems that were previously used to interact with vendor support as a security measure, says Sergey Solomakhin, Director of SAP Solutions at SIGMA.

But it must be understood that over time the situation will become more complicated due to the growing volume and variety of cyber threats. There are also legal nuances. Nevertheless, the experience of companies under sanctions for quite a long time shows that the development of solutions is possible in almost any direction, says an expert at SIGMA.

Internal IT services are sometimes considered as alternatives to vendor support of the company, notes Anatoly Demkin, commercial director of Evola. Although, according to him, from the point of view of security and cost reduction, it is better to give the solution to such problems to specialized integrators.

Alexander Varfolomeev, ALPE consulting Digital SAP Transformation Project Manager, adds that local partners involved in such tasks should have the practice of implementing and expanding SAP's standard functionality in order to adapt the system to changing legal requirements through their own developments.

IBS is also confident that in order to maintain functionality, develop and expand the capabilities of SAP-based solutions, customers need to find a reliable partner who has experience in providing support without a vendor.

For example, one of IBS's longtime customers - a large trading company - has not updated standard SAP software since 2009 and is not going to do so in the foreseeable future. The current capabilities of updating the company's solutions are sufficient, even from the point of view of information security: more than 80% of all software vulnerabilities are not in the SAP core, but at higher application levels.

IBS has developed a special program for supporting SAP customers without a vendor. It takes into account the different strategies and needs of different categories of enterprises: those who have decided on the temporary operation of SAP solutions and plan to migrate to import-independent software, and those who are focused on the long-term operation of already implemented products, and who are interested in the development of new functionality based on SAP.

SAP customer support in the absence of a vendor can include the following in any combination:

• Resolution of abnormal situations in standard software;
• Adaptation of solutions to changes in the legislation of the Russian Federation;
• Identification and elimination of code vulnerabilities;
• Continuous improvement and improvement of existing systems;
• Development of new functional modules.

Read more about the capabilities of full-scale support for SAP solutions without a vendor in a separate material.

How the SAP Solution Support Outsourcing Market Changed in 2022

Experts interviewed by TAdviser assess the preliminary results of 2022 in different ways. Some of them notice an increase in turnover, other experts talk about drawdown and stagnation. However, they agree that support services remain in demand among companies, since it is impossible to quickly abandon working solutions involved in critical processes.

Artem Redkov, Director of Premium Services and Alternative Support at TerraLink, speaks of an increase in outsourcing market turnover due to the departure of Western vendors and the redistribution of cash flows for vendor support.

On the one hand, this is a challenge, on the other hand, serious opportunities for the next 3-5 years will be actively "preserving" existing systems and switching to new, alternative solutions, he believes.

Sergei Gorbachev, SAP project manager at Teamidea, on the contrary, believes that the market has changed towards stagnation due to a wide import substitution program in the Russian Federation. At the same time, he adds that support services still remain in demand.

Dmitry Potapov, senior partner of the Digital Economy League, expects that by the end of the year there will be no critical market subsidence.

Obviously, we are no longer talking about new implementations, but it is necessary to maintain and develop existing systems, customers will continue to spend money on this. SAP products are used in the most important processes of companies, it is impossible to simultaneously abandon them, - explains Dmitry Potapov.

Sergey Solomakhin, Director of the SAP Solutions Department of SIGMA, believes that in 2022 the growth was not very large. At the same time, he notes the emergence of an important trend - the demand for alternative vendor support. More clearly, its influence will affect in 2023, the expert is sure. In general, according to him, many customers are starting software replacement programs, and the support services market will change taking into account this trend.

What to expect from 2023

Many SAP customers have taken a wait-and-see approach, experts interviewed by TAdviser believe. On the one hand, they do not have the technological need to immediately abandon SAP, on the other hand, even 1C, being the clear leader of the Russian market, has not yet been able to demonstrate implementations with similar functionality and a similar number of users.

I think that the transition of customers to Russian solutions will take place gradually, first one functional area will be taken from SAP, then another. By the way, this fits well with the now fashionable concept of composite ERP (composable ERP). To summarize: in 2023, the vast majority of SAP customers will continue to work in it, they will simply abandon secondary tasks. Plus, it will be possible to save on vendor support. In numbers, this is 20-30% of the market, - believes Dmitry Potapov, senior partner of the Digital Economy League.

TerraLink believes that in 2023 the support market will change. According to Artem Redkov, in 2022, a lot of new companies were created to replace certain types of work that the German vendor performed. Some of these companies cooperate with integrators, some are independent.

We will see quite interesting movements in terms of the distribution of the support market between large integrators and this business area will be relevant for the next 3-5 years. But in the long term, taking into account the lack of new projects in Russia and Belarus, integrators who have previously focused on Russia will have to urgently reorient themselves to the CIS countries and far abroad, says Artem Redkov.

TerraLink distinguishes the following areas of development of integrators:

• Focus on alternative support and localization
• Development of new directions in SAP replacement solutions and transition to their implementation
• Retraining SAP specialists for new, alternative solutions
• Entering new foreign markets and launching projects outside Russia.

In addition, the company predicts that some of the large customers who have their own centers of expertise will independently support and develop systems, as a number of companies that previously refused to support SAP do.

Sergei Solomakhin (SIGMA company) believes that it is possible to predict a possible reduction in customers no earlier than 2024, since the system cannot be replaced in a year.

In general, much will depend on the geopolitical situation, the vendor's readiness to restore its presence on the Russian market, as well as on the maturity of similar Russian IT solutions, the SIGMA expert concludes.

See also

• Long-term technological security of SAP solutions? Is it possible
• The largest SAP solution support outsourcers. Ranking TAdviser 2021
• The largest SAP solution support outsourcers. Ranking TAdviser 2018
• The largest SAP solution support outsourcers. Ranking TAdviser 2017
• Major SAP Solution Support Outsourcers - TAdviser Ranking 2014
• Major SAP Solution Support Outsourcers - TAdviser 2013 Ranking
• Major SAP Solution Support Outsourcers - TAdviser 2012 Ranking
• Catalog of IT outsourcing projects and service providers