BRO-IBM Global Business Services-April2021

How IBM is evolving
its unique partnership
with SAP
DIGITAL REPORT 2021

How IBM
is evolving its
unique
partnership
with SAP
Example of
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IBM
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IBM
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IBM
IBM’s SAP Practice is dedicated to
the evolution of both companies and
their joint strategy to drive the next
generation of business processes
SAP wasn’t always the technology
giant it is today and was originally
founded by five engineers who left
IBM to start the company. IBM Global SAP
Practice leader Matt Schwartz remembers
joining SAP in 2004, when it had fewer than
10,000 people in North America. “It was a
much smaller, more intimate organization,”
Schwartz recalls. “I pretty much knew every
SAP consultant but it is a much different
situation now.”
The growth of SAP has been exponential
and fueled by a number of acquisitions which
has created a new level of complexity. “It
was easier to sell, consume and understand
what SAP was at that time,” Schwartz admits.
The company, its customer base and its
product offerings have expanded. “I’d say
the biggest change is that it was very easy
to understand what SAP stood for 20 years
ago. It was an integrated ERP system. It was
one application and now it’s a multitude of
applications – it’s an ecosystem. SAP calls
it an Intelligent Enterprise. We believe the
value now is connecting those Enterprise
applications and adding intelligence to them
through intelligent workflows.”
SAP rising
Do smaller, nimbler companies offering
cloud native software solutions pose a threat
to monoliths like SAP? “Its Déjà vu all over
again, right?” Schwartz replies with a grin.
“If you look back 20 years companies were
buying SAP for finance and supply chain
while others purchased a combo of SAP and
best of breed capabilities in Supply Chain
like i2 and Manugistics, PeopleSoft for HR
and Ariba for procurement. You had clients
that went with best-of-the-breed solutions
and had SAP for their digital core back
then, and this continues to happen today
even with the newer SaaS solutions in the
market. SAP has reached an understanding
that customers will continue to make these
choices and the power is in seamlessly linking
these applications through capabilities in their
Business Technology Platform underpinned
by the capabilities of the cloud providers.
“Our ability to help clients
understand the business
case for change, the value
of the transformation and
how SAP can help them
drive that transformation,
helps SAP achieve all
their goals”
MATT SCHWARTZ
IBM GLOBAL SAP PRACTICE LEADER
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IBM
Matthew Schwartz talks about
IBM's Digital Transformation
The real shift, Schwartz thinks, is in the
way we think about integrating and building
the next generation of SAP solutions.
Architecting intelligent workflows means
leveraging improved API integration
capabilities, infusing intelligence with AI
and machine learning algorithms. While
delivering an outcome with business
process management orchestration and
continuous business process improvement
mining. This is a new way of thinking for both
our customers and even our consultants.
It represents the way we need to move
“Sustainability has become
a key driver in commercial
decision-making, and
software plays its part”
MATT SCHWARTZ
IBM GLOBAL SAP PRACTICE LEADER
to ensure we are building cloud enabled
solutions for the future while allowing
customers to fully leverage their best of
breed solutions as part of their end-to-end
processes. This approach with S/4HANA as
the digital core provides the ability to define
and deliver the business case our customers
require to drive their digital transformations.
Partnership depth
The IBM-SAP partnership started at the
founding of SAP and remains as the longest,
strongest partnership in the ecosystem.
What keeps that relationship strong?
“At the core of our partnership is our
shared goal of satisfied clients,” Schwartz
explains. “Satisfied clients want to buy
additional applications from SAP and more
implementation services from IBM. Success
stories help both SAP and IBM to gain new
customers and satisfied customers are also
willing to speak to others about their success
providing more opportunity to IBM and SAP.
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IBM
Given IBM’s track record in the SAP business
with over 6,700 projects delivered, SAP feels
comfortable making commitments to their
customers about IBM’s ability to deliver the
business outcomes enabled by SAP. IBM’s
ability to deliver on time, on budget with
realized value for joint customers continues
to fuel the strong growth of the partnership.
“From a sales perspective, our ability
to partner with the SAP field has always
been enabled by our support helping the
C-suite, the board and the shareholders of
an organization understand the value they're
going to get from SAP.” When working
with IBM, our joint customers understand
the business case for change, the value of
the transformation and how the different
SAP applications can help them drive that
transformation, as well as the return on
investment they can expect. This helps SAP
achieve their goals and this shared mission
creates a level of trust in the partnership.
ERP sustainability
What happens next in SAP’s journey?
According to Schwartz, it’s already happening.
“Sustainability has become and as policies
change will continue to be a key driver in
commercial decision-making and software
plays a part.” The ability to properly account
for carbon impact and to manufacture and
MATT SCHWARTZ
TITLE: IBM GLOBAL SAP PRACTICE
LEADER
LOCATION: CALIFORNIA
Matt Schwartz is firmly from the
management consulting side of
the industry, starting out at Andersen
Consulting (now Accenture), first on the
coding side, then with SAP practice in the
mid-late ‘90s. He went on to work in the
Price Waterhouse (now PwC) SAP practice.
With the dot-com boom in full swing, he
joined a couple of start-ups before joining
SAP in 2004, where he would spend almost
a decade. “I figured if I was going to be in
the SAP ecosystem, why not join them?”
Schwartz says. He followed SAP with a
stint at IBM, then another management
consultancy stint, this time at EY (again
in the SAP practice). Four years ago, the
call came from IBM to return to the fold.
Schwartz came back on board to run the
North America SAP practice, doubling
business in a short
period of time,
before stepping up
to his global role.
1911
Year Founded
$73.6bn
Revenue 2020
345,900
Number of employees
EXECUTIVE BIO

IBM
GARRICK KEATTS
TITLE: IBM NORTH AMERICA SAP
PRACTICE LEADER
LOCATION: COLORADO
Garrick Keatts is an IBM lifer,
starting out at the firm straight
from college as a supply chain
consultant in the SAP practice. His
work has taken him around the world
in international markets (visiting 60-70
different countries), but always flying
the flag for IBM and SAP’s unique
partnership. He returned to the US
to focus on SAP HANA before taking
on the North America SAP practice
leader role in May 2020. “I think what's
interesting to me in that time period
is what's changed and what hasn't. If I
think back 16 years ago, so much of our
work with our clients on the SAP front
was about getting them transacting
capability and allowing them to do that
at scale with efficiency. Fast forward
to today, so much of the priority with
our clients is really more about insights
and giving them a more granular
level of insights at a quicker pace that
they can use to make better
business decisions.
What hasn't
changed is the fact
it's still so much of
our work is around
giving our clients
efficient transacting
in platforms to drive
their business
and their
growth
EXECUTIVE BIO
market sustainable products will take on a
new level of importance for organizations.
Looking for ways to lower the carbon
footprint, increase the profitability of
products while having a positive impact
on the environment will become front and
center. IBM and SAP are working together
to combine their solutions and expertise to
respond to this market demand supported
by IBM’s work on the World Business Council
for Sustainable Development. This capability
is what organizations and shareholders
are looking for and as a consumer, that's
also what I want. It's about organizations
working with IBM Global Business Services
and SAP to leverage the technology to
facilitate the changes required by the
environmental agenda.
Garrick Keatts took over from Schwartz at
the top of America's SAP practice in 2020.
He thinks IBM’s SAP proposition is unique.
“When you look at IBM's core fundamental
offerings of what we can do for clients to
help guide them and what that journey
“There's not a partner
out there that has
the offerings to do
the strategy, work,
the implementation,
the run from an
application and
an infrastructure
perspective”
GARRICK KEATTS
IBM NORTH AMERICA SAP PRACTICE LEADER

IBM
Garrick Keatts talks about IBM's SAP practice
in the Americas
should look like, actually implement it for
them and get them to that state of utopia
that they seek,” he says. “And even from a
business perspective to be able to manage
that both at an application and from an
infrastructure perspective, we're very unique
in the SAP partner ecosystem that we can
do all of those things. There's not a partner out
there that has the offerings to do the strategy,
work, the implementation, the run from an
application and an infrastructure perspective.”
Keatts is obsessed with data cleanliness,
and suggests that in the past data was moved
around to the extent that it was effectively
massaged before reaching decision makers.
“Today, the business user is seeing that data in
its raw state in an instantaneous fashion. We
know getting that data into these environments
in a very clean and continuously governed
state is critical for business operations and
program success. It’s incredibly important for
both the expectations and the outcomes the
business desires, and to see successful delivery
of projects.
Truth in data
“There’s less appetite from business users
to be held from the truth today than ever.
They want to understand where the issues
are. They want to get to them quickly, and
they want to be able to identify those issues
before they become a major problem. They
want the opportunity to fix them in flight
versus having to initiate some sort of project
1, 3 or 12 months later.”
IBM was awarded the SAP North
America Award for Partner Excellence for
2021. For someone who has spent his entire
career in the orbit of IBM and SAP, Keatts has
a granular understanding of the partnership.
He sums it up as “alignment of objectives”.
“We’re both about helping our clients be
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IBM
“Digital transformation
hasn’t simply appeared.
It’s been evolving for
a long period of time”
ALLAN COULTER
CTO, IBM GLOBAL SAP PRACTICE
Allan Coulter talks about
Enterprise IT within IBM
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IBM
ALLAN COULTER
TITLE: CTO, IBM GLOBAL SAP PRACTICE
INDUSTRY: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
EXECUTIVE BIO
Allan Coulter has been with IBM
for 23 years. Having started out
as an accountant (“incredibly boring”),
he was given the opportunity after
graduating from University to dabble
in financial software programming
– the company he worked for then
started an SAP program….from here he
joined PwC then IBM in the SAP Service
Line.…”I starting off as a Finance Process
Consultant then I got involved in some
of the new technologies when they
first came out, the likes of SAP Business
Warehouse, SAP Portal and the likes…..I
was always the person that was invited to
check out the new stuff…. I was interested
in how things worked, so I got involved in
what was then called Basis…I combined
all of this when certifying in Enterprise
Architecture. I actually ended up with a
really good balance of process skills and
technical skills. I think this has ended up
being crucial in the role
I have now, as I get to
see how technology
is best applied to
improve the way our
customers deliver
their processes….”

IBM
more successful in their business operations.
When we're both on that mission path, it
creates a lot of complimentary synergies and
it doesn't create much conflict. That's why
the relationship has been so strong for so long
and will continue to be.
“When you look at what SAP is taking to
its clients, IBM has to support that with the
business strategy up front around business
transformation. We have the ability to
execute on every migration option that’s
out there for our clients from ECC to S/4
HANA. And we have the ability to run that
infrastructure platform using the most
proven technology that has ever run SAP
on the IBM Cloud. That aligns us, and
lines us up very nicely to continue to be
successful together.”
Allan Coulter, CTO for the SAP Practice, has
also been with IBM for over 20 years. He has
witnessed the evolution of SAP from a single-
ERP solution to one that has evolved over time
to a software stack that underpins the Digital
Transformation ambitions of IBM’s customers.
“However Digital transformation hasn’t
simply appeared. It’s been evolving for a long
period of time. Even 10 years ago, we had
clients that started to infuse automation into
the way we were building out the processes…..
what we are delivering today is the next
iteration, what we call the Intelligent Enterprise.
For me, it’s really as simple as making SAP
simpler, smarter and more connected to the
rest of the application portfolio using a set of
new technologies from IBM and SAP.
Truly a partnership
For Coulter, the relationship between IBM
and SAP is “truly a partnership”. “We know
the strength that each party brings to the
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IBM
table. We’ve been a partner of SAP for over
40 years, but it is constantly evolving… a great
example of this is the ‘Evolution Partnership’
we signed last year with SAP that is how
we collaborate on taking the Intelligent
Enterprise story to the market.
The partnership is really about how to
accelerate that ambition level….“How do
we use the new technology solutions from
SAP, the likes of Data, AI, Automation, IoT
combined with the core ERP system to
create new outcomes for our customers.
When you combine SAP and IBM
technology, you have an amazing platform
foundation for creating new innovations,
new ways of working, new customer and
employee experiences – at the end of the
day, this is what it is really about – it’s about
the creation of new experiences powered
by technology."
But the biggest change in Coulter’s
opinion is the new integration approaches.
“Companies are moving away from this
wall-to-wall ERP story – they’re adopting
a balance of ERP and best of breed…so
the new technologies need to reflect this
change… and to shift from old fashioned
integration techniques into a more APIbased
approach.
As part of Evolution, we’re constantly
building out end-to-end process solutions
that are designed to easily integrate SAP
with these new cloud-native applications…
this means that we have the platform
foundation to help any client realize their
Digital Transformation journey irrespective
of their complexity."
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