Analyst(s): Keith Kirkpatrick
Publication Date: July 4, 2024
The News: IT infrastructure services provider Kyndryl announced the selection of the RISE with SAP solution to accelerate its journey to the cloud and an expanded strategic alliance with SAP. In addition to using the solution, Kyndryl will extend its capabilities as a RISE with SAP delivery partner, providing services to help customers migrate to SAP S/4 HANA Cloud.
Kyndryl Selects RISE with SAP to Enable Its Digital Transformation
Analyst Take: IT infrastructure provider Kyndryl announced it has selected the RISE with SAP solution to help accelerate its journey to the cloud. Kyndryl has provided the infrastructure and managed services to run some of SAP’s largest customers’ enterprise systems. By leveraging this expertise, the company has also extended its capabilities as a RISE with SAP delivery partner, providing services to help customers migrate to SAP S/4 HANA Cloud.
Kyndryl offers a full suite of advisory, implementation, and managed services to support customers migrating to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, rooted in the SAP Activate and RISE with SAP adoption methodology. As a RISE with SAP customer and partner, Kyndryl will leverage SAP’s innovative business processes and AI capabilities to support rapid market responsiveness and enhanced customer solutions, along with its first-hand experience to accelerate and guide customers in migrating to the cloud.
Through Kyndryl Consult, Kyndryl’s expertise and comprehensive services for SAP include:
- Migration and Transformation: Kyndryl provides customized business and technical transformation roadmaps designed to optimize SAP systems and drive efficiencies. Kyndryl also leverages SAP Activate and its advanced data transformation tools and automation capabilities to support customers’ seamless transition to RISE with SAP.
- Data Insights, Analytics, and AI: Kyndryl delivers AI and generative AI services to support customers in unlocking value from their SAP data, using data relevance, context, and clarity to deliver business insights during and after SAP S/4HANA Cloud modernization.
- Application Development: Kyndryl provides application development services for SAP platforms that drive innovation and agility for mission-critical business solutions.
- Integrations: Kyndryl services for SAP’s Business Technology Platform (BTP) provide application and data integration services that support the SAP Clean Core approach and are critical to successful SAP S/4HANA Cloud transformations.
Additionally, Kyndryl will leverage its robust partner ecosystem to help customers adopt the applications, platforms, and infrastructure required to support their business needs.
Leveraging Experience and Expertise to Drive Business and Cloud Transformation
Undertaking a cloud migration is a challenging undertaking, and organizations are rightly concerned about the technological complexity, human capital management issues, and the time and costs involved. The announcement that IT infrastructure services provider Kyndryl was not only undergoing a migration to SAP S/4HANA itself but also expanding its partnership with SAP to deliver transformation services may be a welcome news to organizations that are struggling with the challenge of meeting SAP’s 2027 deadline for S/4HANA migration.
Kyndryl’s long history of being a trusted partner for SAP modernization, with experience managing SAP data, integration, and users, along with industry and regulatory expertise, makes the company particularly well suited to handling customers seeking to migrate to S/4HANA. While examples of organizations highlighting their own experience with a product or service are often smack of pure self-interest, in this case, Kyndryl’s migration to the cloud is particularly relevant, given the significant challenges involved with a process that can be complex and usually requires significant expertise and experience.
We expect that as the 2027 deadline draws closer, current SAP customers who are interested in retaining access to the latest cutting-edge AI and other technology enhancements, as well as retaining ongoing support, will be actively evaluating service providers that can demonstrate they have the most recent and relevant experience, skills, and expertise to help them along their digital transformation journey. We expect that Kyndryl will be among those shortlisted organizations for consideration.
You can read the press release at Kyndryl’s website.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Author Information
Keith Kirkpatrick is VP & Research Director, Enterprise Software & Digital Workflows for The Futurum Group. Keith has over 25 years of experience in research, marketing, and consulting-based fields.
He has authored in-depth reports and market forecast studies covering artificial intelligence, biometrics, data analytics, robotics, high performance computing, and quantum computing, with a specific focus on the use of these technologies within large enterprise organizations and SMBs. He has also established strong working relationships with the international technology vendor community and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events.
In his career as a financial and technology journalist he has written for national and trade publications, including BusinessWeek, CNBC.com, Investment Dealers’ Digest, The Red Herring, The Communications of the ACM, and Mobile Computing & Communications, among others.
He is a member of the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP).
Keith holds dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Magazine Journalism and Sociology from Syracuse University.
