A California technology manufacturer ran a thirty month RISE with SAP evaluation, rejected the migration, kept ECC on a fixed price extension, and closed a twenty percent total cost of ownership saving across the four year contract. This is the buyer side play book.
The buyer side wins on RISE happen before the proposal lands, not at the signature line. The California manufacturer in this case built a fixed price ECC extension scenario eighteen months ahead of the renewal date and walked SAP through the alternative math line by line.
SAP opened with a RISE proposal at one hundred fifteen percent of the existing ECC support spend. The buyer closed an ECC extension at eighty percent of the original ECC support spend. The gap is a twenty percent TCO saving compounded over a four year contract.
Pair this article with the SAP knowledge hub, the SAP advisory practice, the RISE negotiation framework, the Renewal Program, the ECC to S/4HANA migration playbook, and the SAP bundle design article before the next contract round.
The customer is a publicly listed semiconductor manufacturer with global operations and a twelve hundred user SAP ECC footprint. The original SAP contract dated from 2014. Annual support ran at five point eight million US dollars on a forty three million US dollar license base.
The renewal window opened thirty months ahead of the contract expiry date. Procurement, finance, and IT leadership commissioned a Redress engagement at month minus twenty four. The engagement scoped a RISE evaluation, a stay on ECC scenario, and a S/4HANA on premise scenario.
SAP opened the conversation with a RISE with SAP private edition proposal. The proposal carried a Premium Plus subscription, a forty eight month commitment, and a three year price hold. The headline subscription value sat at six point seven million US dollars per year.
| Element | SAP opening | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription tier | Premium Plus | Highest commercial tier |
| Annual fee | $6.7M | 115% of ECC support spend |
| Term | 48 months | Standard RISE commitment |
| Migration credit | $2.1M | One time, against year one fees |
| Indirect access | Included | DAAP conversion required at signing |
| Price hold | 3 years | Five percent uplift in year four |
Redress built three alternative scenarios alongside the RISE proposal. The credible no needed a credible yes to something else. The board pack carried the ECC extension scenario, the S/4HANA on premise scenario, and the hybrid third party support scenario.
SAP only moves when the buyer can show a credible alternative. The credible alternative needs to be costed, sequenced, and presented at board level. Half a scenario is no scenario.
In this engagement the third party support quote from Rimini Street was the unlock. SAP did not believe the buyer would walk to third party until the signed Rimini quote landed in the room.
SAP returned to the table with an ECC extension proposal at the close of the thirty day walk away. The extension covered ECC support through 2030 at eighty percent of the prior support spend, with a flexible RISE optionality clause for year three.
| Line item | Opening offer | Final contract | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual SAP spend | $6.7M (RISE) | $4.64M (ECC ext) | Down 31% |
| Term | 48 months | 48 months | Match |
| Four year TCO | $26.8M | $18.56M | Down 31% |
| RISE optionality | Mandatory | Year 3 election | Buyer side |
| DAAP scope | Bundled | Discrete cap | Buyer side |
| Innovation budget | None | $3M migration fund | SAP funded |
The headline four year saving lands at eight point two million US dollars on TCO. The contract also carries an SAP funded three million dollar S/4HANA migration evaluation budget. The total buyer side value across the four year window is closer to twenty seven percent of the RISE opening.
SAP only believed we would walk when the Rimini Street quote landed on the table. The third party scenario was the lever. The ECC extension was the close. The four year TCO came in twenty percent below the opening offer with the migration budget paid by SAP.
The RISE rejection play book is repeatable. Other SAP customers running ECC at scale can use the same sequence with adjustments for industry, geography, and footprint.
The seven step checklist below is the buyer side starting position for any SAP RISE rejection engagement.
SAP has committed mainstream support for ECC through end of 2027, with extended support available through 2030 and customer specific maintenance beyond. The 2027 date is a marketing tool, not a hard cliff. The ECC platform remains a viable production option through the end of the decade for any customer that chooses to run it.
RISE opening offers run at one hundred ten to one hundred twenty percent of existing ECC support spend. Closed deals land at ninety to one hundred percent of current spend in most cases, and at seventy to eighty percent when the buyer brings a credible third party support alternative. The lever is the alternative, not the RISE conversation itself.
No. Customers can run Rimini Street support for ECC while maintaining a commercial SAP relationship for new product purchases. The SAP intellectual property remains licensed under the original contract. The shift is from SAP support fees to Rimini support fees, with the SAP license itself unchanged.
RISE subscriptions bundle the SAP Digital Access Adoption Program conversion into the subscription scope. The buyer side discipline is to cost the DAAP conversion as a discrete line item rather than accept the bundled price. Document volumes need to be measured, projected, and capped in the contract.
The right team carries a procurement lead, a finance partner, an SAP technical owner, and an independent advisor. The independent advisor brings the buyer side benchmark, the third party support quote, and the board pack discipline. Vendor led evaluations rarely produce the twenty percent TCO saving the manufacturer in this article achieved.
Redress runs RISE rejection engagements as a focused twelve to eighteen month sprint, anchored on the renewal date. The work covers the scenario build, the third party quote, the DAAP costing, the board pack, the negotiation sequence, and the closing line item review. Always buyer side, never SAP paid.
Redress runs SAP renewal engagements as part of the wider Vendor Shield subscription, the Renewal Program, the Benchmark Program, and the Software Spend Assessment. The team carries SAP commercial leadership in Mietske van Ravesteijn.
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