How Redress Compliance helped a major European multi-channel retailer — with 30,000 employees and $10B+ revenue — avoid a $10 million SAP digital access back-charge, reduce RISE renewal costs by 20%, and secure flexible contract terms that restored strategic control over their SAP estate.
A large European retail group with hundreds of stores and a thriving e-commerce business had been an early adopter of RISE with SAP. Three years earlier, they had migrated from SAP ECC to S/4HANA Cloud under a RISE contract. As the initial term expired, the company faced its first RISE renewal — and the numbers were alarming. SAP’s renewal quote was roughly 25% higher per year than the original contract, compounded by a threatened $10 million back-charge for digital access documents generated by the retailer’s booming e-commerce operations.
The retailer engaged Redress Compliance to challenge SAP’s position, audit the existing contract, and negotiate terms that reflected actual usage rather than SAP’s aspirational pricing. The result: a 20% reduction from SAP’s initial ask (saving approximately $8 million), the complete elimination of the $10M penalty, a shorter 3-year term (vs 5 years proposed), and a ±10% annual user flexibility clause that gives the retailer room to adapt to business changes without incurring penalties.
Rapid audit of existing RISE contract revealed inflated user counts and over-provisioned cloud capacity
$10M digital access back-charge challenged on contractual ambiguity grounds and fully waived
20% reduction from SAP’s initial renewal quote, restoring cost predictability for IT budget
3-year term with ±10% user adjustment clause — removing lock-in and enabling business agility
The retailer is one of Europe’s largest multi-channel retail groups, headquartered in the United Kingdom with operations across EMEA. With 30,000 employees, annual revenues exceeding $10 billion, and hundreds of physical stores combined with a rapidly growing online presence, the company’s IT infrastructure is central to every aspect of operations — from supply chain and inventory management to point-of-sale and customer-facing e-commerce platforms.
The retailer’s SAP estate centred on S/4HANA Cloud for core finance and inventory management, deployed under SAP’s RISE subscription model. Alongside this, they ran SAP Commerce for their online sales channel, with deep integrations into warehouse management systems, point-of-sale infrastructure across hundreds of locations, and supply chain planning tools that coordinated stock replenishment across multiple distribution centres.
The RISE contract had been signed three years earlier as part of an ambitious migration from SAP ECC — positioning the retailer as an early adopter of SAP’s cloud-first strategy. At the time of the original deal, SAP had offered attractive introductory pricing to secure high-profile early movers, knowing that the renewal cycle would present opportunities to adjust commercial terms upward. This “land and expand” dynamic is central to SAP’s RISE commercial model and something every CIO should anticipate from the outset.
The European retail sector operates on razor-thin margins, making IT cost management particularly consequential. For this retailer, SAP represented one of the largest line items in the annual IT budget — and any material increase flowed directly to the bottom line. Simultaneously, the company was investing heavily in omnichannel capabilities: expanding e-commerce, launching click-and-collect, and building real-time inventory visibility across physical and digital channels. These initiatives increased SAP transaction volumes significantly — a growth pattern that SAP would later use to justify both the tier upgrade and the digital access back-charge.
As the initial 3-year RISE term approached expiry, the retailer entered renewal discussions with SAP expecting a routine continuation. Instead, SAP’s account team presented a renewal proposal that represented a fundamental shift in commercial terms. The quote was 25% higher per year than the original contract, driven by SAP’s assertion that the retailer’s growth in transactions and data volumes justified migration to a higher subscription tier. Simultaneously, SAP’s audit function flagged a separate compliance issue that would dramatically complicate the negotiation.
S/4HANA Cloud for finance and inventory under RISE with SAP — 3-year initial term expiring
SAP Commerce for online sales generating high-volume digital access documents
30,000 employees, $10B+ revenue, rapid e-commerce expansion driving transaction volumes upward
For organisations navigating their first RISE renewal, this case study illustrates why preparation, independent analysis, and negotiation expertise are essential. The dynamics of a RISE renewal are fundamentally different from traditional on-premise licence negotiations — and SAP knows it.
For a comprehensive comparison of RISE vs traditional licensing models, see our CIO Playbook: RISE with SAP vs Traditional On-Premise Licensing.
The retailer faced a multi-layered challenge that combined aggressive pricing, compliance risk, and perceived lock-in. Each dimension reinforced the others, creating a negotiation environment heavily tilted in SAP’s favour — or so SAP believed.
SAP’s renewal quote reflected a 25% annual increase over the original contract value. SAP justified this by pointing to the retailer’s growth in transaction volumes and data storage — arguing that the original subscription tier was no longer appropriate. The proposed tier upgrade included capacity the retailer neither needed nor requested, effectively forcing them to pay for headroom that would benefit SAP’s revenue targets rather than the retailer’s operational requirements. This is a common SAP tactic during RISE renewals: using legitimate growth metrics to justify disproportionate price increases.
During pre-renewal discussions, SAP auditors flagged that the retailer’s booming e-commerce operations were generating digital access documents far beyond the scope of the original agreement. Under SAP’s digital access licensing model, every document created by an external system that writes data into S/4HANA — purchase orders from the e-commerce platform, warehouse confirmations, POS transactions, EDI interchanges with suppliers — can trigger a licensing charge. SAP asserted that the retailer owed a $10 million back-charge for these “extra” documents, and hinted that this liability would need to be addressed as part of any renewal agreement.
This compliance surprise felt like a heavy-handed tactic designed to push the customer into an even pricier deal. SAP’s digital access model is notoriously opaque — few organisations fully understand which document types count, how volumes are measured, and what the original contract actually covers. SAP’s audit teams exploit this asymmetry systematically, presenting large back-charge figures during renewal windows when customers have limited time to challenge the methodology. The $10M figure was calculated using SAP’s broadest possible interpretation of document scope, counting every automated system interaction as a licensable event — an interpretation the original contract did not explicitly support.
With their core ERP already running in SAP’s cloud infrastructure, the retailer felt strategically trapped. Migrating away from RISE — even to a self-hosted S/4HANA deployment on AWS or Azure — would involve significant cost, complexity, and business disruption. Data migration, integration reconfiguration, testing, and training could take 6–12 months and require substantial partner investment. SAP was acutely aware of this dynamic and negotiated accordingly, assuming the retailer had no credible alternative. This perception of lock-in is one of the most significant risks organisations face when adopting RISE with SAP, and it becomes particularly acute at renewal time when SAP holds both the infrastructure keys and the contract deadline.
The lock-in dynamic is compounded by the fact that RISE contracts typically include relinquishment of on-premise perpetual licences. When the retailer originally moved to RISE, they traded their existing SAP licences for subscription credits — meaning that walking away from RISE also meant losing the licence assets they had paid for over decades. This is a structural advantage SAP builds into every RISE deal, and it dramatically increases switching costs at renewal.
The initial RISE contract was approaching expiry with limited runway. Any delay in signing a renewal risked disrupting the retailer’s critical S/4HANA systems — a scenario no CIO would accept for a business processing billions of dollars in transactions annually. SAP used this time pressure to discourage extended negotiation, pushing for a rapid sign-off on their terms. The implicit message: sign now or risk a gap in service. This is a well-documented SAP tactic that exploits the operational dependency created by cloud subscription models — and it works most effectively against organisations that begin renewal discussions late.
SAP controlled the data. The retailer’s internal teams lacked visibility into how SAP calculated the proposed tier upgrade, how digital access documents were being counted, and what comparable customers were paying. Without benchmarking data and contract expertise, the retailer’s procurement team was negotiating from a position of significant informational disadvantage.
Redress Compliance was engaged to provide an independent assessment of the retailer’s position and develop a negotiation strategy. The first step was understanding the full picture — contractual, technical, and commercial — before engaging SAP.
Redress performed a rapid but thorough audit of the existing RISE contract alongside the retailer’s actual usage. This analysis revealed several critical findings that fundamentally changed the negotiation dynamic:
The retailer was paying for significantly more named users than were actually active in the system. Role changes, departures, and seasonal workforce fluctuations meant that the contracted user count was materially higher than actual utilisation. This over-provisioning represented a direct opportunity to reduce the renewal baseline.
Similarly, the cloud infrastructure allocation under the RISE contract included capacity buffers that the retailer had never approached. SAP’s proposed tier upgrade would add even more unused capacity — at a premium price. Redress documented the gap between contracted and actual consumption with precision.
The original RISE contract contained ambiguous language regarding digital access document coverage. Redress identified clauses that could reasonably be interpreted as including a broader scope of document types than SAP’s audit team was claiming. This ambiguity became the foundation for challenging the $10M back-charge.
Based on the audit findings, Redress presented the retailer with three strategic options:
Pay the 25% increase plus settle the $10M digital access claim. Simple but extremely expensive — approximately $18M more than necessary over the renewal term.
Challenge every line item with data. Use over-provisioning evidence and contractual ambiguity to reset the baseline. Target: 20%+ reduction with penalty elimination.
Develop a costed contingency plan for moving S/4HANA to independent cloud or on-premise. Not the preferred outcome — but essential as a credible negotiation lever.
Redress recommended pursuing Options 2 and 3 simultaneously. The contingency plan (Option 3) would serve as strategic leverage even if the retailer ultimately intended to remain on RISE. SAP needed to believe that walking away was a genuine possibility.
With strategy defined, Redress led a structured negotiation process across five workstreams that ran concurrently over an 8-week period.
Redress directly challenged the threatened digital access penalty. The approach combined contractual analysis with technical evidence. By providing detailed documentation of how the retailer’s systems were configured — specifically which integrations were writing documents into S/4HANA and under what circumstances — Redress argued that the original contract’s terms were ambiguous at best regarding these document types. SAP’s audit position assumed a narrow interpretation of digital access coverage that the contract language did not clearly support.
Furthermore, Redress demonstrated that a significant portion of the flagged documents were system-generated (automated confirmations, status updates, batch postings) rather than business-initiated transactions — a distinction that SAP’s own digital access guidance acknowledges but its audit teams often ignore. Redress also identified duplicate document counts where a single business event — such as a customer placing an e-commerce order — was being counted multiple times as it moved through different SAP modules (order creation, inventory reservation, delivery confirmation, billing). This overcounting inflated the claimed volume substantially.
After three rounds of documented correspondence — each supported by technical architecture diagrams, system logs, and contractual clause-by-clause analysis — SAP agreed to waive the $10M back-charge entirely. Critically, Redress also ensured that the new contract explicitly included sufficient digital access licences to cover the retailer’s high e-commerce volumes going forward — sized against realistic projections rather than SAP’s inflated estimates. This eliminated the compliance risk for the renewal term and gave the retailer clear, measurable guardrails for the first time.
Armed with the usage audit data, Redress presented SAP with a detailed analysis showing that the retailer was paying for more users and cloud capacity than actually consumed. Rather than accepting SAP’s proposed tier upgrade, Redress argued that the renewal should be based on actual, documented usage — not on SAP’s projections of future growth. This single finding justified a significant reduction in the renewal baseline before any negotiation on unit pricing even began.
To counter SAP’s assumption that the client had no alternative, Redress helped the retailer’s IT team develop a detailed contingency plan. This included costed timelines for migrating S/4HANA to an independent hyperscaler (AWS or Azure), estimates for the required implementation partner engagement, and an assessment of business disruption risk. The plan was not theoretical — it included specific vendor quotes and technical architecture documents. When presented to SAP (not as a threat, but as a “parallel workstream”), it fundamentally changed the negotiation dynamic. SAP recognised that the retailer was prepared to act on alternatives rather than accept unfavourable terms.
Beyond price, Redress focused on securing contractual flexibility that would protect the retailer at subsequent renewals. Key provisions negotiated included:
SAP initially proposed a 5-year renewal to lock in revenue. Redress negotiated a 3-year term — providing an earlier opportunity to reassess strategy, benchmark pricing, and leverage market competition.
A clause allowing the retailer to adjust their named user count by up to 10% annually — up or down — without incurring penalties or renegotiating the contract. This gives breathing room for seasonal workforce changes and business restructuring.
Explicit digital access document allowance included in the renewal, sized to cover projected e-commerce volumes for the full 3-year term. No more ambiguity.
Removed SAP’s proposed auto-renewal clause that would have defaulted to list pricing if the contract lapsed. The retailer now has a defined notice period and negotiation window before any renewal.
Throughout the process, Redress served as the retailer’s sole advocate and voice of scepticism. They questioned every line item in SAP’s proposal, pushed back on one-sided clauses, and kept the client’s commercial interests at the centre of every discussion. This vendor-agnostic stance — unbeholden to SAP’s partner ecosystem or referral relationships — put SAP on notice that the customer would not simply roll over.
The financial impact of Redress’s intervention can be measured across three dimensions: the avoided penalty, the renewal cost reduction, and the long-term value of flexible terms.
| Scenario | 3-Year Cost | vs Original Contract | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Original RISE Contract | Baseline | — | 3-year term, original pricing |
| SAP’s Initial Renewal + Penalty | +25% per year + $10M | ~+$18M | Higher tier + digital access back-charge |
| Negotiated Renewal (Redress) | ~20% below SAP’s ask | ~+$0M vs baseline | Penalty waived, right-sized usage, flexible terms |
The net effect was transformative. The retailer avoided approximately $18 million in incremental costs (combining the penalty waiver and renewal reduction) while securing a contract that more accurately reflects their actual usage. The ±10% user flexibility clause alone is estimated to save an additional $500K–$1M annually by eliminating the cost of maintaining unused user licences during seasonal workforce fluctuations.
The retailer’s experience is consistent with patterns Redress Compliance has observed across dozens of RISE renewal engagements. The specifics vary by industry and SAP estate complexity, but the underlying dynamics — inflated initial quotes, digital access ambiguity, and perceived lock-in — recur with striking regularity.
Situation: A mid-market financial services firm faced a RISE renewal with a 30% proposed increase. SAP also flagged digital access documents from their client portal integrations, claiming $4M in back-charges.
Approach: Usage audit revealed 40% over-provisioned users. Digital access claims were challenged on the basis that portal-generated documents fell within the original RISE scope. A parallel evaluation of Azure-hosted S/4HANA provided exit credibility.
Takeaway: Digital access back-charges during RISE renewals are negotiable when you have the contractual analysis and technical evidence to challenge SAP’s methodology.
Situation: An automotive manufacturer faced a €4M audit risk from indirect access and an aggressive RISE migration proposal that bundled unnecessary modules into a 5-year commitment.
Approach: Redress mapped the audit exposure to specific integration patterns, negotiated resolution through contractual credits, and restructured the RISE proposal into a phased migration with modular adoption and annual exit windows.
Takeaway: RISE proposals that bundle unwanted modules should always be challenged. Phased adoption with exit windows preserves optionality while demonstrating commitment.
The final renewal came in approximately 20% below SAP’s initial quote, restoring cost predictability for the IT budget and freeing capital for strategic investments.
The threatened digital access back-charge was completely waived through contractual analysis and technical evidence — removing a major financial and compliance liability.
The 3-year term and ±10% flexibility clause give the retailer earlier reassessment options and room to adapt without being penalised for business changes.
Explicit digital access coverage in the new contract removes the ambiguity that enabled SAP’s audit-driven pricing pressure in the first place.
Beyond the immediate financial outcomes, the engagement fundamentally changed the retailer’s relationship with SAP. The procurement team now approaches SAP renewals with data, benchmarks, and a clear understanding of their contractual rights — rather than accepting vendor proposals at face value. The internal IT asset management team has also implemented ongoing digital access monitoring, tracking document volumes quarterly so that the retailer is never again surprised by usage-based claims at renewal time.
From a strategic perspective, the shorter 3-year term positions the retailer to reassess their SAP strategy in the context of a rapidly evolving market. By the time the next renewal approaches, the competitive landscape for cloud ERP will have matured further, with alternatives like Oracle Cloud, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and niche vertical solutions offering increasingly viable migration paths. The retailer is no longer locked in — they have optionality, and optionality is leverage.
This engagement illustrates several principles that apply broadly to any organisation facing a RISE with SAP renewal or renegotiation.
SAP’s initial renewal proposals routinely include significant padding. In this case, the 25% increase was reduced to approximately flat vs the original contract — a swing that demonstrates how much room exists in SAP’s initial numbers. SAP account teams are incentivised to start high, knowing that most customers will negotiate downward. The question is not whether there’s room to move — it’s how much room, and that depends entirely on your preparation.
Understanding your actual usage vs contracted entitlements is the single most powerful negotiation tool. Over-provisioned users and unused capacity are common in RISE contracts — and they represent immediate savings opportunities. In this engagement, the usage audit alone justified a significant baseline reduction before pricing discussions even began. Without hard data, you’re negotiating blind.
SAP’s digital access licensing is one of the most contentious areas in enterprise software. Document counts, system-generated vs business-generated distinctions, and contractual coverage scope are all negotiable — especially when the original contract language is ambiguous. SAP’s audit teams present their calculations as definitive; they are not. Every assumption, every counting methodology, and every scope definition should be examined and challenged with technical evidence.
Even if you intend to stay on RISE, having a costed alternative (independent cloud hosting, on-premise return, or hybrid model) gives you genuine leverage. SAP responds differently when they believe a customer can walk away. The plan doesn’t need to be your preferred option — it needs to be believable. In this case, specific vendor quotes and technical architecture documents made the contingency real enough to change SAP’s negotiation posture. See our guide on SAP Private Cloud vs DIY on Hyperscaler.
Price is important but terms are equally critical. Shorter renewal periods, user adjustment clauses, and explicit compliance coverage protect you long after the ink dries. These provisions compound in value over multiple renewal cycles. A ±10% user clause prevents you from paying for staff who have left; a 3-year term gives you a re-negotiation window before SAP can assume lock-in. Always negotiate terms with the next renewal in mind, not just the current one.
SAP’s renewal teams are experienced negotiators with access to internal benchmarking data your procurement team will never see. An independent adviser like Redress Compliance levels the playing field with comparable market intelligence, contract clause expertise, and a track record of SAP negotiations that most internal teams simply don’t have. The earlier you engage, the more strategic the advice — don’t wait until SAP has already set the terms of the conversation.
Throughout any SAP renewal, keep detailed records of all communications, promises, and calculations. Get verbal commitments in writing. SAP account personnel change, deal desks rotate, and promotional offers expire. A comprehensive paper trail protects you from misunderstandings and gives you ammunition if disputes arise during the contract term. In this engagement, the documented correspondence trail was instrumental in resolving the digital access dispute in the retailer’s favour.
In RISE with SAP renewals, the key is preparation. SAP holds structural advantages — they control the infrastructure, they control the data, and they control the timeline. The only way to rebalance the negotiation is to arrive with superior analysis, credible alternatives, and the willingness to walk away. Organisations that do this consistently achieve 15–30% better outcomes than those that negotiate reactively.
“Redress Compliance transformed our RISE renewal from a potential minefield into a manageable negotiation. They helped us avoid a huge penalty and secure a fair deal moving forward. It was invaluable having an independent expert solely in our corner — we ended up with significant savings and a contract that truly fits our business.”
— Chief Information Officer, European Retail Group
SAP digital access refers to the licensing model that governs how external systems — e-commerce platforms, EDI connections, IoT devices, portals — interact with your S/4HANA system. Every document created by these external systems (purchase orders, invoices, shipping confirmations) can count as a “digital access document” requiring a licence. The risk arises because most organisations significantly underestimate their document volumes, and SAP’s audit teams use this gap to assert large back-charges during renewal negotiations. For a detailed guide, see our SAP Digital Access Advisory Service.
Absolutely. SAP’s initial renewal quotes routinely include significant padding — 15–30% above what they will ultimately accept. The key is arriving at the negotiation with data: actual usage vs contracted entitlements, benchmarking data from comparable deals, and a credible alternative if SAP won’t meet your targets. Organisations that negotiate proactively typically achieve 15–25% reductions from SAP’s initial renewal ask.
It is possible but complex. Moving S/4HANA from SAP’s managed cloud to an independent hyperscaler or back on-premise requires planning, partner support, and typically 6–12 months of effort depending on complexity. The important thing is not whether you actually execute the move — it’s whether SAP believes you might. A costed, documented contingency plan gives you credible leverage that changes the renewal dynamic. See our guide on SAP Private Cloud vs DIY on Hyperscaler.
Beyond pricing, the most valuable terms are: (1) shorter renewal periods (3 years, not 5) to preserve flexibility, (2) user adjustment clauses (±10% or more) to accommodate business changes without penalties, (3) explicit digital access coverage to prevent future audit surprises, (4) removal of auto-renewal at list pricing, and (5) clear exit provisions including data portability and transition support obligations.
Ideally 12 months before contract expiry. This gives you time to audit usage, build a negotiation strategy, develop contingency plans, and engage SAP without time pressure. SAP uses deadline pressure as a negotiation tool — the later you start, the less leverage you have. At minimum, begin 6 months out, but 12 months is strongly recommended for complex estates.
Whether you’re approaching your first RISE renewal or renegotiating an existing contract, don’t go it alone. Redress Compliance provides independent, vendor-neutral advice to protect your budget and secure terms that fit your business.
This case study is part of our RISE with SAP CIO Playbook pillar. Explore related case studies and guides: