How to use this. The numbered blocks follow the twelve briefings and they are in running order, because a RISE conversion is one sequence rather than a menu. If a proposal is already on your desk, start at block 4 and fix the FUE count before anything else, then work forward. If the conversation has not opened yet, start at block 1 and run the whole thing.
01 · Frame it as a contract decision
- Write two columns before anything else: what you hold today (the perpetual entitlement, the maintenance stream you could move, your hyperscaler agreement, your Basis capability, your custom code) against what the proposal gives you.
- Establish which estate profile you are. If you cannot operate the platform well today and want out of that business, RISE fits. If your Basis team is a strength and your hyperscaler deal is good, RISE usually adds cost.
- Get it stated in writing that the ECC perpetual entitlement terminates at signature and cannot be recovered.
- Ask whoever presents the business case what happens if you want out in year five, and hold the answer against session 10.
02 · Read the 2027 clock correctly
- Say it out loud internally: mainstream maintenance for ECC and Business Suite 7 ends 31 December 2027. That is a maintenance date, not a switch off. The systems keep running.
- Note that extended maintenance runs to 2030 with a fee paid window beyond, so the bridge exists and it is costable.
- Cost all four routes: S/4HANA on premise, RISE, GROW, and third party support. Doing nothing is the only choice that is never right.
- Start 24 months out. Buyers who opened inside 12 months of a contract event paid the most; the 24 month movers captured the best metric conversions.
- Treat the first conversion quote as an invitation to check, not a price. First quotes ran 25 to 40 percent above the defensible figure.
03 · Cost all five migration paths
- Put brownfield, greenfield, selective data transition, RISE private edition and on premise on one page, over the same period, before you open the SAP conversation.
- Show migration credits as their own line, separate from run rate. Credits masked a 10 to 20 percent uplift on the steady state subscription.
- Check what brownfield carries: 20 to 40 percent of legacy entitlement that no longer maps to an active need, repriced into a subscription forever.
- If public edition is in the comparison, establish whether it is reachable at all. A custom heavy ECC core cannot land there without a clean core programme.
- If you hold a hyperscaler commitment, arrange for RISE infrastructure spend to count toward it where marketplace billing is enabled, rather than paying twice.
04 · Rebuild the FUE count
- Pull 90 days of transaction logs and classify on what people did, not on what they were entitled to do. That removed 15 to 30 percent of FUE before signing.
- Know the ladder: professional 1.0, functional and developer 0.5, self service 0.2, productivity 0.1. A professional user costs ten times a productivity user.
- Expect the first FUE proposal to sit 10 to 25 percent above a clean reclassification, with a median around 18 percent.
- Reclassify first, then validate SAP's conversion against your work. Whichever model arrives first carries the burden of proof.
- Hold one rule through the whole negotiation: no discussion of rate until the count is agreed.
05 · Build the honest baseline
- Rebuild current spend across the same scope RISE replaces: software maintenance, infrastructure, and the labour you already spend operating the platform.
- Name which people actually leave the cost base on the day after cutover. Redeployment is a benefit and belongs in a different column from cash.
- Count the hyperscaler credits you lose in the move.
- Answer the three questions before the account team frames them: who should operate this, how standardised can you genuinely be, and what is your real run cost.
- Run a credible alternative as a scored parallel evaluation, not a reference. That widened the discount by 8 to 15 points.
06 · Break the bundle apart
- Demand the four line breakdown, each with its own list price and its own discount: subscription, platform credits, infrastructure, and managed services.
- Remember the FUE rate holds constant across AWS, Azure and Google Cloud while the infrastructure line moves. Disaster recovery posture alone shifts it 30 to 60 percent.
- Mark every application in your inventory against the order form line that covers it. SuccessFactors, Concur, advanced Ariba, Commerce Cloud and country payroll all license separately.
- Price the four compounders: FUE drift, premium support tiers, compute and storage overage, and exit assistance. Hidden costs added 15 to 30 percent over the base fee.
- Price every free module. Free in year one is full uplift in year six, and it enlarges the base your escalator is applied to in between.
07 · Settle digital access before signing
- Measure your own document count against the nine types and the same tables, before SAP measures it for you.
- Claim the waiver paths rather than waiting for them to be offered, and strip out documents double counted across a chain of systems.
- Understand the conversion: roughly one FUE per thousand documents in most contracts, and the migration is the event that applies the model.
- Treat the first volume as a floor, not a ceiling. Careful work on the count has moved positions by 30 to 60 percent.
- Settle the count and its pricing before signature. Indirect access surfaced in three of five estates and was used to push a larger commitment than the workload justified.
08 · Negotiate both meters
- Forecast BTP bottom up from the integrations and agents on the roadmap, not from a year one estimate. Committed balances ran 30 to 45 percent above actual consumption.
- Remember unused CPEA balance is lost at the anniversary. Overcommitting is a direct write off repeated every year.
- Write that a mid term true up may not reset the committed baseline at renewal. It did in seven of ten renewals.
- Watch Integration Suite and Analytics Cloud, which consumed credits two to three times faster than customers modelled.
- Cap the AI Unit overage rate in dollars per action and hold it for the term. It ran $0.08 to $0.18 in the quotes we reviewed and was rarely negotiated at all.
- Bring a documented list of named extensions, integrations and services with owners attached. The platform credit pool opened at 3 to 5 percent of ACV and closed at 8 to 12.
09 · Model past the credit
- Extend the model to seven years and put the conversion credit on its own line so the cliff is visible rather than buried in a total.
- Know the shape: the credit covers years one to three at typically 50 to 70 percent of perpetual residual value, then drops to zero.
- Check the year one figure for the mask. Migration credits hid 10 to 18 percent of the steady state cost.
- Anchor the year four renewal uplift cap at signing. It cannot be obtained later, because your position at that renewal is the weakest it will ever be.
- Put the legacy maintenance bridge on a step down schedule tied to measured migration milestones. That cut the tail 50 to 75 percent against the five year full price default.
- Spend your leverage on years four to seven rather than on the year one rate.
10 · Price the exit while you still can
- Write the exit terms into the first term sheet: data export format, transition window, stated cost or stated inclusion, and a service level.
- Accept that an exit threat in year four is not credible to either side. The exit is a set of prices you fix now, not a lever you use later.
- Decide which of the ramp shape and the termination right you genuinely need, then sell the rest at a price. SAP told the market those clauses cost it reportable backlog, which makes them currency.
- Get the clause set in: year four renewal cap on total order form value, a written FUE definition, swap rights, a true down band, and the four line breakdown written into the paper.
- Send the clause set before the first proposal. Terms introduced early are drafting instructions; the same terms after a quote are objections.
11 · Use their calendar
- Their fiscal year closes 31 December. A December signature shifts the band 4 to 8 points against mid year on identical scope.
- Do not sign in January or February. Compensation plans are unsigned, territories have moved, and discount authority is reset conservatively.
- Go quiet from mid July to late August. Silence costs you nothing and generates forecast pressure no email could.
- Table your target price at the late September close as a rehearsal. Their counter tells you the real floor.
- Finish the paper in October so December is a pure price conversation, and never reveal your target close date.
- Always ask whether a percentage is off list or off initial proposal, and convert everything to net cost per FUE per year before comparing.
12 · Run it as one decision
- Appoint one owner and one voice internally, and route every commercial question through that person.
- Keep the evidence pack: the reclassified user file, the document count, the five path costing and the seven year model. You reuse it at every renewal after this one.
- Complete the internal work before the vendor conversation opens. Reductions already agreed are facts you present; reductions still being argued are concessions you ask for.
- In the final week, read the order form against your clause set line by line, refuse the late add, and confirm the FUE count, the year four cap, the bridge schedule and the exit terms are all on the paper.
- Remember this contract does not come round again in the same form. Unlike a renewal, there is no next time to apply the lesson to.