SAP Cloud ALM & SMEs – or the question of how easily I and my SAP can move to the cloud

Between cost pressure, skills shortages, and transformation backlog

Austrian SMEs are under massive pressure: rising energy costs, volatile supply chains, skills shortages in IT and specialist areas, stricter regulations, and increasingly digital competition complicate the earnings situation from Bregenz to Vienna, from Linz to Klagenfurt.

The IT reality in domestic companies is sobering despite the AI hype and cloud promises: While the importance of a powerful, comprehensive IT is recognised, many SMEs still work with historically grown landscapes, island solutions, and Excel workarounds. This works until something goes wrong. For example, when the internal IT jack-of-all-trades leaves the company, an audit unexpectedly knocks on the door, or a new business area needs to be developed quickly.

This is exactly where the power of the cloud becomes apparent: The question is no longer whether to engage with cloud transformation and modern management of the SAP landscape, but how quickly and structured one approaches the topic.

Why cloud transformation becomes a matter of survival for SMEs

For SMEs, cloud transformation is not about 'nice to have', but about immediate competitiveness. And nowhere is this clearer than in the SAP environment. Cloud-based SAP solutions enable shorter implementation times, much faster responses to market changes, and a significantly better cost-benefit ratio over the lifecycle, as infrastructure, maintenance, and updates no longer need to be managed in-house.

Especially companies that are competing for every skilled worker can hardly afford to tie internal resources to basic operations, patching, and manual monitoring. At the same time, regulatory requirements such as NIS2 – whether in finance, industry, or trade – are increasing and demand a secure, traceable, and consistent process and system environment, which is becoming increasingly difficult to ensure with on-premises single solutions and unstructured adjustments.

Transparency as a prerequisite for good decisions

A core problem of many SME SAP landscapes lies in the lack of transparency: It is often unclear how processes actually run, which interfaces are critical, and how data is stored. Even if the path to the cloud is clear – without this picture, neither sound transformation roadmaps can be created nor reliable decisions made.

Transparency in this context means: end-to-end visibility of business processes, clear assignment of responsibilities, and comprehensive documentation that is traceable for all. Only when it is clear how the existing system functions can a cloud transformation be planned that does not get stuck in endless workshops or fail in the ongoing project due to invisible dependencies.

Or to stay in SAP jargon: Regardless of whether Greenfield, Brownfield, or Selective Data Transition – without transparency, the familiar questions keep arising:

• How do we keep track of tasks, milestones, and tests?
• How do we document efficiently?
• And how do we ensure that ongoing operations remain stable after go-live?

We often hear these questions from SRB Consulting. Many SME clients say at the beginning of an SAP cloud migration:

"We finally want a tool that gives us an overview of the transformation project without making it a project of its own."

SAP Cloud ALM or why SMEs do not need 'a tool for tooling'

In many transformation projects, there is an attempt to tackle complexity with even more tools: one for the project, another for testing, a monitoring tool for system performance, another for interfaces, along with countless Excel sheets and manual workarounds. The result: Employees spend more time maintaining tools than delivering value to the business.

This is where the demand arises to introduce 'no tool for tooling', but a central backbone for the introduction, operation, and further development of the SAP landscape. One like SAP Cloud ALM. A modern, cloud-based ALM tool that is not just for its own sake, but helps to manage projects, make processes visible, and ensure quality in operations – all with a clear focus on measurable business benefits.

Standardisation is the magic word here. Those who prioritise consistency, uniform process variants, clear role and authorisation concepts, and lean interfaces early on not only reduce project and operational effort but also create the basis for integrating new business models more quickly. And this without ignoring industry-specific peculiarities or allowing exceptions where real differentiation is necessary.

SAP Cloud ALM without ifs and buts?

For SAP-driven SMEs, SAP Cloud ALM offers itself as the central tool to bring transparency, structure, and control into complex transformation projects. In practice, it shows: This is exactly what the platform delivers – but not everything needed in day-to-day project work.

This is where we at SRB come into play. Exactly at the interface between strategy, organisation, and tool, we position ourselves as an SAP service provider. We look beyond the tool to take a holistic view of the IT landscape and accompany you on the path to the SAP cloud.

This starts with a joint inventory of the existing SAP landscape, goes through the definition of a pragmatic roadmap to the introduction of SAP Cloud ALM as a management platform and beyond into further cloud scenarios.

For the Austrian SME, this means: moving away from reactive structures towards a clearly managed, cloud-capable SAP landscape, where decisions are based on data, transparency, and proven standards. With SAP Cloud ALM as the central hub.

What SAP Cloud ALM really is and also what it is not, how the tool performs in everyday life, and what limits arise, you will learn in the upcoming contributions of our series. Stay tuned!