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Navigating Security Challenges with SAP RISE

What is SAP RISE?

SAP RISE is an all-inclusive Business Transformation as a Service (BTaaS) product that helps customers migrate to the SAP cloud product system. It provides a structured approach to digital transformation, evaluating existing processes to ensure they are optimized for cloud-based solutions.

What are the components in RISE with SAP?

RISE with SAP includes several components designed to help businesses transform and modernize their operations. This offering is created to be adjustable and modular. Businesses can pick the components that are most useful for them and easily integrate them into their operations.

Here are just a few of the key components of RISE with SAP:

  • SAP S/4HANA Cloud: This is SAP’s flagship enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, delivered as a cloud-based service. It provides a suite of tools and features for managing various aspects of a business, including finance, procurement, sales, inventory, and more.
  • SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP): This is a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering that enables businesses to develop and deploy custom applications and integrations on top of SAP’s core technologies. BTP provides a range of tools and services for application development, integration, analytics, and more.
  • SAP Business Network: This is a set of interconnected business networks that enable companies to collaborate and exchange information with their partners, suppliers, and customers. The Business Network includes solutions for procurement, logistics, travel and expense management, and more.
  • Industry-specific solutions: SAP offers a range of industry-specific solutions that are tailored to the needs of particular verticals, such as manufacturing, retail, healthcare, and more. These solutions provide pre-built processes and functionality that can help businesses streamline their operations and improve their competitiveness.

Differences between SAP RISE and S/4HANA Cloud

SAP RISE and SAP S/4HANA Cloud are two related but distinct offerings from SAP. Key differences between them include:

Scope

SAP S/4HANA Cloud is an ERP (enterprise resource planning) solution. It offers a suite of tools and features to manage various aspects of a business. These include finance, procurement, sales, inventory and more. On the other hand, SAP RISE is a comprehensive offering. It includes S/4HANA Cloud, SAP Business Technology Platform and SAP Business Network.

Flexibility

SAP S/4HANA Cloud is a pre-configured, cloud-based solution that is designed to be easy to deploy and manage. It offers a standard set of processes and functionality that can be tailored to the specific needs of a business through configuration and customization. SAP RISE, on the other hand, is designed to be more flexible and modular, allowing businesses to select the components that are most relevant to their needs and integrate them seamlessly into their operations.

Cost

The cost of SAP RISE and SAP S/4HANA Cloud can vary depending on a range of factors, including the specific components and services selected, the size of the organization, and the level of customization required. Generally speaking, SAP RISE is likely to be more expensive than SAP S/4HANA Cloud, as it includes additional components and services.

These are just some of the key differences between SAP RISE and SAP S/4HANA Cloud. Both offerings are designed to help businesses transform and modernize their operations, but they have different scopes, levels of flexibility, and support offerings.

Security Challenges with SAP RISE

While SAP RISE provides benefits in terms of agility and innovation, there are several security challenges that organizations should consider:

Data Protection

When migrating to SAP S/4HANA through SAP RISE, organizations need to ensure the security and protection of their data throughout the migration process. This includes maintaining data confidentiality, integrity, and availability during the migration, as well as implementing appropriate data protection measures in the new environment.

Access Control

With the adoption of SAP RISE, it’s crucial to manage user access effectively. Organizations must ensure that proper access controls and user authentication mechanisms are in place to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive business data and functionality within the SAP S/4HANA environment.

Configuration Security

SAP RISE involves the deployment and configuration of various components and modules of SAP S/4HANA. Organizations must ensure that these configurations are done securely and follow best practices to mitigate any potential vulnerabilities or misconfigurations that could expose the system to security risks.

Third-Party Integrations

SAP RISE may involve integrating with third-party systems or services, which introduces potential security risks. Organizations should assess the security posture of the involved third-party solutions and ensure secure integration practices are followed to prevent any security vulnerabilities or data breaches.

Compliance & Governance

With SAP RISE, organizations need to ensure that they maintain compliance with relevant regulations and industry standards throughout the migration and in the post-migration phase. This includes data privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR), industry-specific compliance requirements, and internal security policies.

Cloud Security

SAP RISE often involves a cloud-based deployment model, such as SAP S/4HANA Cloud or a hybrid cloud approach. Organizations should consider cloud security best practices, including secure configuration management, data encryption, network security, and access controls, to protect their data and applications in the cloud environment.

Vendor Management

When adopting SAP RISE, organizations rely on SAP as a service provider. It is important to establish clear expectations regarding security responsibilities, service-level agreements, incident response procedures, and data ownership to ensure effective vendor management and mitigate any potential security risks associated with the service.

Continuous Monitoring

Implementing effective security monitoring and log analysis is essential to detect and respond to any security incidents or unauthorized activities within the SAP RISE environment. Organizations should establish processes to monitor system logs, perform regular vulnerability assessments, and employ threat detection mechanisms.

Digital Transformation with SAP RISE

From cloud deployment, to industry-specific solutions, digital transformation with SAP RISE is a comprehensive approach to modernizing and streamlining business operations through the use of SAP’s suite of technologies and services.

As an end-to-end, holistic solution, SAP RISE includes a range of components and services, including SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP Business Technology Platform, and SAP Business Network. This comprehensive approach enables businesses to streamline their operations and gain a complete view of their operations, from finance and procurement to sales and inventory management.

Delivered as a cloud-based solution, SAP RISE provides several benefits over traditional on-premises solutions. Cloud-based solutions are typically easier to deploy and manage, require less hardware and infrastructure, and provide greater scalability and flexibility.

Industry-specific solutions can also be tailored to the needs of particular verticals with SAP RISE, such as manufacturing, retail, healthcare, and more. These solutions provide pre-built processes and functionality that can help businesses streamline their operations and improve their competitiveness.

In addition, SAP RISE leverages agile development methodologies to ensure that businesses can quickly adapt to changing market conditions and customer needs. Agile development enables businesses to rapidly develop and deploy new features and functionality, enabling them to stay ahead of the competition and provide a better customer experience.

Based on the above offerings tailored to an individual business’s needs, digital transformation with SAP RISE offers many advantages. It can help them become more efficient, agile and competitive. This is achieved by streamlining operations and using the latest technology and industry-specific solutions.

Difficulties with SAP RISE Digital Transformation Projects

SAP RISE can level-up how your organization does business. But with this massive undertaking across many areas of your business, there can be roadblocks. As CIOs and IT leaders evaluate whether digital transformation projects make sense for their organization, security can often be viewed as a roadblock. Nevertheless, not focusing on security from the beginning, can result in costly delays:

#1

is security roadblock
to transformation

52

of cloud migrations are delayed
due to security concerns

$4.12M

average cost of a failed, delayed, or scaled back digital transformation project

Planning Stage

The following are challenges that businesses often encounter during the planning stage of digital transformation projects with SAP RISE:

92%

of organizations consider existing customizations as problematic to their path to S/4

35%

of organizations expect to face security challenges during their transformation

Steps to overcome these challenges in your digital transformation journey during the planning stage:

  • Ensure clear understanding of best practices for SAP application security
  • Before migration, identify legacy systems and custom code issues
  • Fully understand security obligations for systems integrators and RFPs
  • Maximize efficiency for testing throughout the project
  • Prepare your team and understand the shared security model you have with RISE for SAP
  • Always keep the lights on: Keep your legacy systems protected and productive in the meantime

Implementation Stage

The following are challenges that businesses often encounter during the implementation stage of digital transformation projects with SAP RISE:

71%

of organizations are concerned that the skills deficit will slow down migration

3 hrs

The amount of time new SAP systems deployed in IaaS environments are exploited

Steps to overcome these challenges in your digital transformation journey during the implementation stage:

  • Provide security and compliance status updates to your team with accuracy
  • Stay up-to-date with SAP threat intelligence from experts like Onapsis Research Labs
  • Validate work from system integrators and contracted developers
  • Avoid business disruption by protecting existing, legacy systems
  • Ensure areas of customer ownership and responsibility under RISE with SAP are secure
  • While building securely, continuously monitor for threats in real-time

Post-Deployment & Ongoing Maintenance Stage

The following are challenges that businesses often encounter during the post-deployment and ongoing maintenance stage of digital transformation projects with SAP RISE:

72 hrs

The number of hours exploit activity can be observed after an SAP patch is released

5M USD

The average annual cost of business disruption due to non-compliance

Steps to overcome these challenges in your digital transformation journey during the post-deployment and ongoing maintenance stage:

  • Identify issues that were missed throughout your digital transformation and remediate as quickly as possible
  • Measure and communicate potential risk facing new systems over time
  • Stay informed and protected against SAP security vulnerabilities via Onapsis Research Labs updates
  • Automate IT controls testing for SOX, GDPR, NIST, etc. – plus integrate with SAP Process Control to maintain compliance
  • Prevent issues from being introduced to the new system by enabling DevSecOps

Common Questions about RISE with SAP

What are the benefits of RISE with SAP?

The benefits of RISE with SAP include faster time-to-value, reduced IT complexity, increased agility and scalability, improved customer and employee experiences, enhanced data security, and optimized cost management.

How does RISE with SAP help businesses with their digital transformation journey?

RISE with SAP helps businesses with their digital transformation journey by providing a simplified consumption model, pre-configured solutions, and access to SAP’s industry expertise and intelligent technologies. This helps businesses accelerate their time-to-value, reduce IT complexity, and improve their agility and scalability.

How can businesses get started with RISE with SAP?

Businesses can get started with RISE with SAP by contacting an SAP sales representative or partner. The representative can help the business understand the offering and its benefits, and assist with the implementation process.

For more frequently asked cybersecurity questions about SAP RISE, Jana Subramanianas, APJ Principal Cybersecurity Advisor for Cloud Security, offers a comprehensive list on SAP.com

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