Chris Pennell, Lead Analyst, Public Sector

It is fair to say that the public sector’s view of enterprise resource planning (ERP) is one of a platform supporting a set of tightly knitted solutions that tends to be customized to suit individual enterprise needs, in turn requiring a complex array of maintenance and licensing agreements. But the disruptive forces of cloud provide buyers with a chance to reconsider this preconception. Vendors must now puzzle over how buyers can carry on consuming best-of-breed services that allow for customization while satisfying their increasing demand for flexibility that cloud-based services purport to bring.

SAP provided more insight into how it would address this issue at its annual event, Sapphire Now. Though it reaffirmed that HANA would continue to be the core path for its customers’ migration to the cloud, it recognizes that it needs to make the journey simpler. SAP will need to …