SAP Expands Free Demo Library; Reduces Test and Demo Environment Costs; And Launches Partner Edition Of Learning Hub

SAP has added expanded the number of scenarios in its free SAP Partner Demo Environment and will offer partners significantly reduced subscription fees for its test and demonstration environment licenses. The company also announced plans to add new information channels to the “SAP for Me” portal, the digital companion partners can use to support customer engagement and increase productivity.

These new initiatives extend SAP’s 2019 commitment to provide partners with the resources they need to support their businesses and customers better.

Since June 2020, SAP has provided partners free access to SAP Partner Demo Environment, an integrated, preconfigured software demonstration environment to expedite sales conversations. The company announced 18 additional live scenarios, bringing the number of offline demo scenarios available to over 350.

“We remain committed to helping our partners and customers easily access the tools they need to move to the cloud, advance their digital transformations and adapt to remote work environments,” said Karl Fahrbach, SAP’s chief partner officer, in a press release. “SAP partners remain critical in driving successful cloud adoption. This suite of new offerings, particularly the test and demo environments for our cloud solutions, is designed to continue to lower the barriers for partners and customers to move to the cloud and support their journeys to becoming intelligent enterprises.”

Empowering Partner Demo Capabilities

The demo system was designed to “enable partners to show end-to-end intelligence enterprise demos that go across system boundaries, with out-of-the-box integration demo content, scenarios that they can just pick up immediately and demo,” said Bernd Herold, Business Development Lead for Intelligent Enterprise Partner Packages, Integration & Extensibility.

Providing free access to the demos and enabling partners to use them more effectively has driven engagement significantly. Partner adoption was the “fastest of any initiative in a very, very long time,” noted Luciano Ravenna, SAP’s Global Vice President, Partner Enablement & Business Development. “Within a couple of months, we had 300 partner companies sign up and go through the training. Right now, we’re sitting at over 700.” More than 2,000 users are on the system, added Herold.

Reduced subscription fees for dedicated test and demonstration tenants for the SAP Digital Supply Chain portfolio and the SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll solution were also announced. In addition, the company plans to add further cloud solutions from SAP to this offer throughout 2021. Partners can allocate their market development funds for test and demo licenses.

These test and demo offerings extend to SAP Integration Suite and SAP Extension Suite powering SAP Business Technology Platform. A free tier model for the suites was announced at the SAP TechEd event in December 2020. This model is planned to become available later in 2021.

Optimizing Customer Engagement

As an online companion for partners, SAP for Me provides data for actionable insights, guidance and support for comprehensive customer engagement. New functionalities, such as dynamic cards for sales professionals and automated reporting elements, are now available to all partners having a contract with the SAP PartnerEdge program. Additional insight views will be available throughout 2021. These include business planning, program and membership information, cloud product adoption, consultant certification and customer projects.

SAP has also launched SAP Learning Hub, partner edition, and expanded its training and certification programs for its cloud solutions. This new offering, available exclusively to members of the SAP PartnerEdge program, includes access to digital enablement content tailored for SAP partners. It also provides access to live training systems and opportunities to take practice exams in preparation for earning SAP Global Certification digital badges.