Building leverage between RISE renewals.

The RISE with SAP renewal conversation is decided long before the renewal window opens. The buyer team that arrives at the renewal point with documented consumption telemetry, evidence of credible alternative paths, a record of unresolved SAP service issues, and a measured signalling history holds a position that the SAP account team will read accurately and will price against. The buyer team that arrives at the renewal point with a binder of the original contract and a request for a discount holds a position that the SAP account team will read as captive and will price against equally accurately. The leverage that decides the renewal is built across the seven years between signature and renewal, through deliberate routines that the buyer organisation can embed into the post signature operating model. This article walks through the routines that compound into renewal leverage and the signalling discipline that keeps the SAP account team alert across the contract term.

Why renewal leverage starts on day one of the contract

The leverage position at the renewal point reflects seven years of accumulated signal that the SAP account team has gathered about the buyer estate. The account team builds an internal account profile across the contract term that records the buyer consumption against the entitlements, the buyer engagement at the executive level, the buyer engagement at the operational level, the buyer signalling about alternative paths, and the buyer behaviour during commercial events such as true ups and adjustments. The account profile is the substrate for the renewal proposal that the account team constructs.

The buyer team that recognises the existence of the account profile and that manages the signal that flows into the profile across the seven year term reaches the renewal point with an account profile that supports a strong commercial position. The buyer team that ignores the account profile reaches the renewal point with an account profile that supports a weak commercial position, with the consequence priced into the renewal proposal that the account team produces.

The first day of the contract is the right moment to begin managing the signal, because the signalling routines compound across the contract term and because the early signal sets the operating expectation that the SAP account team will hold across the subsequent years. The buyer team that signals from day one that the contract is a managed commercial relationship rather than a settled steady state establishes the operating expectation that supports the renewal position.

The leverage signals SAP account teams watch for

The SAP account team watches for a defined set of signals that the team uses to calibrate the buyer position. The signals include the buyer engagement at the executive level inside the SAP organisation, the buyer engagement with the SAP competitor ecosystem, the buyer engagement with the SAP partner ecosystem on alternative paths, the buyer documentation discipline on consumption and service issues, and the buyer behaviour during commercial events.

The executive engagement signal records the buyer willingness to engage at the SAP regional leadership level and at the SAP global account level. The buyer that engages at these levels signals that the contract is a strategic relationship rather than a procurement transaction. The signal raises the political stakes of any commercial position that the account team proposes, because the position will need to defend itself against the buyer executive engagement.

The competitor and partner engagement signals record the buyer willingness to expose the SAP account team to alternative paths. The signals are not threats, they are documented engagement that the SAP account team can verify through the partner ecosystem and through the competitor sales force. The signal that the buyer team is engaged with Oracle on Fusion, with Microsoft on Dynamics, or with the brownfield migration partner ecosystem is the signal that the SAP account team prices into the renewal proposal as a credible competitive risk.

The documentation discipline signal records the buyer team capacity to support any commercial position with documentary evidence. The signal is observed through the buyer engagement during true up cycles, during service incident reviews, and during contractual adjustment conversations. The buyer team that produces documented positions at every commercial event establishes a signal that the renewal conversation will be evidence based rather than narrative based, and the account team prices the renewal accordingly.

Documentation discipline that builds renewal credibility

The documentation discipline that builds renewal credibility covers the consumption telemetry across the contract term, the service incident record, the commercial event record, the SAP commitment record from the negotiation and the subsequent quarterly business reviews, and the competitive intelligence record. The discipline is the foundation that the renewal conversation will draw on, and the discipline cannot be assembled at the renewal point because the records do not exist if they have not been maintained across the contract term.

The consumption telemetry covers the FUE consumption, the document consumption inside the digital access mechanism, the platform capacity consumption, and the consumption of any other metered services that the contract includes. The telemetry should be captured at a frequency that supports the identification of trends, peaks, and the operating profile across the seasonal cycle of the buyer estate. The telemetry is the substrate for any right sizing case, any expansion case, and any renewal position that turns on the operating profile.

The service incident record covers the service events that have crossed the contractually defined thresholds, with documented post incident reviews and documented remediation. The record is the substrate for any service credit claim and for any renewal position that turns on the service performance of the SAP delivery organisation. The record accumulates across the contract term, and the record that is incomplete at the renewal point cannot be reconstructed from memory.

Building external benchmark exposure across the contract term

The external benchmark exposure across the contract term keeps the buyer team informed about the commercial position that the wider market is achieving on comparable RISE deployments, on competitive products, and on alternative paths. The exposure is built through periodic engagement with the partner ecosystem, the analyst community, the peer network of SAP customers, and the independent advisory community. The exposure is the substrate for the calibration of the buyer position at the renewal point.

The exposure does not need to produce a documented proposal from a competitor or from an alternative provider, although a documented proposal is the strongest form of the exposure. The exposure can be built through engagement that establishes the buyer awareness of the alternative paths and the buyer position on the alternative paths. The awareness and the position are signals that the SAP account team will read across the contract term and will price into the renewal proposal.

The buyer position six months before renewal

The buyer position six months before the renewal window opens is the operational expression of the seven years of accumulated leverage. The position should include the consolidated consumption telemetry, the service incident record, the commercial event record, the documented benchmark exposure, the identified alternative paths, and the executive engagement that is in flight inside the SAP organisation. The position should also include the buyer internal alignment on the renewal outcome that the buyer team is pursuing, with the supporting board level approval that the position carries.

Conclusion: renewal leverage is built, not requested

The RISE renewal conversation rewards the buyer team that has built leverage across the seven year contract term through documented consumption telemetry, documented service performance, documented commercial events, documented benchmark exposure, and documented executive engagement. The leverage is the substrate that the renewal conversation draws on, and the leverage cannot be assembled at the renewal point. The buyer team that embeds the leverage building routines into the post signature operating model reaches the renewal point with a position that the SAP account team will read accurately and will price against. The buyer team that allows the contract to settle into the steady state reaches the renewal point with a position that the SAP account team will also read accurately, and the renewal proposal will reflect the accurate reading.