Introduction: The “False Economy” of Skipping Compliance
Many organizations underinvest in SAP license compliance because it seems like an unnecessary expense – until a surprise audit bill arrives. It’s a classic false economy: cutting costs on governance now can lead to far larger costs later under duress.
Proactive Software Asset Management (SAM) and license governance might appear to add cost to IT budgets. Still, the alternative is often an unpredictable “tax” on your SAP investment when compliance issues surface. For an overview, read our overview guide, SAP Licensing Risks & Penalties: What’s at Stake in Non-Compliance.
Non-compliance is a hidden tax on your SAP investment — until you pay it. In other words, avoiding compliance efforts may feel like saving money, but any short-term savings can evaporate rapidly when SAP finds licensing shortfalls.
Below, we break down the real costs of non-compliance versus the investment required for proactive compliance, showing why paying for compliance now is far cheaper than paying penalties later.
The Hidden Costs of SAP License Non-Compliance
Skipping proper license management doesn’t just save money – it accumulates risk. When an SAP audit or compliance review eventually comes, organizations often discover that the “savings” from ignoring compliance were an illusion.
Non-compliance can incur a variety of costs, including:
- Audit Penalties & True-Up Fees: If SAP auditors find you overused licenses, you’ll be charged for those licenses at full list price (with little or no discount). On top of that, SAP often demands back maintenance fees—support fees retroactively applied for the period you were using unlicensed software. For example, a shortfall of €100k in licenses could turn into a €150k+ liability after adding two years of back maintenance. These unplanned true-up costs can easily run into millions for large SAP estates.
- Forced Purchases Under Pressure: In an audit scenario, any required license purchases typically must be made in a tight 30-90-day window. This means you buy licenses on SAP’s terms, not yours. There’s little time to negotiate or shop around, so you may end up paying premium prices. Companies that could have negotiated 30-50% discounts in normal times often end up paying 100% of list price under audit pressure. The rush can also lead to buying more licenses than needed or costlier license types just to appease the auditors – a very expensive way to spend your IT funds.
- Operational Disruption: Compliance crises don’t just hit the wallet; they disrupt your business. An SAP audit “fire drill” diverts key IT, procurement, and finance staff for weeks or months. Ongoing projects get delayed as teams scramble to gather usage data and fix issues. In worst cases, SAP may delay or block new projects or go-lives until compliance is resolved. Support can even be withheld or cases escalated if you violate your contract. The value of these disruptions is hard to quantify, but imagine postponing a critical SAP rollout or halting a supply chain project – the business impact is huge.
- Legal & Reputational Risk: Major compliance shortfalls can lead to contractual disputes or even legal action. If negotiations with SAP break down, a company might face lawsuits or publicized settlements. Aside from legal fees, reputational damage can occur if it becomes known that your company was out of compliance. No CIO or CFO wants to be in headlines for “license violation.” Even internally, a compliance blow-up can erode confidence in IT leadership.
- Opportunity Cost: Perhaps the most overlooked cost of non-compliance is the opportunity cost. Every euro spent on unbudgeted license fees or emergency purchases is a euro not spent on innovation, digital transformation, or competitive projects. When you’re forced to pour, say, €1 million into true-up fees after an audit, that €1 million might have been earmarked for a new analytics initiative or upgrading customer-facing systems. Reactive spending diverts budget from strategic investments and can set back your IT roadmap by years.
Each of these cost components packs a punch. For a mid-sized company, an SAP audit might result in a six-figure true-up and months of lost productivity.
For a large enterprise, seven- or eight-figure penalties are not unheard of, especially if indirect usage or major license gaps went unchecked for years. In contrast, proactive compliance measures cost a fraction of these outcomes, as we’ll explore next.
Investing in Compliance: What Does Proactive SAP License Governance Cost?
Achieving and maintaining SAP license compliance does require investment – but it’s important to view these not as sunk costs, but as insurance and optimization investments. A well-run license management program not only avoids penalties, but it often pays for itself through improved efficiency and negotiated savings.
Key components of compliance investment include:
- SAM Tools & Automation: Specialized software asset management (SAM) tools or SAP license management software help track usage and entitlements. These tools might cost tens of thousands of euros per year (scaled to your SAP footprint), but they automate compliance checks that would be impossible manually. They can flag dormant accounts, measure indirect use, and consolidate data – providing visibility that prevents costly surprises. For smaller SAP customers, even built-in tools like SAP’s License Administration Workbench (LAW) can be leveraged with minimal cost, aside from internal effort.
- Staffing & Expertise: People are a critical part of license governance. This could mean a license analyst or SAM manager dedicated to SAP, or an extended responsibility for an IT asset manager. Large enterprises might even have a small team or external advisors on retainer. The cost here could range from one part-time analyst in a small firm to a full team costing a few hundred thousand euros annually in a global company. These experts interpret SAP’s complex contracts, maintain compliance records, and serve as the first line of defense during audits. Their expertise can save exponentially more by preventing mistakes (for example, correctly classifying users can avoid hundreds of thousands in fees).
- Internal Auditing & Remediation Cycles: Proactive organizations conduct regular internal license audits – perhaps annually or quarterly. This involves running SAP’s measurement programs (like USMM for user counts and LAW for consolidated metrics), analyzing the results, and fixing any issues proactively. The direct cost is mostly internal effort (and possibly some consulting assistance). Budgeting a small amount for periodic internal audits is wise – consider it a routine “tune-up.” You might spend, say, €50k and a few weeks of effort on an internal true-up to buy 100 extra licenses on your own timeline (with negotiated discounts) rather than waiting for SAP to enforce a €300k list-price purchase later. Regular remediation prevents small issues from snowballing into large compliance gaps.
- Process Integration & Governance: Building license compliance into your business processes might involve some upfront effort and training. For instance, integrating license checks into the IT change management process (so any new SAP project or integration is evaluated for license impact) or requiring business units to forecast license needs when expanding usage are effective strategies. The “cost” here is largely time spent on governance meetings, training, and documentation. This could be a few thousand euros’ worth of employee time across departments. However, this investment creates a culture of compliance – preventing risky behavior like unapproved system interfaces or user proliferation. Essentially, governance processes act as a guardrail that keeps your SAP usage on the safe, licensed path.
- External Advisory & Contingency: Many companies set aside a consulting or legal reserve for software licensing. This might be used to bring in an expert for a yearly compliance health check or to have specialists on call if an audit notice arrives. The cost might be a modest annual fee or a project-based budget (for example, €20 20-50k for an annual review by an SAP licensing consultant, or a similar amount earmarked for legal advice on contracts if needed). While you hope not to use this “reserve” often, knowing you have expert backup can accelerate responses and strengthen your negotiating position with SAP. It’s like paying for a security system – it deters problems and ensures rapid response if something triggers.
Read about Indirect access – Indirect Access Risk Scenarios in SAP: What Triggers Charges & What You Can Do
Scaling with SAP Footprint: These compliance costs scale with the size and complexity of your SAP environment. A small business running a single SAP instance might invest perhaps €20-50k total per year in basic tooling and part-time oversight.
A mid-sized enterprise (say 5,000 SAP users, multiple modules) could spend approximately € 200,000 to € 300,000 per year on a robust compliance program (a SAM tool subscription, one full-time license manager, and occasional consulting). A large global enterprise (20,000+ users, many SAP systems) might allocate €0.5-1M per year to a comprehensive license governance function (dedicated team, advanced tools, regular external audits).
Crucially, even at the high end, this investment is usually only a small fraction of the company’s annual SAP spend (often less than 5-10% of what they already pay SAP in maintenance and subscriptions).
In return, the organization gains control, predictability, and often finds optimization opportunities that reduce overall SAP costs (for example, identifying unused licenses to drop from maintenance, or smarter license allocation that avoids unnecessary purchases).
In summary, proactive compliance spending is steady and predictable. It’s an insurance premium that not only mitigates risk but also frequently uncovers cost savings.
Next, let’s compare this proactive spend to the potential price of reactive firefighting.
Common issues causing customer costs, Avoiding Common SAP Compliance Mistakes: Everyday Errors That Lead to Audits and How to Prevent Them.
Proactive vs. Reactive: A 3-Year Cost Comparison
To make the business case clear, consider a side-by-side scenario comparing two similar companies over three years. Company A invests in proactive SAP license compliance, while Company B takes a reactive “deal with it later” approach.
Both have an SAP environment of moderate size:
| Scenario (3-Year Outlook) | Proactive Compliance Cost (Company A) | Reactive Non-Compliance Cost (Company B) | Difference / ROI for Compliance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mid-sized company (5,000 users) | ~€250,000 per year on compliance (~€750k over 3 years) | Audit in Year 2: €1,000,000 penalty + €300,000 forced licenses + project delays cost | Compliance saves ~€0.5M (~2× ROI plus no disruption) |
| Large enterprise (20,000 users) | ~€800,000 per year on compliance (~€2.4M over 3 years) | Multiple audits totaling ≥€5,000,000 + support & project disruptions | Compliance saves ~€2.6M (~2×+ ROI and stable operations) |
In the mid-sized scenario, Company A spends about €750k spread over three years on tools, staff, and proactive true-ups. Company B initially spends almost nothing on compliance in year 1, but in year 2 gets hit with an audit finding a major shortfall – perhaps they had hundreds of unlicensed indirect users or misclassified user licenses.
Facing a €1M surprise bill, they also must urgently purchase €300k of extra licenses (at list price) to become compliant, all while a planned IT project gets delayed due to the turmoil.
By year 3, Company B’s total reactive cost (around €1.3M, excluding business disruption) is almost double what Company A spent to entirely avoid the crisis. Company A also enjoyed smoother operations – no fire drills or delays – which is priceless for their business momentum.
For the large enterprise, the stakes are even higher. Company B’s laissez-faire approach leads to perhaps multiple audit notices across different divisions, resulting in over €5M in cumulative true-up fees and penalties, plus strained relations with SAP (including a threat of withheld support at a critical time).
Company A, however, avoids any major audit findings by spending €800k annually on a robust compliance program. Over three years, they invested about €2.4M, which is roughly half of the €5M+ that Company B was forced to shell out unexpectedly. That’s an ROI of over 2:1 in pure cost avoidance – not including the fact that Company A’s leadership can sleep easier and plan IT budgets without fear of landmines.
Beyond the Numbers: These examples illustrate a clear trend: proactive compliance pays for itself. Even if your exact numbers differ, the pattern holds. A steady investment in governance yields a moderate, controlled cost, whereas neglecting compliance courts a low-probability-but-high-impact disaster that can wreck budgets.
It’s essentially the classic insurance trade-off: you can pay a smaller premium now to prevent or mitigate a large loss later. And unlike many insurance policies, good license management often yields “dividends” in the form of optimized licenses and better vendor negotiations (more on that later).
Why Organizations Resist Proactive Compliance
If proactive SAP license management is so beneficial, why do many organizations still delay or underfund it? There are some understandable psychological and organizational barriers at play:
- “We’ll cross that bridge later” mindset: Business and IT leaders under pressure to deliver projects often push license compliance to the back burner. If an audit isn’t imminent, it’s tempting to assume “we’ll deal with any issues when SAP comes knocking.” This mindset treats non-compliance risk like something that might never materialize. Unfortunately, when it does materialize, it’s too late to avoid pain. The false hope of skating by “just a little longer” often leads companies to play chicken with audits, and it only takes one unlucky year for the gamble to backfire spectacularly.
- Pressure to keep budgets lean: Compliance programs require budgets for tools, staff, or license top-ups, and many organizations face internal pressure to minimize IT spend. A CIO proposing an extra few hundred thousand for SAM tools and audit preparation might get pushback like, “Can’t we hold off until next year?” or “Our budget can’t absorb that unless necessary.” The irony is that a big audit penalty will blow the budget far worse than a planned compliance spend would. Yet because audit costs are not certain or visible upfront, they don’t get factored into budgets until they strike. This short-term frugality (“let’s save a little now”) can lead to major unplanned expenses that dwarf the original savings.
- Complexity and visibility challenges: SAP licensing is complex, and many organizations struggle to even understand their current compliance position. It can feel overwhelming to start a compliance initiative when you have dozens of SAP modules, thousands of users, and years of contracts to sift through. Some teams throw up their hands and assume, “We probably have issues, but it’s too complicated to figure out.” This complexity can paralyze action. Ironically, investing in the right tools and expertise solves this complexity by shining a light on usage and entitlements. But getting past the initial inertia is a hurdle.
- Business unit resistance: License discipline sometimes meets resistance from business units or project teams. For example, enforcing strict user counts or denying a new interface due to license concerns can make IT seem like the “Department of No.” Some departments may insist on proceeding fast (“we need this system integration now; we’ll sort out licensing later”) because their immediate objectives overshadow abstract compliance risks. There can also be a lack of awareness – business folks might assume SAP licenses are “unlimited” once purchased, not realizing the nuances. This cultural challenge means ITAM teams must do extra work to educate and to align stakeholders on why a little discipline now prevents a lot of pain later.
- Lack of immediate reward: Proactive compliance can feel like thankless work. If done well, nothing bad happens, which sometimes leads executives to question the value (“we spent all this, and nothing happened – maybe we didn’t need it”). It requires a shift in mindset to appreciate the risk reduction as the reward. When the negative outcome is avoided, it’s easy for some to misinterpret that as “we would have been fine anyway.” This can be countered by regularly reporting on what was averted or saved (e.g., “we identified and corrected a 500-user license deficit internally, avoiding an estimated €300k audit finding”).
Overcoming these barriers often takes a combination of education (showing real examples of audit pain), small pilot efforts (to demonstrate how compliance works), and executive support to break the cycle of “reactive comfort.”
The next section looks at how to chip away at risk in manageable steps.
How to Mitigate SAP License Risk Proactively
Implementing SAP license compliance does not need to be an all-or-nothing overnight overhaul. Leading organizations use a variety of mitigation levers and strategies to gradually build discipline and reduce risk exposure.
Here are some effective approaches:
- Prioritize High-Risk Areas First: Not every part of your SAP landscape carries equal audit risk. Focus your initial efforts on known high-risk areas – for SAP, this often means indirect access, engine metrics, and user classification. For example, indirect access (third-party systems using SAP data) is a common source of huge compliance gaps, as is misuse of packages (like exceeding a licensed revenue or employee count on a specific SAP engine). By targeting these hotspots, you can eliminate the biggest potential penalties early, demonstrating quick wins. Think 80/20 rule: a subset of license areas probably accounts for the majority of your exposure.
- Conduct Internal “Shadow” Audits: Don’t wait for SAP’s official audit; run your own. At least once a year (if not quarterly), execute SAP’s measurement tools (USMM, LAW) and simulate an audit internally. This practice will surface any license variances while you still have time to react on your terms. If you discover, for instance, that a particular engine is over-deployed, you can quietly purchase additional capacity or reallocate usage before SAP notices. Internal audits serve as an early warning system, turning potential emergencies into routine tasks. They also train your team in audit response so that if an official audit happens, it’s more of a non-event.
- Allocate a “Compliance Buffer” in Budget: One practical tactic is to include a licensing contingency line in your annual IT budget. This might be a modest amount (say 5-10% of your annual SAP spend) earmarked for unanticipated license needs or compliance fixes. By pre-allocating this buffer, you avoid the mad scramble for funds if an issue arises. If you don’t end up using it in a given year, that’s fine – it can roll over or be used for other improvements. But having it there turns a potential surprise into a planned expense. It’s much easier to have an approved pot of money for “license true-up as needed” than to ask for emergency funds in the middle of a fiscal year.
- Build License Governance into Operations: Treat license compliance as an ongoing governance process, not a one-time project. Establish policies such as quarterly license reviews and require license impact assessments whenever a new SAP-related project kicks off. For instance, if a business unit wants to integrate a new e-commerce platform with SAP, it should make it standard procedure to consult the SAM team about indirect access licenses first. Create simple dashboards or reports for executives that show license usage vs entitlements, so it stays on the radar. Over time, this normalizes compliance as just another aspect of running SAP (just like performance monitoring or security patching is routine). When governance is embedded, you dramatically reduce the odds of nasty surprises because there are no “out of sight, out of mind” areas in your SAP usage.
- Negotiate Audit-Friendly Contract Terms: You might have more leverage than you think when renewing or signing SAP agreements. Push for terms that cap your audit exposure or at least provide clarity. Some examples: negotiate for defined audit periods (e.g., SAP can only look back 2 years for compliance, limiting retroactive charges), or ask for partial true-up waivers (SAP sometimes agrees to waive back maintenance if you promptly purchase shortfall licenses in the future). If you’re adopting new licensing models (like moving to SAP S/4HANA or RISE with SAP), ensure contracts have flexible provisions – such as allowing conversion of old licenses or credits for unused software – so you don’t fall into inadvertent non-compliance during transition. Also consider negotiating audit timing (e.g. not during your critical business season) or a clause that audits will not occur more than X frequently. You may not get everything you ask for, but even small concessions can reduce risk. Importantly, a transparent contract sets the rules of the game clearly, leaving less room for surprise interpretations by auditors.
Each of these strategies lowers the probability or impact of a compliance issue. Using them in combination provides a layered defense. High-risk areas addressed? Check. Ongoing monitoring? Check. Financial contingency? Check. With governance and contract safeguards in place, you’re fortifying your organization against SAP license pitfalls.
It’s also worth noting that demonstrating these proactive steps can improve your standing with SAP. Suppose SAP sees that you have a serious compliance program.
In that case, if you ask smart questions, clean up past issues, and negotiate knowledgeably, they are more likely to approach audits with a cooperative tone rather than a punitive one.
In essence, you are taking control of the narrative rather than being a passive target.
Presenting the Business Case to Executives and Finance
Securing budget for SAP license compliance often comes down to convincing executive leadership (CIO, CFO, procurement head, etc.) that it’s better to spend a controlled amount now than a potentially enormous amount later.
Here’s how to frame the business case in strategic, financial terms that resonate with top management:
- Use Worst-Case vs Best-Case Scenarios: Paint two contrasting pictures for the next few years. Worst-case (no compliance investment): “If we continue without robust license management, we risk a possible audit hit of €X–€Y million, plus disruption at a critical moment.” Best-case (with compliance investment): “By investing €Z now, we can likely avoid those multi-million costs and operate with confidence.” Highlight that the downside risk far outweighs the upfront cost. This scenario planning helps executives grasp the range of outcomes – it’s essentially a risk management exercise. Even if the worst-case doesn’t happen, the cost of being wrong is so high that it’s not worth the gamble.
- Quantify the Risk in Financial Terms: CFOs respond to numbers. If you can estimate, for example, a 20% annual probability of a €2M audit event, that’s an expected risk of €400k per year. Compare that to, say, a €200k/year compliance program – clearly, the expected value favors the compliance spend. By translating license risk into a kind of “expected loss” or probabilistic cost, you make it a concrete line item that can be weighed against the cost of mitigation. Additionally, mention industry data or surveys if available (e.g., “Industry surveys show 1 in 4 companies spend over €500k annually on license true-ups – we want to be in the other 3 out of 4”). This reinforces that the risk isn’t just theoretical; it’s happening to peers.
- Stress the ROI and Payback: Make the case that compliance is not just a cost, but an investment with a return. For instance, “We plan to spend €X on SAM tools and internal audits, which we project will save us €3X in avoided fees over the next 3 years – a 3:1 return.” If you have any past audit history or known inefficiencies, use them as evidence: “Last audit we paid €500k; with better management, we could have avoided most of that. That alone would have funded two years of compliance efforts.” Also point out soft ROI: “Our team will likely identify unused licenses we can drop, saving maintenance fees that offset a chunk of the compliance cost.” Executives love to see that something “pays off” in tangible terms.
- Emphasize Control Over Costs: Draw the contrast between discretionary vs. non-discretionary spend. Compliance investment is a planned, controllable expense – you decide how and when to spend it, and you can optimize it over time. Audit penalties, on the other hand, are unplanned and non-negotiable when they occur – essentially, a blank check you’re forced to write under duress. Emphasize to the CFO that they’d surely prefer a steady, budgeted spend (with full visibility) rather than a volatile hit that could come mid-year and blow the budget. This is akin to choosing to service machinery regularly versus dealing with a catastrophic breakdown; prudent managers prefer the former.
- Link to Negotiation Leverage and Strategic Position: Point out that having a solid compliance footing actually strengthens your hand in dealings with SAP. When renewal or new purchase negotiations arise, a company that clearly understands its license usage and has no compliance cloud overhead can negotiate from a position of strength. SAP sales teams often leverage compliance findings to upsell or push new contracts (the classic “You need to buy these extra licenses now, or else…”). By being on top of compliance, you remove that card from SAP’s deck. You can instead drive the conversation toward value and requirements, not firefighting deficiencies. This can lead to better pricing and terms in the long run. Present compliance spend as something that protects our ability to negotiate on our own terms.
When presenting to executives, consider summarizing the pitch in a slide or memo with key bullet points like:
- Risk Exposure: “We face potential multimillion-euro SAP audit penalties in the next 1-3 years if we remain status quo. (e.g., Indirect usage and user overages have historically cost peers millions.)”
- Proposed Mitigation: “Invest €X/year in a compliance program (tools, processes, expertise) to continuously manage and minimize this risk.”
- Financial Impact: “This investment is <Y% of our annual SAP spend and is expected to avoid 2-3× its cost in audit fees. It may also uncover savings (e.g., eliminate unused licenses) to partially fund itself.”
- Qualitative Benefits: “Improves IT operational stability (no audit fire drills disrupting projects), preserves our reputation and vendor relationship, and gives us leverage in SAP contract negotiations by removing compliance weaknesses.”
- Ask: “Approve the compliance initiative to shift us from reactive to proactive – turning unpredictable costs into a planned, optimized spend and safeguarding the company from avoidable financial hits.”
By clearly outlining the downside of inaction and the upside of investment, you help executives see compliance funding not as “nice to have” but as a prudent business decision.
Unexpected costs have burned many CFOs; your goal is to show them that a little foresight in this area can prevent a big budgetary fire.
Checklist: Building Your SAP License Compliance Program
Ready to make the case and instill discipline? Use this high-level checklist or decision framework to plan your compliance initiative and ensure you’ve covered the bases:
- Assess Your SAP Estate: Document the scope of your SAP environment – number of users, key SAP products/modules, any indirect interfaces, and high-value engine metrics (e.g., ERP users, HANA database size, interfaces to Salesforce, etc.). A clear inventory is the foundation for sizing both risks and solutions.
- Estimate Potential Exposure: For each risk area, sketch out low, medium, and high non-compliance scenarios. Example: “If we’re 10% over on named user licenses, that’s €X in fees; a worst-case indirect access finding could be €Y,” etc. This establishes the financial stakes and helps prioritize where to focus. If possible, check past true-ups or industry benchmarks to sanity-check your estimates.
- Calculate Compliance Investment Needs: Define what you need to achieve and maintain compliance. Consider SAM tool costs, internal resource hours (or new hires), external consulting for tricky areas, and potential license purchases to fix current gaps. Add these up to form an annual compliance budget. It can help to break it down: “€A for tool, €B for one FTE, €C for initial true-up purchases, etc,” so stakeholders see the components.
- Run the Cost-Benefit/ROI Model: Now compare the anticipated cost of compliance (from step 3) against the potential costs avoided (from step 2). Create a simple model over a 3-5 year period: show annual compliance spend vs. the reduction in risk exposure. This can be as straightforward as showing that even avoiding one medium-sized audit finding would pay back the investment. Incorporate probabilities if possible (e.g., “There’s roughly a 50% chance of an audit in 3 years; expected avoided cost = 0.5 * worst-case penalty”). The goal is to demonstrate that proactive spend is the financially savvy choice.
- Align Stakeholders and Finalize Plan: Use the data to build buy-in. Present the findings to Finance, IT leadership, and any other affected parties (procurement, legal). Address any objections with evidence – for example, if someone says “what if we don’t get audited?”, remind them that if you’re prepared, an audit is harmless anyway. In the meantime, the program will likely find efficiency gains. Once everyone agrees on the value, schedule out the compliance activities: tool implementation, internal audit dates, training sessions, policy roll-outs, etc. Put it on the calendar and assign owners. Treat it like an ongoing program, not a one-time project.
By following this framework, you’ll have a solid business case backed by numbers and a clear action plan. Compliance will move from a vague concern to a managed facet of your SAP operations.
5 Compliance Investment Arguments to Remember
Finally, when advocating for SAP license compliance discipline, keep these five punchy arguments in your back pocket.
These summarize why investing in governance pays off big time:
- Prevention is Exponentially Cheaper Than Reaction: A euro spent on preventing compliance issues can save five or ten euros in emergency fixes and penalties. It’s far cheaper to prevent the fire than to fight the blaze.
- Compliance Funding Buys Control – Not Just Cost: Allocating budget to compliance isn’t money down the drain; it buys you control over license spending. You decide when and what to spend, rather than being at the mercy of an audit’s demands.
- Reactive Penalties Erode Negotiating Leverage: Every euro paid in an unplanned audit true-up increases SAP’s upper hand. Avoiding audits means you don’t have a cloud of non-compliance that SAP can leverage for concessions in future deals.
- A Visible Compliance Program Strengthens Your Position: When SAP knows you have your house in order (through internal audits, tracking, expert involvement), you’re seen as a savvy customer. That often leads to more reasonable treatment and better terms, whether during audits or contract talks. In short, license-savvy customers don’t look like easy targets.
- Executives Prefer Fixed, Manageable Costs Over Surprises: No CFO or CEO likes a surprise multi-million euro expense landing on their desk. By investing in compliance, you turn a potentially volatile risk into a steady, budgeted cost. This financial predictability is golden for leadership – it’s the difference between a planned line item and a nasty headline.
Remember these points as the mantra for SAP license governance. In the end, proactive compliance is about taking control of your SAP destiny – financially and operationally. It’s an investment in stability, predictability, and value maximization.
By comparing the true cost of non-compliance vs. the cost of compliance, the conclusion is clear: investing in SAP license governance pays off, many times over.
