SAP Basis under constant fire

The rising number of requirements, increased change frequency, stricter audits and compliance requirements, and the foreseeable end of SAP Solution Manager: SAP Basis is under massive pressure.

In this interview, Alexander Frei, Customer Success Manager at REALTECH, explains how modern SAP teams master the balancing act between speed and stability in complex system landscapes with the help of automation, clear processes and the right tools, despite cost pressure and scarce resources.

This is precisely why teams today need processes that they can really rely on. So that they can free up resources and use internal knowledge, potential and synergies for the challenges ahead without taking additional risks for day-to-day business.

The business wants to deliver faster: new processes, new services, new integrations. At the same time, SAP landscapes are becoming technically more complex: on-premise, S/4HANA, BTP, non-SAP SaaS, sometimes multiple development and test lines.

As long as critical transports are initiated, documented and coordinated manually via SE10, STMS etc., the workload remains high, as does the risk of errors. SAP provides a solid technical base with CTS/gCTS, but without integrated processes and automation in conjunction with suitable ITSM tools, many things remain piecemeal and cost unnecessary time.

Typically, a release comprises dozens of transports across several lines, and coordination is still carried out via emails, Excel and manual checks.

Such setups work particularly well when ITSM and SAP Transport Management work well together. SmartChange is often used as a specialized layer that maps SAP-specific workflows and automation, while ticket management and approvals remain in the ITSM system. This reduces manual intervention and creates transparency about the status of changes and transports across the entire landscape.

Standardization and automation not only reduce the workload. Fewer errors are also “passed through to production”. And this is precisely the bridge to the next front: compliance.

We see this in our customer projects: When approvals, control steps and documentation are automated from the tooling, the effort is reduced not only on the Basis side, but across SAP IT – noticeably in the specialist departments as well as in internal auditing and audits. In short: compliance is not improved by more documents, but by simplified and automated verification management that is integrated into the processes.

And many companies are doubly affected here: the governance that provides stability today (process, transparency, evidence) is often organized via SolMan/ChaRM. If this foundation is removed in the future, the governance must be reorganized in good time – otherwise the risk increases.

SmartChange has proven to be a strong ChaRM alternative in our customer projects. We support customers not only with the introduction, but also with the extraction of historical ChaRM data. This is often a crucial point because companies do not want to lose the history for governance or audit reasons.

For me, a modern target image has three core elements:

1. Planned, controlled, possibly smaller changes instead of big bangs: instead of pushing huge transport packages every few weeks, successful teams rely on smaller, clearly defined changes with clearly defined quality checks.
2. Consistently automated workflows: from the request in the ITSM tool through risk and conflict checks to going live, as little as possible should be touched manually. Manual steps remain where real assessments are required – not when “clicking through” and handling standard processes that can be easily automated.
3. High transparency across all landscapes: whether on-premise, S/4HANA, BTP or RISE – the team needs a central view of what is currently on the move and where, including status, risks and dependencies. This applies in particular to cloud transports via SAP Cloud Transport Management (cTMS), which can be ideally integrated into an end-to-end change process.

Once these three points have been implemented, the speed and, above all, the quality of the changes will increase. Departments receive more reliable releases, audits are more structured and collaboration between SAP Basis, development and ITSM is much more relaxed because everyone is working on the same database.

Above all, roles and responsibilities are shifting. With RISE, parts of the technical operation move to the provider, but topics such as governance, architecture and change processes clearly remain with internal IT.

The BTP brings additional new degrees of freedom: extensions, integrations, own services. For the Basis, this means

• more interfaces between on-premise and cloud,
• more security and compliance issues,
• more objects whose lifecycle you need to keep an eye on.

At the same time, DevOps-oriented approaches are opening up new possibilities for linking transports more closely to software development. The teams that set themselves up today in a structured way here have less stress in their day-to-day work because the fundamentals simply fit better.

In short: hybrid is standard. This is why Change & Transport Management must function “across the worlds” today.

I usually recommend three pragmatic steps:

1. As-is analysis & priorities: clarify in the team where the biggest pain lies – workload, compliance or availability.
2. Automate quick wins: tackle repetitive tasks first, such as standard transports, logging or approval workflows.
3. Roadmap for Cloud & BTP: define in parallel what role BTP, RISE and Cloud ALM should play in your own landscape and what competencies SAP Basis needs to build up for this.

Our aim is always to design changes in the SAP environment in such a way that they become manageable, transparent and pragmatic for teams – instead of becoming an additional burden in day-to-day business.