SAP BTP: The Gap Between What You’re Paying and What You’re Getting

Summary

SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) has become central to how SAP expects its customers to build, extend, and integrate their systems, particularly as the shift to S/4HANA and clean core accelerates. Yet for many organizations, the gap between what they are paying for and what they are getting from BTP is significant. This article explores what BTP is, why SAP has positioned it as a necessity and the areas that customers consistently undermine its value.

Why BTP Exists and What it Aimed to Solve

SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) is SAP’s cloud-based platform for building, connecting, and extending SAP solutions that sits alongside the ERP system.

It provides organizations with the tools and environments organizations need to:

Build custom applications
Automate business processes
Integrate SAP and non-SAP systems

For years, organizations could customise heavily inside the ERP itself via ABAP code for ECC and S/4HANA on-premise customers. Over time, this approach created long-term problems:

Upgrades became slow and expensive
Technical debt accumulated over time
Organizations became reliant on a small pool of people who understood the custom code landscape
Adopting new SAP capabilities became hard in heavily modified systems

SAP’s response was the clean core strategy, an architectural principle aimed at keeping the ERP as close to its standard state as possible, with all customisations built outside the core with approved frameworks and APIs. This custom development would live on SAP Business Technology Platform.

In short: if clean core is the strategy, BTP is how organizations deliver it.

While true in principle, the gap between what is expected of BTP and what is delivered in operational reality is where most organizations struggle.

What BTP Contains

BTP is a platform made up of several distinct capability areas that each address unique business or technical needs – while the full breadth of BTP is large, a simplified view of its capabilities can be described as the following:

BTP Capability	What It Does	Most Relevant For
SAP Integration Suite	Connects SAP and non-SAP systems through standard APIs to ensure seamless data flow	IT and integration teams
SAP Build	A suite of low-code and pro-code tools that simplify app development, automate workflows, and create digital workspaces	Developers and business users
ABAP Cloud	Allows ABAP developers to extend SAP apps using cloud-native ABAP	Development teams transitioning from classic ABAP
SAP Cloud Application Programming Model (CAP)	A framework for building cloud-native services using Java or Node.js	Development teams outside of ABAP
SAP AI Services / Joule	Embeds AI capabilities into business processes to enhance efficiency and operational insights	Organizations adopting AI into their processes and landscape
SAP HANA Cloud	Provides a data foundation for analytics, reporting, and data-driven extensions	Data and analytics teams
SAP Analytics Cloud	Provides reporting, dashboards, and planning capabilities	Data and analytics teams, and business-facing teams

How BTP Fits into a Modern Cloud Architecture

BTP is no longer a feature that businesses can consider after the core migration is complete – it is crucial that organizations understand how BTP integrates into their business from the start.

Decisions made early within the migration process, particularly around integration, extensions, and data will implicitly define the role that BTP will play. Treating BTP as a post-migration consideration can lead to heavy consequences later, several factors make BTP a strategic necessity:

BTP is heavily integrated into Cloud ERP Private: BTP is embedded in the RISE commercial model. It is not an add-on and is central to how SAP expects extensibility and integration to be delivered.
SAP’s innovation runs through BTP: New SAP capabilities, including AI tools, embedded analytics and industry solutions are delivered on and through BTP.
Legacy middleware has a fixed retirement timeline: SAP PI/PO reaches end of mainstream maintenance in 2027, with extended maintenance available until 2030, meaning organizations should plan and assess their migration path now with the potential of adopting SAP Integration Suite on BTP as a replacement.
BTP is the platform where everything connects: BTP acts as the layer between the ERP core and the rest of the organization’s technology landscape. It is where integrations are built, applications are developed, and new capabilities are added.

This does not mean that organizations should adopt BTP wholesale outright but rather define early on where BTP fits into their processes and just as importantly, where it does not.

What Organizations Are Getting Wrong About BTP

The strategy for BTP is clear, but the way in which organizations approach BTP is a different story. For some, the gap between what they are paying for with BTP and what they are getting is significant.

Challenge Area	Key Considerations
Licensing Before Strategy	BTP is often committed to as part of a broader Cloud ERP Private subscription or S/4HANA migration agreement Commercial commitments are made before an extensibility strategy exists Entitlements are sized during contract negotiations before the organization has a clear picture of what needs to be built Services can go inactivated, environments can run in parallel across teams causing duplication of costs, or license capacity may not reflect actual usage BTP spend is not self-managing and requires ongoing monitoring, forecasting, and entitlement reviews
Paying for Capability That Is Not Being Used	BTP operates across multiple commercial models including subscription-based, consumption-based (BTPEA), and Cloud ERP bundled entitlements Organizations on Cloud ERP Private contracts often receive bundled BTP entitlements Many organizations lack a clear view of which entitlements are active and which are actually being consumed Idle entitlements, expiring credits, and inactive services can create a growing gap between BTP spend and realized value
Underestimating Adoption Complexity	BTP should be treated as a capability-building platform rather than a straightforward infrastructure upgrade Successful adoption requires new skills, governance structures, and changes to development approaches Many organizations underestimate the time and investment required to build BTP capability Without governance frameworks and skills investment, adoption challenges can limit long-term value
Moving Technical Debt from ERP	BTP supports clean core-compliant development but does not guarantee it without proper governance Without clear standards, organizations may recreate tightly coupled extensions and long-term maintenance challenges Development can become dependent on a limited number of individuals with historical system knowledge Architectural standards should be established at the start of the programme rather than introduced reactively

How JNC Can Help

With SAP’s push for the migration window for their ECC customers, the transition to S/4HANA is an inevitability that many customers will face with the mainstream maintenance deadlines nearing. For those moving to SAP’s cloud model, BTP is not an optional addition, it is an embedded part of how SAP expects its customers to operate going forward.

At JNC, we work with organizations at every stage of the journey, whether it is from the initial contract review, Independent Commercial and Procurement Advisory, or license optimization and consumption governance. Our focus is ensuring that you gain the best contractual terms and conditions for your business goals.