Client Background
The client is a vertically integrated European energy group operating across electricity generation (thermal, wind, and hydro), high-voltage transmission network management, and a retail energy arm serving 2.4 million residential and commercial customers across four markets. The group employs approximately 8,200 people and reported revenues of €3.8bn in its most recent fiscal year.
The organisation had run SAP ECC 6.0 since 2009, covering financials (FI/CO), asset management (PM/AM), materials management (MM), and HR across all operating entities. In 2021, the group added SAP HANA 2.0 as the underlying database for its operational reporting and integrated energy trading analytics — a £1.1M HANA licence investment.
Total SAP NLV at point of engagement: £3.1M (ECC 6.0 application licences £2.0M; HANA Enterprise Edition £1.1M).
The Challenges
Bundled S/4HANA Pressure
SAP's renewal team presented a "SAP Enterprise Support + S/4HANA Transformation Services" bundle, effectively embedding migration consultancy fees into the support renewal. The bundled renewal was priced at £968K annually — a 42% increase on the prior year's stand-alone support figure of £682K.
HANA HA Surcharge
The renewal included a HANA System Replication licence surcharge — £138K for the HSR secondary node — that had never been separately disclosed in the original HANA commercial discussions. The client believed HA was included in their HANA Enterprise Edition licence.
Regulatory Data Sovereignty
Energy networks are Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) in all four markets. The group's security and legal teams required that all SAP support activities, remote access sessions, and data processing remained within EU jurisdiction. SAP's standard Enterprise Support model did not provide these contractual guarantees.
18-Month Freeze Window
The group's CTO had imposed an 18-month technology spend freeze to fund a €280M grid upgrade programme. Any IT cost increase required board-level approval. The SAP renewal demand represented a £286K annual increase — directly conflicting with the freeze policy.
The GoVendorFree Solution
GoVendorFree conducted a 12-day engagement assessment covering the group's full SAP landscape across six entities in four countries. The assessment deliverables included an estate inventory, a support utilisation audit (SAP SR analysis for the preceding 24 months), a HANA HA licence compliance review, and a full TPS scope confirmation.
Key Assessment Findings
- SAP support utilisation: Over 24 months, the group raised 47 SAP SRs — of which 31 (66%) were resolved within 7 days, 12 (25%) required SAP input beyond initial response, and 4 (8%) were SAP development defects requiring SAP fixes. The four defect-related SRs were on functionality that had not been updated since SAP's standard maintenance for ECC 6.0 (SAP's "mainstream maintenance" ended 2027 under original SAP roadmap).
- HANA HSR surcharge: Confirmed that SAP HANA Enterprise Edition does include HSR licensing for the primary/standby pair under the original licence agreement terms. The proposed HS surcharge was a commercial overreach — not a legitimate contractual obligation.
- Data sovereignty: GoVendorFree's EU-only support model (all engineers located in UK, Germany, Netherlands, and Poland) satisfied the group's CNI data residency requirements. A written Data Processing Agreement with geographic restrictions was provided as standard.
- S/4HANA timing: Analysis showed that the group's ECC 6.0 configuration had a standard compliance rate of 91.4% against the SAP Clean Core framework — indicating an S/4HANA migration would require £12–18M in custom code remediation alone, independent of infrastructure, training, and project management costs. GoVendorFree's assessment concluded a 4-year deferral was strategically and technically sound.
The Results
| Cost Component | SAP Bundled Renewal | GoVendorFree TPS | Annual Saving |
|---|---|---|---|
| ECC 6.0 Application Support | £440,000 | £124,000 | £316,000 |
| SAP HANA Support | £242,000 | £64,000 | £178,000 |
| HANA HSR "Surcharge" | £138,000 | £0 (disputed + removed) | £138,000 |
| S/4HANA "Transformation Services" Bundle | £148,000 | £0 (not required) | £148,000 |
| Total Annual | £968,000 | £188,000 | £780,000 → redeployed |
Note: The "£2.24M annual saving" figure reflects savings vs. the 4-year S/4HANA migration deferral value (£38M project avoided / 17 year amortised benefit) combined with direct support cost reduction. Year 1 direct cash saving: £780,000.
"We were being told that S/4HANA was inevitable and that the support renewal was the start of our journey. GoVendorFree showed us it wasn't inevitable on SAP's timeline — and that the bundled renewal included costs we simply didn't owe. The HANA HSR 'surcharge' alone was £138K we'd never agreed to. Having that removed paid for GoVendorFree's fee several times over."— Group CTO, European Energy Group (4 markets, €3.8bn revenue)
Follow-On Savings and Strategic Outcomes
In the 18 months since the TPS transition, the client has achieved three additional savings outcomes:
- SAP HR licence right-sizing: GoVendorFree's post-transition licence review identified 340 dormant SAP Named User licences across the retail arm. The client successfully negotiated their removal from the SAP licence schedule at the next periodic audit window, saving £68,000 in future support baseline.
- Third-party HANA monitoring: With GoVendorFree's support, the client replaced SAP Solution Manager (which required a separate £42,000 maintenance fee) with an open-source Prometheus/Grafana HANA monitoring stack. The monitoring migration was completed in six weeks by a single internal SAP Basis engineer.
- Grid investment redeployment: The CFO confirmed in an internal board presentation that the SAP savings contributed £780K to the €280M grid upgrade programme in year one — funding approximately 0.28% of the capital programme from software savings alone.
Is Your SAP Renewal Using the Same Tactics?
Bundled S/4HANA services, HANA HA surcharges, and inflated renewal figures are common SAP commercial practices. Our team will review your SAP renewal proposal and identify what you actually owe — versus what SAP wants you to pay.
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