SAP has announced a multi-year agreement with Nokia to accelerate the Finnish company’s business transformation using the RISE with SAP methodology, and with its SAP S/4HANA software environment hosted on Microsoft Azure.
The agreement represents a significant step in the migration of Nokia’s SAP environment towards the RISE with SAP model. By adopting the RISE with SAP methodology, Nokia will follow a structured and comprehensive approach to migrate its ERP environment, spanning processes, data, applications and operating models, while gaining continued access to the innovation and integrated AI capabilities offered by SAP’s cloud ERP portfolio.
Nokia has selected Microsoft Azure as the cloud platform for this transformation as it provides the global scale, security and performance needed to support the company’s most business-critical workloads.
“Nokia’s decision reflects a clear commitment to business-driven transformation,” said Manos Raptopoulos, Global President of Customer Success for Europe, APAC, Middle East and Africa, and member of the SAP SE Expanded Board. “The RISE with SAP methodology provides Nokia with a structured roadmap, an integrated set of tools and continuous access to innovation. It allows the company to modernize its ERP environment while maintaining a clean core and building a solid foundation for enterprise AI.”
A structured approach to ERP transformation
RISE with SAP is designed as a comprehensive business transformation framework, rather than a point solution. It combines a standardized transformation methodology, integrated tools, and expert advice to help organizations move from legacy ERP environments to RISE with SAP.
SAP will operate and manage the SAP S/4HANA software environment in the cloud, allowing Nokia to shift its focus from infrastructure management to business outcomes. This approach favors process standardization, operational simplification and continuous innovation, instead of being limited to a one-off system migration.
Nokia has embarked on a business and technical transformation journey with its next-generation SAP S/4HANA software environment, covering finance and key logistics capabilities, supported by SAP solutions and applications. These include SAP S/4HANA for centralized financial management, SAP Master Data Governance, SAP Extended Warehouse Management, SAP Global Trade Services and SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Advanced ATP. Artificial intelligence-based functionalities integrated into SAP cloud applications will be progressively adopted as part of this transformation process.
“This agreement builds on our existing collaboration with SAP and Microsoft and supports Nokia’s goal of ensuring secure management of our key business operations,” said Marek Očkay, Vice President and Global Head of IT Procurement and Supplier Management at Nokia. “By applying the RISE with SAP methodology on Microsoft Azure, we are building a structured, future-proof path to drive business growth, an approach that simplifies our ERP environment, enables continuous innovation, and reinforces our commitment to AI-powered processes.”
Microsoft Azure as a cloud base
Microsoft Azure will act as the cloud platform for Nokia’s RISE with SAP journey, in line with Nokia’s overall cloud and data strategy. Nokia already manages part of its SAP environment on Azure, and consolidating workloads on a single hyperscale platform is expected to provide benefits in terms of performance, security, latency and operational resilience.
As part of the agreement, Microsoft will work closely with SAP and Nokia throughout the entire transformation, supporting migration activities and ongoing optimization.
Microsoft Azure will act as the cloud platform for Nokia’s “RISE with SAP” journey, in line with overall strategy
“This collaboration demonstrates how cloud platforms, enterprise applications and artificial intelligence can be combined to support complex and global business transformations,” said Joacim Damgard, Microsoft corporate vice president for Northern Europe. “By running SAP S/4HANA on Azure within the RISE with SAP implementation process, Nokia is creating a scalable and secure foundation for continuous innovation.”
