SAP established SAP Integration and Certification Center (SAP ICC) 25 years ago to certify the integration of partners’ solutions with SAP’s end-to-end suite of applications and services. This provides SAP customers with confidence that the solutions they purchase will integrate seamlessly with SAP technology.

Our partner ecosystem plays a vital role in extending the SAP portfolio to meet the existing demands and future requirements. Our customers depend on high-quality deployments and integration of partner solutions for a smooth flow of business data between SAP solutions and the partner applications.

To support SAP’s vision and to meet customer success, SAP ICC has introduced hundreds of certification scenarios to quickly adapt to the changing technologies across the SAP product portfolio. Our mandate is to keep in line with the SAP vision and ensure that our partners stay relevant to customers. Our focus is to facilitate seamless integration, reduce the implementation time, and lower the integration costs to achieve compatibility with the infrastructure of customers. To earn the “SAP Certified” designation, partners must put their solution’s SAP integration through stringent qualification procedures.

Since its inception in 1972, SAP has always been in the forefront of enterprise technology and pioneering the market with business processes. During SAP’s last five decades of market leadership, it evolved from mainframes via UNIX systems and the start of the internet to digital transformation. History records the contribution of SAP in the Business processes transformation.  Business process is now completely changed through highly advanced technologies like blockchain, Internet of Things, big data, machine learning, and so on.

Today, SAP is a market share leader in enterprise resource planning (ERP), analytics, supply chain management, human capital management, master data management, data integration as well as in experience management. SAP is a Recognized database leader. SAP’s Broadest portfolio of modular and suite solutions is available on-premise, in the cloud, and hybrid.

• SAP customers generate 87% of total global commerce ($46 trillion)
• 94% of the world’s 500 largest companies are SAP customers
• 99 of the 100 largest companies in the world are SAP S/4HANA customers

Source: https://www.sap.com/documents/2017/04/4666ecdd-b67c-0010-82c7-eda71af511fa.html

SAP’s 2021 results show acceleration in new cloud business across its entire cloud portfolio, including SAP Qualtrics, SAP Human Experience Management, SAP Ariba Procurement, SAP Customer Experience, SAP Business Technology Platform. SAP often refreshes its strategy to advance its leadership position in the market. It is amazing to see how quickly partners also adopt their own strategies to provide better service to the customers. The migration of partner solutions from SAP ERP to SAP S/4HANA is a clear example of the trust our partners have in SAP.  So far, we have more than 250 partners certifying 500 solutions across EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) embracing SAP S/4HANA and our cloud portfolio.

The EMEA region has always been a huge market for SAP and our partners. The largest share of SAP’s revenues is generated in EMEA, closely followed by the Americas. SAP ICC in EMEA has seen continuous growth since its inception. The last decade shows a four-fold growth in the number of yearly certifications.

Although the certification is valid for up to 3 years, the recurring interest from our partners to recertify their solutions and add new certifications is a clear indication of huge customer satisfaction and adoption, leading to their own success.

“For development and quality perspective it is of vital importance to deliver a software product that perfectly fits our customers SAP landscape including software deployment, compatibility, and standard applications. Certifying software with SAP ICC means highest quality and support when customer install and run our partner software product in their SAP Infrastructure” – Dr. Torsten Fenske, Co-Founder XFT GMBH, Germany – certifying their add-ons with SAP ICC since 2004

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Culture and language play an equally important role. Many times, localization of software is required to address the needs of the country, culture, and language. SAP ICC has certification centers and scenarios for the localization requirements. Our offices in EMEA are present in Germany, Russia, UAE, and South Africa. Our partner recruitment team in EMEA understands the software business and the region well. For example, the solutions may have to cater to the more than 200 languages spoken in Europe.

“Even though SAP ICC interacts with hundreds of partners each year, the regional presence allows us a personal touch and good rapport often over a long period of engagement with our partners. To cover the multiple time zones, cultures, and languages, where our partners and ISVs are located, SAP ICC established a strong regional presence.  Each location is composed of integration experts with expertise across the diverse portfolio of SAP solutions to drive joint certification projects with partners and ISVs.  –  Imran Khan, Vice president SAP Integration and Certification Center

SAP ICC’s contribution towards partner success extends beyond the seamless integration for customers. It gives partners a unique opportunity to establish a strong brand association with SAP. This becomes a key differentiator from their competition. They display their SAP certification logo with pride and in full confidence that it impacts positively in tenders, which helps accelerate their sales cycle. In the words of one of our certified partners,

“The certificate gives confidence and certainty to our prospective clients regarding our technology, security, and connectivity. Certification with SAP ICC increases the sales by shortening the sales cycle by 50%. After our first re-certification, we landed on a deal with AOK, the biggest deal in SAP store” – Andreas Mors, Head of Project Management, SYNCPILOT based in Munich, Germany

There are multiple such success stories to share why partners in EMEA join our certification program. In our 25 years of service to both partners and customers, our foundation is built on trust. Everything falls in place when we achieve it together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvB5kqY2ZPo

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