How Accurate Was SAP on Run Simple?

Executive Summary

  • For years SAP has said that Run Simple has greatly simplified SAP projects.
  • In this article, we review the accuracy of this claim. 

Video Introduction: What SAP Said About Their Run Simple Marketing Program

Text Introduction (Skip if You Watched the Video)

Similar to Netweaver, Run Simple was a deceptive marketing construct. Run Simple was created to contradict the perception that SAP was complicated software to implement. This is a type of counter marketing — which markets against the reality of SAP software being extremely complicated, difficult to use, and high in maintenance. The Run Simple campaign was endlessly repeated through SAP’s marketing, SAP’s consulting ecosystem, SAP conferences, and so on. You will learn the accuracy of SAP’s claims around Run Simple.

Our References for This Article

If you want to see our references for this article and other related Brightwork articles, see this link.

Notice of Lack of Financial Bias: We have no financial ties to SAP or any other entity mentioned in this article.

  • This is published by a research entity, not some lowbrow entity that is part of the SAP ecosystem. 
  • Second, no one paid for this article to be written, and it is not pretending to inform you while being rigged to sell you software or consulting services. Unlike nearly every other article you will find from Google on this topic, it has had no input from any company's marketing or sales department. As you are reading this article, consider how rare this is. The vast majority of information on the Internet on SAP is provided by SAP, which is filled with false claims and sleazy consulting companies and SAP consultants who will tell any lie for personal benefit. Furthermore, SAP pays off all IT analysts -- who have the same concern for accuracy as SAP. Not one of these entities will disclose their pro-SAP financial bias to their readers. 

What Really Happened with SAP’s Run Simple?

SAP introduced S/4HANA and HANA as simplifying SAP. Experiences coming in from all over the globe demonstrate that S/4HANA and HANA are more complex than the products they replaced (ECC in S/4HANA and Oracle, IBM, and MS databases in the case of HANA). We covered the topic of Run Simple in the article Is SAP’s Running Simple Real?

Run Simple was all the rage at SAP for roughly two years but mostly dropped from SAP marketing. It had become a punchline among SAP consultants and was not effective at being believable.

Conclusion and Calculation

SAP receives a 0% accuracy rating on Run Simple.

Link to the Parent Article

This is one of many research articles on a specific topic that supports a larger research calculation. For the overview of the research calculation for all of the SAP topics that were part of the study, see the following primary research A Study into SAP’s Accuracy.