SAP partners will likely expand into sustainability consulting services in 2023, according to Ignite SAP -- a talent recruiting firm.
The overall SAP partner ecosystem spans includes ISVs (independent software vendors), consulting firms, global systems integrators (GSIs) and managed IT service providers (MSPs) that help customers to deploy and run SAP's enterprise business software and SaaS applications.
It's safe to expect those partners to build sustainability consulting practices, the talent recruiting firm predicts in a blog:
"As the importance of environmentally sustainable business practices increases, along with responsible waste management, we will see the emergence of a new role for SAP consulting services: the SAP sustainability consultant. As the collective international awareness of environmental issues has reached its latest peak with the COP26 and COP27 events, the public and private sector are compelled to make ESG a priority."
Demand for sustainability consultants appears to be growing -- though not at an explosive rate. Indeed, total spending on sustainability consulting will reach $11.45 billion by 2028, up from $8.79 billion in 2022, according to Industry Research. That's a 4.5% compound annual growth rate during the forecast period, the researcher noted.
Among the key areas to watch: The SAP Cloud for Sustainable Enterprises platform -- which includes such solutions as:
- Sustainability Control Tower, which allows customers to automate ESG data collection in relation to finance, HR, real estate, operations and more. From there, partners and customers can map the data to ESG standards such as GRI, TCFD, EU Taxonomy and more, the company said.
- ESG reporting solutions such as SAP's Business Integrity Screening, Analytics Cloud, Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain, Data Warehouse Cloud and more.
Meanwhile, multiple SAP partners -- particularly large systems integrators -- have launched sustainability practices. Names to know include Accenture, Atos, Deloitte, Capgemini, Ernst & Young (EY), KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), among others.
We'll be watching to see if those firms -- and others -- expand their sustainability consulting practices with SAP in 2023.
