The SAP HANA® platform is transforming data processing. It achieves this impact through a radically new IT architecture that isolates all active workloads from reading and writing to disk, the most time-consuming task in data processing, and does so at a scale heretofore unimaginable. Now, next-generation applications can integrate high-speed transaction processing with in-depth analytics in real time, dramatically improving the effectiveness and efficiency of processes across the enterprise.

Innovations of this magnitude typically raise a number of critical questions, including the following:

• Who are the early adopters of this technology, and what have they gained?
• What if I postpone the decision until I see how other organizations have fared with it first?
• How long can I afford to stick with the tried-and-true prior-generation technology and not get left behind for good?
• Based on my answers to each of the questions above, when would it be right for my organization to embrace the change?

The goal of this paper is to give SAP customers, and those considering SAP® solutions, a framework for answering these questions. Specifically, it addresses what SAP HANA means for business processes and IT operations in general, and how different kinds of enterprises can leverage different adoption strategies to capture the most value from it.