SAP Support Services for Payroll Compliance Needs

Scotland

Area

Europe

Employees

20,000+

Industry

Local Government

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The Problem

Scottish city council faced a critical deadline when SAP announced it would stop providing essential Tax, Legal, and Regulatory (TLR) updates, including vital payroll updates, for its SAP ECC 6 EhP 5 system after 31 December 2025. This created a major risk for the council, which is responsible for paying over 20,000 employees. To continue receiving SAP TLR updates, the council was required to perform an upgrade to EhP 8, estimated to cost millions. However, the city had already committed £23 million to migrate to Oracle Fusion by late 2027. Investing millions into a legacy system scheduled for decommissioning offered zero return on investment. The council needed a way to maintain payroll compliance and system support for its existing SAP footprint without being forced into an expensive, unnecessary upgrade.

The Solution: Advanced Overlay Support

After a competitive RFP process, the council selected Support Revolution to implement a specialised overlay support model to complement their existing SAP contract. This beneficial arrangement allows the council to maintain its primary SAP contract through 2027 while Support Revolution “fills the gap” for essential services the vendor refused to cover for the older EhP 5 version.

Key Components of the Overlay Model

Critical payroll compliance: Support Revolution provides Scottish-specific payroll tax updates, ensuring 20,000+ staff members continue to be paid accurately and on time
Contractual guarantees: Unlike SAP’s standard terms, Support Revolution delivers ultra-responsive resolution guarantees as part of the core agreement
UK G-Cloud: The council leveraged the UK G-Cloud agreement for comprehensive SAP estate support, partnering with Support Revolution

The Benefits of Overlay Support

The implementation of overlay support delivered immediate financial and operational advantages by decoupling the council’s roadmap from SAP’s end-of-support dates.

Financial Savings and Cost Avoidance:

Avoidance of forced upgrades: The council immediately bypassed an expensive upgrade to EhP 8—an investment that offered zero long-term value for a system slated for decommissioning.
Elimination of premium support fees: By leveraging Support Revolution’s ultra-responsive SLAs which include resolution guarantees as fast as 2 hours for P1 issues the council was able to cancel its expensive MaxAttention premium support contract, further reducing annual spend.

Operational Accuracy and Compliance:

Seamless payroll continuity: Overlay support ensures that over 20,000 staff members continue to be paid accurately and on time, filling the gap left by SAP for the legacy EhP 5 environment.
Proactive threat protection: The partnership includes Revolutionary Enterprise Security to protect the council’s SAP estate and monthly Security Threat Identification Reports (STIR) to mitigate new vulnerabilities.

Strategic Freedom and Flexibility:

Migration de-risking: Complex ERP migrations often face delays; Support Revolution is committed to
supporting the legacy SAP environment for as long as needed, providing a safety net if the Oracle Fusion go-live date shifts.
Roadmap independence: The council regained control over its technology timeline, free from the pressure of vendor-dictated end-of-support dates or forced software upgrades.
Optimized internal resources: The IT team is freed from the technical debt of maintaining an aging system, allowing them to focus 100% on the strategic transition to the cloud.

Faced with a mandatory expensive upgrade for a legacy system we planned to decommission, we needed a partner to bridge the gap. Support Revolution provides the essential payroll updates and compliance we require, allowing us to avoid unnecessary costs and focus on our migration to Oracle Fusion.

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