Five Levels of Autonomous SAP Operations: Why SAP Basis Still Matters in the Autonomous Enterprise
The following is adapted from an article written by Puneet Khatri, Head of Services, Libelle Americas and published in a recent SAPinsider issue: The Autonomous Enterprise Has an SAP Basis Problem
Beneath the Autonomous Enterprise
The Autonomous Enterprise, when realised, will still depend on the same underlying SAP Basis layer that has supported SAP for decades. Since I first entered SAP operations in 2001, that foundation has remained largely unchanged, and it is likely to remain unchanged for the next decade or two. SAP still relies on Basis experts to apply support packages, address security notes, and move transports, the essential work that keeps the systems enabling autonomy running.
Here is the question every Basis and operations leader should be asking: When agents run the business, who runs the agents?
While the business has been busy automating the decisions, it has made little to no effort to automate the underlying operations. This difference is an oversight. It is critical, and it presents a real risk
The Operational Autonomy Gap
The wider the gap between business process autonomy and how manual the operations beneath them remain, the higher the risk. The faster a business runs and the more automated its decisions are, the more costly an operational failure will be.
The Basis discipline, far from being made obsolete by the autonomous enterprise, has just become the thing it quietly depends on most.
A failed transport, a missed step in a system copy, or a hanging job now results in quite a different consequence. Every increase in process autonomy raises the cost of an operational failure. Operational recovery time becomes the Autonomous Enterprise's weak link.
Moving Towards Autonomous SAP Operations
Autonomy isn’t on or off. It is delivered in degrees or on a continuum. Using an illustration from autonomous driving, Khatri describes the autonomy of SAP operations over five levels – “Five levels of Autonomous SAP Operations”.
Level of Autonomy Operations posture
- L0 — Manual Reactive; humans detect and resolve everything
- L1 — Scripted Runbooks and scheduled jobs automate known tasks
- L2 — Assisted AIOps surfaces anomalies and recommends fixes; humans approve
- L3 — Conditional System self-heals defined scenarios; humans handle exceptions
- L4 — High Predictive, self-tuning, self-recovering operations within guardrails
- L5 — Full Operations indistinguishable from the autonomous business it serves
From experience and observation, SAP operations are already quite handicapped. With almost all SAP operational tasks being reactive and manual, most organisations’ SAP operations are sitting squarely at Level 0. There is much work to be done before autonomous SAP operations can be contemplated.
Automation is a Start, but it Isn’t Autonomy
Automation is not the same as autonomy, but it is the starting point. Reducing reliance on manual SAP operations is the first step toward greater operational autonomy.
There are many opportunities to automate SAP operations, from system copy and data anonymisation to change and transport management. SAP operations teams should start by automating as much routine work as possible, then work with vendors to orchestrate, and then move toward genuine autonomy.
As solution vendors increasingly use AI to extend automation, it is not difficult to see how SAP operations can progress toward Level 3 or Level 4 autonomy in due course.
Where to Next?
In the very near future, agents will run the business. The question is whether SAP Basis will be running the platform on which they run.
You have built an autonomous front end bolted onto a manual back end, and you have moved your single point of failure from the application to the operations team.
From my observation point, without an epiphany or intervention, autonomous SAP operations are still quite a way off. SAP Basis is barely automated, far from orchestrated, and certainly not positioned for autonomous operations.
So... don’t offload your SAP Basis team just yet.
