The SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) has come a long way in the past year alone, let alone since its conception back in 2021. With more services added, better support for AI, stronger multi-cloud capabilities, and continued investment in tools for developers and business users alike, it’s quickly been shifted to a central element the SAP ecosystem.
We have seen first-hand an increase in organisations under pressure to modernise, innovate and do more with less. This means SAP BTP is playing a bigger role than ever. But with constant updates and so many moving parts, it can be hard to keep up, let alone know where to start.
That’s why our team of experts—Vik, Jacob, Soumya, Sab and Aditi—have joined forces to create this guide. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to expand your use of BTP, we’ve packed it with real-world insight, practical use cases and best practices from across industries. Our aim with this guide is for it to help you understand what BTP is today, where it’s headed, and how you can unlock its full value for your business.
What is SAP BTP?
SAP BTP is SAP’s modern innovation platform that brings together data, analytics, application development, integration, and automation all in one place. It gives organisations the tools to connect systems, build and extend applications, and make smarter decisions using real-time insights.
Whether you’re running in the cloud, on-premise, or in a hybrid setup, BTP helps keep your core clean while enabling agile development on the side. It supports major hyperscalers like Microsoft Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud, making it highly flexible and scalable.
Think of it as the foundation layer for innovation in the SAP world, where you can create custom solutions, unify data, and bring intelligent technologies like AI and machine learning into your business processes. From streamlining operations to building entirely new digital experiences, SAP BTP helps you do more with your existing landscape without disrupting what already works.
What makes up the business technology platform?
Think of SAP BTP as a box of LEGO for enterprise innovation. Each service is a building block — powerful on its own, but only truly valuable when assembled with purpose. SAP groups these services into five key pillars, designed to help you build, automate, connect, and optimise your business.
But here’s the catch: like LEGO, if you don’t know what you’re building, the blocks don’t do much. That’s where we come in. At Bluestonex, we help you join the blocks together to create something meaningful, scalable, and ready for the real world.
Let’s look at what each pillar enables and how they support real transformation:
Application Development
Modern enterprises need modern applications to transform functions and processes. SAP BTP delivers the flexibility to build and extend them in the way that best suits your business. This pillar empowers both professional developers and business users to create scalable, secure, and tailored solutions using:
SAP Build for low-code/no-code development
SAP Business Application Studio for pro-code development
SAP Fiori and SAPUI5 for powerful user experiences
Cloud-native architecture on Cloud Foundry and Kubernetes
This pillar is all about enabling rapid innovation, prototyping, and deployment without compromising on governance or performance.
Automation
The automation pillar is all about doing more with less — reducing manual work, speeding up processes, and improving accuracy. Through built-in tools such as:
SAP Build Process Automation
Workflow services
Embedded business rules
…you can automate everything from simple approval chains to complex, multi-system operations. This not only enhances efficiency but also gives teams back their time to focus on higher-value work.
Integration
Integration is the glue that holds your technology landscape together and SAP BTP excels at it. This pillar ensures seamless connectivity across SAP and third-party systems, whether they’re on-premise, in the cloud, or hybrid.
With solutions like:
SAP Integration Suite
Pre-built connectors and APIs
Event-driven architecture
…you can achieve real-time data synchronisation, process orchestration, and end-to-end visibility. The result? A connected enterprise that moves faster, collaborates better, and reduces duplication of effort.
Artificial Intelligence
AI in SAP BTP isn’t an add-on — it’s embedded into the core of the platform. This pillar helps businesses move from reactive to proactive decision-making by incorporating:
SAP AI Core and SAP AI Launchpad
Generative AI capabilities via the Generative AI Hub
Pre-trained AI Business Services for common use cases
From document processing and intelligent recommendations to conversational AI and anomaly detection, the platform brings practical, embedded AI directly into your business processes — with full visibility and control.
Data and Analytics
Data is your most valuable asset and SAP BTP’s Data and Analytics pillar ensures you’re set up to use it effectively. This pillar enables you to collect, unify, model, and analyse data in real-time, turning insights into action.
Key capabilities include:
SAP HANA Cloud as the foundation
SAP Datasphere for a unified data fabric
SAP Analytics Cloud for real-time dashboards and forecasting
Data governance with SAP Master Data Governance
Recently, SAP has taken this capability a step further by evolving it into a new strategic focus: SAP Business Data Cloud. This sub-platform aims to simplify the way businesses connect data across landscapes, offering a harmonised foundation for AI, planning, and analytics.
Together, these five pillars form a cohesive platform that supports the full lifecycle of business and IT transformation. They’re designed to work seamlessly together, allowing organisations to build, connect, automate, and optimise with consistency. By unifying tools and data across the landscape, SAP BTP helps teams move faster, reduce complexity, and focus on delivering value where it matters most.
Why SAP BTP? The Business Value at a Glance
SAP BTP might live in the technical realm of a business but every aspect of it is designed to solve a specific set of real-world challenges, whether it’s speeding up delivery, connecting siloed systems, automating repetitive tasks, or making better use of data. But the most value comes when these capabilities are used together. Instead of working in isolation, teams can build, optimise and scale with one shared platform, using tools that are already integrated and ready to support both day-to-day improvements and long-term change. Heres’s a few examples of the top benefits of the platform:
Build apps at the speed of business
SAP BTP is ideal for helping businesses respond quickly to change via its application development capabilities.
For example, using low-code/no-code tools like SAP Build, business and IT users can create and iterate apps without traditional development timelines. This significantly reduces the time between idea and implementation, allowing companies to capitalise on new opportunities before competitors. BTP empowers organisations to transform ideas into scalable applications fast, keeping innovation flowing.
Automate processes and free up capacity
Automation on SAP BTP allows companies to reduce manual workloads and reallocate talent to higher-value tasks. Tools like SAP Build Process Automation can eliminate repetitive steps in workflows, from invoice approvals to employee onboarding. This not only speeds up operations but also improves accuracy and compliance. The result is greater efficiency and reduced operational friction. An easy win for businesses trying to do more with less.
Connect systems for seamless operations
Effective integration is critical in complex IT landscapes, and BTP brings consistency across SAP and third-party systems. Using SAP Integration Suite, organisations can unify fragmented processes — like linking e-commerce platforms to logistics systems — in a secure, scalable way. This removes silos, ensures data flows freely, and creates a single source of truth across departments. Integrated systems enable faster decision-making and smoother user experiences, both internally and externally.
Embed intelligence where it matters most
AI capabilities in SAP BTP allow businesses to enhance decision-making and automate judgement-based tasks. For instance, integrating AI into customer service processes can route queries intelligently, reducing response times. Rather than treating AI as a standalone solution, BTP makes it part of the flow — embedded in apps, workflows, and analytics. This practical approach to AI boosts productivity and unlocks smarter outcomes without disruption.
Turn data into actionable insights
Data is only valuable when it’s accessible, accurate, and insightful — and that’s where BTP excels. SAP Analytics Cloud, part of the platform, helps users analyse live business data from SAP and non-SAP sources in real time. This empowers leaders to make informed decisions based on current performance, trends, and forecasts. BTP turns data into a competitive advantage by making insight accessible to those who need it, when they need it.
The platform advantage
The true power of SAP BTP lies in its unification of capabilities across it’s 5 pillars – app development, automation, integration, AI, and analytics. It’s like having the Infinity Gauntlet of business IT. The individual pillars (infinity stones) are really powerful in their own way, but when you put them together, you’re unstoppable. When you utilise the pillars as one force, it becomes a single foundation to build, run, and optimise intelligent business processes — accelerating digital transformation with speed, consistency, and confidence. It also means you don’t need to stitch together disparate tools or wait for innovation cycles.
Taking advantage of the platform as a whole means you can reap the following benefits:
Innovate before competitors
The past few years have shown that customer requirements can change rapidly. Innovating before competitors gives companies a huge advantage. Quickly adapting to customer needs often leads to quicker adoption of products or services. The SAP BTP facilitates innovation at pace so businesses can keep up with an ever-changing market.
Run in Uncertainty
As we have discovered, change is the only constant in business, so it’s essential to have agility and continuity to run in times of uncertainty. BTP is a hosted cloud platform, meaning even if you go down, BTP does not. BTP keeps businesses running permanently.
Champion Cost Savings
Cost-saving pressures are only rising for businesses currently. By leveraging BTP and cloud services, companies can relieve some of this pressure and save huge overheads on incumbent on-premises SAP solutions.
Agility and pivot at speed
Adapt and pivot with a dynamic market. SAP BTP offers agility and innovation that match the market’s external needs. This allows businesses to excel in a digital-first world.
Grow with Multi-cloud Openness
Multi-cloud openness creates great flexibility around deployment as well as adapting and tailoring solutions to customer and company needs. SAP BTP facilitates growth through innovation and customer-centric thinking deployed in a cloud format.
Keep the Core Clean
SAP BTP allows you to extend and enhance your SAP landscape without modifying the core ERP system. By building on BTP rather than customising within S/4HANA, you follow SAP’s clean core strategy — keeping your digital core stable, upgrade-friendly, and aligned with SAP’s future roadmap. This means faster innovation cycles, lower technical debt, and smoother adoption of new SAP features.
SAP BTP Use Cases
SAP BTP is an engine for innovation and transformation. Its modular structure enables organisations to start where they’ll see the most value, whether that’s building apps, integrating systems, or automating processes. Below are some use case examples, including a few real-world case studies, showing how businesses are using the platform to solve critical challenges.
Integration Case: Integrating a third-party insurance provider
Watches of Switzerland needed to integrate Zillion, a third-party insurance provider, into both their POS and ECC systems — and they needed it live in just two weeks. Using SAP Integration Suite and Bluestonex’s Integration Services, the team rapidly deployed, configured, and mapped interfaces without disrupting business. The result? Seamless, scalable integration that lets Watches of Switzerland protect $330,000 worth of purchases on day 1 alone.
Use SAP Integration Suite to accelerate digital connectivity, reduce reliance on legacy middleware, and future-proof your architecture.
Automation Case: Warehouse Process Automation on SAP BTP
To improve user experience and reduce manual effort in its distribution centres, Brakes UK used SAP BTP and a human-centred design approach to develop custom SAPUI5 applications. These apps automated critical logistics processes, reduced dependency on skilled SAP users, and improved employee satisfaction. The entire solution — from design thinking to rollout — was built on BTP using Bluestonex’s Maextro framework, transforming outdated workflows into sleek, efficient operations.
Use SAP BTP to automate repetitive tasks, reduce risk, and ensure compliance in business-critical processes.
Application Development Case: Improving Sales Processes
Autoglass Ireland transformed its manual, outsourced sales process by adopting SAP BTP and a custom product ordering app. Built using Bluestonex’s accelerator and deployed on SAP BTP, the new app enabled depot managers to search and order products independently, reducing the need for FTEs and improving turnaround times. With branding, user roles, and order history tailored to their business, Autoglass now runs a faster, leaner sales process with no increase in headcount.
Use SAP BTP to modernise apps, empower users, and streamline your core processes.
Organisations handling high volumes of support tickets often struggle with delays, misrouting, and inconsistent resolutions. By using SAP BTP’s Generative AI and AI Core services, businesses can automate ticket classification, extract intent, and suggest resolutions in real time. Integrated with SAP systems, this reduces triage effort, improves response times, and increases first-time fix rates — all without replacing existing support platforms.
Use SAP BTP to embed AI into operational processes and unlock efficiency with context-aware automation.
Data Case: Real-Time Data Visibility for Better Decision-Making
Siloed data across SAP and non-SAP systems limits business insight and agility. With SAP BTP’s data and analytics services — including SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud — businesses can unify data into a single, trusted layer and deliver real-time dashboards to decision-makers. From operational metrics to strategic KPIs, users get the right data, at the right time, with full lineage and governance.
Use SAP BTP to connect, cleanse, and analyse your data — and turn insight into action faster.
Is SAP Cloud Platform the same as SAP BTP?
Yes, the SAP Cloud Platform and the Business Technology Platform are one and the same. The only difference is a rebrand. When the Platform as a Service was first launched in 2013, SAP dubbed it the Cloud Platform. However, as it has evolved into a resource for businesses, Business Technology Platform became a name with a better fit. There’s no real difference between the two. They refer to the same platform for creating and developing applications to improve business SAP’s but Business Technology Platform is the current correct name.
Hyperscalers and BTP: A backbone for the service
SAP BTP doesn’t run in a vacuum — it runs on hyperscaler infrastructure like AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud. These providers supply the underlying hardware and data centres that host SAP BTP services globally.
Think of your favourite snack. Hyperscalers are like a national chain of supermarkets, all selling your favorite snack and making it accessible from wherever you need it. SAP ensures these services meet strict standards, but the reach and scale come from hyperscalers like AWS and Microsoft.
Why it matters
• You choose the provider and region that suits your compliance and latency needs • Not all services are available in every region — always check the SAP Discovery Center • Your BTP experience is shaped by the hyperscaler’s performance, availability, and footprint
→ Tip: When planning BTP services, confirm which hyperscaler and region your subaccount runs on — it affects service availability and cost.
Is SAP BTP Suitable for Small Businesses?
Yes, SAP BTP is absolutely suitable for small businesses, even if they don’t currently run SAP workloads on BTP. In fact, many smaller organisations prefer it for its modular pricing, scalable architecture, and ease of integration with both SAP and non-SAP systems.
While Microsoft’s Azure and Copilot are strong contenders, especially in the SME market, SAP BTP stands out with deeper business process integration, access to Joule (SAP’s generative AI), and native connectivity to core SAP data, offering unmatched value for businesses already invested in SAP.
And with pay-as-you-go options, you don’t need a large upfront commitment to get started.
Understanding SAP BTP Licensing
SAP BTP offers flexible licensing models to suit different business needs, from small POCs to full-scale enterprise rollouts. Understanding your model is critical to avoid wasted investment and to extract real value.
1. Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) • No upfront cost • Activate or deactivate services anytime • Ideal for testing, innovation, or small-scale pilots
2. Subscription Model • Commit to individual services (e.g. Integration Suite) • Typically part of a 3-year contract • Predictable spend, but fixed scope
3. BTP Enterprise Agreement (BTPEA) • Prepay for a pool of credits • Access to all 60+ BTP services • Credits expire annually if unused • Best suited for strategic, long-term planning — but needs active management
Many customers unknowingly commit credits as part of large SAP deals but never activate them, which is a waste of revenue and a waste of potential value. With the right strategy and planning, customers can unlock up to 5x ROI from their BTP investment.
Plan with the Discovery Center
Use SAP’s Discovery Center to: • Browse services available by region and provider • Estimate usage costs and service availability • Align use cases to BTP services with guided missions
If you’ve been exploring BTP but aren’t quite ready to commit, the good news is — yes, a trial version of SAP BTP is available.
SAP offers a Free Tier model that lets you try out a wide range of BTP services with no upfront cost. It’s designed to help individuals and businesses experiment, build, and learn before moving into paid usage — ideal for those starting out or running proof of concept projects.
What Can You Do with the Free Tier?
The Free Tier gives you access to over 30 key BTP services, across the five pillars.
Best of all, this isn’t just a static demo. The Free Tier supports real development work. You can build full applications, test integrations, and even begin automating key processes. When you’re ready to scale up, your work can move directly into a paid plan — no need to start over.
Free Tier vs. Trial Account
SAP also offers a Trial Account alongside the Free Tier. While both allow you to explore BTP, the Free Tier is better suited for longer-term experimentation and realistic builds because:
It has no time limit
It supports commercial-grade service plans
It’s designed to grow into production
The Trial Account, on the other hand, is limited in duration and scope — useful for short-term exploration, but less flexible overall.
You can sign up for the Free Tier via the SAP Discovery Center, which also offers guided missions, reference architectures, and cost estimators to help you get started.
The Limits of SAP BTP
Like all things, there are limits to SAP BTP services, but they come in two forms: technical limits set by the platform, and commercial limits tied to your licensing.
Technical limits are built into each service. You simply can’t use more resources than SAP provides. These include things like maximum API calls, storage, and processing capacity. These limits ensure the platform stays reliable and fair for all users.
On the commercial side, the limits depend on what you actually need and will use—and how you pay for it. SAP offers different licensing models to fit varying business needs:
Consumption-based licensing means you pay for whatever you consume. If you use more, you pay more. It’s flexible but costs can fluctuate.
Subscription-based licensing lets you decide upfront what you want to pay for, such as a fixed amount of capacity or users, giving you predictable costs.
Both models are customisable, so you can adjust your usage and costs according to your business requirements, but always within the technical limits SAP sets.
How can I monitor my SAP BTP environment?
Monitoring SAP BTP performance is an important ability for any SAP programme leader. Typically, applications used from the BTP are charged per license and if those licenses are not being taken advantage of, it’s a waste of money. The SAP BTP Monitor is an application which enables BTP users to monitor BTP Licenses and consumption, reporting, management, user creation and self-service. It’s a great way for organisations to ensure lean and effective usage of the Business Technology Platform and optimise how It is used.
Turning Possibility into Progress with SAP BTP
SAP BTP has evolved into more than just a platform. It’s a vast and powerful ecosystem that brings together technologies, services, and strategy under one roof. If you’ve made it this far, you likely already understand its potential. But reading about it is only the beginning, as even though this guide is the size it is, we have only covered the surface level points.
The reality is you could spend months navigating SAP BTP’s services, pricing models, and implementation paths… or you could work with a team that’s already done the groundwork. At Bluestonex, we have dedicated specialists aligned to each of the five pillars of SAP BTP. That means we don’t just provide advice, we create insights that are practical, strategic, and tailored to your exact business case… and can then help you execute them.
Whether you’re planning a proof of concept, activating unused cloud credits, or simply trying to figure out where to start, we’re here to help you make sense of it all and move with confidence.
Dive into our collection of expert insights, industry guides, and thought leadership pieces. From practical tips to in-depth explorations, our blogs and guides are designed to help you stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of SAP solutions, data management and digital transformation.
