According to Forbes, Snowflake just announced a partnership with SAP that could boost its revenue growth rate by about five percentage points. The deal makes Snowflake’s AI platform available as an SAP solution extension for over 34,000 companies using SAP’s Business Data Cloud. Snowflake’s EVP Christian Kleinerman called this a “meaningful business opportunity” in a November 3 interview, while SAP’s Irfan Khan emphasized the value of combining SAP’s business applications with Snowflake’s data platform. If just 5% of SAP’s Business Data Cloud customers sign up, that could mean 3,400 new customers paying around $325,000 each, adding roughly $1.1 billion to Snowflake’s estimated $5.5 billion 2026 revenue.
Why This Is A Big Deal
Look, SAP has 440,000 customers—that’s about 40 times more than Snowflake currently serves. Basically, Snowflake just got access to an enormous new market without having to do all the heavy sales lifting themselves. And here’s the thing: this isn’t just about adding new logos. Snowflake’s business model means customers pay more as they use more data and computing resources. So every new customer from this partnership could become increasingly valuable over time.
But what’s really interesting is how this solves a genuine pain point for existing customers. Right now, companies wanting to combine Snowflake data with SAP’s rich business information have to go through third-party tools, pull data on schedules, and manually harmonize everything. It’s time-consuming and expensive. This partnership eliminates that friction entirely.
What This Means For Businesses
For enterprises using both platforms, this is basically Christmas come early. Think about companies like AstraZeneca, who already see huge value in having real-time access to combined data from both systems. Sales teams can get complete customer profiles before making calls. Customer service can instantly pull up account histories. Supply chain managers can access unified data without jumping through hoops.
And let’s talk about AI applications. Generative AI tools become dramatically more useful when they have access to comprehensive, clean business data. Instead of working with fragmented information, AI systems can now tap into SAP’s decades of business application data combined with Snowflake’s modern platform. That’s powerful stuff for companies trying to streamline operations or improve customer experiences.
The Competitive Angle
Now, SAP isn’t putting all its eggs in one basket here. They already partner with Databricks and Google’s BigQuery too. But this Snowflake deal feels different in scale and ambition. SAP’s announcement emphasizes delivering a “unified, enterprise-ready experience” that extends business data across the entire ecosystem.
So where does this leave Snowflake’s competitors? Well, they’re probably having some interesting meetings today. A potential 5 percentage point boost to growth is massive for a company already growing at 32%. If this partnership delivers even half of what’s being projected, it could significantly widen Snowflake’s lead in the data platform space.
The Long Game
Here’s what really stands out to me: both companies are being cagey about specific revenue projections. When pressed, executives from both sides declined to put numbers on the expected impact. That’s pretty standard for partnership announcements, but it makes you wonder—are they being conservative, or is the potential upside even bigger than we’re hearing?
The timing is also fascinating. Snowflake’s growth had been slowing from its earlier hypergrowth days, like most mature tech companies. This partnership could be exactly what they need to reaccelerate at a crucial moment. And for SAP? They get to position themselves as the open, flexible choice in an era where data interoperability is becoming table stakes.
Basically, this feels like one of those rare win-win partnerships where both companies get exactly what they need. Snowflake gets growth acceleration and market access, SAP gets enhanced customer value, and businesses get simpler data integration. Not bad for a Tuesday announcement.
