After my last newsletter, a capability lead asked me a question. The BAIP competency doesn’t have BDC?
Fair question. I answered it, and then kept thinking about it. Because if one person asked, plenty more didn’t. That’s the number that bothers me.
Why the confusion? The product is BAIP. SAP renamed the BTP competency to match it, but BDC and BTM, both named as parts of BAIP, still have competencies of their own.
So here it is, as plainly as I can put it.
Quick bit of context first, if you don’t spend your days inside partner programmes. Three words do most of the work here, and they get used interchangeably all the time.
A competency is the headline recognition, awarded to a partner organisation. It shows on Partner Finder and customers read it as shorthand for “these people have done this before.”
A specialization sits inside a competency and narrows it to one area.
A certification is what an individual passes. Certifications are how a partner proves it has the people.
So the competency is the badge, the specializations are what the badge covers, and the certifications are the evidence underneath. The SAP BTP competency was renamed to SAP Business AI Platform on 30 June. It happened automatically. No exam, nothing to sign.
Here’s the page.
| Competency | Specializations |
|---|---|
| SAP Business AI Platform | Application Development and Automation, Database and Data Management, Integration, Artificial Intelligence Foundation |
| SAP Business Data Cloud (SAP BDC) | SAP Business Data Cloud |
| Business Transformation Management | Business Process Management (SAP Signavio), Process Analysis and Mining (SAP Signavio), Enterprise Architecture (SAP LeanIX), Digital Adoption (WalkMe) |
The top row looks about right. App dev and automation, data management, integration, AI Foundation. The platform as we’ve known it, with an AI specialization added on the end.
Then read the two rows underneath.
So the short answer to the question is no, it doesn’t. But the short answer is the least interesting part. If you’ve put this page next to the Sapphire announcement and assumed you’d misread one of them, you hadn’t. They don’t line up, and the gap isn’t where you’d expect.
Business Data Cloud has a competency of its own
That’s the part worth slowing down on.
At Sapphire in May, SAP introduced Business AI Platform as one platform: BTP, Business Data Cloud and governance from Business Transformation Management brought together, with new AI services on top. Herzig set it out in three layers on stage. Context, build, govern. That’s the pitch, and it’s a good one.
So BDC is part of BAIP in the product. In the competency framework it’s a separate competency with one specialization, named after itself, sitting directly under the competency that carries the platform’s name.
One row further down needs a fairer reading. BTM is the governance layer. Signavio, LeanIX and WalkMe are the part meant to tell you what your processes are before you point agents at them. It’s named in the platform definition, same as BDC.
But it got a fraction of the airtime. Data was the headline. Governance was the line near the end. So if you walked out of Sapphire without registering BTM as part of the platform, you weren’t the only one, and that’s where SAP put the emphasis rather than anything you missed. Which makes this row one to watch rather than one to shout about, for a reason that shows up further down.
Three rows on one page. One platform in the keynote.
There’s a fair argument against all this, and I made it to myself first.
The argument against, and where it falls apart
BAIP does have a data specialization. Database and Data Management, right there in the top row. So the platform’s competency covers data, and the separate BDC row is just extra depth for partners who go further.
Then you open the certification requirements for both and put them side by side.
| Certification | In the BAIP competency | In the BDC competency |
|---|---|---|
| Database Administrator, SAP HANA (C_DBADM) | yes | yes |
| Data Engineer, SAP HANA (C_HAMOD) | yes | yes |
| Security Administrator (C_SEC) | yes | no |
| Data Analyst, SAP Analytics Cloud (C_SAC) | no | yes |
| SAP Business Data Cloud (C_BCBDC) | no | yes |
| Data Architect, SAP Business Data Cloud (C_BDCDA) | no | yes |
| Solution Architect, SAP BTP (P_BTPA) | no | yes |
Two things jump out of that.
The overlap is the HANA pair. Both competencies ask for the same database administrator and data engineer certifications, and both of those are HANA. That’s the data estate we’ve been building on BTP for years.
The two certifications with Business Data Cloud in the name, C_BCBDC and C_BDCDA, are only in the right column. There’s no route to either of them through BAIP.
So a partner can meet every BAIP requirement, data specialization included, without anyone on the team ever sitting a Business Data Cloud exam. Now look at the last row. The BDC competency asks for the BTP Solution Architect certification. So BDC’s requirements point back at BTP, and BAIP’s requirements don’t point forward at BDC. The link only runs one way, and it’s the wrong way round for a platform that says BDC is part of it. Hold P_BTPA in mind, by the way. It comes back later.
The AI specialization has the same problem
While you’re in there, look at the fourth row.
Artificial Intelligence Foundation. One product, SAP’s generative AI hub. One learning journey, Solving Business Problems using SAP’s Generative AI Hub. One certification, C_AIG, Generative AI Developer.
That’s the AI specialization inside the competency called Business AI Platform. Nothing on Joule Studio. Nothing on agent design, orchestration or grounding. Nothing on the autonomous enterprise the whole thing is meant to be building towards.
Same shape as the data problem. The requirement describes the generation before the one being sold. Data points at HANA. AI points at the generative AI hub. The pitch on stage was agents grounded in Business Data Cloud.
At this point I assumed I was looking at a rushed rename. Someone changed a label in June, the requirements hadn’t caught up, October would tidy it.
Then I checked when the BDC competency had turned up.
January, not June
Back in January, SAP ran a partner webinar called Driving Partner Differentiation: SAP BTP and SAP Business Data Cloud Competency Framework Updates. It went through changes to the BTP competency and introduced the brand new Business Data Cloud competency.
January. Four months before the keynote that told everyone BDC was part of Business AI Platform.
So the framework isn’t lagging behind the product. SAP set BDC up as its own thing that partners get measured on separately. Then it announced an architecture where BDC isn’t its own thing at all.
The org chart makes it stranger. On 1 July SAP created a new board area for Business AI Platform and the CTO organisation under Philipp Herzig, bringing Data and Analytics, Business Transformation Management and Platform and AI under one leader. The reporting lines merged. The scorecard stayed split.
That’s the reason to watch BTM. It’s in the platform definition already, it now reports into the same board area, and the only thing it’s short of is airtime. Messaging tends to catch up with the org chart rather than the other way round. If governance starts getting the emphasis data already gets, the competency question comes straight back.
So this isn’t a gap that closes by itself. It’s how the framework is built, and it was built before the new name existed. That has a consequence, and it lands on whoever reads your badge.
What the badge tells a customer
Less than they think.
They read “SAP Business AI Platform competency” and hear “these people can deliver what was on the Sapphire stage.” What it proves is app dev and automation, integration, HANA-era data management, and one generative AI certification. A partner can hold the whole thing with no BDC certification on the team. Nothing in the badge says otherwise. Nothing in it says they have one, either.
I wrote last month that the badge changed and the bar did not. This is the other half of that. The name got wider than the thing it measures.
If you hold it, two things follow. Where BDC delivery is real in your practice, go after the BDC competency on its own, because the BAIP badge won’t carry it for you. And stop letting one badge do the talking in pursuits. Name the competencies you hold, plural, and name the projects behind each one.
And if you’re the one picking a partner, ask which competencies. Not which competency.
All of that holds until October, when SAP has said the structure itself changes.
Part of October has already turned up
SAP is launching a new certification in October 2026. SAP Certified Business AI Platform Solution Architect.
Look at how it’s built. Three pillars: build, contextualize and reason, govern. Those are the three layers Herzig set out on stage at Sapphire. Build is the platform. Contextualize and reason is the data and grounding layer. Govern is the governance layer.
So the certification covers the whole platform. All three layers, one exam. The competency framework still splits those same three layers across three separate rows.
The learning side is merging. The competency side hasn’t caught up.
Then there’s the line at the bottom of the announcement, and it’s a familiar one. Existing SAP BTP Solution Architects transition automatically.
That’s the second automatic transition in four months. In June the competency was renamed. In October the architect certification gets renamed. Both times the title moves into the new world and the evidence stays in the old one.
I’m not against it. You can’t reasonably ask thousands of architects to resit, and the alternative is worse. But it’s worth being straight about what the certificate proves afterwards. If you hold P_BTPA today and it becomes a Business AI Platform Solution Architect certification in October, you were assessed on BTP. You weren’t assessed on contextualize, and you weren’t assessed on govern.
October tells you the shape. January tells you the cost.
Two dates are already published. October 2026 brings updated specialization structures and revised product coverage aligned to the AI-first portfolio. January 2027 brings in new knowledge and proficiency requirements, with safeguarding periods for partners in transition.
October answers the structural question, and there are only two ways it lands. Either BDC and some of BTM fold into BAIP and the framework finally matches the product. Or the four specializations get adjusted, the neighbours stay put, and SAP carries on selling one platform while measuring three. The second one is fair enough, because forcing BDC into every partner’s scope would be worse than leaving it out. But then the name stays misleading, and we should say so instead of quoting the badge as if it covers the stack.
January is where the answer starts costing money, and it helps to know what the framework actually measures. Knowledge is how many certified people you have. Customer success is delivered projects, counted as go-live waves and none older than 24 months. Proficiency is how many specializations you hold under a competency. Certifications buy you the first one. Delivery buys you the second. They don’t substitute for each other.
SAP has said January activates new knowledge and proficiency requirements. So it’s the certification side and the specialization side that move, and you’ve just seen which certifications are in scope today. If BDC folds into BAIP, C_BCBDC and C_BDCDA become things your team needs rather than things sitting next door. If Artificial Intelligence Foundation gets rebuilt around agents, C_AIG stops being enough on its own. Safeguarding periods buy you time. They don’t do the work.
Three things to check when the October detail lands. Whether BAIP still shows four specializations. Whether Business Data Cloud is still its own row. And whether Artificial Intelligence Foundation still points at the generative AI hub. That last one is a single line in a requirements table, and it would tell you more about where SAP is heading than most of what gets said from the stage.
My guess is partial. Some product coverage moves across. BDC stays on its own, because it’s too big and too new to fold in this fast. The architect certification nudges me slightly the other way, since SAP has clearly decided one person can be assessed across all three layers. But a certification and a competency aren’t the same instrument, and the competency is the slower one. TechEd in Berlin at the end of October is where we find out. I’ll write this up again once the detail is public, and if the framework merges properly, I was wrong and I’ll say so.
That’s a lot to hold in your head while you wait, so I’ve put together a decoder for subscribers. It maps SAP’s three layers to the competency that measures each one, lists the certifications every competency asks for, and gives you a set of checks to run now, before October and before January. There’s also a page of questions worth putting to your Partner Development Manager. It goes out with the next issue of The Modish Exchange newsletter.
The job between now and October is smaller than it sounds. Work out which of those three rows your delivery evidence sits in. Most partners haven’t looked.
If you want to talk through where yours lands, book a call. I read every message.