This is just beginning, gradually companies are moving out to seek cheaper alternative (in this case obviously India will be the top choice). This is sad fact of shared service industry. The intention of course was noble, to equip local with right knowledge and skills so perhaps one day we can stand on our own. For instance, freelancing, entrepreneurship etc etc. At some degree, I can see this is actually happening especially in SAP. We just have to embrace the change and be competitive in order to survive. In SAP's case, with introduction of HANA Enterprise Cloud, more and more skilled jobs are being reduced. When technology is becoming efficient, job opportunity is becoming competitive (hence high pay). The pie is getting smaller.

Well, the only difference is database. With previous SAP Cloud ERP, the database technology could be coming from different vendors for instance Oracle. But with HANA Enterprise Cloud (HEC), it's end to end solution from SAP. With HEC, it's not just Software as a Service we talking about but platform & infrastructure as a service as well. No longer network, server, SAP Basis to name a few required to maintain SAP infrastructure hence less jobs.

Business ByDesign is intended for mid size market. The on premise equivalent would be business one. While HEC could cater large enterprise and the equivalent would be SAP ECC. I thought Business ByDesign would be discontinued, Link

The product won't be available for new customer but existing customer will still be supported by SAP. ByDesign has limited modules, even as MNC, certain module might not necessarily have big users. So some of MNC has hybrid approach to use cheaper alternative for less users for instance HR module.