Inexorable march of progress at SAP threatens to leave users behind

Nearly a quarter of SAP users in its European heartlands say they cannot keep up with technological, social or economic advances. Research by the German-speaking SAP user group (DSAG), which includes members from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, found that only 11 percent of respondents can easily match the pace of change, …

[Pascal Monett]

That's enough

It is not SAP HQ who decides what businesses need to do.

Businesses decide what they can do and SAP follows.

It is fucking time that the few high-level companies who make software (eh, Redmond ?) understand that they are services for their customers, not deciders.

[sketharaman]

Re: That's enough

Not really. I've been selling IT products and services for four decades. One of the fundamental differences between the two is TELL versus ASK. While a services company can ASK what customers want and scale by simply giving it to them, a product company cannot. To scale in the product business, a product company must have a POV and rally its customers around it, which it does via marketing. Ergo a typical Silicon Valley IT product company spends $2 in Marketing for every $1 in Product / Engineering. I've read so many articles about the disconnect between SAP and its user groups in the last couple of years but I don't recall a single article of that nature in the case of Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, and other leading IT product companies during the same period. To me, SAP's inability to rally its customers is Exhibit A of a serious problem in its marketing.

[Lonpfrb]

Re: That's enough

The rationale of implementing package software applications because you're not in the software development business includes many levers for businesses decisions on the scope of processes and quality of service.

However the inexorable cost pressure means that having decided what to do, the business must accept that how to do it at the cost they are willing to pay is constrained and no longer their decision. If they want free choice away from the reference architecture of their chosen solution there is additional cost. Sooner or later their choices will limit what is affordable and as SAP ECC showed, it's possible to make upgrades and innovation impossible.

Staying on the clean core and deciding only for significant benefits of local innovation requires insight and discipline which some customers will fail to do for their own reasons.

When management Capitalises their project costs they are unwilling to see local developments as a liability rather imagine them an asset. Finance is not the full picture though CFOs like to claim R&D costs back from the tax man. A whole life cycle approach is required to make good decisions.

[Anonymous Coward]

Being Sapped

Fixed that for them! :

But "strategic" *profits*, such as the introduction of tighter vendor lock-in and recurring revenue with no brakes on increases, could only be achieved in the cloud, he said.