R "Ray" Wang
R "Ray" WangEvent Report: SAP UK & Ireland User Group Conference 2009
SAP users in UK and Ireland remain equally skeptical about SAP
(Photos by R Wang & Insider Associates, LLC. Copyright © 2009 All rights reserved.)
The SAP user group hosted its annual event. Conversations with 37 clients reflect the following broad trends in the UK and Ireland:
- SAP users remain skeptical about benefits promised by SAP due to lack of delivery over the past 5 years (See Figure 1.)
- SAP has spent more time reaching out to customers to understand pain points
- Knowledge gaps continue to exist between what SAP users know about SAP and what SAP sales people communicate to clients
- A show of hands in the audience validates conversations that SAP users have not adopted NetWeaver, Duet, ByD, Solution Manager, and Enterprise Support.
- Many customers have budget but need trusted advice as to what is possible in including SAP in their future roadmaps
- Customers seek innovation from SAP but find a difficult time understanding what SAP has to offer
- Many customers have turned to other providers for innovations via SaaS or cost optimization
Figure 1. What SAP Customers Want
The bottom line.
SAP users and their user groups have a unique opportunity to put in the right infrastructure to engage in productive partnership with SAP. The management team has shifted their outlook. Early signs indicate a more customer focused approach may be on the way. Customers seeking to innovate within their SAP investment should ask hard questions about what is in the SAP Labs portfolio. User groups will play a key role in helping to prioritize future SAP product road map investments. Users and their user groups should push for frameworks that monitor customer reuqests and increase transparency in the prioritization process. Customers can not allow SAP to squander any more of the 10's of billions in maintenance fee and license fees "invested" with SAP.
Your POV.
If you get a chance, let us know:
- Which SAP products do you use?
- When will you migrate to BS7 or ECC 6.0?
- What do you think about the progress on SUGEN KPI's
- Are you considering alternatives to SAP
- Do you feel SAP is innovating fast, ok, or slow enough?
Feel free to post your comments here or send me an email at rwang0 at gmail dot com or r at softwareinsider dot org.
Additional coverage and related links
Speaker Notes: Keynote - SAP UK & Ireland User Group Conference 2009
- 20091125 Computing - Nicola Brittain "SAP criticised for slow pace of innovation"
- 20091125 ComputerWeekly - Warwick Ashford "In bed with SAP - the future for enterprise software?"
- 20091125 eWeek Europe - Sophie Curtis "European Software Companies Lack Innovation, especially SAP"
- 20091125 myCustomer.com - Stuart Lochlan "Analyst tells SAP Analyst tells customers to kick open the SAP lab doors and demand what they need!"
- 20091125 Silicon.com - Tim Ferguson "Users tell SAP: We need to talk more"
- 20091125 CIO Magazine - Martin Veitch "Big software has given up on delivering the 'Next Big Thing'"
- 20091125 Computerworld UK - Staff "SAP 'not delivering on innovation' user group told"
- 20091125 ZDNet Irregular Enterprise - Dennis Howlett "SAP users start to flex their muscles"
- 20091124 AccMan - Dennis Howlett "5 recent SAP failures"
- 20091124 business CLOUD 9 - Stuart Lochlan "Innovation woes fuels the mess of SAP's cloud strategy"
- 20091124 ComputerWeekly - Karl Flinders "SAP at odds with user group over prices"
- 20091123 ZDNet Irregular Enterprise - Dennis Howlett "Fawning over Chatter and how SAP missed its chance"
- 20091123 ComputerWeekly - Warwick Ashford " SAP vows to get closer to users"