Keep contact

Communication, information, and educational outreach have been the companions of SAP's successful existing customers since its inception. The many voices in the SAP community are proof of the dynamism and commitment. "Keeping in touch" has always been true, even more so in the current situation, because information and planning security are in demand.

SAP is conspicuously silent: There are hardly any explanations of the current challenges, and there is no sign of a joint initiative with partners, the media and the trade press.

A broad discourse about opportunities and challenges would be important. SAP could afford to provide resources and platforms for this important discourse on development and tasks among SAP's existing customers.

The Institute for Journalism at the Technical University of Dortmund has published a text on the topic "The Corona Crisis Threatens Independent Journalism" that is well worth reading:

"It's a paradoxical constellation: while the public's demand for reliable information, for classification and critical research is greater than it has been for a long time, while editorial offices are working around the clock from home offices, the economic basis for this very work is crumbling."

The E-3 magazine, online as well as print, can confirm the need for orientation and information based on web figures and subscription orders. Indirectly, the SAP community is also affected by the social and economic crisis.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects a recession in the euro zone this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Economic output will shrink by 7.5 percent, according to the IMF in its mid-April forecast.

As defined many times in E-3 Magazine, the direction taken "Hana and S/4" is not unwise, but a recession and the new Suite 7 deadline of 2027/2030 cause significant dislocations in the roadmaps of existing customers.

On-prem license revenue already slumped by around 30 percent in SAP's first fiscal quarter. This gives rise to conclusions about the European SAP community, which predominantly operates its own data centers.

Keeping in touch and keeping informed is therefore the order of the day. Independent information platforms are important guides through the challenging situation for SAP's existing customers and partners. The Institute for Journalism at the Technical University of Dortmund:

"Journalism is systemically relevant, in a fundamental way. Without free, independent, professional media, societies largely lose the ability to observe themselves. They can then no longer communicate in open discourse about who they are, where their problems lie and what solutions might look like.

Critical observation of the powerful in business, politics and civil society no longer takes place sufficiently. Societies are then defenselessly at the mercy of state propaganda, public relations and the wild noise spirals of social media."