ERP in a dilemma

Monopolies - and I include SAP and Lufthansa among them - develop an unmistakable momentum of their own: For Lufthansa's Miles & More, it seems to be a business advantage to bind passengers with a bonus card, but then to credit as few miles as possible.

If the problem of my mileage credit cannot be solved, I will request all my stored data in accordance with EU-DSGVO, resign from the club and request demonstrable deletion.

Even master of a widely ramified and complex SAP system, I know that this will cost Lufthansa thousands of euros. A dear acquaintance (a lawyer in Munich and on friendly terms with our DSAG association) will help me with this.

ERP in a dilemma:

The combination of monopoly-like structures and complex ERP systems maneuvered SAP into a difficult situation. Our R/3 was a "black box" with Abap modifications.

ERP/ECC 6.0 including NetWeaver changed the infrastructure: Our SAP system became part of the corporate IT. Our and SAP's core processes harmonized and worked satisfactorily on the basis of IBM DB2 and Oracle.

But SAP has moved very far away from us existing customers with the monopolistic posturing of "Hana", "S/4" and now "C/4". At the same time, service and further development of the classic core components at SAP have been neglected in favor of Hybris, Ariba, Concur, SuccessFactors, Leonardo, Fieldglass and the SAP Cloud Platform (SCP).

The SAP realm has become complex and hard to keep track of for us existing customers and probably also for SAP itself. Example: HR/HCM on-premise versus SuccessFactors HCM suite in SAP's cloud - anyone who can still see through this: please get in touch! Our SAP Basis has been working for months with our global HCM department on a feasibility study.

SAP is trying to escape from the "ERP dilemma" with a forward strategy towards cloud computing, blockchain, AI and IoT. They are aware that many users, like us, are still sitting on a business suite with IBM DB2 or Oracle, and that there are just as many small and medium-sized enterprises that have the MS SQL server in use.

The Hana database is inevitable, but it is still a long way from being administrable for every existing SAP customer - which pleases AWS and Microsoft and boosts their cloud business. The promised CRM with the innovative name C/4 will also not create a wave in the SAP community.

But one topic will emerge this fall and at our DSAG Congress in Leipzig that has the potential to be a game changer: autonomous systems and autonomous ERP.

Of course, the collective term "autonomous ERP" is not really new either. It is reminiscent of self-healing software and RPA (Robotic Process Automation). But with new computer science tricks from the AI treasure chest Machine/Deep Learning, I could imagine an autonomously driving ERP system controlled by AI robots. Whether it also solves our problems in the Z namespace remains to be seen.

It is to be feared, on the other hand, that SAP cannot save a business suite with AI from the Leonardo construction kit, but only wants to convey some positive mood. "Autonomous systems and autonomous ERP" could thus become a similar marketing stunt as C/4. Many ideas, many construction sites and no roadmap! And RPA is offered everywhere by now.

Final remark: Those who have read my text carefully will have noticed that I made extensive use of quotation marks in it - yes, I confess: we live in uncertain times!

Our association DSAG was not the only one to hit the mark with the summer survey and the congress topic "ERP in a Dilemma". In Walldorf and among many SAP partners, the sense of disorientation and uncertainty is also palpable.

There is a lack of clear statements, verified strategies and confidence in a shared future throughout the SAP community.