I want a pizza with kebab meat

The business magazine "brand eins" dedicates this year's February issue to the focus "Communication". And brand eins star author Wolf Lotter writes: "Communication means talking to each other - not against each other." In his editorial, Lotter has many more good and correct sentences, all of which should be projected large on house walls.

Since Jennifer Morgan and Christian Klein have been at the helm of SAP, existing customers often hear the phrases "We need to listen to our customers" and "The wishes of the customers are important and to be respected".. The press is full of praise for SAP, finally the ERP group listens to its customers!

However, as an affected party, as an existing customer, the situation is different: Should existing customers now do SAP's work? Research, verify and think about what is useful and necessary? SAP's existing customers pay SAP for "answers" and not for "questions" - according to the motto: Make a wish.

It seems counterproductive to position oneself in front of the existing customer with a confusing price list (PKL) and numerous contradictory and announced and discontinued products and now demand that the customer bring order to the chaos and finally articulate what the ERP user really wants.

If the inventor of standardized business processes no longer knows what is necessary and useful, how should the existing customer know? Conversely, the user could go to SAP and ask: What should I produce? What should I sell?

In a starred restaurant, I don't want to hear from the chef: What should I cook? Quite the opposite! I take the menu of the day and the house wine, because I rely on the competence of the restaurant.

I deliberately chose this place because I am convinced of the quality of the cuisine and the waiter. It's a similar story for most of SAP's existing customers:

They chose SAP not because of its logo, its Abap programming language, or its love of the cloud, but because of its business expertise, its standardized business processes, and its holistic problem-solving capabilities.

SAP must listen to its customers: "I want a pizza with kebab meat." And SAP must provide qualified answers: "No, you don't." SAP does not owe the community a sprawling PKL, but verified digitization. SAP must deliver: strategies, implementation, clarity, and predictability.

"Talking to each other sincerely means genuine curiosity instead of trying to convince the other person of your own position. Sincere also means that you really want to know why the others tick in a way that you don't."

writes Wolf Lotter on page 41 of the February 2020 issue of "brand eins.

Wolf Lotter writes this with a light pen. In SAP's reality, it will be difficult to implement. But it can succeed. The young co-CEOs, Jennifer Morgan and Christian Klein, have the genes for it. It remains a balancing act between strategy, expectations, PKL, roadmaps and trust.