More S/4-PS, please!

SAP is trying very hard to ultimately convince its existing customers of Hana and S/4. The fact is, however, that the vast majority of Business Suite 7 users agree to an S/4 conversion because there are no alternatives. This is a dangerous development for SAP.

Strictly speaking, SAP has given up on itself. SAP has capitulated to its existing customers in terms of content. For many months, the final argument in favor of Hana and S/4 has been the much-vaunted cloud computing, which is supposed to bring more horsepower, see illustration. SAP has set a deadline and thus put its existing customers under pressure. The argument is now only: more horsepower in the cloud.

There is no discourse on content. Whereas in the past there was a critical and constructive debate about the best possible business processes, about optimal organizational structures and workflows, SAP is currently only putting forward technical arguments such as cloud computing and process mining. SAP is investing a lot in this area and can also demonstrate PS, but without a conceptual superstructure - which is why Rise with SAP has also petered out.

More than a year ago, SAP bought a very powerful process mining tool for a lot of money. Next to Celonis, perhaps the most potent system. So the horsepower was there. But what to do with it? Where should the journey go? Merely lifting SAP Business Suite 7 onto a new platform and stepping on the gas is not enough for most existing SAP customers, see illustration.

Six months later, SAP became aware of the intellectual deficit, because the purchased process mining horsepower went unused. A new partnership with Professor August-Wilhelm Scheer is now supposed to provide the intellectual superstructure for Signavio's high-performance process mining tool. A good decision, but the Signavio competitor Celonis from Munich has already initiated a scientific backup and an analytical framework many years ago with Professor Wil van der Aalst, who has been Chief Scientist at Celonis for more than half a year.

Celonis announced the appointment of Professor Wil van der Aalst as Celonis Chief Scientist in August of last year, and just two months later SAP presented its rejuvenated partnership with Professor August-Wilhelm Scheer. The insight from this: As a substructure, the existing SAP customer needs more horsepower for their ERP to get value for money, but without a conceptual superstructure and a verified roadmap, it doesn't work.

PS in the SAP community are not only a strong Hana engine to step on the gas, but should also be a blueprint for where the journey can lead. Contemporary PS for S/4 consists of a semantic and syntactic component. The two together could really move SAP's existing customers forward and not just offer them a sound bite: Hum! Hum! Roaaarr!