Narrative economy

At its core, it is about researching popular narratives that spread through society in a similar way to infectious diseases or viruses. These economic narratives significantly influence the economic decisions that people and companies make, how they explain the world to themselves, where they see dangers and what is ultimately important to them.

For the SAP community, a holistic understanding of the narrative ERP economy is of existential importance, as complex IT investments in the millions require a strong foundation of trust and a clear, comprehensible strategy for the future. What about the SAP roadmap beyond 2040?

A solid, fact-based narrative is not a marketing end in itself, but provides essential orientation in times of radical transformation and forced S/4 conversion. The ERP narrative serves as essential communication with the SAP community in order to form and shape common goals.

Instead of providing the SAP community with a meaningful narrative for the cloud age, however, the SAP Executive Board often loses itself in technical sophistry and the mere repetition of familiar buzzwords. SAP CEO Christian Klein tirelessly recites technical buzzwords, but often leaves users alone with the fundamental answer to the business purpose.

Traditional economics often views people as rational optimizers who always react appropriately and logically to new information. Narrative economics, on the other hand, recognizes that collective economic actions are extremely often driven by stories (storytelling) that „go viral“ through word of mouth, news and social media.

Such meaningful narratives have the primary function of condensing reality, reducing the complexity and technical complexity and untangling difficult cause-and-effect relationships. SAP has gradually retreated into an isolated echo chamber, driven primarily by the fear of losing control. Instead of courageously engaging in an open, critical discourse with the community.

But why is a strong narrative just as important to the survival of an IT company like SAP as excellent stock market and balance sheet figures? SAP CEO Christian Klein and CFO Dominik Asam celebrated dizzying records on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange last year because they served up the exact narrative of booming cloud revenues to hungry financial analysts. But the purely financially driven storytelling is like building Potemkin villages. While shareholders rejoice, frustration is growing at the base of the SAP community over a lack of ERP vision, unresolved architecture issues and the threat of vendor lock-in without a cloud exit strategy. The SAP share price plummeted by over 40 percent!

Balance sheets and share prices merely reflect investors' expectations, but they do not build trust among the people who use SAP software in factories and offices. Without a narrative that offers existing customers a clear, beneficial perspective beyond naked technology hype, SAP will lose relevance in the hearts of companies.