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Relationship Management

A message in a bottle is the ultimate in anachronism in our information and communication society. It is neither "realtime" like Hana nor interactive like Fiori.
Peter M. Färbinger, E3 Magazine
June 4, 2020
The-Last-Satire
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This text has been automatically translated from German to English.

Dear Hasso Plattner, I am writing you a letter and sending it as a message in a bottle. Luck has always been with me in the SAP community, so I hope that this message, too, will eventually reach you in a safe place. Sending a message in a bottle to an enthusiastic sailor seems logical to me.

Whether Bill McDermott has also retreated to a Caribbean island near you for shelter and rest, I don't know - but it would be a tradition. Not only in the U.S. ski resort of Aspen, where you own two houses, but also in your home in the Caribbean, you have often talked.

Bill no longer works for SAP, although he still gets a lot of money from you, that's just the way modern managerial contracts are, but that's another story. I'm writing you this message in a bottle from a bygone IT era, when hardware still drove the business.

You know this era well. There are three examples in my archives from that time: Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), Compaq and Apple. The PC shooting star Compaq bought the struggling minicomputer pioneer DEC and both together were taken over by HP.

Ultimately, the golden decades of hardware manufacturers came to an end. Apple and a few others managed the metamorphosis into software and service providers. Apple still sells a lot of hardware, but software is the differentiator.

The cartoon by Robert Platzgummer (1975 to 2016) was first published in the E-3 October 2013 issue. Back then, Hasso Plattner and Bill McDermott were one heart and soul and very relaxed.

With ERP software, SAP not only differentiated itself from the competition, but also established a new type of relationship management. Intellectual property was not an issue between existing customers, partners and SAP. Intellectual property was owned by the growing SAP community.

The common was stronger than the separating. Everyone knew their place, their responsibilities and their tasks. Today, however, coopetition or cooperation competition prevails and existing customers are looking anxiously to the future.

Relationship management between partners, customers and your SAP is in disarray. The move to the cloud is only partially working. You find yourself competing for cooperation with loyal companions.

The relationship with partners like Oracle and IBM is diffuse. What will become of Suite 7 users by 2030 who work on Oracle? What about Hana and the powerful on-prem solution IBM Power?

There are many questions from the SAP community for you and Bill McDermott's successors. After hardware came standard software in your own data center, now many are focused on the cloud.

What comes after cloud computing is uncertain. Whether there will be an agreement between SAP and Oracle regarding Business Suite 7 is uncertain. What the world will look like in a year's time and which island you will be on then is uncertain.

Honest relationship management would be the only constant and necessary condition for a successful SAP community.

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Peter M. Färbinger, E3 Magazine

Peter M. Färbinger, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief E3 Magazine DE, US and ES (e3mag.com), B4Bmedia.net AG, Freilassing (DE), E-Mail: pmf@b4bmedia.net and Tel. +49(0)8654/77130-21


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Working on the SAP basis is crucial for successful S/4 conversion. 

This gives the Competence Center strategic importance for existing SAP customers. Regardless of the S/4 Hana operating model, topics such as Automation, Monitoring, Security, Application Lifecycle Management and Data Management the basis for S/4 operations.

For the second time, E3 magazine is organizing a summit for the SAP community in Salzburg to provide comprehensive information on all aspects of S/4 Hana groundwork.

Venue

More information will follow shortly.

Event date

Wednesday, May 21, and
Thursday, May 22, 2025

Early Bird Ticket

Available until Friday, January 24, 2025
EUR 390 excl. VAT

Regular ticket

EUR 590 excl. VAT

Venue

Hotel Hilton Heidelberg
Kurfürstenanlage 1
D-69115 Heidelberg

Event date

Wednesday, March 5, and
Thursday, March 6, 2025

Tickets

Regular ticket
EUR 590 excl. VAT
Early Bird Ticket

Available until December 20, 2024

EUR 390 excl. VAT
The event is organized by the E3 magazine of the publishing house B4Bmedia.net AG. The presentations will be accompanied by an exhibition of selected SAP partners. The ticket price includes attendance at all presentations of the Steampunk and BTP Summit 2025, a visit to the exhibition area, participation in the evening event and catering during the official program. The lecture program and the list of exhibitors and sponsors (SAP partners) will be published on this website in due course.