The global and independent platform for the SAP community.

Resilience and the obligation to justify

Two buzzwords are cropping up more and more often in social discourse. Resilience and the obligation to justify would be anchor points for SAP CEO Christian Klein. We need resilience and verified roadmaps.
no-name
August 13, 2020
NoName
avatar
This text has been automatically translated from German to English.

In past years, it was a pathetic game: Our association DSAG demanded robust and verifiable roadmaps. SAP responded with PowerPoint presentations and annual outlooks - one as unhelpful as the other!

A colorful presentation is not a white paper. An editorial by Editor-in-Chief Färbinger is not a scientific paper. We at DSAG have never claimed that writing appropriate roadmaps for the SAP community is an easy finger exercise. But we transfer a lot of money to Walldorf, so we can demand something in return.

Flexibility to meet the challenges of professional life is important. We hope to achieve this resilience in our ERP systems through our work with support from SAP. Resilience is thus an important factor for the work of SAP's existing customers. Christian Klein should support us in this.

But we won't achieve resilience if SAP CEO Klein serves me something I know as little about as he does, and I can't locate these "stories" either. I am referring to Christian Klein's virtual Sapphire keynote:

Once again, a car is being sold and Klein takes us through the process of selection, production and delivery. As far as I'm informed, Klein has never been a car salesman. Who is he trying to impress with this story? I don't feel better or more resilient because Christian Klein thinks he knows how to sell cars.

Klein's Sapphire presentation lacks the duty to justify! Klein did not fulfill his obligation to tell us SAP customers why a fictitious car sale including a production process would better prepare us for the digital transformation.

Many good friends from Walldorf tell me that Christian Klein is very committed, intelligent and eager, but he has not provided any justification for his fictitious car story - apart from the fact, which is pleasing for SAP, that Porsche is now a technology partner of the ERP world market leader.

Begründungspflicht is a legal technical term and a bit awkward in its demand: Ultimately, it obliges a respondent to verify the statements made. What applies to judges and prosecutors ultimately also applies to journalists - dear Editor-in-Chief Färbinger - but also to CEOs and board spokespersons.

To date, SAP has not justified how they practically envision Suite 7 maintenance renewal after 2025, as there are no verified statements regarding AnyDB (except for an SAP service note stating that SAP will address the issue). So if SAP can't justify what will happen to DB2, Oracle and SQL Server licenses after 2025, our resilience will also be severely impacted.

Here we come full circle: annual outlooks and colorful PowerPoint roadmaps are no good for five-year planning! Our DSAG is right when it repeatedly calls for medium- and long-term perspectives, and SAP is off the mark with its one-year visions.

SAP's roadmaps and Sapphire talks are not a basis for planning for us existing customers. Resilience is not based on short-term thinking and amusing stories. Christian Klein has an SAP's duty to justify after years of growth and innovation - admittedly, no easy task to clean up after ex-CEO Bill McDermott. Professor Hasso Plattner hinted in an interview that a course correction is in order!

If Christian Klein were to orient himself to "resilience and the duty to justify" and enter into an open-ended discourse with us existing SAP customers, then I would see opportunities for a successful future in the SAP community even beyond 2025. The coming years will be a tough slog for all of us if we want to master the digital transformation with Hana and S/4.

avatar
no-name

Our mysterious, anonymous columnist.


1 comment

  • Florian Albrecht

    Ich finde, dass dieser Vortrag sogar wunderbar in unsere heutige Zeit passt! Dass Sie die “Begründungspflicht” wörtlich nehmen verwundert mich ehrlich gesagt etwas. Das waren doch Werte aus dem letzten Jahrtausend, welche in Zeiten von Wirecard, Abgasskandal und BER längst überholt sind! Sie leben noch in der Vergangenheit, in welcher die Substanz geschaffen wurde, welche wir heute verfrühstücken. Freundliche Grüße!

Write a comment

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.