SAP is very keen

For all their efforts and endeavors, SAP CEOs Jennifer Morgan and Christian Klein are still moving on the stand. Despite all the soothing words, they haven't moved much yet. Both have survived the 100 days, but they have not yet covered 100 kilometers on their own - naturally, their mileage account with Lufthansa has continued to grow, but they were already members of the HON Circle before their appointment.

SAP is big and SAP is cumbersome. SAP is diverse and SAP has a very extensive price list - far too complex, as the DSAG user association repeatedly points out. SAP has made many acquisitions in recent years and has consolidated too little. Responsibilities and reporting paths have gotten out of hand. Many well-intentioned ideas and advice have not gotten off the ground.

Jennifer Morgan and Christian Klein are trying very hard. They put on fantastic performances at the 2020 SAP Field Kick-off Meeting. They inspire and are likeable - but that won't be enough to renew SAP, or at least save it. At best, Jennifer Morgan will further increase sales. Whether Christian Klein can renovate the ailing software structure is uncertain.

SAP is trying very hard. The software, especially Hana, is excellent - but the structures are desolate. SAP has been running on the stand for many months and is not making any progress when it comes to developing software concepts and IT structures to meet the needs of existing customers.

Once upon a time, Professor Hasso Plattner and ex-SAP CEO Bill McDermott hoped to drive the evil spirits out of Walldorf with a one-time liberation blow: Ex-chief technology officer Bernd Leukert was thrown out the door with a bang. What followed only increased the software chaos in Walldorf.

To understand the technical challenges that Christian Klein is now lovingly addressing, the user has to look very closely: Hardly any software component in the SAP empire can be described as unsuccessful or bad - it's just that many of these puzzle pieces don't fit together. Taken together, SAP's software components do not form a harmonious picture. Christian Klein has been striving for a consistent, structured software concept for many months.

Hana, probably the world's best in-memory computing database, was never designed to scale to infinity and serve thousands of existing SAP customers in a mega-cloud data center. As a result, SAP never achieved the scaling effect it needed. The expensive Hana cloud services are not due to SAP's greed for money, but to the technical inability to use the existing Hana code as a cloud solution.

SAP is making an effort: In the meantime, there is a new Hana code for SAP's cloud, which differs significantly from the Hana on-prem version. The transformation of successful Hana on-prem solutions into the Hana Enterprise Cloud is thus becoming an adventure playground. Christian Klein has not yet decided whether and when SAP Hana 3 will be presented as a new cloud edition, but SAP is making every effort.