Services, IT architecture, touchpoints, web stores, back end and front office

What about the topic of e-commerce? What about the customer journey? What is the mood in the market?

What habits do we observe in B2C behavior? What services do customers receive? The Amazon story is well known.

In the beginning, Amazon did virtually no advertising; the entire budget was invested in services, in process chains, in handling faster deliveries. And that created an expectation.

B2B buyers, or buyer persons as they are called, are now also demanding: it has to be easy, it has to be processed quickly, we have to get information, my service technicians have to respond quickly once I have bought the product. If that doesn't happen, it's a challenge.

At SAP Commerce (formerly SAP Hybris), the focus is on online retail. SAP's DNA is not this customer centricity that we all talk about. This is now slowly emerging with C/4.

I myself find it exciting to sit here with colleagues from the SAP community. And to analyze the processes from a customer perspective and not from a company process perspective.

Other channels, other touchpoints need to be managed, supplied and orchestrated.

This is a major challenge for SMEs and even for corporations. Often perceived as a fear, it is actually a huge opportunity.

At KPS, we have a very large SAP division and we bought a digital agency six years ago. Back then, we had to learn what it means to align the two cultures.

Because they are different cultures, the classic SAP consultant and the classic e-commerce consultant. We see strong IT departments, which are naturally SAP-heavy, that have not yet understood what it means to take a customer-centric approach.

On the other hand, we have specialist departments that are also becoming increasingly IT-heavy and have no understanding of the back-end processes.

Bringing these worlds together was a challenge for us. And that was one of the reasons why SAP bought Hybris.

Because we realized that it's not enough to master the back-end alone, I also need the front-end. I think there was a lot of pain involved in achieving this integration with the various technologies.

And I think it's time to start taking a customer-centric approach, i.e. the customer journey.

On the other hand, the standard processes have to be integrated because the merchandise management systems also have to do much more than before.

There is also the aspect of going back to the standard. However, this requirement does not end at the back end, but must be consistent right through to the customer.

However, the view and perspective must start from the customer. I come from the end customer's point of view, but not just with an e-commerce approach alone; marketing, personalization and segmentation also have an influence right through to the back end. You have to bring the transaction data together with customer data.

Who is the responsible party, the owner of these processes?

I don't think that the same owner needs to be present across all processes. And I think that the understanding between the IT department and specialist departments needs to be much more intensive.

IT departments are upgrading with departmental expertise. Departments have more and more IT expertise - this is growing together. Who is the right owner for which processes? IT and specialist departments must orchestrate each other.

And of course there is a steering committee. I don't believe that in this complex world, one person will be the owner of all processes.

That is a crucial point. I know an existing customer who builds end-to-end process teams, they want to move away from this approach, I am the person responsible for the ERP, I am the person responsible for the CRM, for the web store, etc. I am the person responsible for the ERP.

They are restructuring their organization in such a way that they are merging IT and the specialist department. A very interesting approach. IT and business are growing closer and closer together and I think that's crucial.

For existing SAP customers, it's all about time to market or how best to implement things.

Should the person with overall responsibility come from the specialist area? Or does the classic SAP back end from the ERP layer still set the tone? I would spontaneously say that the business department should lead.

In agile teams, there is of course a product owner to coordinate the requirements of the specialist departments. However, there is often a silo mentality in the specialist departments that needs to be broken down.

The challenge here is to bring together the different objectives in order to achieve the best possible result.

When do I start with agile and cross-functional teams if I have already decided on a product?

I think the cross-functional teams are the key issue with regard to the new SAP architecture. There are so many SAP components, but hardly anyone knows what they can do. But I decide on a component and only then do I start the project.

Being agile and bringing everyone together - that's right. This is where the core competence of the SAP Group is needed again. The internal SAP teams need to be integrated.

For me, it's an integration issue because a lot of things have been created in silos so far - on the e-commerce side and on the ERP back-end side.

The companies are already working together. However, we have not yet grown together on the IT side. SAP now has an overall toolkit that can work, but we have to be able to explain it as partners.

I don't think it's easy to really get going. Everyone says we want to go this way, but of course it's a big investment.

In the e-commerce sector, there is a young team that is sprinting forward very quickly and agilely with Scrum. And of course the SAP tanker can't keep up.

We don't just focus on technology. We also used other technologies in the past and were not primarily specialized in SAP Hybris.

I don't want to get completely away from technology topics, but the question is: Where does the company want to be in five years' time? What is happening outside on the market, in competition? The customer-centric focus is crucial.

We try to explain what the integrative process world up to the online store is like. And then come exactly these challenges and questions:

Where do you actually want to go now? We are discussing your future here and what we bring with us is your future. The existing SAP customer and we often don't even know where we want to go yet. We need to think about this together.

The specialist area often decides when it comes to the front end. However, as SAP consultants, we are often unable to demonstrate the added value.

But the added value is very often the integration. The entire interaction is crucial. I have to explain the entire process to the SAP user.

And the IT department and we as consultants have to be able to explain the business value. Of course, I am much faster at e-commerce and front-end deployment than I am at back-end IT development during integration.

That's also the big problem with SAP: Sales can't explain "e-commerce" because the topic of "commerce" has also become very complex.

I think we also have to think in two speeds. At the back I have a massive back end, at the front I am very fast with modern IT tools, but I am no longer integrated in many places.

How does it start? Basically, there are three layers: Corporate culture, business processes and technology.

You have to move in these dimensions. Many existing SAP customers still spend too much time on technology. This is not an SAP-specific problem.

You will notice the same thing when you deal with Salesforce or Oracle. Culture means: Where do I actually want to go? Do I want to improve my customer service or customer experience, save money or do I perhaps want to support new business processes?

The employees in the specialist departments know this. The employees know what the customers want. But the employees are not always asked.

Management, on the other hand, has to change something and take everyone with it; it is primarily change management that we are talking about here.

It's less about introducing or integrating the next technology. People tend to do that: We need an app quickly, we need a front end quickly now, an omnichannel.

That's all true. But you shouldn't forget the back end, because fulfillment is also part of the customer experience.

These functions are the important business processes and only then comes the technology; then comes the development plan and there SAP now has even more technology with Qualtrics.

The technology is there. You can integrate it. You can bring the different products together. But you can't buy the blueprint, the architecture from SAP.

Everyone has to develop the architecture themselves. You can check the building blocks and then say, I'll take that from SAP. Hybris is not yet integrated, it's still a work in progress, but it's a good product.

However, there may be other topics where other IT providers are better positioned, in which case I might use a cloud service from Azure rather than SAP for analytics.

If I had an overall cloud, then I wouldn't have these integration issues, would I?

We are moving in this direction. The large hyperscalers have not only built infrastructure in recent years, but have also invested a great deal in the ability to develop apps and manage the APIs of these apps. Hyperscalers can provide a certain degree of pre-integration.

We have a problem when we talk about things that are possible, but we haven't done the homework yet - and we don't even get the goods to the customer. I liked the introduction.

Amazon has grown up differently. We are now observing that the front end is being set up in the opposite direction to the original. But for many existing SAP customers, nothing has happened in the back end yet.

That's a big problem. You actually have to clean up the front end and apps to build up speed.

That's where we have a big discrepancy. There are many great products, but you should do your homework on the back end first.

Yes, or maybe just start again with S/4 in the back end.

But then that's Greenfield.

Amazon has grown differently. They did the back-end first and then programmed the front-end.

But Amazon didn't have a legacy either, they started in a meadow.

And Amazon didn't have any employees who had been working on the processes for fifty or sixty years. It was a start-up, which is why they started from scratch, and not everyone is an Amazon. I find the greenfield approach more exciting in order to get rid of all these legacy issues.

How much money would have to be invested for there to be a return on investment from customer centricity? The answer may be: little in the front office, but a lot in processes.

It is not easy to get this view and find out what you want to invest in. But if we only focus on technology and lose sight of the end customer, it becomes difficult.

There will be no technology without customers, because then the store will be out of business. It is important to keep both sides - customer centricity and technology - in focus.

I believe that everything is growing together. It's not enough to just make a web store look pretty and try to be present in all channels - which is what many service providers do. Our challenges are greater: digital services, multi-level sales or comprehensive document management.

But then we are also saying, I have to work with new technologies. This approach is a great opportunity.

There are a lot of issues and it's also a big change process in the company. And I can be much faster with the new cloud options, with the SAP Cloud Platform I can get it out there.

I bring speed to my front-end development, but this has a huge impact on the back-end and is a big change not only in IT, but also in the company.

The technology debate stems from extreme uncertainty, because hardly anyone actually knows what to expect.

It would do some companies good to evaluate together with professionals from the strategy level: Where is my company and the industry heading? I don't think many do that.

And what happens instead? There is an SAP sales department, which is product-oriented, and it is rushing into every company and the sales department has its specifications and sells products.

However, this approach has no benefit whatsoever for companies. It would be important to ask: Where is the journey taking me? I don't think many people think about this, but instead fall into actionism - I have to become customer-centric now too.

We have a lot of interlocutors who flood us with customer stories, but this approach is not consistent. There are gaps in the processes and in the back end, which those involved often don't see at the time.

There is a lot of actionism, and the back end is often neglected. B2B users are extremely prudent and focused on the back end; they think very long and hard before they change anything in the front office.

If this is not properly integrated, it has no chance. The SAP Cloud Platform is neglected because there is no in-house expertise here.

In contrast to B2C, where apps are scattered throughout the company but are not scalable because they are not orchestrated with the back end.

It is our job to argue at the highest level: What are we talking about? We're not talking about technology, we're not just talking about customer centricity, we're talking about your company and where you're going.

So the demand or question of an e-commerce architecture model?

Exactly. That's the result. If I speak in a customer-centric way, then I would do well to have someone who also has an understanding of the existing infrastructure and who also understands the SAP IT architecture.

It is also important to have the end customer at the center. But I also need to have the expertise in my agile teams: What is completely unrealistic and what is feasible? But it's difficult to form these groups and moderate them in this way.

You have to have the courage to bring these people together. Marketing, e-commerce-heavy decision-makers find us exciting, SAP-heavy decision-makers find FIS exciting.

When only existing processes are discussed, it is always amazing how much potential lies dormant in the company.

Often, only the processes need to be adapted a little to achieve a huge benefit for the customer. These processes are just not used because the IT department has not asked anyone and the marketing or sales departments were not aware of the possibilities.

You have to bring people together and ask: What can we get out of this process optimization, store optimization, multichannel optimization?

I know they're all scared, nobody can see into the future. I focus on what I can do and what I can make of it.

There is so much expertise in service. Just because it's digital doesn't mean you no longer need people. Why not use this as a differentiator, as a competitive advantage?

This is a huge opportunity for many companies, even those with small budgets, to gradually tap into this dormant potential.

I'm not looking at it from the customer side, I'm looking a little bit at the technology side and that's also an issue for me. When we talk to customers today, the question comes up: Why do I need a new campaign processing system tomorrow?

Can't I just go to S/4 and then everything will continue to work? Today or tomorrow, processes will move out of ERP and into the higher-level layer.

If processes move out, I naturally have to rebuild something in the back end. It remains difficult to discuss today what functionality will no longer be there tomorrow - but I no longer need to install what is moved elsewhere in the back end.

That is a very difficult discussion. I have to get everyone together and be very open about it, which is of course difficult. Everyone also wants to protect their own stock and go into the future with security.

This is also the challenge facing companies. And where we as consultants can only ever exert limited influence. It is a moderation between the worlds.

In the past, you had IT departments, e-commerce, etc. as contacts. You had isolated cases. Today, everything is growing together.

I have to raise the people involved to the same level so that they can then find the right solution within the company. This has completely changed our profile as consultants.

In the past, you were much more professionally focused and were either better or worse than the other person. Today, you are much more involved in the political environment of companies. How do I manage there? How do I convince people?

Whether it's master data, advertising campaigns, advertising media, customer data, etc. If these parameters are enriched centrally and all departments live off them, you can build bridges quite well in reality.

So emotionally, I'm right there with you. But if I don't get my master data management in order, every customer experience will be difficult, right?

But I don't see these as problems of the future. These are problems that have always existed and I believe they will still exist in ten years' time. I don't think they will all be solved.

Data quality will still be a challenge in ten years' time.

The very clear statement about a single source of truth in the future is that it may look a little better, but it won't solve all the problems.

When we look at SAP from a product perspective today, do we have a single source of truth? Clearly not.

The basic idea has already been recognized at SAP. The problems arise where companies have data in different places. And I believe that SAP already has a useful approach in terms of the basic idea.

SAP has recognized the basic idea and is moving in the right direction. But SAP has been standing in its own way in recent years.

And not only through legacy issues, SAP has also created new burdens by purchasing products that all have their own data model.

Every other manufacturer has that too. Salesforce and others are struggling with the same problems. This is a development direction, for example having a single source of truth for the customer profile.

We are not there yet. And I don't think this challenge will be solved by creating an S/4-based data model, but rather by introducing an underlying data management system that brings these different pots together in a kind of middleware, as other manufacturers are currently trying to do.

That is the technical component of it. It will then be possible to integrate these products not only via interfaces, but also at the data level.

But we're not there yet. This can be installed individually for each customer - it's a lot of work. But I believe that companies like SAP and others need to develop in this direction.

What you said about the data models is that customers should bring their areas together. The different data models in the front and back office must be brought together into one solution.

This complexity must be reduced - also on the SAP side. Then the back-end will finally be able to accept the front-end requests.

At the moment, it is not a refusal of the back end, but an excessive demand. No resources, no clear definition from the department, that's what leads to the grievances. Simply because the two groups can't talk to each other.

If SAP promises that we have a portfolio that can handle everything a company needs from end to end, then the customer, especially the SME customer, can expect things to be harmonized - both at the interface level and at the process level.

Single Point of Truth goes even further. It also means, for example, consistent user guidance. Identity management, a security concept, a provisioning concept, a license and usage concept. And the next step is a coordinated lifecycle.

If I use the products together, I have to make sure that some update doesn't mean that certain processes no longer work as smoothly and that I have to "think" about them differently.

In other words, this pre-integration on the products, but also full integration on process chains is necessary. When S/4 or C/4 is introduced in certain industries, I see the partners as being particularly competent, as they naturally have more detailed knowledge than SAP, which in turn concentrates on the development of other products.

We have a special solution for technical wholesale. All industry-specific components are predefined as standards.

I think, as a service provider, we have to be happy if SAP doesn't do everything. The basic SAP functionalities must be available. And then the industry expertise must come from the service providers.

We are consulting firms. I always say that the world is not one-dimensional. I say that nothing is one-dimensional from SAP's point of view either.

Even in the future, there will not be customers who only use SAP products. Our focus must also be on bringing this orchestra together.

But clearly with the demand on SAP: If I use standard components, both on the process and technical side, it has to be more compatible.

Not only when it comes to customer experience, but also HCM - basically, I always have to integrate. I also have to integrate Salesforce as well as C/4 Hana, and I have to integrate SuccessFactors as well as Workday.

And sometimes the skill of the sales team decides that it will be a Workday solution and not SuccessFactors. As things stand today, however, SAP is not yet playing up the benefits that could be provided in such a way that the advantage of the functions is great.

Others may be a little better in terms of features and more modern in terms of the UI - but integration is so important to me that the mandate goes to SAP.

Yes, from an SAP customer perspective, it would be desirable to point out the integration options much more frequently, to point out what is already there - if I then use SuccessFactors instead of Workday.

And it would also be desirable for consultants and service providers to point out what is already available as standard: How easy is it to put it all together?

I see a lot of projects with the argument that the customer is so difficult because they didn't understand it and they really want it that way, etc.

And because that's what the customer says and wants, that's what you do as a service provider - that will always be the case. But it would still be nice if there were more cases where you could fall back on these standard functions, on what is already there.

A small criticism of the service providers: In recent years, of course, they have also earned a lot from the fact that there are individual wishes that can then be implemented in the form of customizations and other services - this is of course down to the customer. But that was also because the service provider said: We do it all.

And everything that the SAP standard didn't provide, we screwed on - sooner or later, because the pressure was so high at some point or we didn't feel like discussing it anymore. At some point, we screwed it together.

I believe that the world has changed. Advice and services will have to change. We need to provide advice again, and I think that's really exciting and exactly the right approach. But what are standards?

I'm not just talking about S/4, we're also talking about integration. And we have to explain integration, we have to be able to explain SAP functionality to the customer.

I have to be able to explain API frameworks etc. That's not easy! But I have to explain this scenario to a customer so that they understand the landscape.

SAP sales will not be able to do that. I think that's on our side. That's why we have standards for processes and the back end.

Integrating an entire system is easier than integrating lots of small parts. It goes as far as Google data - there are many standards, even in our SAP architecture.

And many customers are screwing, screwing, screwing. But there's still a lot we don't know. You have to be honest about that. Our troops need to understand the technology and talk the customer into it:

Be careful, if you go there, it will have these and those consequences. This advisory approach is particularly important!

In the ideal world, the service provider has a presales manager or a solution architect who is always up to date with the SAP portfolio.

And only then, after the customer has been informed and advised, does the project get underway. This is what an ideal world should look like. But it doesn't work. You can't sell it - also because the budgets often come from a different corner.

I sometimes ask myself: What do I do with all this data? When I analyze - how many retailers have data scientists?

If I don't have an expert, I don't need most of the data. This is another reorientation that doesn't always work in the company.

First they want to have everything - the best and greatest products, but in the end very little is done with the data.

The basic idea of getting to know the customer, segmenting and automating holds great potential for customers who often have fewer resources but very complex processes.

Because automation does what? It adds marketing impulses to complex processes. That's our job. Facebook data and Google, there is now a very clear strategy in marketing.

Many customers think I buy a marketing suite and can use it to organize these channels. No. They can't even replicate the new marketing opportunities that Facebook presents every month.

We have our own team to monitor this. And that then has to be connected. For example, there is the "Facebook Business Manager", which is connected to SAP Marketing via certain interfaces and then only provides relevant data and KPIs.

SAP has rightly recognized that they can't fit everything into one suite. There are worlds that need to be connected.

I can load in a lot from outside and work with it. That's how it's integrated. But in many cases, the available functionality is not known.

There is now coupon processing - something that has never traditionally been part of the SAP portfolio. Where the POS providers have always patted themselves on the back because they were the only ones who could do it: coupons.

However, I have the tool in combination with SAP Hybris. But nobody knows about it. In some cases, SAP Sales doesn't know either. Who knows what is being built everywhere? It's not easy, because SAP is also outdating itself. It's our job to show what's possible.

SAP has opportunities. But will SAP remain the leading system in e-commerce?

If SAP loses this battle, SAP Sales will have a major problem.

SAP is a standard. And all the knowledge around the table, the 20 years of SAP experience that FIS brings to the table, that's huge potential.

SMEs want to be met at eye level. SMEs naturally want a mediator, a partner. That will always be our job.

The requirements for SAP partners exist: Build a bonus system, build a loyalty program for the store, connect to the POS system from e-commerce, do local-based marketing via Facebook.

You can solve it using the basic building blocks. And I think that's just fine. If SAP steps on the gas, it can be done. I think SAP hasn't tried hard enough in the last two or three years - compared to Adobe.

SAP concentrates on B2B business or the large B2C business. Of course, they are still well positioned there. But they have to keep up the pace.

SAP needs to expand the marketing perspective and acceptance in its marketing and sales departments. Many users think of Salesforce, others may think of Adobe or Magento - it's cheaper and faster.

I think the ball is in the consultancy's court and no longer in SAP's court. That's my personal opinion.

Because I don't know whether SAP has a team in the German market. There may be a team, but there is no manpower behind it that can explain the large number of customers.

SAP is product-oriented. For us as a consulting firm, this means that process integration is still important.

Whether I do process integration by taking into account which solution the customer has and how I bring it together, or by using new modules from SAP, for us as a consulting company it is actually exactly what we have been doing for the past 20 years.

SAP has an advantage because they occupy the entire back-end area. And we are now talking a lot about integration, which has to fit, and Salesforce or Adobe don't have this back-end. And they have to use that now.

There is a lot of homework on the front end. The SAP CRM area with Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Callidus and the core systems is a challenge.

We don't have a project where all these products are in use. Now the customer also wants Qualtrics. You think it all comes from SAP and SAP has already purchased the right topics, but it's not possible to present it in a coherent and integrated way.

SAP is still trapped in its silos here. Does anyone know of a degree that SAP has won on its own in the C/4 Hana area? I don't think so.

The partner is always involved. And if there is no strong partner to explain it to the customer, then SAP will not win.

SAP has an advantage because they occupy the entire back-end area. And we are now talking a lot about integration, which has to fit, and Salesforce or Adobe don't have this back-end. And they have to use that now.

There is a lot of homework on the front end. The SAP CRM area with Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Callidus and the core systems is a challenge.

We don't have a project where all these products are in use. Now the customer also wants Qualtrics. You think it all comes from SAP and SAP has already purchased the right topics, but it's not possible to present it in a coherent and integrated way.

SAP is still trapped in its silos here. Does anyone know of a degree that SAP has won in the C/4 Hana area alone? I don't think so.

The partner is always involved. And if there is no strong partner to explain it to the customer, then SAP will not win.

I think there is often a lack of information about integration. And of course with the new products, you can't expect to buy something new and then six months later it's just like the old SAP standard products.

SAP doesn't pick up the target group. Sorry, but they talk about customer journeys and don't pick up the marketing people. E-commerce with Hybris is really a direct hit.

The best purchase SAP has ever made. However, other providers manage to prepare and market functions that are in demand in a practical way. SAP needs to focus on the daily challenges of operational teams, then it will also win over the marketing people.

I think SAP still has a bit of work to do on the licensing side. SAP still wants to sell Hybris as a big monolith. That no longer works.

Especially in areas where you simply need smaller pieces.

This is the next discussion: SAP's Go to Market. Do I sell process-oriented, do I sell the whole thing in microservices or as a platform? It should be the platform that is sold.

I still see Commerce as a very flexible tool. When I think about the business processes we have built - as add-ons, and at affordable prices.

We have simply created added value and services with shopping processes. Because the data model is there. I do believe that a certain degree of flexibility helps the customer if there is a standard. Of course, if it were just microservices that all worked really seamlessly, it would be a great situation.

I actually see a gap at SAP. SAP is trying to serve small and medium-sized companies in the ERP area: with SAP Business One and Business by Design - that still exists, by the way, even if SAP doesn't talk about it.

However, there is currently no Magento from SAP - Hybris is just one size smaller. We may yet see a reincarnation of this on the SAP Cloud Platform.

There is Magento and I'm not saying that's the answer to your question, but Magento is fast and easy. If it doesn't work, not much is broken.

I can also start with the Community Edition. SAP doesn't have anything like that yet. In my opinion, it's missing. On the other hand:

A major advantage of Hybris, which not every customer is aware of and SAP may not be aware of either, is that Hybris is one of the few systems that can be used for both B2B and B2C on one technical platform.

Most other competitors, including Salesforce, have two different systems for this.

That's why SAP doesn't have a problem with Commerce at the moment. I think the direction is good and the product is good for now.

We can certainly sell it. Of course, it's not always competitively priced. It would be great if there was a better entry point. But Hybris itself hasn't disappointed us yet.

We also used to implement Magento. We had situations where the performance was simply not good enough.

The product itself is perfectly fine. We have two cases where we host the on-premise version on Azure. That works great, so it's really perfect.

But convincing a new customer of this - given the competitive situation - is becoming increasingly difficult.

Yes, I need the customer journey. The back end needs to be tidied up. To conclude, I would like to say the classic prototype of an existing SAP customer: What could be the concrete next step?

I think that SAP is the right choice for the future, because you have everything from the back end to the front end and are therefore very, very well positioned.

But you have to start thinking about it within the company: Which areas and people from my company can I start the journey with?

You need a partner who also knows the expertise of SAP and other products and knows where the journey is going, where my company wants to go, what my customers want and where the added value will be in the end.

Once I've done this homework, I can delve deeper and think carefully: What does my architecture look like, my customer journey, how do I bring everything together?

I can only agree with that. Take a strategic view. Especially if you are in the SME sector, develop ideas and then start operationally with the first measures, with the first building blocks.

From a strategic point of view, the suite is a good choice because it gives you flexibility for the future. These are not wrong decisions if you come from the SAP world.

However, business value should then be sought operationally and step by step. Where do I get the highest business value? We recommend starting with workshops. We start with this operationally and form teams.

I would recommend to the customer: First define the goals with your management. If you don't have them, then form a project team and define the goals.

And then open the IT toolbox. What do I already have in the SAP toolkit today? Use what's there. And if you then do something new, stick with the standard and buy this standard from SAP.

I would start by bringing my internal organization together both professionally and IT-wise. The end-to-end process teams are important.

What good are great goals that I can perhaps tell my consultant who will somehow implement them for me? But I have to take my internal IT department with me, because that is an important asset.

They have to look after it later. And then look quickly: How can I create added value? Where can I quickly optimize existing processes with new components if necessary?

The key point: I have to bring my internal organization with me. Because in the end, it's not the product that drives us forward, but the people behind it.

I wouldn't come from so far above, but for me the decisive factor at the moment is: How do I go into the future with my existing system?

Right up to the SAP Cloud Platform and C/4. I don't believe that anyone can say and define where the company wants to be in three years' time. I believe in organizing an architecture and process workshop in companies.

It's really successful to sit down together. I start at the back end and end up at the front end and say: What's happening today? Where are you going? Where can you move?

Always against the background of: What do we have available as a holistic modular system? And I discuss processes, standard processes and standard technologies.

And at the end of the day, there is a process model that you put on the table and you say: you should deal with this. For me, it always drifts off too much if I only analyze from the customer's point of view and always focus on the web store.

And then I have marketing discussions. I understand that and you have to do these projects. They shouldn't be held up and stifled because the wrong conclusion would be: now the SAP group is coming and then there will be a standstill here for two years.

It doesn't have to be like that. I can carry on, but I have to work on the back end in parallel. And I have to make the back end fit for the future. That's a difficult path.

Because it's not just the new components like C/4 Hana. There is also a classic S/4, which I consider classic because it is a product that has been on the market for a long time. But nobody has really introduced it yet.

The retail sector has to move incredibly quickly and this must not lead to a standstill in other areas, otherwise we will have a parallel world again.

Of course, I also see this action plan on our side. And I believe that we also need to pick up speed. We can't just leave this to SAP.

Is there a chance for SAP to fulfill all these requirements, wishes and perspectives on time? There is time pressure. This has come up again and again in all the speeches. It's not just about concepts and architecture and products. It's also about the time that is slipping between your fingers.

I am giving SAP a chance because SAP has proven over the years that it can reliably deliver innovations for the customer.

Time is a challenge, but I don't think SAP is alone here. Because SAP is also part of an ecosystem. One is the customers with their wishes and requirements - but also with their ability to develop mutual solutions together with SAP.

One example: Porsche and SAP are working together. Porsche is a customer, but now the company is a partner. And then there are the partners, as represented here at the table.

The partners play a very decisive role, not only to sell the product, but ultimately to enhance it. The partners show the customer what is already available as standard.

You just have to use it there. Of course, the topic of change management also applies, as does the willingness to accept or reintroduce the standard.

In the end, we can realize what differentiates us through an app - but many functions and services are standard in SAP. I think this view has a lot to do with communication and education.

Cooperation with partners is important, both with the specialists and with the large and universal SAP partners. SAP tends to deal primarily with the large partners, but the smaller partners, the specialists, are at least as important.

And ultimately, customers need to be involved. Customers influence SAP's product development. This is often forgotten in the customer-supplier relationship.

The existing customers are somehow at the mercy of SAP in a positive sense due to the ERP back-end. It is a major challenge. SAP is not questioned in the ERP back-end.

Not many customers will say: I'm not going down the S/4 Hana route. It is not yet clear whether SAP will win the customer experience or cloud platform competition.

This will be determined by many factors that we have discussed today. The decisive factor will be integration, the transfer of skills and abilities that these products have.

Ultimately, SAP's ability to win the outstanding projects via and with its partners will also be decisive.

Now it is up to SAP to show that it can exist beyond ERP against competitors of various origins. And that it can convince customers in the same way as it did with R/3. That was a long final comment.

Thank you for the interview.