Swarm Intelligence

It was a slap in the face for the SAP user association DSAG: The important conference on CCC had to be cancelled due to a lack of visitor registrations. Naturally, it can't be DSAG's fault alone. SAP has also caused lasting confusion in this area through numerous experiments with naming: Customer Competence Center, CCC, was the name many years ago, then came the abbreviation CCoE, and now it is called COE Forum with a prefix Customer.

In theory, the DSAG COE Forum event should have been a mega-event, because in the implementation of Rise with SAP and the digital transformation, Customer Centers of Expertise should be the trailblazers. In the transition from SolMan to ALM (Application Lifecycle Management), there will be no success without a consistent CCC concept. From the R/3 past, the SAP community knows about the strategic importance of Customer Competence Centers.

Much has changed since the days when hundreds of participants made the pilgrimage to the CCC Forum. It's not just two years of pandemic between then and now. The entire communication structure in the SAP community has changed. A hierarchical system with SAP at the top has become a swarm of numerous players. In recent years, the SAP community has become very colorful. SAP's existing customers are looking beyond SAP's virtual horizons more than ever before.

In the past, CCC was the R/3 competence center. SAP was the software supplier and the DSAG association was the communications hub and information center. This well-ordered system has outlived its usefulness. Social media, hyperscalers, YouTube, cloud computing and much more have created new information and education channels. The SAP community has evolved from a hierarchical structure with SAP and DSAG at the top to a swarm intelligence with free exchange of knowledge via numerous channels.

The user association has failed to make contact with all these channels and to implement information and education work jointly. Those who arrive too late are punished by history: The DSAG association has now had to cancel its COE forum because no partnership-based, grassroots communication took place in advance. Obviously, the association relied on the power and support of SAP, just as SAP relied on the association's organization and DSAG's event expertise. Now SAP's
Existing customers and partners.

In the sense of swarm intelligence, it would have been easy to mobilize all the forces of the SAP community, but this would have required a fundamental, new mindset: no fear of contact, no envy, no ill will. The age of information monopolies is over. Success in a community of values can no longer be dictated, but can only come about collectively - on an equal footing. The distribution of information must be democratized. The entire SAP community should be behind and involved in important events such as the CCC Forum.