What's Next Vivaldi?

The album title "What's Next Vivaldi?" can be interpreted twice by listeners, both artistically and musically, and technically in terms of recording technology in a HiRes format. SAP, and especially CEO Christian Klein, could take both aspects as an example. However, the role model function will not kick in because the Salzburg Festival is sponsored every summer by Siemens, Audi, BWT, Rolex and the Kühne Foundation. The affinity for innovation, culture and future issues is less pronounced at SAP. Here, those responsible focus more on Formula 1 and the gaming community (I am allowed to make this criticism here because I know the SAP Head of Sponsorship well and invited him to Salzburg a few years ago).

Patricia Kopatchinskaja is a Moldovan-Austrian-Swiss violinist. At the Salzburg Festival, she gave an overwhelming and much acclaimed performance together with the Camerata Salzburg in the Great Hall of the Mozarteum. In addition to being a sensational violinist, Kopatchinskaja is also a recording artist, and with her voice, performance and the Camerata Salzburg, excellent as always, she performed pieces by John Cage, PatKop, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and György Ligeti.

The Salzburg program notes: "With a combination of depth, brilliance and humor, Patricia Kopatchinskaja brings an inimitable theatricality to her performances. Whether performing a violin concerto by Tchaikovsky, Ligeti or Schoenberg, or presenting an original scenic project that deconstructs Beethoven, Ustvolskaya or Cage, her distinctive approach always conveys the essence of the work."

What would it be like if SAP CEO Christian Klein could also always communicate the core of the company's own standard business software and develop it further with his own expertise? Instead, SAP experiments with operating models such as cloud computing, delves into the technical details of an IT stack and invents its own database, or enters into dubious cooperative ventures because its own core competence has obviously been lost. SAP's unique selling proposition is business and organizational competence of an entrepreneurial structure and process organization. Just as Patricia Kopatchinskaja asks what's next, Christian Klein should also be concerned: What's Next S/4 Hana? What comes after 2040?

Christian Klein could learn something else from Patricia Kopatchinskaja: music is a valuable commodity, so the best possible recording techniques should be used. A CD with 16-bit resolution and 44.1 kHz sampling rate is an insult to the ears. "What's Next Vivaldi?" was recorded at 24 bits, eight times the resolution of a CD, and at 192 kHz sampling rate - available for purchase at about 20 percent more than an average CD price. How much would SAP's existing customers be willing to pay if the software quality matched?

There are two aspects that SAP should pay attention to: Content and Innovation. What's next? The SAP community needs a content and technical response to the next S/4 Hana.