Digital defragmentation

When production, trade and logistics are becoming increasingly difficult and unmanageable, comprehensive IT should at least bring some order to the proceedings and promise users a rudimentary overview. Theoretically, SAP should now be doubling its revenue per quarter. Why is SAP not one of the crisis winners?

The answer is obvious: SAP software was never intended for dynamic and agile action in unpredictable situations. A perfect organizational structure and process organization with predominantly plannable business processes can be excellently customized with an SAP system - from R/3 to S/4. The result is an efficient IT system that saves many resources and generates profit - almost every Business Suite 7 existing customer is a reference for this. But for a defragmented, automated and chaotic business situation, an SAP system lacks agile intelligence.

Perhaps the "Leonardo" framework could have become such a dynamic and self-learning system. Ex-SAP CEO Bill McDermott once vowed that "Leonardo" could become an even bigger business than Suite 7 and S/4. But SAP has recklessly squandered this opportunity for an agile next-generation ERP system. Others will take up the challenges of digital defragmentation and develop AI-based IT systems for production, retail and logistics. The fear is that SAP will continue to try to lift a rigid ERP system into a dynamic environment such as cloud computing - Rise and Fall with SAP.