Biedermeier

The DSAG annual congress was more than just a gathering of working groups supplemented by a few presentations and an illustrious evening event. The congress was a turning point in the SAP annual calendar. While Sapphire and other SAP events were interesting options, the DSAG Congress was a must-attend event - and sometimes a cleansing thunderstorm. There was plain talk on the open stage, sometimes behind closed doors.

This year, the caesura is cancelled, the stage for a discourse is missing. The DSAG user association is trying to organize an online alternative. It will be a similar attempt to the one SAP tried with Sapphire. The failure lies not in the content transformation of a face-to-face event to the web, but in the fear of a possible loss of control.

Biedermeier has moved into the SAP community: Coziness, domesticity and harmony are evident among SAP and DSAG executives. SAP presented canned videos. Only on the last day of Sapphire did they dare to have a live discussion with SAP CEO Christian Klein. Naturally, it was chaotic and inharmonious! Nevertheless: Despite all the shortcomings and topic misses, approval and praise could be heard throughout.

Why? Because this web presence was authentic. No coziness, domesticity and harmony, but an open, contradictory and lively discourse. This courage for an open stage, where something unexpected is also allowed to happen, has been lost at DSAG and SAP. It used to be more colorful, louder and livelier.

Social distancing is not the only thing to blame for the alienation between the grassroots of the SAP community and the executive level at DSAG and SAP. In the past, too many decisions were made behind closed doors and thus without the broad spectrum of opinions and diversity of the SAP community.

The ERP/ECC 6.0 maintenance extension worked out jointly by DSAG and SAP was good and right - but incomplete. DSAG and SAP went public together with the compromise they had reached without presenting answers to the NetWeaver and AnyDB issue.

While the NetWeaver roadmap was later adequately explained in an SAP service note - E-3 Magazine also published the contents of this service note - SAP failed to provide an answer to AnyDB. In an inquiry to SAP board member Jürgen Müller in February of this year, he said he wanted to provide an answer in a timely manner - nothing has happened. SAP's existing customers and many SAP partners no longer have this coziness, domesticity and harmony.

It is not yet the case that the digital transformation is eating its children. However, a lack of answers and concepts endangers the "S/4 Hana release change" enterprise. This requires an open stage, a broad communication platform to answer all fears and questions. Video canning, produced in one's own domesticity, and harmonious opening lectures with small talk will not solve the problems of SAP's existing customers.

E-3 Magazine stands for open and unadulterated discourse. Many SAP partners have chosen this communication platform for their own success. Getting out of the Biedermeier can succeed together. We in the SAP community should approach each other with courage and commitment.

I have been cultivating unconditional communication for twenty years and still live. I look forward to meeting in the virtual world, on the E-3 platform just as I have in past years at the DSAG Annual Congress. This digital transformation can succeed if what we have in common counts more than coziness, domesticity and harmony.

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