Christian Klein 2021

It can't be emphasized enough: Christian Klein's interview for the American SAP User Group, ASUG, was fantastic and bizarre in equal measure. Klein, in his agile, youthful and direct manner, was much more open and self-critical - and thus also more constructive - than the aged and conservative questioner. Instead of seizing the opportunity of a unique interview, only carefully prepared questions were asked. Christian Klein was not deterred. He took the initiative and turned the ASUG interview into an announcement that would make any existing customer happy.

My colleague Simone Sailer watched the livestream and called her written record: An Honest Conversation with SAP CEO Christian Klein.

For 2021, Klein expects that about 80 percent of S/4 on-prem functions will also be available in the cloud.

"There's one more solution that's not quite in the cloud - our ERP solution, S/4 Hana.", explained Klein.

"Not every customer is the same. Not every customer wants to move their ERP to the cloud. Some already have standardized processes or less fragmented IT landscapes, these customers actually have a fast cloud roll-out. Of course, there are other customers and it is unrealistic to expect them to migrate immediately and completely to the public cloud. This is where we can help transition their processes." Thus, the "on-prem versus cloud" discourse will continue in 2021.

"This is the reality of our customers, and we want to give our customers a choice"Christian Klein emphasized.

"There are customers who want to stay on-premises, and they can!"

The SAP CEO also cited the figure of 3000 for S/4 users who moved to the cloud as existing ERP customers. Naturally, this interview was not free of marketing messages: "S/4 Hana has experienced a faster migration curve than any of our other ERP solutions."

In the absence of detailed figures, this SAP statement is difficult to verify. The SAP ERP version S/4 Hana was presented on the New York Stock Exchange on February 3, 2015. More than five years later, around 15,100 SAP customers have purchased an S/4 Hana license, but of these, only 8100 customers have a running and productive S/4 system. This "momentum" is supposed to represent a fast migration curve?

In addition to the manifold interpretations of user figures, however, Klein sends an unmistakable message: From "Cloud first" becomes "Customer first". With this he emphasized:

"We don't leave our customers behind - we serve hybrid scenarios from start to finish [...] Customer transformation is key for us - we invest in their success and accelerate our roadmaps. It's all about innovation and integration [...] I want to see an SAP with empathy. A company that goes with you the last mile, doesn't stop at the last point of sale. If there's a problem, I want to talk about it: What can we do to help? [...] I really appreciate the feedback from our customers and our user groups - it's not always all good. But I consider it a gift."

The ASUG interviewer does ask one challenging question: How does SAP align its products with hyperscalers?

"For me, it's really important that the SAP platform remains agnostic", answers Christian Klein.

"We see that many customers are also running multi-cloud environments, and we don't want to get in the way of that. We use the technical features of hyperscalers that we don't offer at SAP to improve our customers' user experience."

Obviously, the SAP boss is aware that existing customers could be lost due to the technical development. The analysts at Cloudflight forecast independently of SAP for the coming year:

"Through industry leaders such as Otto or Lidl, the trend has already been started in recent years, traditionally known from the financial industry. Coming year, more and more companies are questioning the cost of implementing and maintaining ERP software packages and designing alternative business software based on open source platforms or platform-as-a-service services from hyperscalers."

This statement must be supplemented by the application of no-code/low-code platforms, which can also be a liberating blow and gain in autonomy for ERP users.

"What we can do better"Christian Klein asked himself in the ASUG interview and gave the answer:

"The biggest challenge in transforming our customers is not technology, but process redesign. This is where we want to do a better job. We will focus on the service side - there are already many SAP services, but we can do better [...] Listening to our customers is not just about aligning our roadmaps with their needs, but also about building long-term relationships. This is the time for SAP to show that we have a heart and that we will not leave customers behind."

Christian Klein wants to walk the path together with empathy and obviously has the goal of becoming a "solution architect" for his customers - a much better idea than a trusted advisor, which is what his predecessor, Bill McDermott, wanted to be at times.