E3 Category: No/Name - Column

I have borrowed a series title from the German-language Manager Magazin, because many things are also going very well and successfully at SAP. But there is just as much room for valuable and sustainable optimization.

We have a long-standing relationship with a number of leading software providers, including SAP, Microsoft, Siemens, IBM, Oracle, and many others. Each of these companies has a proven track record in IT and has been instrumental in helping us manage our organization effectively.

It's frightening how little SAP boss Klein knows about us customers. Since the sales reps now limit themselves to only delivering the latest price list instead of offering more extended consultations with customers, the SAP spirit of old has disappeared.

A successful SAP Business Technology Platform partner summit took place in Heidelberg, Germany. The efforts to establish an open system alongside the frozen core are commendable. My proposal is that the BTP become public domain.

Regular readers of my column know that I am the co-head of an SAP regulars' club that now has 27 CIOs as members. The mood in the group is always good, although we are waiting for Christian Klein to reset.

Many are familiar with the book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter. The first time I tried to read the English original in 1989, I failed. However, after a lecture by AI pioneer Jürgen Schmidhuber, I purchased the German edition and devoured it from cover to cover.

I had lunch with our senior lawyer in the cafeteria the other day and we ended up staying until 5 in the afternoon. It wasn’t the food that made me feel ill, but rather his concerns about the use of generative AI in light of the GDPR.

SAP is a shell of its former self. It has everything other IT vendors lack: content and knowledge. However, hyperscalers have the technology.

Life is ever changing, and for whatever reason, the day may come when it is time to leave the cloud. SAP does not have a policy for this. Customers, however, should. They should have a cloud exit strategy plan in place.

Only about a third of the DSAG (German-speaking SAP User Group) members trust SAP's strategy. SAP CEO Christian Klein's visions are correct, but the way they are presented and communicated misses the mark with the SAP community.

There is pressure to act, which SAP CEO Christian Klein obviously does not feel. He spends his days doing petty repair work. He works dedicatedly and forgets the purpose and vision of SAP.

End-to-end business processes remind me of my early days with SAP R/3. A lot of things didn't work then, but when they did, they were consistent, evaluated, and definitely E2E. SAP CEO Klein talks a lot about integration.