DSAG Annual Congress - Digitization, right?

DSAG CEO Marco Lenck will open the annual DSAG Congress in Nuremberg on September 17, and DSAG members will be waiting with great anticipation for the SAP keynote: SAP Executive Board member and Chief Operating Officer Christian Klein will attempt to deliver an accountability report to thousands of existing SAP customers. Not an easy task!

The expectations are just as high as the upcoming problems and struggles for direction. A year ago, SAP's existing customers could be sure where SAP would be heading by 2025 with Bernd Leukert, Rob Enslin, and Björn Goerke - a year later, the decision on the direction is completely open!

SAP CEO Bill McDermott's "Cloud First" has become an "Embrace." Embrace and clinging to the hyperscalers are supposed to save McDermott's cloud strategy.

Young Christian Klein is to be responsible for the operational part of the rescue operation without the help of SAP veterans Leukert, Enslin and Goerke. However, the hyperscaler love affair "Embrace" will only work if SAP allows fair and partnership-based license agreements.

Christian Klein will also have to explain the death of C/4 on the DSAG stage: In 2018, Bill McDermott promised an end-to-end CRM suite. At SAP's AGM this year, CEO McDermott declared that the Qualtrics "X data engine" will remain standalone - no sign of integration or new CRM!

DSAG CEO Marco Lenck:

"Ariba, Hybris, Concur, Fieldglass, Callidus and most recently Qualtrics: SAP's acquisition policy in recent years has led to a massive need to bring systems and master data together.

We see that the solutions purchased from SAP still involve certain integration difficulties. We have already communicated to SAP that the integration of the individual components is not yet satisfactory.

From our perspective, there are indications that SAP is already working on further integration and, as announced at Sapphire, is offering an initial solution in the area of customer management with the Customer Data Cloud."

In Nuremberg, all DSAG members will probably be interested to hear what SAP Executive Board member Christian Klein has to say about this.

The DSAG Investment Report 2019 showed that SAP users are also disillusioned when it comes to digitalization - and not just in terms of integration, security and HCM (see page 34 of this issue). As the level of digital progress increases, so does the awareness of the areas in which transformation is also necessary. So what can be done?

Digitization requires a rethink of how projects are approached, how teams work together, how skills are built and technologies are used.

In addition, perseverance is required. Success may not come right away. That's why it's important to be courageous and establish a culture of error. How DSAG member companies might go about this will be demonstrated at the 20th DSAG Annual Congress:

"We want to motivate and give examples so that members think about and shape their business models. S/4 Hana, ERP, the cloud and co. are only part of the transformation process that must be tackled consistently."

says DSAG Board Chairman Marco Lenck. Here, the association expects SAP to create scope for innovation for its customers with simple, quickly deployable and affordable solutions. So that the next steps in the digital transformation can be tackled consistently and successfully.

The German-speaking SAP User Group e. V. (DSAG) will roll out the red carpet at Messe Nuremberg from September 17 to 19, 2019. "And action! Making digitization consistent" is the cinematic motto of the 20th DSAG annual congress, which is intended to encourage companies to see digital transformation as an opportunity and to face up to the associated tasks.