Grassroots Revolution

It is now known that at the turn of the year 2020/2021, the Rise concept was knitted with a hot needle. It will no longer be possible to determine what part ex-SAP chief strategist Anuj Kapur played in this. The problem is not Kapur, the top manager poached by Cisco. He is just another anecdote in the SAP personnel merry-go-round. The problem is the vision that SAP's top management has for its own company.

What Helmut Schmidt once postulated applies to SAP's vision: "Who has visions should go to the doctor." SAP is a global corporation with international customers. After the departure of former Chief Technology Officer Vishal Sikka, there was immediate criticism of the lack of internationalization on the SAP Executive Board, which at times consisted only of old German men. SAP has now achieved sufficient gender parity. The question of internationalization remains open.

Mentally SAP was born in the Middle Ages in Italy. Double-entry bookkeeping (Doppik) originated there. It is not clear who invented this system, but Luca Pacioli was the first to manifest double-entry bookkeeping in writing. It is believed that Pacioli was born around 1445 in Tuscany. He worked for a wealthy merchant in Venice and thus learned the business of commodity trading. He later joined the Franciscan Order and lived as an itinerant teacher. He worked as a professor at the leading universities in Italy at the time, and it was probably during this period that he wrote his work on double-entry bookkeeping.

People like to discuss the complexity of SAP's ERP. Of course, "SAP" is complex because the system is universal. No other business computer program has a comparable depth and breadth. SAP ERP can be compared to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, generally considered to be Europe's last polymath. SAP's European roots reach back to the present day. The software also contains the knowledge and insights of Hans-Georg Plaut, the founder of marginal costing. And many more European examples can be found.

For me, the roots of SAP's success lie in Europe and the business knowledge that has evolved over centuries. Anyone who has not had the opportunity to experience this culture cannot be a chief strategist for SAP. Anuj Kapur is beyond any intellectual doubt. The top manager is without flaw, but he lacks the European spirit that is an essential component of the SAP universe. I discussed this issue with Editor-in-Chief Färbinger because I was no longer sure of my Eurocentric opinion. But he confirmed me, because every day he shows the difference between the German-speaking SAP community and the global SAP scene on his two websites e-3.de and e3zine.com observed. He also emphasized that it is not a valuation: the English SAP contributions on reddit.com/r/SAP are just as valuable as the German-language discussions in the DSAG network.

We need a discourse from the SAP base - from the grass roots. Peter Hartmann is doing perfect surveys in Switzerland with his SAP CIO interest group, which SAP should understand as recommendations for direction and strategy. Our DSAG is also working hard to correct SAP's strategy. A current topic: Continued existence of CCoE? CCoE, formerly CCC, is a success story for SAP and us existing customers: With a certified CCC, my SAP regular sisters and brothers paid an R/3 maintenance fee exclusively from the net license price.

The SAP community needs a grassroots revolution. A renewal by us existing customers. Perhaps a grassroots revolution. SAP needs a critical and constructive spirit from the SAP community, not a manager from a consulting firm from Roland Berger, Boston Consulting or Accenture. Perhaps the new SAP strategy should also come more from the gut of the community than from the mind at board level? At the moment, software innovation is taking place beyond SAP's own nose. Not a good outlook for us existing SAP customers.