SAP, Innovation and Atlanta airport

"When you die and go to hell, Delta still makes you change planes in Atlanta" is an old joke among airline passengers.

Delta's storied hub is also its Achille's heel. Ditto with United and O'Hare. American and DFW. Airlines like Southwest, by offering non-stops between pairs of cities make a hub look so unattractive, other than for long, international flights. From my home town, Southwest now has nonstops to 30 cities. Hubs represent another potential point of failure and delay in an industry struggling with so many other issues. As Richard Branson says in this article "The American traveling public has proven, with their dollars, where the future lies for commercial air travel: next generation, low fare, point-to-point carriers."

But what does Atlanta have to do with SAP? Follow along with me.

For the last couple of years, SAP (and Oracle and other enterprise vendors) has been trying to paint itself as innovative. This week at TechEd in Munich, it smartly allowed its customers to show case innovations. So much better than SAP trying to market itself.

But these customers already "live in Atlanta". To them, SAP is a non-stop carrier since they live in the hub location. They have sunk so much into SAP and now are getting the incremental innovation benefits. But there are plenty of SAP customers who got fatigued or ran out of money as they tried to move to "Atlanta". Many others live nowhere near "Atlanta" (and use Oracle or whatever). If SAP can deliver point to point service - standalone applications - to them they would be interested.

The best innovation SAP should aspire for is a radical new delivery and business model - like Dayjet is trying. Small, bite-sized, affordable applications. Prettying up "Atlanta" and showing me widgets and bells and whistles cannot mask the fact that there is an ugly beast underneath. It actually makes me go gulp -  by reminding me they have not lowered my risk of being stuck in "Atlanta".

Comments

[Ric]

THAT'S what was bothering me about TechEd! The prisoner is grateful for his one decent meal a week ...

[techabs]

Hi Vinnie, on an unrelated note, i dont know if you have seen this, i would say its significant innovation:

http://www.chordiant.com/news/press07/pr070821.html

i mean even you discount the obvious marketing speak

[Rmoan Rytov]

Vinnie, with all respect for Southwest for me, an Atlanta inhabitant, it's hard to imagine how I'd commute without DL. It certainly deserves critics (who does not?) but no other carrier can offer today enjoyment for its flyers to 150 destinations directly. Huge majority of them are out of ATL. The only city I've flown in last two years not directly was Singapore. Is it expensive? Probably! Not the best service? Arguably not. But, first, it's improving remarkably(!), second, you can't change the staff's culture in a day? It will take time to change DL but I'm positive they're on the right way.

Same for SAP. Whom are you comparing it to? Is SFDC the flagman of innovation today? - read, Southwest of the software? Even if so they have to prove it as it's done SAP for 30 years and start offering serious "destinations" in the magnitude of 150 "flights" of SAP. When you talk about heavy duty applications there is just a handful of companies you can look into if not at SAP.

Similarly to Delta, SAP deserves its portion of critics. We're changing. Maybe not as fast as some of us (and our customers) wanted. But don't be too pushing in changing our model for the sake of innovation. Only the number of destinations, new fliers, and per-seat revenue are comparable measures. Innovation for the sake of itself is a waste. Check our numbers for 3d quarter, check Gardner for the MDM market. We're on the vanguard and innovating via leading. The numbers tell it.

[vinnie mirchandani]

Roman, I think you misunderstand. You are already in Atlanta. Delta is great from Atlanta. I love their intl service from Atlanta. But going from Tampa to Miami or to SFO, do not appreciate going through Atlanta. Prefer a non stop. But for you it is all non-stop, and Delta's improvements (good to see that both as a customer and a shareholder) counts as innovation to delight you. To me, they do not offset the hassle of changing planes at the hub.

Same thing with SAP. If you are already invested heavily in SAP you are already (like you) living in Atlanta. Any innovations SAP delivers to you does not cost that much more and delights you. But what if you are not on SAP. What if you only have a sliver of SAP. It's like living in Tampa ...then options like SW make a lot more sense even if they are not that innovative. SAP keeps telling people fly through Atlanta - impelement R/3 first. That's my issue. If it flew non stop point to point at reasonable prcies it would beat other options hands down. And it can but chooses not too...the business model will not change...

[Rmoan Rytov]

Now agree. Though I still like Lufthansa more I switched to Delta once moved to ATL - makes total sense. The same for SFO and United or USAirs in Phili.

SAP is coming to make new fliers getting from Kalamzoo to San Diego and Tampa. That's the whole idea of BBD!

[vinnie mirchandani]

Then i love BDD. But seriously even more granular should be goal...take a look at DayJet...then Oracle, Infor etc customers could also take adavnatge of your innovations

[DJS]

DayJet blog talk
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