“Uber Alles Paralysis”

As the World Cup winds down, it has been such a celebration of global diversity. Polite Japanese fans cleaning up after themselves. Crushed Brazilian fans applauding the German team.

And the reverse – way too many leaders blaming losses on the field on geopolitics. The need to have a campaign to stand up to racism.

My research for my book on SAP is exposing me to more  national stereotypes. 2 decades ago, I used to hear clichés about German engineering prowess. As if hardware and design excellence applied equally to enterprise software. Or the reverse in the form of German bureaucracy and works councils and the related paralysis.

Now it is the reverse about the “Americanization” of SAP. That new CEO, Bill McDermott will be SAP’s Stephen Elop. He will gut the company and sell the IP and data to non-Germans. That it is one big, bad NSA plot.

Lost in all this nonsense is the fact that SAP’s biggest threat is its runaway economy. That Bill should be aggressively taming its ecosystem which year on year adds 8 to 10X to customer burden what SAP charges them. Rather than spending time in Walldorf convincing people he is not Elop.

My daughter came back from a European trip this summer and announced “Dad, your 50 country tally is well within reach”. At her age I had been to  2 countries!

The more we globalize, the more nationalist morons of all stripes raise their ugly head. And just paralyze progress. By the time Rita gets to 50 countries on her passport I hope we have evolved more positively.