Amazon has released SAP Nation on the Kindle. Over the next few weeks the book will be available in other print and eBook formats. As I have done with my other books, I plan to excerpt here about 10% of the book over the next several weeks for my blog readers. Here is some from the Prologue:
“Just as Orlando, Florida, starts to become uncomfortably warm around Memorial Day each year, thousands of executives fly in for the better part of a week. The lucky ones get to stay at the Peabody, where they do not have to wait for shuttle buses. Instead, they could watch the pampered house ducks march up a red carpet and waddle for hours in a fountain. Others stay a bit further away near Shamu, the killer whale at Sea World. Still others stay near the beautifully landscaped Epcot and other Disney parks. They are not there, however, for the flora and fauna.They have come to SAP’s marquee event — Sapphire Now —which takes up much of the million-square-feet of the north and south halls at the Orange County Convention Center.”
“They come to listen to SAP executives, who look both tiny on the huge stage and yet larger than life on surrounding giant screens. Dr. Hasso Plattner, one of the founders, takes the stage every year for a part humorous and part deep-dive technical talk. On occasion, Dr. Plattner also breaks out a guitar, or tells sailing and Formula One racing stories. It is a far cry from the humble beginnings of the company which took a decade to reach 100 employees with headquarters in the spargel (white asparagus) fields of Walldorf, in the Baden-Württemberg region of Germany.”
“The visitors come to mingle with peers from the Fortune 500 and beyond. They walk by booths that represent the best and brightest from every technology category — infrastructure vendors like Cisco, EMC, HP and IBM, newer cloud players like Amazon and Microsoft, and accounting/advisory firms like Deloitte and PwC. Add to that global players like TCS, HCL and L&T Infotech from India, Stefanini from Brazil, Fujitsu and NTT Data from Japan, and Atos, Capgemini and T-Systems from Europe.
The wide range of specialist offerings represented there includes benchmarking services from AnswerThink, fashion industry expertise from Attune, spatial data from Critigen and database services from Dobler.
This is the hub of corporate IT. At every turn, you are near someone who is responsible for technology that processes orders, invoices or payroll for well-known brands around the world. The power and influence is palpable. SAP advertises it as “the must-attend business outing of the year.”
“It’s tough to not be happy here. If you are a customer, you get to mingle with friends and associates at many peer companies. The U.S. user group, ASUG, hosts its annual event at Sapphire Now. In addition, a quarter
of the attendees are from outside the U.S., giving the event the feel of a FIFA World Cup party. If you are a prospect, you get to evaluate the “intangibles” of meeting with SAP executives and other customers that you do not encounter in a typical software procurement process. If you are an exhibitor, you get lists of countless leads to chase. In recent years, SAP has focused on bringing more prospects to the event, even as existing customers return every year.”
“But like so much else in Orlando, Sapphire Now is kitsch, a pleasant escape from reality. When they return home, attendees realize their SAP environment is not “simple” or “minimalist,” words SAP executives frequently use. They look back and wish technology works as well as it did at the event, which supports nearly 100,000 iPads, smartphones, laptops, and the walkie-talkies and pagers of the event attendees, security staff and “roadies.” They wonder why SAP cannot extend its influence on its partners beyond the event. At the event, SAP has guidelines for exhibitors concerning every little detail: signage, dress codes, professional behavior, employment solicitation and “sensitive and/or non-complementary” materials.
As they share all the freebies they picked up at the event with their kids, it strikes the event attendees that nothing in the SAP economy is really free. They chuckle about the all-too real joke they heard in Orlando: “SAP stands for ‘send another payment’.
Many customers have gone beyond chuckling.”
