A CIO in an email congratulating me on my new book, Silicon Collar, wondered if SAP was relieved this one is not on “the Nation”.
They don’t need to worry about another book. They have their hands full.
Several mid-level SAP executives have announced plans to leave in the last few weeks. In the SAP ecosystem that’s pretty big news.
SAP does not need to worry about these departures either, they have their hands full.
To get an idea on what I mean by hands full, go back and listen to McDermott’s keynote at SapphireNow in May. He “openly admitted that he ditched his original keynote content 15 days before Sapphire. The reason cited was some pointed feedback received from customer CIO’s as well as from SAP Board members. Instead, the message was one of acknowledgement that SAP was not listening and responding to customer feedback. McDermott therefore declared that empathy would be the number one message delivered.”
There are literally thousands of SAP customers who are trying out one or more of the 9 diversification strategies I had outlined in SAP Nation – ring fence with clouds, two-tier ERP, third party maintenance etc. In the multi-city tour I did for Rimini earlier this year, I met many other SAP customers who are planning similar moves.
SAP has its hands full, and it needs its partners to help here. Not by marketing more, but helping incumbent customers dramatically lower their cost of operating the software.
Yes, overtly, SAP can talk about steady earnings in its quarterly calls, but the foundation is increasingly shaky.
And my book is about something much bigger than SAP. It’s meant to counter a different kind of pessimism. SAP has far more tactical things to worry about.
