I excerpt 10% from every book in a series of blog posts. I posted several on SAP Nation 3.0 in April, then took a break after the Sapphire event. Over the next couple of weeks will excerpt the final batch. The book has sold very well - I should have ordered a much larger first print run, but you can buy small batches on Amazon in print and eBook format here
” SAP could start becoming a first mover with its customer base, and at the same time start thinking on a bigger scale. There are plenty of other markets where SAP might adopt a fast follower approach after missing out on the first wave of opportunity.
Let’s first discuss the first mover option."
" In Chs. 5–8, we classified the customer base into Risk-Takers, Modernizers, Diversifiers and Bystanders, with the last group being the most populous.
What if SAP could turbocharge customer conversations so the Risk-Takers and Modernizers help convert the Bystanders? What if it can turn the tide among the Diversifiers so more of them return to SAP products? In Ch. 8 we highlighted a wide range of strategies customers have been trying out. All kinds of good things could come from such a tilt both for customers and SAP. Next, SAP could entice similar Diversifiers and Bystanders in Oracle, Infor, Unit4 and other customer bases. Many of them have been waiting for next-gen applications for even longer than SAP customers."
"Some say the Bystander group is playing “blink” with SAP. They are betting that SAP will back down on its “end of support dates.”
Mueller of Constellation said, referring to ECC and moves to S/4:
“The next two or three years will show if SAP can create the value proposition. We’ll see how much customers push back. SAP could say, ‘We listened to our customers and we will give you another two or three years (beyond 2025), but you have to pay not 18%, but 21% or 25% or maybe even 30% in annual maintenance.’
However, the writing has been on the wall and for years now. It should have been clear to every CIO that the innovation is happening on the S/4 side. Do you want to be in 2030, 11 years from now, with an ERP system that cannot run machine learning, which doesn’t have a good IoT story and so on?”
Or as Wright of Accuride and Howlett of diginomica have pointed out, it’s tough enough today to recruit younger talent to an ECC and ABAP shop. Can you imagine what it will be like in 2025 or 2030?"
