The New SAP: The Techies Are Back in Charge
SAP's new co-CEOs faced scrutiny since their crowning: But can they innovate out of SAP's "glory days" past?
Ever since SAP's Superbowl Sunday Switch-a-roo, the headlines swirling about SAP's CEO shakeup have focused on the promotion of the new co-CEOs: Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe.
Print
Among many other articles, there was an interesting back and forth between The Economist (The Trouble with Tandems) and industry analyst Josh Greenbaum (More Fun with Co-CEOs: The Economist Responds).
SAP's move resembled the Phoenix (with two heads?) rising from the ashes: The German ERP software giant likely resurrected its trusted dual-executive model because it provided a certain level of security and comfort amid the abruptness of the change. (The regime change from former CEO Leo Apotheker continues in fits and starts.)
McDermott, the smooth sales guy, and Snabe, the product developer, seem like they've been on a global roadshow even since February, meeting with customers, employees, analysts and the media. I've perhaps unfairly characterized the duo as "The Odd Couple," but that's solely due to the noticeable range of personal and professional differences. The union, however, does make a lot of sense right now.
I'd also guess that the marketing spin of a more "customer friendly" and "kindler, gentler" SAP offered by luminary Hasso Plattner, McDermott and Snabe is probably playing well in Peoria (Ill.) and Penzberg (Bavaria), though skepticism still exists around maintenance offerings. Apotheker surely wasn't the "warm and fuzzy" type.
But customers should note that there is another trend at work at SAP: The techies are back in charge.
Plattner, a computer scientist at heart, has firmly grabbed the reins in his role as chairman of SAP's 16-member supervisory board. Previous executive board members, notably John Schwarz, are gone. In turn, SAP promoted CTO Vishal Sikka, who leads SAP's technology strategy, to join Snabe on the executive board. Sikka is not just window dressing. (See my interview with him.)
Clearly, the "new" leadership will have to shed legacy issues of the past and tap into the innovative sprit of the SAP zealots who do exist. And show the competition and its customers what it has to offer—such as its new BI tool for "the rest of us."
In an insightful interview with CNBC, the hosts asked the new co-CEOs this pointed question: "What's exciting about SAP in terms of innovation?"
Good question. And one I'm sure that Plattner & Co. will be answering again and again and again, whether anyone asks the question or not. (If you can't get enough of in-memory database talk or Business ByDesign hype, then the SAP marketing machine is going to be sweet music to you ears in 2010!)
Forrester Research principal analyst Paul Hamerman writes in a recent report on SAP's leadership changes that SAP's technology challenges are sizeable.
"For SAP to grow and prosper, it cannot live off its legacy technology core," Hamerman writes. "Plattner and Sikka will have hands-on involvement in evolving the technology strategy, but making it resonate with customers will be a key challenge.... While the technology strategy is also important, putting too much faith into a few technology silver bullets (e.g., in-memory computing, cloud computing, mobile, etc.) could be a sign of weakness rather than vision."
Previous Post: ERP Software Support Is Suddenly a Sexy TopicNext Post: We'll All Work for a Tech Vendor One Day
What is Tech Briefcase?
TechBriefcase is a new, free service where IT Professionals can Search, Store and Share IT white papers and content like this. Learn more
Bookmark content
Speed up your research efforts with content across the web.
Search and Store
Find the white papers you need. Create folders for any topic.
View Anywhere
Open your briefcase on your iPhone, tablet or desktop. Share with colleagues.
Most Discussed Posts
Cloud computing has emerged as one of the most significant game changers to hit the technology landscape in the past 20 years. With this massive expansion of the cloud, the perception of the IT organization is shifting from a utility player to a change agent. This eBook breaks down five ways progressive organizations are using cloud-based IT Management solutions to help drive innovation and become more strategic, including: adding visibility and analytics, speeding up time-to-value, lowering costs, improving prioritization, and providing a blueprint for future cloud deployments.
Read the white paper to see how IBM helped Citigroup deliver new services and enhancements to their 200 million customers faster.
There are 3 ways to modernize legacy applications: rewrite completely, acquire packaged solutions or migrate existing code. This paper explains why it's best to migrate and how IBM® Rational® software can help.
Accommodating specific lines of business can result in a hybrid ecosystem of applications and servers. The resulting complexity of this architecture makes for an environment that is costly to maintain and difficult to change when addressing new challenges.
This whitepaper will help you to define a mobile device passcode policy. Security managers must attempt to reconcile two opposing goals. They must: 1) create a passcode policy that is strong enough to protect the device if it is lost or stolen, while: 2) not annoying users with needless length or complexity.
This whitepaper, authored by The Radicati Group, looks at the key reasons organizations should consider moving to a cloud-based archiving solution. Email archiving solutions enable organizations to store, monitor, and collect electronic data exchanged by their users to comply with internal policies and regulations.
ATERNITY will showcase a 30-minute demo on how Fortune 500 companies are leveraging its award-winning FPI Platform to deliver a user-centric approach to Proactive IT Management.
For businesses to move forward and tap into the ever-expanding universe of Internet users and network-enabled devices, it's critical to learn how to make the transition to IPv6. Learn the critical steps your organization must take to make a seamless transition-and keep your business world connected.
Learn how IT teams can protect against spear phishing tactics. Harry Sverdlove, chief technology officer of Bit9 offers a frank discussion about spear phishing - the most common technique used in today's advanced attacks.
Learn how to build a solid business case for your migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux so you can run leaner, innovate faster, be more flexible and own the New Now.
Social media isn't about you; it's about everything around you. As you consider how your customers want to communicate with you, social media is something that can't be ignored. But what should your strategy be? Is social media "just another channel?" What kind of a plan makes sense for your contact center and for your customers? Join our experts as they share their insight and research results.
Hardware tokens were a popular method of strong authentication in past years but the cumbersome provisioning and distribution tasks, high support requirements and replacement costs have limited their growth. The additional log-in steps that hardware tokens require and the resulting user frustrations have limited adoption and make them impractical for larger scale partner and customer applications.
Sponsored Links
