One of the great­est ASUG mem­ber­ship ben­e­fits, and prob­a­bly least known, is the rela­tion­ship between the ASUG lead­er­ship team and the SAP U.S., Amer­i­c­as’, glob­al, and Ger­many-HQ-based lead­ers. These rela­tion­ships have matured, and become ever stronger, over the past sev­er­al years. Today, ASUG CEO Geoff Scott has a direct line and reg­u­lar con­tact with SAP CEO Chris­t­ian Klein, SAP CMO Julia White, and a host of addi­tion­al mem­bers of the SAP Exec­u­tive Board.

These impor­tant rela­tion­ships did­n’t hap­pen by acci­dent. Your ASUG Board of Direc­tors and greater lead­er­ship team made a con­scious deci­sion sev­er­al years ago to work with SAP as an ally ver­sus an ene­my, to work in a mutu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial part­ner­ship. This deci­sion was the first step to pave the way to giv­ing ASUG the oppor­tu­ni­ty to voice mem­bers’ con­cerns, con­sid­er­a­tions, and chal­lenges direct­ly to SAP leadership.

What’s Behind the Opened Doors?

Work­ing on this rela­tion­ship togeth­er, doors opened. What kind of doors, when, and for what pur­pose? At the ASUG Accel­er­ate-SAP Sap­phire events ear­li­er this year and in pre-COVID Sap­phire meet­ings, the ASUG CEO and ASUG Board opened the door to con­ver­sa­tions with sev­er­al SAP key lead­ers. These meet­ings gave ASUG lead­ers — rep­re­sent­ing mem­bers — an oppor­tu­ni­ty to lis­ten to SAP, have mean­ing­ful dis­cus­sions, offer feed­back on strate­gies, and pro­vide can­did insights into future SAP prod­ucts, ser­vices, and solu­tions roadmaps.

Anoth­er major door opened just last year. Geoff Scott and the ASUG Board Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee trav­eled to SAP HQ in Wall­dorf to meet with Chris­t­ian Klein and the Exec­u­tive Board. The pur­pose of these vis­its is to con­tin­ue deep-dive con­ver­sa­tions into SAP strate­gies and roadmaps. These annu­al meet­ings proved invalu­able, as ASUG shares infor­ma­tion and insights indi­vid­u­al­ly and in group ses­sions with SAP lead­er­ship team. These ses­sions have vis­i­bly shaped cur­rent and future prod­uct offer­ings and launches.

Planned and Unplanned Opportunities

The impor­tance, pow­er, and influ­ence of the ASUG-SAP rela­tion­ship — on behalf of ASUG mem­bers — became very clear in an unplanned way in Wall­dorf. Chris­t­ian had planned to meet with Geoff and the Exec Com­mit­tee at one point dur­ing the day. Yet, due to an unan­tic­i­pat­ed cal­en­dar shift, he could not meet as planned. His Chief of Staff came to meet in his place. He apol­o­gized on behalf of the CEO, and he did a great job fill­ing in.

End of sto­ry? No!

Lat­er that evening, dur­ing an admit­ted­ly late din­ner — south of 9 PM local time— who shows up? Chris­t­ian Klein. Alone. Causal dress. A set of keys in hand. Geoff Scott and your Board lead­ers were stunned. There was no meet­ing plan — or planned meet­ing. No agenda.

When he sat down and placed the keys on the table, I said, ​“Wow, Chris­t­ian. We did­n’t expect to see you today, much less, so late in the evening.” And he replied, ​“After I put my kids to bed, I want­ed to come and spend some time with you all.”

That made the dif­fer­ence, a remark­able rela­tion­ship impact. We, and you, were, and are, impor­tant enough that he left his home late in the evening to come and spend some time with his ASUG partners.

Seat at the Table, Be in the Room

I can hear the cyn­ics and the skep­tics raise a voice of con­cern. Some say it’s bet­ter to have an adver­sar­i­al rela­tion­ship with SAP and we should not be so cozy with them. To those few, I offer the fol­low­ing: Hav­ing a seat at such a huge table should­n’t be under­val­ued. There are sev­er­al major SAP ini­tia­tives where hav­ing this rela­tion­ship puts ASUG in the room to ampli­fy your views, your voic­es and to influ­ence major deci­sions and direc­tions that affect the glob­al SAP com­mu­ni­ty. It’s much bet­ter to be in the room than out­side the doors.

So, if you did­n’t know about this mem­ber ben­e­fit, maybe even priv­i­leged access to influ­ence and inform SAP, now you do. An ASUG mem­ber­ship gets your col­lec­tive voic­es heard by the SAP leadership.

The next time you attend SAP Sap­phire, or an ASUG Chap­ter meet­ing, or any ASUG-spon­sored event, and you want your voice heard at SAP, seek out the ASUG vol­un­teer lead or an ASUG staff mem­ber. Let them know what you want to share with the SAP lead­er­ship team if you had the oppor­tu­ni­ty. They will get your view record­ed. They’ll get that infor­ma­tion to ASUG lead­ers and to your Board for the next meet­ing with the SAP lead­er­ship team.

Just one of the pow­er­ful oppor­tu­ni­ties, and ben­e­fits, of membership!