I find that when­ev­er I trav­el any­where on this plan­et, I usu­al­ly walk away from the expe­ri­ence believ­ing that most of us are actu­al­ly more alike than we are dif­fer­ent. That thought occurred to me in late 2019 as we were final­iz­ing a pro­posed research project with DSAG (Deutschsprachige SAP-Anwen­der­gruppe), the Ger­man-speak­ing SAP user group, that would kick off in 2020.

That research project turned into a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort between the ASUG research team and the DSAG team that includ­ed an iden­ti­cal quan­ti­ta­tive sur­vey tak­en by ASUG and DSAG mem­bers. We then con­tin­ued to explore those answers with a qual­i­ta­tive study of par­tic­i­pants who vol­un­teered to speak with us and with DSAG for a 30-minute, in-depth inter­view to get at some of the ​“whys” behind their answers. 

Com­mon­al­i­ties Among SAP Cus­tomers Worldwide

Now that we have com­plet­ed this joint effort, I can share what we’ve learned about SAP cus­tomers in the U.S., Cana­da, Ger­many, Aus­tria, and Switzer­land. Once again, it turns out that we are more alike than we orig­i­nal­ly thought. In this instance, we are talk­ing about cus­tomers’ atti­tudes toward SAP, as well as about their imple­men­ta­tion and use of SAP S/4HANA.

Along with my coun­ter­part Mario Gün­ter, CEO of DSAG, I’m excit­ed to announce the results of this time­ly study. Below are a hand­ful of the many insights and high­lights we dis­cov­ered from the more than 700 sur­vey par­tic­i­pants, which we will be expand­ing on dur­ing our ​“Insights on Cross-Bor­der Cus­tomer Expe­ri­ences with SAP S/4HANA” joint web­cast on July 23, 2020.

5 Things We Learned from Glob­al SAP Customers 

While there were plen­ty of sim­i­lar­i­ties in how the North Amer­i­can and Ger­man-speak­ing SAP cus­tomers approached their SAP S/4HANA deci­sions, there were areas of dif­fer­ence, too. Here are five impor­tant take­aways from the survey.

1. What Dri­ves SAP Purchases

For both DSAG and ASUG mem­bers, sup­port and cost are impor­tant fac­tors when pur­chas­ing SAP solu­tions and SAP-relat­ed ser­vices. That said, dis­par­i­ty exists across mar­kets, with a much larg­er share of respon­dents from ASUG than DSAG report­ing the impor­tance of peer and part­ner recommendations.

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2. How SAP Can Make Its Over­all Cus­tomer Expe­ri­ence Better 

Among ASUG mem­ber respon­dents, the num­ber-one sug­ges­tion of how SAP can improve the expe­ri­ence is by improv­ing the con­sis­ten­cy and avail­abil­i­ty of sup­port. Oth­er ways SAP could improve the expe­ri­ence involve mak­ing the learn­ing process eas­i­er through pro­vid­ing in-depth train­ing and mate­ri­als and a more user-friend­ly expe­ri­ence for end users. 

For DSAG mem­bers, the top sug­ges­tions are to improve the prod­uct expe­ri­ence and inte­gra­tion, as well as the mes­sag­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions com­ing from SAP.

3. How SAP Can Help Cus­tomers Help Themselves

For both ASUG and DSAG mem­bers, the mes­sage is loud and clear when it comes to their SAP sys­tems: Reduce the amount of soft­ware cus­tomiza­tions, which was the num­ber-one sug­ges­tion from both sides of the Atlantic. 

4. Where SAP S/4HANA Is Deployed

Across both ASUG and DSAG, as SAP S/4HANA is intro­duced, respon­dents are pri­or­i­tiz­ing finance the most, fol­lowed by sales and dis­tri­b­u­tion. Busi­ness area pri­or­i­ti­za­tion is large­ly con­sis­tent between ASUG and DSAG, though the largest dis­par­i­ties between user groups are enter­prise asset man­age­ment (with 10% more ASUG mem­bers pri­or­i­tiz­ing this busi­ness area) and sup­ply chain man­age­ment (with 11% more ASUG mem­bers pri­or­i­tiz­ing it).

5. What the SAP S/4HANA Ben­e­fits Are

For ASUG mem­bers, the num­ber-one ben­e­fit to adopt­ing SAP S/4HANA is improved per­for­mance. The num­ber-one ben­e­fit for DSAG mem­bers is the opti­miza­tion of exist­ing busi­ness process­es. The dis­par­i­ty between user groups when it comes to busi­ness process opti­miza­tion aligns with more DSAG mem­bers report­ing busi­ness process impacts, which we’ll dive into more dur­ing the webcast.

For deep­er insights into this top­ic, please join our July 23 web­cast, ​“Insights on Cross-Bor­der Cus­tomer Expe­ri­ences with SAP S/4HANA.” DSAG CEO Mario Gün­ter, DSAG board mem­ber Otto Schell, ASUG Mar­ket Research Man­ag­er Car­olyn Szczurek, and I will unpack the results and share our thoughts on the sim­i­lar­i­ties and dif­fer­ences between cus­tomers in these regions, as well as what’s hap­pen­ing with SAP S/4HANA glob­al­ly. I know that it will be worth your time, and I promise that — just like when you trav­el to a new des­ti­na­tion — you’ll learn some­thing you nev­er knew before. 

Reg­is­ter to lis­ten to our on-demand web­cast, ​“Insights on Cross-Bor­der Cus­tomer Expe­ri­ences with SAP S/4HANA.”