Soft­ware is always evolv­ing. One of the best ways to keep this evo­lu­tion mov­ing in the right direc­tion is by engag­ing with users to bet­ter under­stand how it helps them achieve their dai­ly work and where it falls short. Those sub­ject mat­ter experts and end users are a rich source of ideas to con­tin­u­ous­ly improve these crit­i­cal products. 

ASUG-Led SAP Cus­tomer Influ­ence Councils

In addi­tion to the influ­ence pro­grams SAP runs, ASUG hosts Influ­ence Coun­cils. These spe­cial­ized groups of mem­bers reg­u­lar­ly meet to work­shop poten­tial solu­tion improve­ments to sub­mit to SAP, dis­cuss their use of an SAP prod­uct, and bounce around ideas of how to lever­age the soft­ware more effec­tive­ly at their organizations.

“The point of the Influ­ence Coun­cils is to col­lect and ampli­fy ASUG mem­ber feed­back to SAP,” said Dan­ny Pan­cratz, direc­tor of prod­uct devel­op­ment at ASUG. ​“ASUG Influ­ence Coun­cils help pro­vide road map val­i­da­tion, dis­cuss and define use-case sce­nar­ios, and artic­u­late improve­ment requests for the next round of prod­uct enhancements.”

Pro­vid­ing Prod­uct Feed­back to SAP 

SAP remains involved with the ASUG Influ­ence Coun­cils. First, each Influ­ence Coun­cil devotes time to dis­cussing ways that SAP could improve its prod­ucts. The coun­cils then sub­mit feed­back and sug­gest improve­ments to SAP through the soft­ware company’s cus­tomer influ­ence pro­grams, such as SAP Cus­tomer Connect. 

“We have a lot of ses­sions where we facil­i­tate dis­cus­sion on par­tic­u­lar areas of SAP Glob­al Trade Ser­vices that we want changed or improved and how we want to see those changes and improve­ments,” said Bri­tany Chris­ten­son, project man­ag­er and SAP GTS super­vi­sor at 3M and co-chair of the SAP Glob­al Trade Ser­vices Influ­ence Coun­cil. ​“Our first focus on the coun­cil is get­ting every­body engaged and col­lect­ing ideas for SAP Cus­tomer Connect.”

SAP GTS is focused on trade com­pli­ance, so the soft­ware helps man­age imports, exports, licens­es, and sanc­tioned busi­ness part­ners. Some of the improve­ments the Influ­ence Coun­cil dis­cussed and even­tu­al­ly sub­mit­ted to SAP include a mass-clas­si­fi­ca­tion func­tion­al­i­ty and improve­ments to the algo­rithm used in the sanc­tion-par­ty screen­ing process.

“We were try­ing to make the soft­ware eas­i­er to use and give users more con­fig­u­ra­tion and sen­si­tiv­i­ty options,” Chris­ten­son said.

Shar­ing SAP Prod­uct Imple­men­ta­tion Stories 

The Influ­ence Coun­cils not only focus on how they improve SAP prod­ucts, they also are forums for mem­bers to dis­cuss how their orga­ni­za­tions are using the solu­tions. This helps mem­bers iden­ti­fy the best way to imple­ment the solu­tion with­in their oper­a­tions, as well as opti­mize its use for their colleagues.

“What’s been help­ful for all the mem­bers is the oppor­tu­ni­ty to net­work and bench­mark, because there are a lot of peo­ple expe­ri­enc­ing sim­i­lar prob­lems and issues through­out their deploy­ment process­es,” Chris­ten­son said. ​“It’s a good place for us to see what oth­er peo­ple are doing.”

Ongo­ing Vir­tu­al SAP Cus­tomer Conversations 

In addi­tion to the SAP Glob­al Trade Ser­vices Influ­ence Coun­cil, ASUG hosts 19 oth­er coun­cils, focused on top­ics rang­ing from SAP Analy­sis for Microsoft Word to the SAP Busi­nes­sOb­jects BI plat­form. Each coun­cil has approx­i­mate­ly 20 to 30 mem­bers and meets vir­tu­al­ly either month­ly or bimonthly.

“The coun­cils are intend­ed to be ongo­ing con­ver­sa­tions over the course of the year,” Pan­cratz said. ​“In between meet­ings, the coun­cil might col­lect improve­ment request ideas or vote on those sub­mit­ted so that they can dis­cuss those ideas in detail or align on pri­or­i­ti­za­tion on their next call.”

Get Involved with SAP Influ­ence Councils 

As orga­ni­za­tions rely on SAP solu­tions to con­duct crit­i­cal aspects of their busi­ness­es, the ASUG Influ­ence Coun­cils are a great out­let for users to con­nect with their col­leagues and give SAP feed­back on its products.

“The Influ­ence Coun­cils are a great way to influ­ence the road map of the prod­uct and get your voice heard as a user,” Chris­ten­son said.

Get involved with an ASUG Influ­ence Coun­cil by email­ing influence@​asug.​com.