One hun­dred and eighty-sev­en ASUG vol­un­teers, ASUG staff, and SAP rep­re­sen­ta­tives gath­ered in Chica­go late last month for the first in-per­son ASUG Vol­un­teer Meet­ing in two years. 

Held at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare Chica­go from Jan. 27 – 28, the event fea­tured a robust array of keynote address­es, break­out ses­sions, and net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, all intend­ed to cel­e­brate the strength of the unit­ed ASUG vol­un­teer community.

Arriv­ing Fri­day after­noon, atten­dees heard video appre­ci­a­tion mes­sages from ASUG Board Direc­tors and SAP points of con­tact that led into in-per­son lead­er­ship remarks. Car­olyn Dolezal, COO at ASUG, then quizzed James A. John­son, Board Chair at ASUG and VP and CIO at James Hardie Indus­tries, and Kevin Hes­ter, Board Direc­tor at ASUG and CCO at SAP North Amer­i­ca, about pro­fes­sion­al jour­neys, cur­rent chal­lenges, and ASUG value.

John­son said his 30-plus years in IT were root­ed ear­ly on when, at around age 5, he could repro­gram his father’s dig­i­tal watch, then set­ting his sights on becom­ing IBM’s CEO. An ear­ly career in main­frame pro­gram­ming led to an MBA in mar­ket­ing and strat­e­gy and career in CIO roles, all in indus­tri­al manufacturing. 

In each role, John­son said he aims for teams to derive busi­ness val­ue from their IT invest­ments, ​“focused on val­ue creation.”

Val­ue Acceleration

When asked what’s on CIOs’ minds, John­son said he is chal­lenged to deliv­er val­ue on an ​“accel­er­at­ed basis” amidst ​“tal­ent short­ages and unprece­dent­ed demand from cus­tomers in the company.”

Hes­ter also began in main­frame soft­ware yet shift­ed into the SAP ranks in 1994. He spent the bulk of his career in cus­tomer-fac­ing roles where, he said, he ​“learned what cus­tomers do with [the] prod­uct and what SAP prod­uct real­ly does.”

Hes­ter said he appre­ci­at­ed being in the room with ASUG vol­un­teers — all SAP cus­tomers — giv­en his cur­rent role: ​“The chief cus­tomer office — we don’t have rev­enue num­bers to hit, we don’t have a quo­ta. We have a team of great peo­ple focused on cus­tomer outcomes.”

For John­son, ASUG holds val­ue in shar­ing expe­ri­ences and best prac­tices. ​“The oppor­tu­ni­ty with ASUG is to share best prac­tices, part­ner with oth­ers who have already done that, and accel­er­ate the jour­ney for some­one else.” Hes­ter agreed, not­ing that the 200 event atten­dees rep­re­sent a valu­able ​“force multiplier.”

“We have a big chal­lenge. We at SAP had a great solu­tion, a great foot­print with ERP. But it’s time for an over­haul. It means get­ting cus­tomers to a clean core…to piv­ot to the cloud…not just lift-and-shift, not just brown­field, not just deploy­ing BTP,” Hes­ter said, adding, ​“We can orga­nize around com­mon themes, around com­mon prob­lems, then bring every­one who’s try­ing to solve that prob­lem togeth­er. We can bring the ener­gy together.”

The open­ing gen­er­al ses­sion also includ­ed 2022 vol­un­teer awards. Among those recognized: 

• Think Tank Vol­un­teer of the Year: Damean Chen
• Influ­ence Coun­cil Vol­un­teer of the Year: Ryan Le
• SAP Point of Con­tact: Vikas Lodha
• Chap­ter Vol­un­teer of the Year: Amy Her

Net­work­ing with a Purpose

As ses­sions con­tin­ued into Sat­ur­day, vol­un­teers heard from ASUG lead­ers, includ­ing Dolezal, who pre­sent­ed the day’s open­ing keynote while pre­view­ing the year ahead. Dolezal, who joined ASUG last August after a lengthy career in the tech­nol­o­gy indus­try, shared that she took the role to help the ASUG com­mu­ni­ty solve busi­ness chal­lenges, build careers, and bring up the next gen­er­a­tion of IT busi­ness leaders. 

Though the ASUG mis­sion of help­ing cus­tomers get the most out of their SAP invest­ments has not changed since 2020, its mind­set has shift­ed. ​“Events are an impor­tant vehi­cle for us, but we under­stand that chap­ters, alliances, and com­mu­ni­ty are the most impor­tant things we do,” Dolezal said. 

High­light­ing ASUG’s restruc­tured Com­mu­ni­ties team, strate­gic research projects, increased col­lab­o­ra­tion with SAP around sourc­ing and stream­lin­ing con­tent and speak­ers relat­ed to strate­gic top­ics for chap­ters and alliances, and plans to grow the ASUG com­mu­ni­ty fur­ther, Dolezal empha­sized that ASUG is lis­ten­ing through for­mal sur­veys, advi­so­ry groups, and focus groups to cre­ate an orga­ni­za­tion and expe­ri­ence that most reflects what vol­un­teers need and value. 

“The No. 1 val­ue of mem­ber­ship for our mem­bers is net­work­ing with peers and net­work­ing with a pur­pose,” Dolezal said. ​“We know that all of you, our vol­un­teers, are one team with us. We would not be able to do what we do with­out you. What we are doing, we are doing for you.” 

“The Engine”

Grat­i­tude was an oft-repeat­ed word through­out the Vol­un­teer Meet­ing. ​“None of this would be pos­si­ble with­out all of you,” reflect­ed Josh Kumin, VP of Sales at ASUG. ​“Thank you for being here. Thank you for being the engine that allows us to be successful.” 

Dis­cussing Pulse of the SAP Cus­tomer Research find­ings, Maris­sa Gilbert, Research Direc­tor at ASUG, pre­sent­ed 2023 focus areas, led by inte­gra­tion between SAP and non-SAP sys­tems (45%), mov­ing to SAP S/4HANA (42%), stan­dard­iz­ing busi­ness process­es (42%), and dashboards/​analytics (33%). Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty and data pro­tec­tion, automa­tion, inte­gra­tion with­in SAP sys­tems, cus­tomer expe­ri­ence, and sup­ply chain man­age­ment were also iden­ti­fied as top­ics of inter­est to SAP customers. 

Gilbert pre­sent­ed find­ings relat­ed to cus­tomers’ SAP S/4HANA trans­for­ma­tion jour­neys, tech­nolo­gies impact­ing dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, and busi­ness chal­lenges that SAP cus­tomers face. In address­ing those chal­lenges, 49% of respon­dents not­ed that SAP S/4HANA exper­tise needs improve­ment across their orga­ni­za­tions. Dig­ging fur­ther into that data, Gilbert not­ed that 48% of respon­dents iden­ti­fied the need for fur­ther train­ing around every­thing relat­ed to SAP S/4HANA. Oth­ers not­ed depth or breadth of knowl­edge and spe­cif­ic func­tion­al and tech­ni­cal skillsets as areas for improve­ment at their organizations. 

Gilbert was then joined on stage by David Was­com, Exec­u­tive VP at ASUG; Tay­lor Wright, Mem­ber­ship Man­ag­er at ASUG; and Jonathan Lal­la, Direc­tor of Growth at ASUG, for a stim­u­lat­ing ASUG Staff Q&A.

At one point, Kim­ber­ly Sharp, Senior Con­sult­ing Man­ag­er at Riz­ing, asked the pan­el how to engage cus­tomers mean­ing­ful­ly through local chap­ters. Was­com respond­ed that vol­un­teers should seek to not only address focus areas but to be spe­cif­ic in iden­ti­fy­ing which cus­tomers they’re seek­ing to attract, from prac­ti­tion­ers to exec­u­tives, by dri­ving down into tech­nol­o­gy top­ics or inno­vat­ing exec­u­tive ses­sions with­in chap­ter meet­ings. ​“Make sure we’re dri­ving the con­tent to the audi­ence we want to attract,” he advised. 

Break­out Ses­sions Abound

As vol­un­teers fanned out to attend break­out ses­sions around chap­ter meet­ings, top­ics included: 

• Restruc­tur­ing Com­mu­ni­ty Alliances
• Mak­ing events more interactive
• Adding hands-on com­po­nents to events
• Enhanc­ing net­work­ing activities

Dis­cussing the Com­mu­ni­ty Alliance restruc­ture, three coor­di­na­tors — Aman­da McGath­ey, Com­mu­ni­ty Alliances and Vol­un­teer Ser­vices, ASUG; Erin Crain, Coor­di­na­tor of Peer Group Pro­grams and Vol­un­teer Ser­vices, ASUG; and Mary Kate Scamma­horn, Coor­di­na­tor of Peer Group Pro­grams, ASUG — detailed fun­da­men­tal pil­lars of the ASUG Alliance com­mu­ni­ties, includ­ing task forces, influ­ence coun­cils, and town halls. 

Ten Com­mu­ni­ty Alliances launched in 2022, with an addi­tion­al alliance planned for 2023. ​“This restruc­ture was designed with our vol­un­teers in mind,” said McGath­ey. ​“ASUG wants to make this new com­mu­ni­ty a space where peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions can find the most val­ue from their tech­nol­o­gy invest­ments while cre­at­ing a space where mem­bers have their ques­tions answered and their voic­es heard.”

At the net­work­ing ses­sion, led by Kathy Sin­nen, Direc­tor of Com­mu­ni­ty Oper­a­tions at ASUG, and Chavone Jacobs, Sr. SAP Strat­e­gy for Illu­mi­ti, atten­dees heard about engag­ing chap­ter meet­ing atten­dees in mean­ing­ful dia­logue. Vol­un­teers were encour­aged to take atten­dees ​“from ret­i­cent to ener­gized” by for­mu­lat­ing open ques­tions, pro­vid­ing activ­i­ties for audi­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion, and iden­ti­fy­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for col­lab­o­ra­tion and growth with local orga­ni­za­tions and universities. 

“The Tip of the Spear”

For the pan­el dis­cus­sion ​“How to Get the Most Val­ue Vol­un­teer­ing with ASUG,” Dolezal returned to the stage with mem­bers of the ASUG Board of Direc­tors — Ron Gilson, CIO of Organ­ic Val­ley; Tony Cae­sar, Head of IT Mar­ket Area North Amer­i­ca at Eric­s­son; Tara Gam­bill, IT Enter­prise Archi­tec­ture at Mod Piz­za; and Dan Stu­art, CTO at South­wire Com­pa­ny — to address the best ways that vol­un­teers can con­tribute to their chap­ters, indus­tries, and alliances through vol­un­teer­ing with ASUG.

“It’s about influ­ence,” said Gilson, who vol­un­teers with the ASUG Wis­con­sin chap­ter. ​“It’s about giv­ing back and real­ly under­stand­ing the val­ue of net­work­ing and learn­ing from oth­ers. It’s about tak­ing your expe­ri­ence and try­ing to do bet­ter with it, to part­ner with and men­tor oth­er ASUG volunteers.” 

In the can­did con­ver­sa­tion, pan­elists addressed chal­lenges with­in their com­mu­ni­ties, orga­ni­za­tions, and tech­nolo­gies, as well as the impor­tance of lever­ag­ing events to grow their audi­ences and strength­en­ing the rela­tion­ship between ASUG and SAP.

Gam­bill said vol­un­teer­ing with ASUG comes back to peo­ple, process­es, and tech­nol­o­gy, but she espe­cial­ly appre­ci­ates ​“the peo­ple with the ideas, the suc­cess­es, the feed­back, the chal­lenges.” She added that, after the pan­dem­ic, ​“We want to spend more time with each oth­er.” Stu­art agreed that ​“bring­ing exec­u­tives and prac­ti­tion­ers back into a room togeth­er is going to be very powerful.”

Cae­sar, who will retire after six years as a board mem­ber, reflect­ed upon efforts to ​“find the voice” for small and mid-sized orga­ni­za­tions with­in the SAP orga­ni­za­tion, stress­ing the impor­tance of idea shar­ing and speak­ing to the ​“entre­pre­neur­ial spir­it” of the chap­ters. ​“In board meet­ings, we con­stant­ly remind the lead­er­ship team that the mem­ber­ship and the chap­ters are the tip of the spear,” said Cae­sar. ​“When I sense they’re for­get­ting that, I remind them: with­out the chap­ters, we’re noth­ing. Know that there are peo­ple in the back­rooms who are think­ing about you, who appre­ci­ate every­thing you do, and are fight­ing for you.” 

Addi­tion­al ASUG Sessions

Angeli­na Manos, Social Media Spe­cial­ist at ASUG, and Mark Richard­son, CTO of Rich Ana­lyt­ics, deliv­ered a pre­sen­ta­tion on social media for Chap­ter and Alliance events, dis­cussing the impor­tance of using brand­ed hash­tags, shar­ing and retweet­ing con­tent by oth­er Chap­ter events, and doc­u­ment­ing Chap­ter events via video and pho­to. Manos touched on LinkedIn brand enhance­ments and oth­er oppor­tu­ni­ties for increas­ing aware­ness and par­tic­i­pa­tion at Chap­ter events, as well as par­tic­i­pa­tion in Alliances. 

Addi­tion­al­ly, expand­ing atten­dees’ knowl­edge of ASUG was a pre­sen­ta­tion on dri­ving mar­ket­ing suc­cess for Chap­ter and Alliance events by Fal­lyn Rich­mond, Mem­ber­ship Mar­ket­ing Spe­cial­ist at ASUG, and Chris Mitchell, Senior Mem­ber­ship Man­ag­er at ASUG. As Rich­mond and Mitchell addressed, vol­un­teers can help extend mar­ket­ing reach and impact by post­ing upcom­ing events on LinkedIn, build­ing out Chap­ters’ pri­vate LinkedIn groups, shar­ing pho­tos and tes­ti­mo­ni­als from events, invit­ing teams and indus­try col­leagues to attend events, invit­ing cham­pi­ons to events, and encour­ag­ing net­works to update pref­er­ences and fol­low groups on ASUG​.com.

Oth­er break­out ses­sions, mod­er­at­ed by Sin­nen and McGath­ey, dis­cussed how to build and lead suc­cess­ful Chap­ters and Alliances. In the lat­ter ses­sion, which detailed efforts to build a robust Alliance cen­tered around the SAP Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Plat­form (BTP), the pan­elists — includ­ing Sharp; Tam­my Powlas, Senior Busi­ness Ana­lyst at Fair­fax Water; Vikas Lod­ha, Chief Solu­tion Advi­sor at SAP; Joyce But­ler, IT for Busi­ness Intelligence/​Data Ware­house at Uni­var Solu­tions; and Erich Leicht, J.J. Keller & Asso­ciates, Inc. — reflect­ed on a wide range of top­ics relat­ed to com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment and influ­ence councils. 

Rather than empha­size ​“safe spaces,” sug­gest­ed Powlas, one should approach Alliances as ​“brave spaces” for atten­dees. ​“Tough con­ver­sa­tions require brav­ery, and they require peo­ple to be a lit­tle bit vul­ner­a­ble. To me, the way we start with inter­ac­tion is to share our own sto­ries. We are here because we’re pas­sion­ate about our top­ic areas: Why not share your own sto­ry first?” Through this inter­ac­tiv­i­ty, pan­elists agreed, Alliances can pro­vide valu­able spaces for cel­e­brat­ing small wins and work­ing through shared challenges.

Added Powlas: ​“I always think I get so much more out of ASUG than I put in. It’s saved my com­pa­ny mon­ey so many times. There’s also a tal­ent short­age; we’re feel­ing it where I work. We need more peo­ple to learn SAP, and I think ASUG is a great resource for that.”

We Move Forward

Dur­ing her clos­ing keynote for the Vol­un­teer Meet­ing, ​“Grit, Resilience, and Tri­umph Over Any Obsta­cle,” guest speak­er Mal­lo­ry Wegge­mann dis­cussed the path she trav­eled to become a 2020 Tokyo Par­a­lympic Gold and Sil­ver Medal­ist. Reflect­ing on the inevitabil­i­ty of change and dis­cussing ​“sud­den moments of impact” that alter the course of one’s life, Wegge­mann addressed her ear­ly days as a T‑10 para­plegic fol­low­ing an epidur­al injec­tion, her ini­tial deci­sion to get back in the pool, and her achieve­ments since then.

“We don’t always get a choice,” Wegge­mann said, cred­it­ing her fam­i­ly with moti­vat­ing her to push for­ward despite her injury. ​“What if I could swim again?” Wegge­mann asked her sis­ter. ​“She said, ​‘Why not?’” the ath­lete recalled. ​“What if nev­er find­ing out what you could do was the worst-case scenario?”

Wegge­mann touched upon the impor­tance of resilience over time, not­ing that the fac­tors that pro­pelled her to sports glo­ry var­ied from year to year, requir­ing her to stay in touch with her pas­sions and goals while remain­ing open to growth in all forms. It was this mes­sage of con­tin­u­ous improve­ment and deter­mi­na­tion that she most sought to impart to attendees. 

“At dif­fer­ent points in life, whether fol­low­ing adver­si­ty, a tri­umph, or a suc­cess, we find our­selves reeval­u­at­ing where we are and where we are try­ing to go,” Wegge­mann said. ​“When adver­si­ty strikes, we yearn for nor­mal. We yearn for this space in time that’s com­fort­able for all of us: some­thing that we know, that feels cer­tain, that’s famil­iar. But the real­i­ty is that nor­mal is just a per­cep­tion. It’s not real­i­ty. There’s only this space and moment in time and where we go when we move forward.”