ASUG vol­un­teers are the engine that dri­ves this com­mu­ni­ty for­ward, with 203 active vol­un­teers cur­rent­ly play­ing a key role in help­ing indus­try pro­fes­sion­als get the most val­ue out of their SAP tech­nol­o­gy invest­ments. Advo­cat­ing for the voice of the end user, devel­op­ing edu­ca­tion­al con­tent, col­lab­o­rat­ing with SAP points of con­tact, and ded­i­cat­ing their time and ener­gy to ensur­ing that ASUG mem­bers can net­work with pur­pose, vol­un­teers act as ASUG­’s ambas­sadors to the SAP cus­tomer community.

From new vol­un­teers to those who have been work­ing side by side with ASUG staff for many years, each mem­ber of the vol­un­teer com­mu­ni­ty is an admired and inte­gral part of the ASUG fam­i­ly. Through­out her 16 years as an ASUG vol­un­teer focused on busi­ness intel­li­gence, data ware­hous­ing, ana­lyt­ics, and data strat­e­gy, Joyce But­ler has embod­ied all the val­ues of a mod­el ASUG com­mu­ni­ty mem­ber. A leader by def­i­n­i­tion, Joyce is the first to raise her hand and offer it in assis­tance to oth­ers. She is a true col­lab­o­ra­tor, empha­siz­ing con­nec­tion and teamwork. 

Orga­niz­ing influ­ence coun­cils, serv­ing on lead­er­ship teams, shar­ing sto­ries at con­fer­ences, and attend­ing Chap­ter meet­ings, Joyce has con­tributed to ASUG in many mean­ing­ful, last­ing ways. ​“Joyce is the def­i­n­i­tion of join-togeth­er when it comes to our ASUG val­ues,” says Aman­da McGath­ey, Man­ag­er, Com­mu­ni­ty Alliances and Vol­un­teer Ser­vices at ASUG. ​“She is con­stant­ly help­ing her peers make con­nec­tions and has become a pil­lar of the ASUG tech­nol­o­gy com­mu­ni­ty. It has been an hon­or to work with her.” 

This fall, Joyce con­cludes her time as an ASUG vol­un­teer, fin­ish­ing her last term as the Edu­ca­tion Lead for the ASUG Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Plat­form (BTP) Com­mu­ni­ty Alliance. In cel­e­bra­tion of her years of ser­vice, ASUG sat down with Joyce to reflect on her tenure as an ASUG volunteer. 

This inter­view has been edit­ed and con­densed.

Q: Can you walk me through the begin­ning of your career? 

A: I start­ed as a cost ana­lyst with Inter­na­tion­al Paper, where I was asked to help with an SAP imple­men­ta­tion project. They want­ed some­body who under­stood what was being used in finan­cial plan­ning and analy­sis (FP&A) report­ing for the busi­ness, who could help them design ana­lyt­ics to go along with the SAP project. This was sup­posed to take two years, but I end­ed up stay­ing there for nine. My team imple­ment­ed a green­field SAP Busi­ness Ware­house (SAP BW) sys­tem and the report­ing to go along with it. It real­ly did turn into a large project for Inter­na­tion­al Paper, and it con­tin­ued for three years after I left, span­ning 12 – 14 years. 

Q: Was that when you first became involved with ASUG? 

A: Inter­na­tion­al Paper was already an ASUG mem­ber at that time, and I was encour­aged to get involved. I went to my first Chap­ter meet­ing in New Orleans, and I imme­di­ate­ly saw the val­ue of net­work­ing and talk­ing to oth­er peo­ple who were in the same boat that I was in. At the time, SAP BW was not a wide­ly accept­ed data ware­house, and being around peo­ple who were try­ing to do what I was try­ing to do was just fan­tas­tic. I felt this imme­di­ate cama­raderie, hav­ing peo­ple to talk to and call. It was very much a turn­ing point in how I thought I could get through lead­ing a brand-new team, design­ing a data ware­house that nobody had ever used at Inter­na­tion­al Paper, and using SAP. That’s what got me start­ed with ASUG, and short­ly after I was asked to get involved as a vol­un­teer. Peo­ple were very wel­com­ing, and we were com­mit­ted to help­ing each other. 

I became more involved with the ASUG Analy­sis and Design Stu­dio influ­ence coun­cils lat­er, pre­sent­ing at con­fer­ences, focus­ing on advanced ana­lyt­ics and pre­dic­tive ana­lyt­ics. Peo­ple at that point want­ed to know what SAP BW was, and we had the expe­ri­ence to explain it. Tons of peo­ple came to our web­casts, and the influ­ence coun­cils were heav­i­ly attend­ed. Peo­ple were using the prod­uct and had def­i­nite opin­ions about it. We were all part of the SAP ecosys­tem. Being suc­cess­ful in SAP means that you embrace the ecosys­tem and make the most of it, because SAP isn’t easy, not for any com­pa­ny, though it has been suc­cess­ful for the com­pa­nies I’ve been involved with.

Q: What are some of the proud­est moments of your career? 

A: Once, I was in front of an exec­u­tive team, pre­sent­ing a demo on report­ing for SAP. It was the first time the exec­u­tive team had seen soup-to-nuts report­ing. And the senior vice pres­i­dent who was there turned around to the peo­ple that were in the room and said, ​“This is why we imple­ment­ed SAP. This is what will help us move for­ward at Inter­na­tion­al Paper.” I don’t think I could have been happier. 

We’d strug­gled through four years of stand­ing up this sys­tem, and he saw with­in 45 min­utes of the demo how he could use it. He imme­di­ate­ly absorbed the data and chal­lenged peo­ple in the room to start using it. We do not imple­ment SAP because of the soft­ware; we imple­ment SAP because of how the busi­ness­es use that soft­ware for the good of the com­pa­ny. That was my beam­ing moment, and I just stepped back and lis­tened as they went back and forth. 

As for ASUG, I’m proud­est of the net­work­ing. ASUG has giv­en me plen­ty of recog­ni­tion, and they gave me the oppor­tu­ni­ty to give recog­ni­tion myself. I could talk about peo­ple I’ve worked with and how they’ve impact­ed me. I start­ed at ASUG just absorb­ing infor­ma­tion, but then peo­ple start­ed com­ing up to me, and I real­ized I could help peo­ple. To embrace the SAP ecosys­tem, you must be will­ing to share your sto­ry. When you move from being the one absorb­ing infor­ma­tion to being the one telling some­body else how you over­came the chal­lenges you’ve faced on the busi­ness side, it real­ly ben­e­fits you. 

Q: How did you over­come the biggest chal­lenges in your career? 

A: SAP is hard to sell to the busi­ness side of the com­pa­ny. You end up doing so many demos. Because it exists more on the back end, it’s not like you’re a sales­per­son dis­cussing how it will improve sales by one per­cent. The biggest chal­lenge I have expe­ri­enced is try­ing to get more mon­ey to do more with SAP, because you see where it will help even if it can be dif­fi­cult to get the busi­ness to see your perspective. 

Still, you nev­er do any­thing in a vac­u­um. The ful­fill­ment I’ve found is in putting teams togeth­er and build­ing rela­tion­ships. I was for­tu­nate to build teams at Inter­na­tion­al Paper and at Cameron Inter­na­tion­al. It’s great to get peo­ple togeth­er, start­ing from scratch and find­ing ways that you can suc­ceed together. 

Q: What do you think is the key to a hap­py and ful­fill­ing career? 

A: Always stay curi­ous and be open to new things. Tech­nol­o­gy changes, soci­ety changes, and you have to remain open to that. Being a good team play­er is an impor­tant key to being suc­cess­ful, to be able to talk to peo­ple in a room and be open to lis­ten­ing to them. Rela­tion­ships can be hard to build, but you can’t do any of this by your­self. And you need to have fun with it! 

Q: What have been some of your favorite moments from ASUG events or conferences? 

A: I’ve been to so many events since 2010. At the con­fer­ences, what I remem­ber the most are the keynote speak­ers. We have seen Steve Woz­ni­ak and John Scul­ley, and so many oth­ers. It is amaz­ing to be in a room with those speak­ers, to be able to lis­ten to keynotes and then go behind the scenes and speak with them. I cred­it ASUG with always find­ing peo­ple who are inter­est­ing to lis­ten to and who have rel­e­vant con­tent on either how to suc­ceed or how to use technology. 

Q: How else would you describe your time as an ASUG volunteer? 

A: When it comes to vol­un­teer­ing, you get what you put in. If you’re will­ing to put more in, you’ll get a lot back. I real­ly need­ed what I got out of influ­ence coun­cils from a busi­ness aspect. Over time, I became more com­fort­able pre­sent­ing and being around peo­ple. I’ve found it uncom­fort­able to talk about myself, but I do enjoy talk­ing about data ware­hous­ing. I enjoy talk­ing about ana­lyt­ics, how to look at data, and why you look at data in a cer­tain way, and what it means to the company. 

I enjoy dis­cussing these things, and ASUG helped me achieve the lev­el of com­fort I need­ed to do so. I already knew the sub­ject mat­ter, so I just need­ed a lit­tle push to put myself out there. My daugh­ter was real­ly impressed with me. I once went to a con­fer­ence in Orlan­do and was able to bring her with me; she went to Dis­ney while I was work­ing. And when I came back and said I was talk­ing about SAP BW in front of 400 peo­ple, she was impressed. ASUG was there to sup­port me, so it was not as if I was by myself. Still, I was step­ping out­side my boundaries. 

Q: In your opin­ion, how are ASUG mem­bers expe­ri­enc­ing BTP? 

A: SAP Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Plat­form is so broad that we’re still strug­gling with try­ing to get peo­ple to see how they fit into the alliance and with pre­sent­ing the data and con­tent they most need to see. Some ques­tions I think about are, ​“What is BTP, and what does it mean to the mem­bers? What will it mean in two years, in 5 – 10 years? How do you chop it up to make it consumable?” 

Q: Why should mem­bers con­sid­er vol­un­teer­ing with ASUG? 

A: Net­work­ing! If you’re get­ting into a big project with SAP, you need to be involved with ASUG influ­ence pro­grams. Hav­ing those SAP points of con­tact is so valu­able. Even the lit­tle bits of infor­ma­tion they share can make your year. Even if they can’t answer your ques­tions, they’re always able to lead you to some­one else who can. 

Q: What are you most excit­ed about in the upcom­ing years? 

A: I’m ready to trav­el. My hus­band is from Hun­gary, so we’re going to go to Europe and do a Danube cruise. I’m also plan­ning on relax­ing, catch­ing up on things, and plant­i­ng flow­ers in my gar­den. It’s the way I decompress. 

All of us at ASUG relay our deep­est thanks and fond­est well wish­es to Joyce as she moves onto her next adven­ture in life. Mary Kate Scamma­horn, Coor­di­na­tor of Peer Group Pro­grams at ASUG, con­tributed to this report.