ASUG Vol­un­teers recent­ly gath­ered in Austin, Texas, for a week­end of net­work­ing, cel­e­bra­tion, and pro­fes­sion­al development. 

Empha­siz­ing themes of uni­ty, col­lab­o­ra­tion, and com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment, the annu­al ASUG Vol­un­teer Meet­ing (Jan. 24 – 26) drew over 130 ASUG Vol­un­teers to par­tic­i­pate in event plan­ning for the greater ASUG mem­ber com­mu­ni­ty in the year ahead.

“We hope every­thing today sets you up for suc­cess in your ASUG Chap­ters and Com­mu­ni­ties,” Tay­lor Weath­ers, Direc­tor of Com­mu­ni­ty Oper­a­tions at ASUG, told atten­dees in open­ing the meeting. 

2024 was a year of incred­i­ble growth for ASUG Com­mu­ni­ties and Chap­ters. Last year, these events drew more than 6,000 atten­dees — over a thou­sand more than in 2023. Addi­tion­al­ly, ASUG is con­tin­u­ing to pilot region­al ASUG Chap­ter meet­ings in Arkansas.

Reflect­ing on her expe­ri­ences attend­ing and observ­ing the impor­tance of such gath­er­ings to pro­pel SAP pro­fes­sion­als for­ward in their careers, ASUG Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer Car­olyn Dolezal praised the ASUG com­mu­ni­ty as ​“one of the best and most pow­er­ful com­mu­ni­ties I have had the priv­i­lege to be a part of.” 

Not­ing that ASUG­’s events have only become more crit­i­cal in recent months, giv­en tec­ton­ic shifts in the SAP ecosys­tem that range from AI to cloud ERP migra­tion, ASUG CEO & Chief Com­mu­ni­ty Cham­pi­on Geoff Scott shared his excite­ment for their future. ​“Grow­ing this com­mu­ni­ty is impor­tant,” he said. ​“This is now where peo­ple find belonging,” 

Key high­lights from the weekend:

• Four ASUG Vol­un­teers were award­ed for their hard work in 2024:
  • Com­mu­ni­ty Vol­un­teer of the Year: Tam­my Powlas, Water Util­i­ty Professional
  • Chap­ter Vol­un­teer of the Year: Tom­my McMullen, SAP Enter­prise Account Exec­u­tive, Fidelis Companies
  • SAP Com­mu­ni­ty Advo­cates of the Year: Con­rad Bernal, Prod­uct Man­ag­er, SAP; and Anurag Barua, Trans­for­ma­tion Leader, SAP
• Microsoft took to the keynote stage to give atten­dees an overview of its part­ner­ship with SAP, includ­ing the new RISE with SAP on Microsoft Azure Glob­al Accel­er­a­tion Pro­gram.
• ASUG gave atten­dees an ear­ly (and exclu­sive) look at its upcom­ing 2025 ASUG Pulse of the SAP Cus­tomer Research. Blake Bal­tazar, Senior Project & Research Ana­lyst, walked Vol­un­teers through the research project, dis­cussing adop­tion rates in crit­i­cal SAP tech­nolo­gies (includ­ing AI, cloud envi­ron­ments, and SAP S/4HANA), busi­ness pri­or­i­ties, and chal­lenges ASUG Mem­bers are expe­ri­enc­ing with their SAP tech­nol­o­gy invest­ments. Stay tuned for this research to be unveiled in ASUG First Five lat­er this spring.

Impor­tant Focus­es in 2025

Through­out the event, atten­dees and speak­ers alike focused on top­ics crit­i­cal to the ASUG com­mu­ni­ty that will shape the year ahead. In a keynote ses­sion co-host­ed by Dolezal, Scott reflect­ed on the themes he believes are most impor­tant for mem­bers to con­sid­er as they head into 2024.

“Inno­va­tion won’t stop and wait for us,” Scott said. ​“It will hap­pen around us.” As enter­pris­es seek to embrace inno­va­tion in their ERP envi­ron­ments, ​“the des­ti­na­tion has to be pub­lic cloud,” Scott said. ​“If we real­ly want to see orga­ni­za­tions be able to lever­age inno­va­tions at scale, we have to get rid of code.” 

While mov­ing toward a clean-core method­ol­o­gy involves SAP own­ing more code, he said, such an approach frees enter­pris­es up to inno­vate rather than focus­ing on sim­ply keep­ing the lights on. 

And as orga­ni­za­tions seek to imple­ment AI solu­tions, invest­ing in enter­prise data man­age­ment, cleans­ing, and gov­er­nance is crit­i­cal to set­ting a strong foun­da­tion. ​“If we don’t get the data right, then answers from AI will be all wrong,” Scott said. 

In-Per­son Plan­ning and Pro­fes­sion­al Devel­op­ment Opportunities

Atten­dees par­tic­i­pat­ed in plan­ning and pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment ses­sions over the week­end. ASUG Chap­ter Vol­un­teers met with SAP points of con­tact for an inter­ac­tive ses­sion focused on improv­ing their ASUG Chap­ters and dri­ving attendance. 

Break­ing into small­er groups, atten­dees trad­ed tips and advice for man­ag­ing meet­ings, build­ing agen­das, sched­ul­ing speak­ers, and plan­ning effec­tive net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. Atten­dees learned how their peers approach these top­ics and came away with insights into how to bet­ter facil­i­tate effec­tive and suc­cess­ful ASUG Chap­ter meetings. 

Else­where, at an ASUG Women Con­nect ses­sion, Eliz­a­beth Tuck­well, Con­tent Coor­di­na­tor at ASUG, led a work­shop focused on help­ing mem­bers under­stand and define their per­son­al lead­er­ship styles, encour­ag­ing atten­dees to lever­age their unique per­son­al qual­i­ties to become more effec­tive lead­ers in their work­places and communities.

Strate­gic Top­ics in ASUG Communities 

In pre­sent­ing strate­gic top­ics that ASUG col­lab­o­rates with SAP to set each year, Kel­ly Dowl­ing, Direc­tor of Strate­gic Top­ics and Com­mu­ni­ties at ASUG, offered atten­dees key insights into con­tent tracks and themes with which they can ele­vate the pro­gram­ming of events in their local and region­al SAP communities.

Each year, ASUG con­sults with its mem­bers to iden­ti­fy these strate­gic top­ics. Dowl­ing not­ed the four iden­ti­fied top­ics for 2025: cloud ERP and SAP S/4HANA strat­e­gy, SAP Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Plat­form (BTP), busi­ness trans­for­ma­tion man­age­ment, and AI.

ASUG mem­ber­ship is reg­u­lar­ly wel­comed to pro­vide ASUG with insights into which skills they are most inter­est­ed in build­ing and which obsta­cles present hur­dles in their day-to-day work. Based on this feed­back, ASUG defines strate­gic top­ics for each year, devel­op­ing con­tent across all of our chan­nels — includ­ing in-per­son and vir­tu­al events, research, news sto­ries, exec­u­tive inter­views, and pod­casts — devot­ed to these themes. ASUG com­mu­ni­ty groups can lever­age this con­tent across year-round programming. 

Dowl­ing dis­cussed new addi­tions to ben­e­fit ASUG Com­mu­ni­ties and ensure ASUG is ​“meet­ing our mem­bers where they are,” in her words. To that end, she dis­cussed the forth­com­ing cre­ation of resource cen­ters for each ASUG com­mu­ni­ty group. These cen­tral­ized loca­tions will include rel­e­vant assets such as slide decks cre­at­ed for and used in vir­tu­al ASUG Com­mu­ni­ty conversations. 

As orga­ni­za­tions embrace new tech­nolo­gies and embark on enter­prise-wide dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion projects, it is vital that our com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers learn from one anoth­er about how to best tack­le busi­ness chal­lenges. ​“What we do in our ASUG Chap­ters is one of the most impor­tant aspects of what we do at ASUG,” Scott told atten­dees. ​“SAP part­ners and cus­tomers agree: Chap­ters are essen­tial, now more than ever.” 

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