As 2023 drew to a close, lead­ers from three glob­al SAP users’ groups — ASUG (Amer­i­c­as’ SAP Users’ Group), DSAG (Deutschsprachige SAP-Anwen­der­gruppe), and UKISUG (UK & Ire­land SAP User Group) — gath­ered vir­tu­al­ly to dis­cuss research con­duct­ed on the SAP ecosys­tem, as well as major points of focus for their orga­ni­za­tions and mem­bers in 2024. 

Dur­ing a Dec. 20 web­cast host­ed by Maris­sa Gilbert, ASUG Research Direc­tor, ASUG CEO & Chief Com­mu­ni­ty Cham­pi­on Geoff Scott joined Paul Coop­er, Chair­man of UKISUG, and Jens Hunger­shausen, Chair­man of DSAG, to ana­lyze the cur­rent state of the SAP ecosys­tem. (The full web­cast replay is avail­able for ASUG mem­bers; reg­is­ter here.)

Con­duct­ed col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly between the three user groups and JSUG (Japan SAP Users’ Group), the research sur­veyed 1,108 respon­dents — includ­ing SAP employ­ees, part­ners, and cus­tomers — to gain insights into the rela­tion­ships that exist between SAP, its cus­tomers, and user groups. 

“This was an incred­i­bly eye-open­ing research project,” Gilbert said. ​“The col­lab­o­ra­tion between our four orga­ni­za­tions gave us and our mem­bers a deep under­stand­ing of some vital dynam­ics in the SAP ecosys­tem. I’m so glad our four user groups could col­lab­o­rate to pro­duce this insight­ful research.” 

Dur­ing the hour-long con­ver­sa­tion, Gilbert and the three lead­ers dis­cussed the align­ment between SAP strat­e­gy and cus­tomer needs, the grow­ing skill gap, and SAP Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Plat­form (BTP). Here are three high­lights from the web­cast and research. 

SAP Skill Sets in User Groups

One of the main focus­es of the research was SAP-spe­cif­ic skillset pro­fi­cien­cy. For the most part, respon­dents report­ed their work­forces are equipped with the tools and knowl­edge nec­es­sary for suc­cess in lever­ag­ing SAP tech­nol­o­gy. Most respon­dents (61% from ASUG, 67% from DSAG, and 58% from UKISUG) report­ed their com­pa­nies’ employ­ees were either ful­ly or most­ly pro­fi­cient with SAP. Aver­age pro­fi­cien­cy among work­forces was report­ed by 30% of ASUG respon­dents, 23% of DSAG, and 34% of UKISUG. 

At face val­ue, these num­bers are encour­ag­ing, but as long-time SAP experts near retire­ment the SAP skills gap will widen. ​“Our core demo­graph­ic is start­ing to look a lit­tle grey­er,” Scott said. 

To com­bat this gap, all three user group lead­ers encour­aged orga­ni­za­tions to make learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties a pri­or­i­ty. ​“Con­tin­u­ous learn­ing and train­ing is required [of IT pro­fes­sion­als,] and not only in the SAP space,” Hunger­shausen said, not­ing that many DSAG mem­bers are long-time SAP users and that his orga­ni­za­tion is com­mit­ted to SAP knowl­edge devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, includ­ing events and train­ing cours­es built in col­lab­o­ra­tion with SAP. 

Scott fur­ther under­lined that tech­nol­o­gy inno­va­tions — includ­ing AI, cloud com­put­ing, and SaaS offer­ings — fur­ther neces­si­tate con­tin­u­ous edu­ca­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties. ​“We need to make space for learn­ing,” Scott said, warn­ing that pro­fes­sion­als who do not carve out this time will miss oppor­tu­ni­ties to lever­age new tech­nolo­gies as they emerge. 

SAP and Cus­tomer Align­ment

Anoth­er top­ic of dis­cus­sion was the impor­tance of align­ment between the cur­rent SAP roadmap strat­e­gy and cus­tomers’ needs. The research indi­cat­ed that, while some user groups con­sid­er them­selves aligned with SAP, oth­ers sense a disconnect. 

About one-third (29%) of DSAG mem­bers who are SAP cus­tomers indi­cat­ed they are in lock­step with the soft­ware com­pa­ny, com­pared to 75% of ASUG and 61% of UKISUG mem­bers. The results looked sim­i­lar for user group mem­bers in the SAP part­ner com­mu­ni­ty; 74% of ASUG mem­bers in that camp indi­cat­ed they con­sid­er them­selves aligned with SAP, com­pared to 61% of UKISUG and 41% of DSAG members.

While dis­cussing these results, Coop­er brought up that SAP cus­tomers in these three user groups fall into two dis­tinct cat­e­gories: long-term, invest­ed SAP users, and recent adopters who lever­aged green­field imple­men­ta­tions and more recent­ly joined the SAP community. 

“It’s incum­bent on us to help those orga­ni­za­tions that have been around a lot longer — and are used to how [their own busi­ness­es] work — to under­stand the direc­tion and speed of trav­el” of SAP inno­va­tion, he said. Coop­er also remind­ed atten­dees that ​“dif­fer­ent pop­u­la­tions have dif­fer­ent learn­ing require­ments and experiences.” 

Col­lab­o­ra­tion with SAP

Scott, Coop­er, and Hunger­shausen also cov­ered the three user groups’ col­lab­o­ra­tion with SAP on par­tic­u­lar projects. Accord­ing to the research, con­sen­sus among the three orga­ni­za­tions’ mem­bers points to over­all sat­is­fac­tion with their SAP part­ner­ships. About three-fourths (73%) of ASUG mem­bers, 65% of UKISUG mem­bers and 53% of DSAG mem­bers indi­cat­ed they were sat­is­fied with their SAP collaborations. 

Dis­cussing how SAP can improve its col­lab­o­ra­tion with DSAG mem­bers, Hunger­shausen indi­cat­ed that trans­paren­cy and more infor­ma­tion around prod­uct pric­ing strat­e­gy were vital. He sug­gest­ed that SAP include ​“cus­tomers and part­ners in the devel­op­ment process.” Accord­ing to Hunger­shausen, DSAG is involved with SAP devel­op­ment, espe­cial­ly as it per­tains to incor­po­rat­ing legal require­ments into its solutions. 

Look­ing For­ward to 2024

Dur­ing the web­cast, the three user group lead­ers also cel­e­brat­ed the notion that busi­ness oper­a­tions are begin­ning to resem­ble pre-pan­dem­ic norms, with each ref­er­enc­ing their groups’ in-per­son annu­al conferences. 

“We got togeth­er again in per­son,” Scott said, reflect­ing on a year that includ­ed not only ASUG Annu­al Con­fer­ence but the launch of ASUG Tech Con­nect, a new in-per­son event for the North Amer­i­can SAP devel­op­er com­mu­ni­ty. Both events will return in 2024. 

“We got this feel­ing that we could pro­ceed from where we were in 2019 and move for­ward,” Scott added. ​“That was a huge win for the community.” 

Coop­er, mean­while, report­ed that the UKISUG annu­al con­fer­ence was the group’s best-attend­ed event, top­ping atten­dance num­bers for pre-pan­dem­ic events. And increased par­tic­i­pa­tion in phys­i­cal events ​“under­lines how impor­tant per­son­al inter­ac­tions are for our mem­bers,” Hunger­shausen added.

In 2024, Scott, Hunger­shausen, and Coop­er are all look­ing for­ward to more col­lab­o­ra­tive events and oppor­tu­ni­ties for their orga­ni­za­tions. As Scott reflect­ed, ​“Why go alone when you can go together?” 

To watch the entire web­cast, ​“Glob­al User Group Research: Insights on the Col­lab­o­ra­tion in the SAP Ecosys­tem,” reg­is­ter here.