From the keynote stage at SAP Sap­phire & ASUG Annu­al Con­fer­ence, ASUG exec­u­tives and board mem­bers spoke direct­ly to the impor­tance of cus­tomer engage­ment and com­mu­ni­ty build­ing as mul­ti-faceted busi­ness imper­a­tives for the intel­li­gent enterprise.

Dur­ing their Wednes­day morn­ing keynote, ​“Cus­tomer to Cus­tomer: Deliv­er­ing Bet­ter Busi­ness Out­comes Togeth­er,” speak­ers empha­sized ASUG’s core mis­sion of help­ing peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions get the most val­ue out of SAP tech­nol­o­gy invest­ments, even as they artic­u­lat­ed the dif­fer­ent ways that val­ue can be unlocked, from men­tor­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties to diver­si­ty, equi­ty, and inclu­sion ini­tia­tives and Chap­ter events.

Fol­low­ing open­ing remarks by Geoff Scott, ASUG CEO & Chief Com­mu­ni­ty Cham­pi­on, and Car­olyn Dolezal, ASUG Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer, three mem­bers of the ASUG Board of Direc­tors – James John­son, Chief Infor­ma­tion Offi­cer at James Hardie Tech­nol­o­gy; Tara Gam­bill, Senior Direc­tor of Enter­prise Sys­tems at MOD Piz­za LLC; and Tony Cae­sar, Senior Vice Pres­i­dent of IT at Cradle­point – shared their jour­neys through the SAP ecosys­tem and par­tic­i­pat­ed in a wide-rang­ing pan­el dis­cus­sion about enter­prise archi­tec­ture, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, and the impor­tance of hav­ing one’s voice heard.

‘A Valu­able Force Multiplier’

As a mem­ber of the ASUG com­mu­ni­ty for more than 10 years, John­son assessed that ​“tech­nol­o­gists bring val­ue to the room” as the most knowl­edge­able resources with­in an orga­ni­za­tion with respect to busi­ness process­es, inte­gra­tions, and the sys­tems that enable them.

“We are more than just tech­nol­o­gy experts,” he said. ​“That inter­con­nec­tiv­i­ty we have in under­stand­ing busi­ness process­es is our super­pow­er. I encour­age you to put on your capes, go into your orga­ni­za­tions, speak up, be heard, and own your expertise.”

Speak­ing to the grow­ing impor­tance of involv­ing IT depart­ments in busi­ness deci­sions dur­ing his address, John­son told atten­dees that ​“data is the lifeblood of any busi­ness enter­prise,” dri­ving growth and pro­vid­ing mis­sion-crit­i­cal busi­ness process insights. ​“The par­a­digm that tech­nol­o­gy is sep­a­rate from busi­ness must shift,” he said. ​“Start­ing with lead­er­ship, we need to under­stand that the func­tion of IT is to be a busi­ness part­ner first, to bring val­ue to the company.”

John­son reflect­ed on the oppor­tu­ni­ty ASUG pro­vides for him to share best prac­tices with indus­try peers, and how that has empow­ered him to accel­er­ate busi­ness out­comes at var­i­ous com­pa­nies. ​“Com­ing togeth­er to share expe­ri­ences, both good and bad, is a valu­able force mul­ti­pli­er,” he said. 

Net­work­ing with like-mind­ed indi­vid­u­als at ASUG Chap­ter and Board meet­ings, meet­ing and part­ner­ing with oth­er CIOs, and par­tic­i­pat­ing in a peer-to-peer break­out ses­sion with then-incom­ing SAP CEO Chris­t­ian Klein, John­son described how ASUG mem­ber­ship has allowed him to bet­ter under­stand SAP lead­er­ship, share busi­ness chal­lenges, and make him­self heard.

John­son shared that, at this stage in his career, he is inspired by ​“pay­ing it for­ward” to the next gen­er­a­tion. ​“I feel an oblig­a­tion to both do well and do good, and I believe that’s tru­ly pos­si­ble,” he said. Shar­ing that men­tors have guid­ed him on his path through­out his career, John­son added that he sees ASUG as a crit­i­cal resource in reach­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of tech­nol­o­gists. ​“I strong­ly, strong­ly believe in the pow­er of con­nec­tion to accel­er­ate change as a key dif­fer­en­tia­tor,” he said.

‘Voice and Value’

Fur­ther­ing Johnson’s theme of enter­prise archi­tec­ture, Gam­bill reflect­ed on the rel­e­vance of IT pro­fes­sion­als to advanc­ing the restau­rant indus­try for­ward in an era of dig­i­tal transformation.

At MOD, a cloud-first and exclu­sive­ly SaaS orga­ni­za­tion, Gam­bill helped the com­pa­ny become one of the first to imple­ment SAP S/4HANA Cloud, enter­prise edi­tion. With­out ASUG, such an achieve­ment would have been unimag­in­able. ​“ASUG gives the SAP user com­mu­ni­ty voice and val­ue,” she said. 

Gam­bill first attend­ed an ASUG event in 2011, seek­ing assis­tance with under­stand­ing SAP ERP Cen­tral Com­po­nent (SAP ECC). ​“What I found were so many amaz­ing peo­ple with knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence and a pas­sion for SAP that they were will­ing to share,” she said. ​“It’s with­in this com­mu­ni­ty that we know we are all being built up, so that we can tack­le what­ev­er comes our way, espe­cial­ly in these quick­ly chang­ing times.”

These days, Gam­bill is still invest­ed in solv­ing day-to-day prob­lems, but she is also focused on facil­i­tat­ing larg­er-scale con­ver­sa­tions through ASUG, col­lab­o­rat­ing with var­i­ous indus­tries as a Board mem­ber. ​“Com­pa­nies have nev­er need­ed tech­nol­o­gy more than they need it now,” she said. ​“But we don’t use it alone. It takes a vil­lage. We’re in this togeth­er. Com­mu­ni­ty will bring val­ue to your careers, your com­pa­nies, and your lives.” 

‘You Can Make a Difference’

Cae­sar was first intro­duced to ASUG by two for­mer Dal­las Chap­ter lead­ers, who sold him on the organization’s appeal by sim­ply telling him, ​“Tony, you can make a difference.” 

A mem­ber of the ASUG Board of Direc­tors for the past six years, Cae­sar reflect­ed dur­ing the keynote that his long career of lead­er­ship, much of which has involved head­ing SAP-cen­tric teams, has been defined by the desire to make a dif­fer­ence. ​“The great lead­ers con­tin­u­al­ly work to improve their skills,” he said. ​“They learn from the mis­takes they make and become bet­ter lead­ers. They rec­og­nize they don’t know every­thing and are smart enough to sur­round them­selves with smart people.”

Through ASUG, Cae­sar found anoth­er way to lead. Join­ing fel­low ASUG Board mem­bers on an annu­al trip to SAP head­quar­ters in Wall­dorf, Ger­many, he met direct­ly with SAP lead­er­ship to make his voice heard and ensure ASUG mem­bers can max­i­mize the val­ue of their SAP invest­ments. ​“The great part is, after these meet­ings, they always look for­ward to us return­ing to con­tin­ue build­ing a depart­ment, to improve what our SAP mem­bers value.” 

Cae­sar has learned the pow­er of influ­ence through­out his career, and he’s more recent­ly felt empow­ered to ​“be the voice of an under­rep­re­sent­ed group” at work. ​“When I was younger, I was hop­ing to climb the lad­der, and I didn’t want to rock the boat,” he said. ​“In truth, I wasn’t being my authen­tic self.” 

In his past role at Eric­s­son, when he became an ASUG Board mem­ber, Cae­sar became a DEI cham­pi­on with­in the company’s African Amer­i­can resource group. ​“My life took on a new mean­ing,” he said. ​“I real­ized that I had a respon­si­bil­i­ty to younger peo­ple com­ing up behind me; I knew I had to give them a voice.” 

ASUG has ampli­fied Caesar’s voice across var­i­ous indus­tries and com­mu­ni­ties. As he winds down his tenure as a Board mem­ber, Cae­sar left atten­dees with words of encour­age­ment. ​“Let us work togeth­er to make a dif­fer­ence,” he told atten­dees. ​“I know it’s not easy, but the results will cer­tain­ly be reward­ing. In the end, it’s about peo­ple, con­nec­tiv­i­ty, and com­mu­ni­ty, all mov­ing this world for­ward to dri­ve us to a bet­ter place.”

Guid­ing the SAP Cus­tomer Journey

In intro­duc­ing the keynote ses­sion, ASUG CEO & Chief Com­mu­ni­ty Cham­pi­on Geoff Scott spoke briefly with Kevin Hes­ter, Chief Cus­tomer Offi­cer, SAP North Amer­i­ca, about the val­ue he sees cus­tomers unlock through ASUG membership. 

“Everyone’s on a jour­ney,” said Hes­ter, dis­cussing the unde­ni­able rel­e­vance of cus­tomer engage­ment to con­fer­ence atten­dees. ​“Everyone’s got a mis­sion they are try­ing to get done. And the more they talk to cus­tomers, the bet­ter chance they have of achiev­ing the out­comes, which I think is exact­ly what [ASUG] is about.” 

In her keynote speech, Dolezal first shared her expe­ri­ences attend­ing recent SAP-ASUG con­fer­ences, like SAP for Util­i­ties Pre­sent­ed by ASUG in San Diego, and see­ing first­hand what val­ue can be achieved by bring­ing togeth­er part­ner com­mu­ni­ties, ASUG mem­bers, and SAP executives.

“What real­ly struck me was this free exchange of infor­ma­tion, a will­ing­ness to help,” Dolezal said. ​“Peo­ple would go out of their way to meet up with each oth­er, with a recog­ni­tion that every­one is on a jour­ney. Some are fur­ther ahead than oth­ers, but everyone’s in motion all the time, and every­one has some­thing to learn from some­body else, if they only could find that per­son. If you can find and con­nect with peers who have the same chal­lenges, won­der­ful things can hap­pen. At ASUG, we get more busi­ness val­ue done together.”

Out­side of host­ing con­fer­ences, ASUG pro­vides its mem­bers with com­mu­ni­ty-focused web­casts, alliance meet­ings, infor­ma­tion indus­try coun­cils, research sur­veys, edi­to­r­i­al con­tent, and region­al Chap­ter meet­ings. ​“Our ASUG Vol­un­teers decide, plan, and put on what hap­pens at an ASUG Chap­ter meet­ing,” remarked Dolezal. ​“They dri­ve the agen­da, the top­ics of inter­est; and as SAP users them­selves, they take on lead­er­ship roles with the goal of gen­er­at­ing knowl­edge and shar­ing it with the com­mu­ni­ty. You don’t find that gen­eros­i­ty of spir­it every­where in busi­ness, but we do find it at ASUG. It is what fuels us, and it is indica­tive of our mem­bers’ success.”

Call­ing ASUG’s work in inspir­ing and edu­cat­ing the ris­ing work­force ​“a proud moment,” Dolezal shared her mem­o­ries of attend­ing ERP­sim, a recent event in which ASUG Michi­gan Chap­ter vol­un­teers part­nered with Cen­tral Michi­gan Uni­ver­si­ty to men­tor and coach stu­dents through sim­u­la­tions designed to reflect busi­ness chal­lenges. ​“I wit­nessed col­lab­o­ra­tion between the uni­ver­si­ty, SAP, ASUG, and the next gen­er­a­tion of lead­ers,” she said. ​“It was real­ly pow­er­ful and pro­found, what col­lab­o­ra­tion can achieve, and what remark­able things peo­ple can do when they’re aligned on a mission.”

Cre­at­ing Community

ASUG’s keynote ses­sion con­clud­ed with a pan­el dis­cus­sion between Scott, Dolezal, John­son, Gam­bill, and Cae­sar, with the ASUG exec­u­tives join­ing Board mem­bers in eval­u­at­ing key top­ics from SAP Sap­phire & ASUG Annu­al Conference.

Dis­cussing arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, Scott acknowl­edged the oppor­tu­ni­ty pre­sent­ed by gen­er­a­tive AI, even as he not­ed how tech­nolo­gies like Chat­G­PT have become a top top­ic. ​“It has sig­nif­i­cant great­ness and sig­nif­i­cant con­se­quences,” he said. ​“We, as tech­nol­o­gy pro­fes­sion­als, are respon­si­ble for fig­ur­ing out how to make it work in the enter­prise and to come up with a coher­ent answer before oth­ers do it for us.” 

Added Cae­sar: ​“As a CIO, what I’m ner­vous about are dan­gers to my orga­ni­za­tion. One per­son recent­ly told me that some­one in their orga­ni­za­tion took cus­tomer data and put it all into Chat­G­PT to cre­ate a pro­pos­al. That con­cept sounds cool, but now all that customer’s data and pric­ing infor­ma­tion is in Chat­G­PT. I don’t want data leaks, so we’re going to have to fig­ure out how to con­trol it. Because, if not, it’s going to con­trol us.” 

SAP recent­ly announced role-based cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for enter­prise archi­tects, with­in cus­tomer and part­ner com­mu­ni­ties. Look­ing back to 2020, to the first SAP-ASUG EA Sum­mit in New­town Square, Gam­bill notes that event’s atten­dance and cus­tomer engage­ment gave com­pelling evi­dence of the need for a frame­work, tool set, and guid­ance for EA pro­fes­sion­als. ​“Today, we have an explo­sion of choic­es,” Gam­bill said. ​“Tool offer­ings are expo­nen­tial­ly com­ing to mar­ket in a more mod­u­lar fash­ion, but we still need to make faster deci­sions to get to busi­ness out­comes, to find what paths to inno­vate on.” 

Gam­bill feels that enter­prise archi­tec­ture is in the spot­light more than ever before. ​“Foun­da­tion­al prin­ci­ples will need to be revis­it­ed and revised,” she said. ​“It’s not just about enabling that capa­bil­i­ty; it’s about cre­at­ing anoth­er com­mu­ni­ty that’s going to be able to learn and evolve together.”

Added John­son: ​“The unique purview that the EA has across an orga­ni­za­tion tru­ly makes them a super­hero. From a career-path per­spec­tive, they have the best view of an orga­ni­za­tion and the largest oppor­tu­ni­ty to affect change.”