The fol­low­ing arti­cle was authored by Car­olyn Szczurek, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Lead at ASUG.

Ear­li­er this month, I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to attend and present at the ASUG New Eng­land Chap­ter Meet­ing, host­ed at the icon­ic Gillette Sta­di­um, home of the New Eng­land Patri­ots and New Eng­land Rev­o­lu­tion. The entire event buzzed with ener­gy as SAP cus­tomers, part­ners, and experts came togeth­er for a day packed with thought-pro­vok­ing dis­cus­sions, insights, and mean­ing­ful connections. 

The meet­ing kicked off with the ASUG Women Con­nect net­work­ing break­fast, where atten­dees broke the ice and built new rela­tion­ships through Beyond the Busi­ness Card — a cre­ative and engag­ing activ­i­ty envi­sioned by Kim­ber­ly Sharp, the ASUG New Eng­land Chap­ter Chair. Each par­tic­i­pant ran­dom­ly drew a ques­tion writ­ten on index cards pro­vid­ed by ASUG, on top­ics rang­ing from pro­fes­sion­al growth and lead­er­ship to mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions and com­mu­ni­ty. Break­ing into small­er groups to answer each ques­tion, all of the par­tic­i­pants dis­cussed shared and indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ences in rela­tion to the top­ics, tak­ing net­work­ing to a deep­er lev­el. It was inspir­ing to see pro­fes­sion­als share their expe­ri­ences, lessons learned, and career jour­neys in this new and inter­ac­tive way. 

ASUG CEO & Chief Com­mu­ni­ty Cham­pi­on Geoff Scott, mean­while, pro­vid­ed atten­dees with a behind-the-scenes look at key con­ver­sa­tions ASUG is facil­i­tat­ing with SAP cus­tomers, part­ners, and SAP lead­er­ship. Scott shared what orga­ni­za­tions need to do to stay to the front or mid­dle of the ​“inno­va­tion curve” with their SAP tech­nol­o­gy stacks, empha­siz­ing the impor­tance of cloud solu­tions and the need for com­pa­nies to min­i­mize long-stand­ing cus­tomiza­tions. He also dove into the top­ic of gen­er­a­tive AI — polling the audi­ence on how much they think gen­er­a­tive AI will change their jobs over the next three years. Near­ly 60% of atten­dees expressed their belief that AI will change their jobs ​“a lot,” com­pared to only 7% who think the tech­nol­o­gy will not change their roles much. Scott shared how impor­tant it is for those in IT roles and lines of busi­ness to be learn­ing and exper­i­ment­ing with gen­er­a­tive AI to work smarter. After all, as he stressed, gen­er­a­tive AI is not going away. 

Final­ly, Scott talked about the impor­tance of change man­age­ment in tech­nol­o­gy imple­men­ta­tions and to ensure adop­tion of new tech­nol­o­gy once imple­ment­ed, shar­ing a quote from Patrick Dineen, Senior Vice Pres­i­dent of Finan­cial Sys­tems Trans­for­ma­tion, NBC Uni­ver­sal, an expert on the top­ic of change man­age­ment: ​“I know the tech­nol­o­gy is not going to be the prob­lem. Thou­sands of peo­ple have done it. The prob­lem COULD be the peo­ple that need to adopt it.” 

Scott’s insights rein­forced why stay­ing engaged with ASUG is so valu­able — ASUG con­nects the dots between SAP’s solu­tions and real-world cus­tomer needs and experiences.

I was thrilled to present an exclu­sive sneak peek into the 2025 ASUG Pulse of the SAP Cus­tomer Research, to be for­mal­ly unveiled in the com­ing weeks, reveal­ing what’s top of mind for ASUG mem­bers this year and using live polling to com­pare the results from our research to the expe­ri­ences of our New Eng­land chap­ter atten­dees. While ASUG research reveals key focus areas such as S/4HANA and inte­gra­tion as rel­e­vant to the wider mem­ber base, those at the chap­ter shared ​“growth” and ​“sta­bi­liza­tion” as top areas of focus at their organizations. 

The research also exam­ined respon­dents’ top chal­lenges in achiev­ing their goals, with atten­dees and research respon­dents agree­ing on ​“bud­get” issues as the top chal­lenge they face in 2025. Many of these themes came to life through­out the event, espe­cial­ly in con­ver­sa­tions around embrac­ing SAP S/4HANA, Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Plat­form (BTP), and AI. 

Atten­dees also had the priv­i­lege of learn­ing from our val­ued part­ners, whose exper­tise sparked impor­tant dis­cus­sions. Con­fig­urable Man­age­ment reflect­ed on mak­ing data val­i­da­tion eas­i­er with data val­i­da­tion man­age­ment solu­tions. Zia Con­sult­ing offered strate­gic insights on prepar­ing for the SAP ECC 6.0 sun­set and tran­si­tion­ing to SAP S/4HANA, while Onap­sis shared crit­i­cal guid­ance on secur­ing sys­tems before, dur­ing, and after RISE with SAP imple­men­ta­tions. Round­ing out the con­ver­sa­tion, Anurag Barua, SAP Trans­for­ma­tion Leader, deliv­ered thought-pro­vok­ing per­spec­tives on AI, adding depth to an already excit­ing dia­logue about how orga­ni­za­tions can lever­age this game-chang­ing tech­nol­o­gy. Thank you to all our plat­inum spon­sors — Con­fig­urable Man­age­ment, Zia Con­sult­ing, and Onap­sis — and our sil­ver spon­sor — Panaya — for mak­ing this event possible.

Lat­er in the day, we focused on net­work­ing and con­nec­tion through a group dis­cus­sion on top­ics that atten­dees assessed as being of inter­est: RISE with SAP, BTP, and AI. SAP experts were on hand at the event to pro­vide clar­i­ty on what RISE with SAP is and what that means for mem­bers’ orga­ni­za­tions. We also dis­cussed the most impor­tant SAP skills to have; busi­ness process knowl­edge, prob­lem-solv­ing, and tech­ni­cal exper­tise rose to the top, fol­lowed close­ly by com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills. 

The theme of com­mu­ni­ca­tion came up again between my pre­sen­ta­tions on ASUG Mem­ber Val­ue and ASUG SAP Cus­tomer Research, as I asked atten­dees what non-tech­ni­cal skills every SAP pro­fes­sion­al needs to suc­ceed. The over­whelm­ing con­sen­sus? ​“Patience and com­mu­ni­ca­tion.” I asked fur­ther about this recur­ring theme of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and the respons­es I received under­scored a key take­away; strong col­lab­o­ra­tion between IT and line of busi­ness teams are essen­tial for suc­cess­ful imple­men­ta­tions and adop­tion of SAP technology. 

I wrapped up group dis­cus­sions by ask­ing which two top­ics atten­dees were most inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about. 70% of atten­dees indi­cat­ed they are most inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about SAP S/4HANA, fol­lowed by SAP BTP (52%) and AI (33%). After lunch, act­ing on feed­back from atten­dees, atten­dees broke out into small­er groups, each focused on one of these key top­ics. Atten­dees were invit­ed to share expe­ri­ences, ask ques­tions, and get them answered by a sub­ject-mat­ter expert. Observ­ing the lev­el of learn­ing and growth achieved through such pow­er­ful oppor­tu­ni­ties for con­nec­tion, through­out the day, was inspiring! 

Over­all, the ASUG New Eng­land Chap­ter Meet­ing was a fan­tas­tic reminder of what makes ASUG events so impact­ful — the oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn, con­nect, and grow with peers who are just as pas­sion­ate as you are about SAP and busi­ness trans­for­ma­tion. We hope you’ll attend an ASUG Chap­ter Meet­ing near you in 2025. You’ll walk away with fresh insights, new con­nec­tions, and a renewed sense of inspi­ra­tion for the year ahead! Keep your eyes on the ASUG Events page for dates and reg­is­tra­tion infor­ma­tion for our Chapters. 

Car­olyn Szczurek is Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Lead at ASUG.