In my pre­vi­ous My View, My Voice com­men­tary, I shared with you, ASUG mem­bers, insights into what seems a lit­tle-known mem­ber­ship ben­e­fit. I offered sto­ries about how the ASUG-SAP part­ner­ship brings val­ue to ASUG mem­bers. I wrote about the 2021 trip to SAP head­quar­ters in Wall­dorf, Ger­many — an annu­al excur­sion sus­pend­ed due to the pan­dem­ic. Last year we resumed this impor­tant con­nec­tion with sev­er­al ASUG Board direc­tors and ASUG CEO Geoff Scott. We talked direct­ly with SAP lead­ers about our work togeth­er to ensure SAP users in North Amer­i­ca get max­i­mum val­ue from SAP investments.

This year’s trip to the geo­graph­i­cal cen­ter of the SAP uni­verse was some­what dif­fer­ent than in 2021. SAP offices were much busier. When we last vis­it­ed the hal­lowed HQ halls, COVID-19’s pres­ence and pro­to­cols meant many still worked from home. This year, with mask man­dates lift­ed, the office was live­ly. There was a wel­come feel­ing, meet­ing many team mem­bers just walk­ing the halls or chat­ting in the cof­fee bar.

Yet, this trip was no dif­fer­ent regard­ing the impor­tance and sin­cer­i­ty of ASUG-SAP meet­ings. As you might expect, I can­not share con­ver­sa­tion specifics. To ensure meet­ing par­tic­i­pants can speak freely and open­ly, we agree that non-dis­clo­sure agree­ments cov­er busi­ness discussions.

SAP Leader Access

Still, I can and want to share some details with you, giv­en the stature and scope of SAP lead­ers involved. Our first con­nec­tion was Sebas­t­ian Stein­haeuser, Chief of Staff to CEO Chris­t­ian Klein, and Head of SAP Strat­e­gy. We met with Thomas Sauer­es­sig, Prod­uct Engi­neer­ing and Mem­ber of the SAP Exec­u­tive Board; Juer­gen Mueller, SAP Chief Tech­nol­o­gy Offi­cer and Mem­ber of the SAP Exec­u­tive Board; Peter Maier, SAP Pres­i­dent Indus­tries and Cus­tomer Advi­so­ry; and Karl Fahrbach, SAP Chief Part­ner Offi­cer. These are some SAP heavy hit­ters! Vis­i­tors don’t get an audi­ence with one, much less sev­er­al SAP Exec­u­tive Lead­ers — unless they see you as a true strate­gic part­ner. This is what ASUG has become and will con­tin­ue to be. 

For­give me for some ​“name-drop­ping.” Let’s move on to some gen­er­al top­ics. We spoke about the SAP Cloud strat­e­gy and jour­ney. We came to bet­ter under­stand SAP Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Plat­form (BTP) and how it can be a game chang­er. We dis­cussed the ever-chang­ing and chal­leng­ing SAP part­ner ecosys­tem. And we talked about SAP sus­tain­abil­i­ty strate­gies and efforts.

Our meet­ings were only com­plete with a vis­it from Chris­t­ian Klein. Chris­t­ian is so per­son­able. He is gen­uine, approach­able, and car­ries him­self with an ease that makes you for­get he leads one of the world’s biggest soft­ware companies. 

Direct­ly From the SAP CEO

Chris­t­ian spoke about a recent vis­it to Wash­ing­ton, D.C., where he met with sev­er­al U.S. gov­ern­ment lead­ers. I had to laugh when he said he went to din­ner with Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans togeth­er — and that they were all nice to each oth­er. (We don’t often see that on tele­vi­sion.) Dur­ing our meet­ing, Chris­t­ian reaf­firmed the impor­tance of the ASUG-SAP rela­tion­ship and com­mit­ted to a con­tin­ued strong part­ner­ship. (He recent­ly fol­lowed that up with LinkedIn post­ings about the impor­tance of SAP user groups.)

Like last year, I came away from these meet­ings more con­fi­dent than ever that a strong part­ner­ship with SAP is in the best inter­est of ASUG and its mem­bers. These annu­al meet­ings allow for very can­did and all-around open dis­cus­sions. The con­ver­sa­tions let us bet­ter under­stand and deliv­er to the needs of both orga­ni­za­tions. They pos­i­tive­ly affect ASUG members. 

One final note: This marks my last full year on the ASUG Board. My six-year term ends in 2023. I will miss being on the Board, serv­ing you, ASUG mem­bers. In par­tic­u­lar, I will miss the Wall­dorf excur­sion next year and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to share new tales. Yet, I look for­ward to sup­port­ing the com­mu­ni­ty in oth­er ways after my Direc­tor ser­vice ends.

Tony Cae­sar is Vice Chair of the ASUG Board of Direc­tors and Head of IT Eric­s­son North America.