Thought lead­ers and indus­try pro­fes­sion­als recent­ly gath­ered for the two-day SAP Sig­navio Busi­ness Trans­for­ma­tion Forum 2023 (Sept. 11 – 13; Scotts­dale, AZ), which pro­vid­ed a valu­able plat­form for them to share key insights and lessons learned on the evolv­ing land­scape of busi­ness transformation.

“Don’t sit back,” Rou­ven Mora­to, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er for SAP Sig­navio at SAP, advised atten­dees in his open­ing keynote. ​“Chal­lenge your­self, and embark on the jour­ney of rein­vent­ing your orga­ni­za­tion for the future.“

Mora­to demon­strat­ed SAP Signavio’s jour­ney by tak­ing off lay­ers of t‑shirts one-by-one, from a top-lay­er ​“trans­for­ma­tion” shirt to, final­ly, an ​“SAP Sig­navio + LeanIX” reveal. (You can see the t‑shirt reveals your­self in this on-demand record­ing.) Mora­to then end­ed his keynote with a sur­prise, as SAP CEO Chris­t­ian Klein joined vir­tu­al­ly for a live inter­view, in which Klein spoke to the role of SAP Sig­navio in ensur­ing suc­cess­ful and holis­tic trans­for­ma­tion journeys. 

Gero Deck­er, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er for SAP Sig­navio, went into more depth on the LeanIX merg­er, also dis­cussing his proven track record in pre­dict­ing the future and the soon-to-be-released AI fea­tures in the SAP Sig­navio plat­form. In addi­tion to these dynam­ic keynotes, cus­tomer sto­ries, live demos and work­shops abound­ed across the two days. Not to men­tion a mechan­i­cal bull. Wait? Maybe I’m not sup­posed to men­tion the mechan­i­cal bull… 

All this excite­ment, and I haven’t even told you about the ASUG research I was invit­ed to share! I had the priv­i­lege to present ASUG research along­side SAP’s Dee Houchen, Head of Mar­ket Impact for SAP Sig­navio, on stage dur­ing day two. In its sec­ond year, this col­lab­o­ra­tive research shed light on the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties fac­ing orga­ni­za­tions in their quest for more effi­cient SAP imple­men­ta­tions. Click here (and scroll down!) to view our full conversation!

Research results demon­strate the endur­ing impor­tance of change man­age­ment process­es, which can expe­dite trans­for­ma­tions, but also revealed a crit­i­cal chal­lenge: orga­ni­za­tions still strug­gle to bridge the gap between peo­ple, process­es, and sys­tems in their pur­suit of suc­cess­ful SAP implementations. 

Here are the three key take­aways from my con­ver­sa­tion with Dee Houchen:

1. Peo­ple are at the heart of transformation. 

The core mes­sage of our pre­sen­ta­tion was that peo­ple are still the linch­pin of any suc­cess­ful busi­ness trans­for­ma­tion. Orga­ni­za­tions are moti­vat­ed to trans­form pri­mar­i­ly to enhance oper­a­tions, and this involves empow­er­ing their work­force. Under­stand­ing and address­ing the human aspect of change man­age­ment is vital for a suc­cess­ful trans­for­ma­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly as research respon­dents who cit­ed change man­age­ment as a chal­lenge spiked to 58% in 2023 (from 43% in 2022). 

Anoth­er stand­out issue was the skills gap, which includes the lack of essen­tial skills, inad­e­quate skills, or a short­age of skills and its hin­der­ance on orga­ni­za­tion­al trans­for­ma­tion efforts. The top three miss­ing skills iden­ti­fied in the research were SAP S/4HANA exper­tise, busi­ness process trans­for­ma­tion, and train­ing and onboard­ing man­age­ment. Orga­ni­za­tions are grap­pling with learn­ing on the job or rely­ing on exter­nal resources to fill these cru­cial skill gaps. 

2. Set mile­stones and bench­marks to main­tain commitment.

While numer­ous poten­tial ben­e­fits can be gained from a busi­ness trans­for­ma­tion, the research empha­sized that these ben­e­fits take time to mate­ri­al­ize. Orga­ni­za­tions should main­tain their com­mit­ment to the jour­ney, even when imme­di­ate results may not be appar­ent. A long-term per­spec­tive is essen­tial for real­iz­ing the full poten­tial of trans­for­ma­tion ini­tia­tives. A key insight from the research was that near­ly half of respon­dents required more than six months to start to real­ize the ben­e­fits of a busi­ness transformation. 

3. Unlock the poten­tial of busi­ness process management. 

The research revealed that busi­ness process man­age­ment tools are under­uti­lized resources in the pur­suit of trans­for­ma­tion ben­e­fits. Orga­ni­za­tions can har­ness the pow­er of these tools to stream­line process­es, enhance col­lab­o­ra­tion, and dri­ve effi­cien­cies. Rec­og­niz­ing the val­ue of such tools is crit­i­cal for opti­miz­ing the ben­e­fits of trans­for­ma­tion efforts. 

I look for­ward to next year’s research col­lab­o­ra­tion with the SAP Sig­navio team as we con­tin­ue to under­stand organization’s busi­ness trans­for­ma­tion jour­ney and of course eval­u­ate the role of AI in the journey.

Maris­sa Gilbert is Direc­tor of Research at ASUG.