As with many SAP exec­u­tive lead­ers, 17-year SAP vet­er­an Rajeev Gur­nani began his career with the enter­prise soft­ware giant as a devel­op­er, ignit­ing his pas­sion for mak­ing cus­tomers suc­cess­ful and deliv­er­ing out­comes to make the world run bet­ter. With the major­i­ty of his expe­ri­ences in sales strat­e­gy and lead­er­ship roles, Rajeev recent­ly took on new chal­lenges as Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer, SAP Cus­tomer Expe­ri­ence, North America. 

ASUG talked with Gur­nani about the new role and respon­si­bil­i­ties, pri­or­i­ties, and plans to ​“start strong” in 2023. He also pro­vid­ed his ​“sim­ple ask” of ASUG members.

This is an edit­ed ver­sion of the com­plete interview.

Ques­tion: Giv­en your back­ground, how has your career equipped you for this new lead­er­ship role?

Answer: I’ve had 17-plus years with SAP, and this great com­pa­ny has pro­vid­ed me with excep­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn and grow my career at my own pace. 

In these years, I have devel­oped a deep under­stand­ing of cus­tomer needs, expect­ed busi­ness out­comes, and SAP dif­fer­en­tia­tors. Man­ag­ing high-per­form­ing sales teams across geo­gra­phies and solu­tion areas has empow­ered me to help cus­tomers suc­ceed by lever­ag­ing SAP inno­va­tions and adopt­ing our SW solu­tions to dri­ve trans­for­ma­tion in the cloud. In my last 10 years I have been assist­ing cus­tomers in tran­si­tion­ing to the cloud, at the core (RISE with SAP), foun­da­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy plat­form (Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Plat­form), and most recent­ly, front-office Cus­tomer Expe­ri­ence (CX). SAP enables our cus­tomers to take advan­tage of our vast port­fo­lio with con­tin­u­ous inno­va­tions and tight­ly inte­grat­ed indus­try-led busi­ness process­es. CX plays a crit­i­cal role in the SAP port­fo­lio as we enable end-to-end busi­ness process­es and dri­ve cus­tomer jour­neys pow­ered by dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion. CX brings my entire SAP career and expe­ri­ences into action.

Q: How so? 

A: It is essen­tial to real­ize com­pa­nies’ chal­lenges in this are­na. Whether a com­pa­ny is B2B, B2C, or begin­ning to blur the lines and become B2B2C, mar­ket trends make the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence space chal­leng­ing for all orga­ni­za­tions. As con­sumers, we all know the life-chang­ing impact of dig­i­tal on our dai­ly lives. Not only have online and mobile sell­ing motions dis­rupt­ed the B2C indus­try, but they have also set the stage for the over­all shop­ping expe­ri­ence and hyper-per­son­al­iza­tion that B2B orga­ni­za­tions are expect­ed to mea­sure up to. With it becom­ing eas­i­er to switch brands, the pow­er has changed to the cus­tomers and con­sumers while loy­al­ty is declin­ing at alarm­ing rates.

At the same time, cus­tomers and con­sumers are wor­ried about the data avail­able on their pref­er­ences and activ­i­ties. They have the reg­u­la­to­ry right to con­trol how they store and lever­age infor­ma­tion in buy­ing expe­ri­ences. Fur­ther­more, sup­ply chain dis­rup­tions and inef­fi­cien­cies are caus­ing addi­tion­al pres­sure on com­pa­nies (and their customer’s expe­ri­ence) sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact­ing ser­vice lev­els and deliv­er­ies, dis­ap­point­ing cus­tomers and con­sumers on a reg­u­lar basis. Only SAP, specif­i­cal­ly SAP CX, allows cus­tomers to lever­age their dig­i­tal core invest­ments to opti­mize the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence by deliv­er­ing seam­less end-to-end busi­ness processes. 

SAP CX empow­ers cus­tomers to be agile regard­ing mar­ket reach, to respond quick­ly to chang­ing cus­tomer needs, and dri­ve alter­nate chan­nels for the new gen­er­a­tion of users who lever­age new tech­nolo­gies to dri­ve their con­sump­tion behav­ior. I will take it upon myself to ensure every SAP cus­tomer and prospect, and dif­fer­ent lev­els of their orga­ni­za­tions, under­stand why SAP CX mat­ters and how we:

• Pro­vide com­plete end-to-end solu­tions from cus­tomer acqui­si­tion to sale to prof­itabil­i­ty analy­sis. (CMO, head of sales, CFO)
• Turn mar­ket oppor­tu­ni­ties into bot­tom line real­i­ty. (CMO, head of sales, CFO)
• Win cus­tomer trust and loy­al­ty with intel­li­gent engage­ment. (CMO, head of sales)
• Cre­ate a fric­tion­less cus­tomer expe­ri­ence with end-to-end insight via con­nect­ed com­merce, mar­ket­ing, sales, and ser­vice data (CMO, head of sales).

Q: In terms of cus­tomer expe­ri­ence, does the scope of your role touch on SAP S/4HANA, SAP Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Net­work, SAP Sig­navio, or oth­er key technologies?

A: Hon­est­ly, it touch­es all of them. If you look close­ly, you will real­ize that SAP sup­ports the cus­tomer jour­ney through an inte­grat­ed process link­ing both SAP CX solu­tions and S/4. CX is a suite of solu­tions around online com­merce, sales, CRM, ser­vice, mar­ket­ing, cus­tomer data, access, pri­va­cy, and iden­ti­ty management. 

The SAP CX Suite lets companies: 

• Deliv­er hyper-per­son­al­ized expe­ri­ences across mul­ti­ple chan­nels with con­sis­tent engagement.
• Enable B2B, B2C, and B2B2C com­merce trans­ac­tions in the world’s largest sin­gle com­merce solution.
• Ensure com­pli­ance with data pri­va­cy reg­u­la­tions while lever­ag­ing cus­tomer spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion to mar­ket to, sell to, and ser­vice cus­tomers more effi­cient­ly and effectively.

You can eas­i­ly see SAP dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion; our CX solu­tion is unique as an enter­prise, includ­ing 11 Embed­ded Best Prac­tices and opti­miz­ing end-to-end with 1,116 Stan­dard Integrations.

SAP BTP becomes the secret sauce to con­nect the SAP front office to the SAP back office for a seam­less cus­tomer expe­ri­ence and ulti­mate­ly dri­ve more val­ue to the cus­tomer and consumer.

For exam­ple:

• Our Cus­tomer Data Plat­form opti­mizes one bil­lion iden­ti­ty checks per day.
• Our engage­ment plat­form with Emarsys is help­ing man­age 13 bil­lion direct-to- con­sumer mes­sages monthly.
• We just released prod­ucts for Sales and Ser­vices built on the new CNS platform. 

Q: Under your new lead­er­ship, are you putting more resources into your team? If so, what type of resources, with what roles and responsibilities?

A: We’ve had a major, strate­gic invest­ments made by SAP across this orga­ni­za­tion. Those invest­ments and resources span across devel­op­ment, sales, pre-sales, and oth­er crit­i­cal areas. Our sales and ser­vice cloud ver­sion 2 is part of that invest­ment many cus­tomers rec­og­nize as trans­for­ma­tion­al. SAP con­tin­ues to invest fur­ther across the CX roadmap, launch­ing many inno­va­tions in the next six to 18 months.

In 2022, we put togeth­er a ded­i­cat­ed team of experts with deep indus­try and busi­ness knowl­edge to help our cus­tomers (1) under­stand the SAP CX val­ue prop, (2) iden­ti­fy how CX meets busi­ness needs and pri­or­i­ties, (3) devel­op a sim­ple but real­is­tic plan to replace non-SAP solu­tions with state of the art SAP CX suite, and (4) build a busi­ness case to dri­ve val­ue and deliv­er busi­ness outcomes. 

Q: It’s great to hear about prod­uct lead­er­ship and direc­tion. What are your own pri­or­i­ties in this new role?

A: My pri­or­i­ties are to make our cus­tomers suc­cess­ful. I live and breathe cus­tomer suc­cess, dri­ving out­comes for our cus­tomers as they con­sume and lever­age SAP cloud solu­tions. From a 90-day per­spec­tive, I plan to make sure we jump-start next year with a robust frame­work around reach­ing out to our exist­ing cus­tomers and help­ing them under­stand the SAP CX val­ue prop. All SAP cus­tomers should look at the newest inno­va­tions in the SAP CX space and allow us to present the CX roadmap. I am work­ing to build a struc­tured frame­work to reach every exist­ing SAP cus­tomer who has yet to see CX val­ue prop in the last six months. I also plan to launch a pro­gram to tar­get our net-new prospec­tive cus­tomers who might be using a home­grown or com­pet­i­tive solu­tion. I want an open dia­logue about the roadmap, under­stand resis­tance to adopt SAP CX solu­tions, and devel­op a healthy, pos­i­tive con­ver­sa­tion with cus­tomers about their future with SAP CX. Cus­tomiz­ing an approach for each cus­tomer allows us to devel­op a joint solu­tion adop­tion plan for front-office dig­i­tal transformation.

This requires a lot of time and invest­ment from SAP, which we’re will­ing to make. It also requires some time invest­ment from exec­u­tives on the cus­tomer side. In the end, the desired pos­i­tive out­comes and cus­tomer suc­cess are the pil­lars that will dri­ve this in the com­ing year.

Q: You define cus­tomer suc­cess based on cus­tomer out­comes. Can you illus­trate that with some examples?

A: Yes. With every­thing hap­pen­ing around us — recov­er­ing from a pan­dem­ic, many peo­ple work­ing from home, sup­ply chain dis­rup­tions, many cus­tomers wor­ried about what’s going to hap­pen from a reces­sion or war-impli­ca­tion per­spec­tive, and every­thing else — out­comes are evolv­ing. And, in terms of CX, that’s how you engage your end con­sumer, right? 

The role of an SAP CX solu­tion is to empow­er cus­tomers with these pres­sures to stay focused on cus­tomer engage­ment, while they opti­mize costs and dri­ve dig­i­tal adop­tion by run­ning effi­cient and effec­tive organizations. 

When we talk about the cus­tomer out­comes from the CX solu­tion suite, we can demon­strate both Top Line rev­enue growth and bot­tom line cost optimization.

Whether it is a 94% increase in Online Rev­enue Growth or a 28% increase in Aver­age Deal Size, SAP helps our cus­tomers grow revenue.

At the same time, we also opti­mize expens­es with cus­tomers achiev­ing a 70% decrease in order pro­cess­ing costs and a 50% decrease in call cen­ter costs.

But we also enhance the over­all cus­tomer engage­ment with the brand, with cus­tomers expe­ri­enc­ing a 92% growth in loy­al­ty card sub­scrip­tions and a 90% pos­i­tive increase in cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion scores!

Q: How does the port­fo­lio break­down today in terms of the cus­tomer base in B2B ver­sus B2C?

A: It’s pret­ty bal­anced. SAP is very, very strong in the B2C space and equal­ly strong in the B2B space, where­as our com­pe­ti­tion might be dif­fer­ent. And with the lines blur­ring, SAP CX solu­tions stand out as our com­peti­tors have no solu­tion (or a mixed bag of non-inte­grat­ed point solutions). 

Q: Are there par­tic­u­lar indus­tries or mar­kets where you are more focused on under­stand­ing cus­tomer needs?

A: No. Every­one is sell­ing and buy­ing. Every­one has sales­peo­ple who man­age their busi­ness, oppor­tu­ni­ties, leads, etc. Every­one has some form of mar­ket­ing, whether they do it direct­ly through e‑mail cam­paigns, cold-call­ing, or oth­er mech­a­nisms. The beau­ty is CX’s port­fo­lio cuts across all industries. 

Of course, we see sea­son­al­i­ty in which indus­tries pri­or­i­tize going online or dig­i­tal faster and soon­er. We have some focused indus­tries where we will start first in the frame­work and plan­ning I spoke about ear­li­er, but in the end, our objec­tive would be to cater to and cov­er all.

Q: At the end of the 90 days, what will suc­cess look like for you?

A: At the end of the 90 days, it will be the start of a new year. We’re all sales­peo­ple, so for us, the counter resets on the first of Jan­u­ary. My per­son­al objec­tive would be that we have a strong team in place with a clear direc­tion and strat­e­gy for how we will mar­ket. I aspire to have strong ties and con­ver­sa­tions with cus­tomers in terms of their feed­back on the prod­uct direc­tion and mean­ing­ful dia­logues around how we help our cus­tomers succeed.

The tim­ing could not have been bet­ter. I start­ed in the role a few weeks back, which gives me around two months this year to observe and under­stand the chal­lenges from a busi­ness per­spec­tive across North Amer­i­ca, then lever­age the go-to-mar­ket and oth­er plan­ning activ­i­ties to estab­lish the char­ter for suc­cess in 2023.

Q: Speak­ing direct­ly to ASUG mem­bers, what will they see and feel dif­fer­ent­ly in 2023?

A: Speak­ing direct­ly to ASUG mem­bers, I would make one very sim­ple ask: please allow SAP Cus­tomer Expe­ri­ence (CX) to spend time with you and your lead­er­ship. Let us take you through the inno­va­tions that have come to life and the trans­for­ma­tion that has hap­pened on our prod­uct side. All ASUG mem­bers need to under­stand SAP strat­e­gy and our direc­tion in the CX space. 

Of course, there are per­cep­tions, lim­i­ta­tions due to pri­or invest­ments, and bag­gage from the past. But you must hear from the SAP CX experts direct­ly since the opin­ions and per­cep­tions from the past might not be real today, and it is not that com­plex to replace with SAP CX Suite. So please, give us 30 – 45 min­utes of your time. And I would assure you it will be time well spent.

Q: One of the main chal­lenges for our mem­bers is inte­gra­tion across SAP solu­tions and point solu­tions that may have been acquired over time. Could you speak to that direct­ly? What dif­fer­ences will happen?

A: That’s exact­ly the per­cep­tion I want to break. As I said ear­li­er, our com­pe­ti­tion might have non-inte­grat­ed point solu­tions and do not own the back-office stack to deliv­er smooth sim­ple inte­gra­tion. On the oth­er hand, SAP deliv­ers seam­less inte­gra­tion and busi­ness process­es across the solu­tion stack, and we have done a lot of work in the last two to three years in this area. We want to artic­u­late this in the 30 or 45 min­utes I am ask­ing for. If it makes sense, we would fol­low up with demos and oth­er cre­ative approach­es to prove that this is real and avail­able right now. When you see it your­self, you will believe it. 

It took us a long time to get to the point where we are, but I’m very con­fi­dent that from now on the con­ver­sa­tion will be: let’s look at it togeth­er and let’s plan the adop­tion and con­sump­tion of those func­tion­al­i­ties, capa­bil­i­ties, and inno­va­tion that SAP is bring­ing to the table via the CX Suite inte­grat­ed with SAP S/4HANA.

Thank you, and I look for­ward to speak­ing to you about the SAP CX Suite in the first half of 2023!

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