These are unprece­dent­ed times. The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has cap­tured our atten­tion as the nation’s work­force is adjust­ing to either work­ing from home or wait­ing to get back to work. 

We’ve spo­ken to busi­ness lead­ers and SAP customers to bet­ter under­stand how the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion is affect­ing their orga­ni­za­tions, as well as what steps they are tak­ing to address chal­lenges they’ve encoun­tered. While SAP pro­vides the sys­tems and ser­vices that ASUG mem­bers rely on, it is also an orga­ni­za­tion — a busi­ness — that must adjust and reimag­ine its own work­force and processes. 

ASUG sat down with DJ Paoni, pres­i­dent of SAP North Amer­i­ca, and Mar­ty Mru­gal, glob­al head of Cus­tomer First, to dis­cuss how they’re address­ing COVID-19 both inter­nal­ly and externally. 

“Over­all, SAP is focus­ing on the health and safe­ty of its extend­ed fam­i­ly and the com­mu­ni­ties that it serves — that includes employ­ees, cus­tomers, and part­ners,” DJ said. ​“We have a con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to our cus­tomers and their suc­cess. We are focused on stand­ing by them as they nav­i­gate a very chal­leng­ing period.”

The three of us, each in our own home, con­nect­ed via Skype Meet­ing and talked about the steps SAP has tak­en, as well as what cus­tomers should expect now and going forward.

Sharon: How is SAP work­ing through COVID-19 with its own work­force and processes? 

DJ: The cur­rent sit­u­a­tion has chal­lenged all of us at SAP to be more cre­ative and find new ways to work togeth­er so that we can be present for our cus­tomers and their busi­ness chal­lenges. This pan­dem­ic has affect­ed many busi­ness­es, includ­ing SAP. What hasn’t changed, how­ev­er, is our com­mit­ment to our cus­tomers’ success.

All North Amer­i­can offices are closed until fur­ther notice and employ­ees are to work from home. In fact, SAP is encour­ag­ing all employ­ees glob­al­ly to work from home. All trav­el has also been sus­pend­ed for the time being. We’re con­fi­dent that we can take the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions while ensur­ing that our busi­ness con­ti­nu­ity remains intact. Essen­tial oper­a­tions such as data cen­ters will remain func­tion­ing in accor­dance with pub­lic health ordi­nances. And we will con­tin­ue to sup­port our cus­tomers in the ways they need us.

That said, we’ve tak­en steps to make sure every­one can col­lab­o­rate as well as com­mu­ni­cate in all the dif­fer­ent ways avail­able. Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, SAP con­tin­ues to be as flex­i­ble as pos­si­ble. We real­ize that this pan­dem­ic is affect­ing employ­ees and their per­son­al lives. In addi­tion to still work­ing, some must jug­gle child care or tend to a fam­i­ly mem­ber who is sick. SAP has a robust pol­i­cy in place that enables its employ­ees to take paid time off to care for them­selves or depen­dents. We’re also offer­ing the abil­i­ty for employ­ees to work non­tra­di­tion­al hours. From a lead­er­ship posi­tion, we’ve made the deci­sion to tem­porar­i­ly extend our office closure/​crisis leave pol­i­cy from five to 10 paid days, so that in exten­u­at­ing cir­cum­stances, employ­ees are empow­ered to take time off to sup­port their fam­i­lies, their loved ones, and the com­mu­ni­ties that they serve with­out hav­ing to take sick days. 

We’ve also tak­en steps to sup­port hourly work­ers, includ­ing con­trac­tors and ven­dors, as we con­sid­er them part of the SAP fam­i­ly. It’s impor­tant to min­i­mize any finan­cial dis­rup­tion to their per­son­al lives in light of what’s hap­pen­ing, so these indi­vid­u­als will receive their full wages despite any reduced hours.

Sharon: How is SAP work­ing through COVID-19 exter­nal­ly — as it relates to cus­tomers? What resources and tools are avail­able for cus­tomers to help them man­age their own busi­ness­es dur­ing this time? 

Mar­ty: Busi­ness con­ti­nu­ity is top of mind for us. We often cite the sta­tis­tic that 77% of the world’s trans­ac­tions touch an SAP sys­tem. So, we’re 100% focused on mak­ing sure that those busi­ness sys­tems — and our cus­tomers — are always operational. 

As the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion affects our cus­tomers and dis­rupts busi­ness and busi­ness process­es, SAP wants to make sure that it’s pro­vid­ing the tech­nolo­gies that will help com­pa­nies, com­mu­ni­ties, and gov­ern­ments move for­ward with the least amount of dis­rup­tion possible. 

Some of the solu­tions that SAP is offer­ing open access to dur­ing COVID-19 include SAP Con­cur Trip­It and SAP Con­cur Duty of Care, which make sure that our cus­tomers’ employ­ees are safe; SAP Ari­ba Dis­cov­ery, which helps iden­ti­fy alter­na­tive sources of sup­ply and sup­pli­ers; and Qualtrics Employ­e­eXM Remote Work Plus, which will help team lead­ers under­stand employ­ee needs and well-being as they adapt to new work environments. 

SAP has also made avail­able its mas­sive open online cur­ricu­lum via open­SAP to cus­tomers as they’re expand­ing and intro­duc­ing new solu­tions. And then final­ly from a tools per­spec­tive, SAP offers SAP for Me, which serves as a dig­i­tal com­pan­ion to cus­tomers pro­vid­ing cen­tral­ized trans­paren­cy across the prod­uct port­fo­lio in one place. 

Sharon: What spe­cif­ic cus­tomer-first steps is SAP tak­ing right now? 

DJ: Over­com­mu­ni­cat­ing is key. We’re mak­ing a lot of calls to check in with cus­tomers and ask if there is any­thing more SAP can do. We want to be respect­ful and aware of each indi­vid­ual sit­u­a­tion that our cus­tomers are going through. As Mar­ty men­tioned, we are offer­ing open access to cer­tain solu­tions to help cus­tomers focus on their own employ­ees and their sup­ply chains. As new needs arise, we will con­tin­ue to offer addi­tion­al sup­port. Our imme­di­ate and long-term goal is to con­tin­ue to remain as engaged, if not more engaged than ever with our cus­tomers and our partners. 

Sharon: We’ve heard from cus­tomers who are in the mid­dle of SAP projects that they are hav­ing a dif­fi­cult time get­ting con­sul­tants to come on-site because of social dis­tanc­ing. What advice can you pro­vide to those cus­tomers faced with these challenges? 

Mar­ty: From a ser­vices and sup­port per­spec­tive, our Mis­sion Con­trol Cen­ter and our Mis­sion Crit­i­cal Sup­port have busi­ness-con­ti­nu­ity plans in place. All inter­nal sys­tems, tools, and mon­i­tor­ing ser­vices are designed for remote work. We’ve already acti­vat­ed the ser­vices in many parts of the world includ­ing Asia and Europe when they were first hit with the virus, with no dis­rup­tion to clients. As the sit­u­a­tion devel­ops, SAP will take this mod­el to oth­er loca­tions around the world. 

SAP absolute­ly has busi­ness-con­ti­nu­ity plans in place and we’re hap­py to share them with cus­tomers. We’re for­tu­nate that for almost all busi­ness func­tions, we have the capa­bil­i­ty to access our inter­nal sys­tems and work from home. So, we real­ly have had no dis­rup­tion from our ser­vice. If our cus­tomers want us on-site, we will of course do that. If they want us remote, we will do that too. We want to be respect­ful of our cus­tomers and their wish­es. Bot­tom line is we are open for business.

DJ: I’m going to come back again to com­mu­ni­ca­tion and keep­ing those lines open. We will con­tin­ue to have indi­vid­ual dia­logues with each one of our cus­tomers and assess what needs to hap­pen. Keep­ing the health and safe­ty of every­one in mind, we will deploy staff on-site if that’s the appro­pri­ate thing to do, but we can cer­tain­ly work remote­ly when necessary. 

Sharon: What do you say to cus­tomers who are faced with bud­get con­straints right now? 

DJ: SAP is com­mit­ted to keep­ing our entre­pre­neur­ial spir­it and to con­tin­ue inno­vat­ing. We’re going to sup­port cus­tomers where they need it. We ask that cus­tomers keep their lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion open with us. We under­stand that this pan­dem­ic will lead to unfore­seen pres­sures and chal­lenges on our cus­tomers’ busi­ness­es. The way we work through that is by remain­ing in con­tact so that we can under­stand each indi­vid­ual sit­u­a­tion and work through how we can help. 

Sharon: Where is SAP focus­ing its efforts right now and what has been put on hold for the time being? How will this affect customers? 

DJ: The sit­u­a­tion has changed the way that we oper­ate, but I think the lev­el at which we oper­ate remains unchanged. Our busi­ness is up and run­ning. We’re abid­ing by the guid­ance and reg­u­la­tions from local and fed­er­al gov­ern­ments for the health and safe­ty of our employ­ees and cus­tomers. But we’re also very for­tu­nate in that our ser­vices team can do just about every­thing remote with­out hav­ing to be on-site. So, for SAP, it’s about mov­ing from phys­i­cal to vir­tu­al engagement. 

Sharon: What are the three most crit­i­cal steps orga­ni­za­tions can take today to help pre­pare for the imme­di­ate future as well as the long term? 

DJ: Of course, not every busi­ness is mod­eled the same way or has the same needs, but the three best prac­tices for us right now include putting the health and safe­ty of our employ­ees, cus­tomers, and com­mu­ni­ties first and fore­most. That has to be the mind­set right now. 

Sec­ond is to over­com­mu­ni­cate. Keep the lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion wide open with employ­ees. I can’t stress how impor­tant it is to inform every­one of deci­sions every step of the way. 

And then third, keep a lev­el of busi­ness con­ti­nu­ity. As we men­tioned ear­li­er, we are not low­er­ing our lev­el of engage­ment with cus­tomers, and in many cas­es I think we’re more engaged than ever before. All three of these steps are crit­i­cal now and mov­ing forward. 

Mar­ty: I couldn’t agree more. I would add to that it’s key to estab­lish an emer­gency task force. We have one at SAP, which is deployed on a glob­al lev­el. It has been help­ful to the var­i­ous busi­ness lead­ers at SAP to have a sin­gle source of infor­ma­tion. It helps us get a com­mon mes­sage out and to answer ques­tions employ­ees may have, which ulti­mate­ly helps our customers.

Anoth­er thing cus­tomers should do is sta­bi­lize their busi­ness­es. Imple­ment busi­ness-con­ti­nu­ity mea­sures that include iden­ti­fy­ing alter­na­tive sources of sup­ply; finan­cial mod­el­ing and sce­nario analy­sis on the best- and worst-case sce­nar­ios; cash flow and liq­uid­i­ty analy­sis; and what crit­i­cal employ­ee qual­i­fi­ca­tions and cer­ti­fi­ca­tions are need­ed for cer­tain roles, tech­nol­o­gy, and infra­struc­ture con­ti­nu­ity plans. As a trust­ed part­ner, SAP can help in every sin­gle one of those areas. 

And the final thing I would add is to keep an open dia­logue with your cus­tomers and under­stand their chal­lenges and how you can serve them bet­ter. For exam­ple, as many peo­ple know, the restau­rant indus­try has been hit hard right now. MOD Piz­za, which has been a great SAP cus­tomer for a long time, is no excep­tion. We sent an online link to SAP employ­ees in North Amer­i­ca and offered to fund their MOD Piz­za if they ordered deliv­ery or car­ry-out. Employ­ees were able to expense their MOD Piz­za, and they even sent pic­tures of them and their fam­i­lies enjoy­ing the meal. 

That’s just one exam­ple of how we can all help each oth­er and our cus­tomers. We’re also work­ing with cus­tomers in the health care indus­try to lever­age SAP HANA and our pre­dic­tive ana­lyt­ics to iden­ti­fy and pre­dict things like how many patients with COVID-19 will come through the door, what’s the bed capac­i­ty, and what’s the sup­ply of crit­i­cal pro­tec­tive devices. 

That con­stant dia­logue is real­ly impor­tant so that we can help our cus­tomers. Going for­ward, we’re going to help our cus­tomers auto­mate as much as pos­si­ble so that they can focus on their employ­ees’ health and safety. 

Sharon: There are ques­tions around SAP­PHIRE NOW and ASUG Annu­al Con­fer­ence. Is there any­thing you can tell us now about the state of the con­fer­ence and the what cus­tomers can expect or pre­pare for? 

DJ: As we announced last week, SAP is tak­ing SAP­PHIRE NOW and ASUG Annu­al Con­fer­ence online to engage with our audi­ences vir­tu­al­ly. We are eager to pro­vide all par­tic­i­pants with a unique dig­i­tal expe­ri­ence that will rede­fine the way we share infor­ma­tion and engage with our com­mu­ni­ty, while deliv­er­ing the best busi­ness outcomes.

We know how impor­tant these events are to SAP cus­tomers, part­ners, media, ana­lysts, and influ­encers, and we are work­ing hard to main­tain that spir­it and integri­ty. We will be shar­ing more details about the new vir­tu­al expe­ri­ence in the com­ing weeks. 

Sharon: What’s the one piece of advice you would give to your cus­tomers now as it relates to future SAP invest­ments around inno­va­tion and dig­i­tal transformation?

Mar­ty: SAP is going to con­tin­ue to inno­vate and sup­port cus­tomers as they need it. Again, I can­not stress enough how impor­tant it is to keep that line of com­mu­ni­ca­tion open — now and mov­ing for­ward — espe­cial­ly among your prod­uct devel­op­ment and man­age­ment teams.

We under­stand that the pan­dem­ic is lead­ing to some unfore­seen pres­sures on the busi­ness sys­tem, and my advice would be to keep the line of com­mu­ni­ca­tion as wide open as pos­si­ble. There is no doubt that this pan­dem­ic will impact how the world oper­ates beyond the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion. And just as SAP has always done, it will con­tin­ue to work close­ly with its cus­tomers across indus­tries to inno­vate and exe­cute dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tions. We’re com­mit­ted to accel­er­at­ing dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tions with our cus­tomers. We’ll take the lessons learned dur­ing this time and use them to help trans­form our cus­tomers’ busi­ness­es as well as ide­al­ly turn­ing these chal­lenges into oppor­tu­ni­ties for our customers.

Sharon: How are each of you man­ag­ing through this pan­dem­ic and what per­son­al tips can you share with ASUG members? 

DJ: Just like many peo­ple, I am learn­ing how to work from home all week long. I’ve heard some peo­ple describe how dif­fi­cult it is to have to explain to their 6‑year-old that they can’t go out and play with their friends right now. Well, I find it equal­ly dif­fi­cult to try and explain that to my 19-year-old. So, it’s interesting! 

Per­son­al­ly, I am mak­ing sure I drink enough water and get enough sleep, and that I am tak­ing things seri­ous­ly while remain­ing calm. That’s the key. From a lead­er­ship per­spec­tive, we need to stay calm and give some direc­tion. Aside from that, I am doing what I can to stay healthy. 

Mar­ty: Stay­ing home is unusu­al for me as a cyclist, but I am using my indoor train­er for the time being. For me, exer­cise real­ly helps to kind of keep some sem­blance of a reg­u­lar rou­tine as well as keep­ing me ground­ed. Also, I know we have talked about com­mu­ni­cat­ing with col­leagues and your work­force, but it’s also impor­tant to com­mu­ni­cate with your fam­i­ly and friends. 

My 23-year-old daugh­ter told me the oth­er day that she was a lit­tle freaked out with every­thing that’s hap­pen­ing. It served as a reminder that com­mu­ni­ca­tion real­ly is the thing that will get us through all of this. I had to remind her that as a nation, we’ve lived through so much, includ­ing the dot​.com crash and the reces­sion in 2008 – 2009. I need to pro­vide some per­spec­tive. This too shall pass. 

Reg­is­ter for one of the ASUG Think Tank online ses­sions tak­ing place and stay tuned for a fol­low-up series of the ASUG Exec­u­tive Exchange online ses­sions where mem­bers dis­cuss how COVID-19 is affect­ing their orga­ni­za­tions, as well as what steps they are tak­ing to address these challenges.