Skip to main content

Is SAP losing its Sheen !

Is SAP losing its Sheen !
I have had three calls this week to attend the SAP India Forum in Mumbai but have not qualified since my turnover as a consulting company does not meet SAP India's requirements !
The fact that their agency repeatedly calls me to register and follows it up with an email and again turnover verification is the show stopper.
It is clear that SAP wants only customers who have significant turnover in their business and not consultants who are vendor agnostic .
Is it Sunset for SAP !

I am no new comer to SAP and have seen it swallow companies and enforce inflexibility in its process and stifle innovation ! I have had a few consulting stints where I have had mixed success in making SAP usage flexible and user friendly, but companies still finalize their forecast and balance sheets on data downloaded from the SAP and then used in Excel Sheets. Of course those companies who can afford the connector can directly connect into SAP through Excel.
I know of a company who get repeat orders from its customer  because the SAP system makes it cumbersome to add new vendors, thus depriving the company on introducing new vendors and realizing competitive pricing.
SAP's offering on the cloud was aggressive but the same inflexible systems as a SAAS model has not made much headway !
The best definition of SAP is buy a bundled solution and then pay to get it work in your organization, most often the SAP code gets customized  in many Indian companies that one large group had to make a special deal with SAP for version upgrades which were no longer supported.
In the world of cloud computing SAP may be just blown away as a dinosaurs and businesses look for agility and flexibility and cost effective solutions.
India is one of the largest potential markets for SAP given its low adoption of computing in manufacturing and distribution, but will SAP be able to compete with SAAS vendors and Oracle and Microsoft in India ?
SAP may not be geared for the battle and could  be one of the first victims to the disruptive technology of  Cloud Computing! RIP - the dinosaurs  ruled the world once upon a time !

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

SMAC and the Transformation of Customer Service & Dialogue

"SMAC" is the a acronym for Social, mobile, analytics & cloud the four pillars of the fifth wave of technology as defined by  Cognizant Technology the  Teaneck, New Jersey headquartered ITES company (NASDAQ Symbol : CTSH). SMAC will change the customer dialogue by leveraging on the collective strength of the Social Media Network, Mobile devices, Analytics driven by Big Data solutions and Cloud Computing as the underlying backbone of affordable and reliable engine for computation.  Let us look at each of these components and their impact on our lives today: 1. Social Media - The Social Media has seen breakneck growth and significant valuation with the winners, we have the four undisputed leaders in this segment Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest  & LinkedIn with competition from Yahoo, Google and Microsoft and another hundred more social media sites of different hues and aspirations.   2. Mobility - The way we handle and process information an...

Cloud Computing and Business School Academics

Cloud Computing has been changing the global business landscape and the Academics in Business Schools find it a challenge to keep pace. Today most of the successful businesses are in the cloud, be it Amazon, Facebook, Twitter , Google, blogs, Rackspace,  the list is endless. These companies have created more wealth in less then a decade compared to the stalwarts in the old economy. Mobility strategy changes every quarter and yesterday's icons have to jump-start all over with a leap of   faith that their solutions will be adopted by the consumer. Social media has flattened the world and the distances have just shrunk, solutions like YouTube has changed the way we can learn, Wikipedia has become the world's largest and best knowledge portal. The challenge for Business School academia is how to prepare their students in this fast changing world . The students have access to knowledge in their finger tips which challenges thei...

IBM's Think Forum 2018 @ Mumbai

It was a wonderful and fulfilling evening for the business and technology leaders of India at the IBM's Think forum 2018 on 13th February in Mumbai. CEO Speak - Ms. Ginni Rometty - Chairman, President and CEO of IBM's keynote set the tone for the energy packed evening, she stated that business can get smarter by the use of cognitive computing - Leveraging a data platform that learns ; Infusing that learning into systems and processes & Empowering their people to learn faster with AI and the need to usher new technologies with purpose and responsibility;society will judge the right ones which deliver value. She enunciated the three drivers for businesses to get smarter - leveraging a data platform that learns, infusing that learning into systems and procedures and empowering their people to learn fast with AI. She said AI should be called Augmented Intelligence. Ms. Ginni Rometty stated that we are at an inflection point for all businesses is use of data, leverage proc...