SAP clears up its 'muddy' strategy

But on-device approach may be too rigid for some customers

Software giant SAP revealed its hybrid cloud and on-premises, mobile strategy at its User Group Conference in Manchester yesterday.

"The UK is advanced in terms of being able to take up what we have outlined in the new strategy," said Tim Noble, managing director for SAP UK and Ireland.

"Two or three years ago most businesses had on-premises IT. Now the conversation we have with companies is: how do you want to consume our software? The choice of on-premises, on-demand, or on-device products presents companies with great opportunities," he added.

User Group chairman Alan Bowling agrees that SAP has finally outlined a successful strategy going forward.

"We would have struggled to describe SAP's strategy a couple of months ago, it was very muddy. But the company is now thinking in terms of business processes rather than software, and this is what our users need," said Bowling.

Customers have been deploying cloud and on-device SAP systems in recent months, and their experiences have been mixed.

Manchester City Council recently implemented a SAP system for BlackBerry and had a positive experience. The system allows cost centre managers to validate and approve purchase of goods away from their desktops. The solution was implemented with the help of SAP partners Pivot.

"We wanted to see on your BlackBerry what you would see on your desktop screen," said Paul Muir, SAP change team leader for Manchester City Council.

"From design to go-live took five weeks, which was fantastic for us. We went live on 1 October this year, and since then uptake of the service has increased almost tenfold," he added.

However, the use of SAP on mobile devices has not been successful across the board, as Heineken abandoned a pilot project for its sales team.

"We needed a sales automation tool that gave us a single view of the customers for the whole of the business," said Vicki Lowson, Heineken UK business change lead.

"We needed all the information in one place and to be able to move all the data over from our legacy systems," she added.

"We tried to implement a system for mobile devices but it only ever made it so far as the pilot. We had trouble training the team to use it. The system was too standard and not Heineken-focused enough.

"We have now deployed an on-demand, web-based CRM solution, which was implemented by SAP consultant De Villiers Walton, and is completely intuitive. We have seen a 10 per cent saving in time overall since going live."

Tim Noble agrees that usability may be what suffers as a result of standardisation in service.

"We have taken global best practice, and we implement this in a vanilla and straight SAP way," said Noble.

"This allows a rapid deployment solution. So instead of customers looking at eight or nine months, it would be eight or nine weeks," he added.

"However, what suffers is that customers are not able to tailor it to their needs."