SAP’s users of Tomorrow
If you work with me you have already heard this rant, so might as well just skip this blog post and go back to work playing with your new tech toys.
SAP user’s of today are people that can remember a time when computers were the size of small city blocks and the idea of having one on your desk was laughable[1]. Most of them are happy enough to have a computer on their desk to run Excel and mess with their own spreadsheets. These people today control the purse strings of IT spending and are “leading” the relationship with SAP. This is bad…. why? I’ll talk about that later.
If you have a child who is less then 30 years old and you work in an IT shop that runs SAP software, you should be scared. Talking from my personal experience ( I am 27 years old ) my family got their first computer when i was 6 or 7, I can just barely remember a time Before Computers, what this means to me and everyone in my age bracket is that we have used computers forever, our expectations are different. How different can be quickly mapped as you go down generations, the younger you start to use computers the higher your expectations are. I can’t stand when Ctrl-C doesn’t work or when I can’t turn on and off toolbars or when the screen is so full of information I don’t need all I can see is a box 200px by 150px. When this happens I go find another tool — this is why you should be scared.
Thomas Otter
points out that at SAP they are good at process — it sounds almost like a core value,
“at SAP we think a lot about processes. I hear it all the time in the corridors and meeting rooms in Walldorf. It is one of the main reasons for SAP’s success. It is goodness, and it is very tough to emulate… It is a significant competitive advantage.”
This is all quite true they do have that “special sauce” down to a ‘T’ however, it won’t help when folks in my generation start to take control of the purse strings.
If someone gives me a piece of software I “must use” and it is horrible, the first thing I do before using it is to see if there is another tool I can quickly use the way I want and then just plug the numbers into the horrible tool. This is a huge problem for SAP as that all the wonder process focus Thomas talks about goes out the window when people don’t use the tool in the manner it was designed. I would argue that for the next generation of people who will soon ( < 10 years ) start to get into decision making positions at Fortune 1000s UI ease and flexibility will be nearly as important as all the process stuff already boiled into SAP software.
As campy as Time’s person of the year was, it was about a change of focus on the internet. From just a push of information and goods out, to a true conversation. People creating content to be consumed by others, the internet as just another conduit for people to carry out conversations. This change of focus needs to be felt in the Enterprise too and I am concerned we might not be able to move fast enough.
[1] “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.” — Ken Olson, president of Digital Equipment Corp. 1977 ( Snopes )
December 28th, 2006 at 1:26 pm
Dan,
Thanks for the link…
My point in the post is that you need both.
Process on its own is not enough, but then neither are “beautiful” UIs.
One of the goals in process design is often to reduce human involvement to a minimum. Lights out processing is the trendy term for this. If you see some of the latest UI thinking, you may be suprised…
SAP has managed generation shifts before, and our demise has been predicted many times before, and our management has a heathly dose of paranoia that will probably mean that we will cope with this shift too.
Check out this.
http://theotherthomasotter.wordpress.com/2006/12/14/sap-and-the-simplicity-sap-and-second-life/
December 28th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
I totally agree a balance must be struck — personally I would love to see SAP embrace one of the new web frameworks and use that to leap forward in their UI strategy. My personal view is the web based Enterprise software is lagging dangerously behind the current average.
December 28th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
Dan,
Have you checked out this?
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/4766
December 28th, 2006 at 8:14 pm
Yea, i’ve read that, I like the idea of the adobe partnership but i will still love to see them toss their weight even behind something like script.aculo.us. Not sure if there are licensing issues there or not, but I’m sure one of the frameworks has a compatible license.
January 1st, 2007 at 2:25 am
[…] SAP’s users of Tomorrow “I would argue that for the next generation of people who will soon ( (tags: sap ui thekids generational usability enterprisesoftware) […]
January 3rd, 2007 at 4:06 am
Dan,
Being in IT since 1990 and using computers since 1983, I can’t agree more with your “purse strings” argument. But having said that - isn’t this what sort of happened during the Dotcom years ?
January 3rd, 2007 at 9:57 am
Michael-
Now I don’t have access to gartner or forrester research to get numbers, but I would say during the Dotcom year IT spending at SAP’s main customer base ( Fortune 1000? ) remained flat or at least didn’t jump tons. I doubt the Dotcom era had much affect on software purchasing, maybe an increase in salaries to keep employees, but new software purchasing i doubt.
January 5th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
[…] If I’d have told you that there was something awesome to do with all that geo-location data five years ago you’d probably have told me I was talking boring too. All of those green-screen silos of data have magnificent potential as Ajax middleware datatypes. The hope is that taking previously boring data and workflow into a new context and adding in new data will result in exciting new software. […]
January 6th, 2007 at 12:54 am
Now I see where all the Business Process Experts really talk shop.
It’s been fascinating “listening in”. Thanks guys
January 6th, 2007 at 8:45 am
Hi Dan,
I should have explained myself better: What I meant is that during the Dotcom years IT spend was more influenced by people with progressive ideas and a tendency to support leading-edge solutions. Simply because they had to. Back then I worked with people who dreamed of portals and marketplaces - and they suddenly found business leaders who found themselves in a position to justify this sort of expenditure. Back then in my company, SAP was under great pressure in some areas (similar to what you said), because SAP reacted late to all of this. What I am trying to point out is that these business leaders were the same as before - no generation change as you suggested. Just very opportunist leaders.
I actually think that the real problem in most companies is not a generation change. It rather is a cultural thing. In the mainframe days IT departments very often were ruled by Finance departments - simply because the expenditure for these systems was so high. It was a major capital investment. Now although we’ve seen all this move on to client server and modern web technologies, most companies still have the old finance ruling structures in place. Not every company has a CIO or an IT boss on board level these days. Especially in the SME market that SAP is aiming for.
January 11th, 2007 at 7:54 am
Users and Big Apps…
Two people (Dan and Thomas) I like a lot have been hitting on a subject lately and it’s centered around the user experience and how darn picky the end user I guess is. I think it goes far beyond that to a simple matter of choices, openness and the fu….
February 27th, 2007 at 3:17 am
[…] there is another thing going on. Check out Daniel McWeeney’s post on SAP users of tomorrow: If you have a child who is less then 30 years old and you work in an IT shop that runs SAP […]
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:02 am
[…] reminded me of Dan McWeeney’s post on “SAP users of tomorrow“. Dan quite rightly emphasised the importance of UIs in the future and how they will […]
April 18th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
[…] 18th, 2007 · No Comments Please read Ed’s post (Ed and Dan are from Colgate Palmolive, but they are on loan, working at SAP in Palo […]
December 9th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
[…] that it can be both people AND process. Without this realization, you will see a change of heart in SAP’s users of tomorrow that Dan talks about. If you leave people out of your priorities and omit them from your equation, […]
June 9th, 2008 at 7:38 am
Just serfed in. Great site, guys!a
June 15th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Jack…
That is very interesting….