The SAP Influencer Summit verdict from Dennis Howlett

SAP needs to get a grip of its partners who run amok with the on-premise product at premium prices. It’s still the case that the very best SAP engineers – who are invariably SAP employees – spend far too much time firefighting someone else’s mess, usually one of the Big Five (Accenture, Deloitte, KPMG, EY, PWC.) Who gets it in the neck? SAP. The company has to decide what it’s going to do. It has created a great channel but at the same time it is a monster that often looks like an over indulged over fed child.

John Wookey gave a polished presentation on the work he’s been doing in the off-premise world. It was a refreshingly honest assessment and positioning of SAP as lead partner in customer engagements where not everything is wall to wall SAP. I hope he can deliver. The absence of conflating ‘cloud’ was particularly noticeable and welcome. SAP’s position on ‘cloud’ topics isn’t well articulated and at times seems uncoordinated but then by avoiding the problem of self inflicted definitions, SAP was able to keep its message simple and understandable.

via Irregular Enterprise on zdnet.com

Two things.

First: is it time for SAP to sell/implement the on-premise product direct to customers rather than exclusively using the channel? Increasingly SIs (particularly the large ones) are high-cost, low-value propositions, and (as you note) SAP often has to clean up after them – why not provide some competition and do the job right in the first place – at least it might cause the SI's to pause and reflect on their thin-value pricing.

Second: Should BYD be separated from the mother ship, in a spin-off into another organisation? This frees up the innovation cycle, and can have a different story to tell without screwing with the on-premise message. Keeping them in the same organisation makes them "neither nowt not summat" (an expression you might be familiar with)