You may have seen the recent release by Nucleus Research that found six out of 10 current SAP users will not make the move to HANA. This runs counter to the experience of Glyn Heath, CEO of UK DevOps expert firm Centiq, who has responded to the research with an open letter.
In my daytime role leading a team of SAP HANA and DataOps experts working with some of the largest companies in Europe, I love big data. In fact, Centiq’s very mission is to help our clients make better informed decisions using it. We literally cannot run our business without obsessing about data and what it means.
I was then sorely disappointed to read the quite small ‘data’ contained in the Nucleus research paper entitled ‘6 out of 10 customers wouldn’t buy SAP again’. This study, ‘of around 40 SAP users’, the work of no less than seven full-time researchers, made the startling discovery that users of complex enterprise software are not happy.
I have no knowledge of the methodology used by the analyst team, which by my calculations equates to one researcher for every six customers spoken to. It may be that the Nucleus team caught these American SAP users on a bad day. But I would venture that any enterprise software customer interviewed at length by a team looking for negativity, would find less-than-perfect feedback.
The issue is complexity. In my experience of actual implementation of such systems, no ERP system has ever induced a Net Promoter Score to rival the satisfaction of a sugary drink, a free holiday, free cloud storage or hundreds of Facebook likes. It’s the nature of complex software and smart buyers realise this from the start.
What is most intriguing though is Centiq recently worked with an independent research firm, on a much larger sample size, at 250 respondents, over six times the size of the US panel. Centiq’s survey though was not of SAP users in general, but of SAP HANA users specifically. This is where it gets interesting.
According to the Nucleus report, “Nine out of 10 existing SAP ERP customers expressed no interest in moving to S/4HANA”. One can only assume they are missing out. The UK researchers found not only rapid implementation times, which contradicts the received wisdom, but also a real sense that this new technology can cut IT costs.
Indeed 92 per cent of those who had actually tried HANA saved IT costs, but some 87 per cent also reduced business costs. Perhaps business profits do not appeal to the US customers surveyed. Our independent study produced results which were a far cry from the negativity of our US cousins. So what was the motive for leading with such an obvious point? Some journalists have called the Nucleus Research, SAP-baiting.
Whatever the truth, from what we have seen, perhaps we Brits, in particular European SAP users, are less cynical and understand long term gains better, than our American colleagues. You can find more information about Centiq’s research here and we would be happy to discuss them with current, future and even those ‘future-ex’ users which the US study has alerted us to.
