My new book is now available to buy here in print version, and for pre-order in the Kindle version. As with my earlier books, I will excerpt roughly 10% of the 400 page book in a series of posts on my two blogs.
"Welcome to the third volume of the continually unfolding saga at the world’s largest application software company. When I wrote the first volume of SAP Nation, five years ago, SAP looked vulnerable. Besides the runaway costs and massive project failures experienced by some customers, SAP appeared preoccupied with its HANA database and almost bored with enterprise applications. Much more concerning, a wide range of competitors were circling around. Indeed, right after S/4 was launched in early 2015, Dr. Plattner was quoted as saying, "If this doesn't work, we're dead. Flat-out dead. It's that simple.”
As this book will show, Dr. Plattner's worst worries have not materialized. S/4 has not been a runaway success but SAP's competition has not exactly gone for the jugular either. SAP's product portfolio and customer base has grown significantly and the stage is set for the next few chapters.
The setting today is similar to that of when the young U.S. nation acquired Louisiana from France in 1803. The real estate doubled but the population was mostly concentrated around the Atlantic Coast. SAP's product real estate has similarly grown, but the majority of its over 400,000 customers are clinging to their previous "homes." Migrating this customer base is SAP's first big opportunity. In addition, an even bigger opportunity awaits. The U.S., energized by a Manifest Destiny call, expanded all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
To understand SAP's bigger opportunity, you have to look back to 2000 when enterprise tech vendors—especially ERP/CRM vendors led by SAP, their systems integrators and other partners—were set to dominate the corporate technology landscape. They had emerged very strongly from the Y2K crisis, and the launch of the EU’s common currency promised another bonanza. Instead, their share of the enterprise steadily declined over the ensuing two decades. They missed out on the contract manufacturing of smart products, digital marketing, cloud infrastructure, industrial internet, process automation and several other trillion-dollar markets. Two decades ago, not many of us had heard of Accenture Interactive or Foxconn. Few of us considered Amazon or GE or Alibaba as tech vendors. Few of us would have speculated that Apple, near dead or Google, not born yet would have many times SAP's annual revenue. The market is fragmented—waiting for fast followers who missed out on the first wave of opportunities. Could that be SAP? Sea to shining sea awaits across the continent of enterprise computing. Is SAP willing to lead with a similar Manifest Destiny call to motivate customers? Like many historical “empires,” SAP’s world continues to shift and morph as it racks up “conquests” and “defeats.”
" While American leadership arranged for the real estate deals, it took grit and plenty of sacrifice for the population to move west. Wagon trails averaged only 15 miles a day. Covered wagons were too bumpy and dusty, and so most pioneers actually walked the hundreds of miles west. They suffered through high winds in the Great Plains, the extremes of the Rockies and hostility from natives. Those who went by steamboat did only slightly better, facing risks of boiler explosions and water hazards.
And yet, there was a westward pull, with a sense that "It's written down somewhere—it's got to be." If people could not see it in the stars, hear it in political speeches or imagine it in their holy books, they did find a pungent coinage in what John L. O'Sullivan wrote in the July-August 1845 issue of the Democratic Review:
"It is our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions."
Jefferson may have thought in terms of hundreds (or thousands) of generations, but he clearly underestimated how quickly the country's people would move west. Within five generations, by the end of that century, the country’s citizens were dwelling from "sea to shining sea.
Today, the term “Manifest Destiny” has a checkered image. It evokes confident expansionism but also brings to mind the mistreatment of Native Americans, Black slaves, Mexicans, Mormons and even Chinese workers who helped build the railroad. It reminds us of the many hardships faced by women, the horror of the Civil War and the near-extermination of the American bison. Many paid a heavy price to make the Manifest Destiny a reality.
However, the 19th century also saw the U.S. transformed into a major granary for the world, and an industrial power. It led to massive creation of wealth—culminating in what Mark Twain called the Gilded Age. Naturalists like John Muir and avid outdoorsmen like Theodore Roosevelt (later president) created a national parks system which is even today the envy of the world. The century also featured the construction of the Erie Canal and the transcontinental railroad—and a vibrant, driven stream of immigrants."
" In contrast to what Jefferson faced in 1801, the major enterprise tech vendors like SAP, Oracle, IBM and HP were on top of the "continent" of enterprise computing in 2001. Market leadership was theirs to lose, and in many ways that is exactly what they have done: We see a fragmented market, and an opportunity for someone to step up, acquire massive chunks of “real estate” and similarly motivate customers to move "west." "
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