sap partner experience; learning from art for business success; dobiéy

SAP Partner Experience Learning from Art for increased business success

Dirk Dobiéy Vice President Knowledge and Enablement Solutions, SAP AG Intersection Conference Paris April 16, 2014

© 2014 SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. 2

Preface It all started with a conversation…

Co-CEO, Bill McDermott “Partnering at SAP is not a choice, the choice has been made! We are simply better together with our partners. We are more than the sum of our parts”

Executive Board Member, Gerhard Oswald Eric, What can my team do to help you? “Dirk, optimize knowledge transfer to partners!”

“I have a dream for this Knowledge Company. This Knowledge Company in SAP brings together all of the thought leadership and passion of people everywhere to do things for the customer that no one else can.”

Former President SAP Ecosystem & Channels, Eric Duffaut “SAP has set ambitious goals: €20 billion total revenue, 35% margin, and 1 billion users by 2015. Only through a best-in-class open ecosystem of partners will we be able to reach our goals.”

Help me lower the barriers of entry for all partners and support providing easy access to information and enablement for our partners!

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Preface: Initial State - Fragmented Experience for all Partners 13,000 Partners, 54,000 unique visits 340,000 times a month

Sell Partners

Distributors

Crystal Solution Resellers

Authorized Resellers

Extended Business Members

Value Added Resellers

Build & Embed Partners

OEM Partners

Application Development Partners

Software Solution & Technology Partners

Service & Implement Partners

Education Partners

Language Service Partners

Outsourcing Partners

MCaaS Partners

Service Partners

Applications Cloud Mobile Database & Technology

Analytics

No Personalization/Localization

1990’s Unsupported Technology

Complex User ID Management

No Content Management Processes

No System Integration. Many places for operational tasks

Poor Search. Fragmented Infrastructure.

Poor Performance / Uptime

Challenges identified

“This project has been long overdue”

Business Complexity increases

Innovations

Mergers & Acquisitions

Business and ecosystem growth

More than 13.000 partner organizations worldwide

Nearly 80% (98,500) of SAP’s customers today are small businesses and midsize companies

Manual Coding & 3rd Party Sites


Preface: The mission From company goals to project objectives

User friendliness

• Increase satisfaction

• Reduce response time for interactions /

complete operational tasks

Increase Growth/Scale

• Reduce time to impact revenue

• Increase revenue from direct and indirect leads

• Increase of business growth

Increase Productivity

• Increase number of successful trainings

& certifications

• Increase number of successful task completion

Enable innovation,

collaboration

• Simplify partner interaction and

collaboration for co-innovation

• Simplify development for Software Partners

• Provide infrastructure to seamless integrate future

acquisitions

Increase efficiency & quality

• Reduce time to find information/content

• Simplify & streamline time to publish content

• Increase transaction completion rate through self-service

• Increase score for target audience penetration

The purpose of the project is to design and implement an improved Partner Experience through an

integrated and partner-centric Portal to support innovation, collaboration and productivity by fostering

effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction for both Partners and SAP.

10k Packaged Apps

40%+ Partner Revenue

400k+ Partner Trained Consultants

2015 GOALS


Preface: What would have happened in the past... (somewhat exaggerated)

Very long list of technical requirements

€/t

Huge cost estimate and five year plan

Denial to fund

x Endless discussions about

technology options Busy getting something done

quickly

Perception of failure and team frustrated


Preface: What really happened ... (truth and fairytales)

€/t

Huge cost estimate and five year plan (7.5 million at 40% confidence)

Approval to fund

Busy getting something done quickly: Stop gap improvements

Great success, lot of work and some fun

Very long list of technical requirements (pages and pages)

Endless discussions about technology options (& politics)


Chapter One: Autonomy and Failure “One fails forward towards success” Charles Kettering, Inventor and Engineer

© 2012 SAP AG. All rights reserved.

Failure and Iteration “Avoid touching a hot stove twice (or ten times) may be what’s needed to break up a creative log jam” Rob Austin and Lee Devin

Constraint and Persistence “Unwavering persistence […] produced a web experience that will make it easier for partners to manage and accelerate their business with SAP,” says Kathy Lopez, Senior Director of Partner Marketing and Communications

Taking initiative (besides ambiguity)

Starting instead of waiting, acting not hesitating “The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


Chapter One: Autonomy and Failure Taking initiative and failing

© 2012 SAP AG. All rights reserved.

It has not been the first time a project team attempted to rebuild a web experience for partners. Now, after 10 years and three attempts, the vision of a robust, customizable partner portal is finally coming to life. Many of the individuals involved in the final success also shared in the previous failures.


Chapter One: Autonomy and Failure Improvisation - striving under constraint!

First try: If we won the budget lottery

Budget estimate very high, not approved

Second proposal: 50% (#1,2,3)

Budget estimate high and no skill capacity for #1

Third proposal: #2 & 3

Quality has a price but good to go with a cost to benefit ratio of 1:3.5, i.e. approved

Celebration!

Yet two weeks later : budget cut. Investments have to be postponed

What else can we do?

Improvise


Exhibition catalogue published in conjunction with show held September 24, 1989 - January 16, 1990. Text by Richard E. Oldenburg and William Rubin.

Chapter Two: Collaboration Uncommon place to start talking about Art and Business?

Nature and Aesthetics: Goethe and Schiller had a remarkable friendship and collaboration that was "like no other known to literature or art.“ Source: Wikipedia

Frida and Diego Rivera, 1931; Frida Kahlo Original: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Albert M. Bender, Collection Gift of Albert M. Bender. Source: SFMoma

August Macke, Russisches Ballett Ballets Russes is widely regarded as the most influential ballet company of the 20th century. Source: Wikipedia


Chapter Two: Collaboration Too much agreement kills the chat (John Jay Chapman – Author)

Prerequisite for great collaboration: Joint purpose and resilience For Rob Austin and Lee Devin, many qualities of “artful making” deal with aspects of collaboration*: • Conversation, in language and behavior & contributions of other parties as material to make with • Ensemble - Relinquish sovereignty over personal work • Play – The quality exhibited by a production while it is playing for an audience

“Underlying structures and strategies that guide the collaborative creation and spontaneous performance in jazz are drawn from both Western and African musical traditions. This fusion also reflects one of the first instances of cultural globalization a century before the digital transformation” Michael Gold and David Villa

Rob Austin and Lee Devin (2003), Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know about How Artists Work; Michael Gold and David Villa (2012), Trading Fours: Jazz and the Learning Organization .


PERFORMANCE

Build momentum and progress forward by fostering support and trust between colleagues through team-oriented design activities.

• Increase empathy for SAP Partners vs. internal perspective

• Drive engagement and collaboration amongst workshop attendees through user-centered design principles

• Ideate and expedite abundant knowledge transfer from subject matter experts

• Synthesize ideas and visualize results into sketches from range of team-oriented activities

Collaboration vision

Goals

Chapter Two: Collaboration Setting the stage

Graphic taken from “Gamestorming” by Dave Gray and Sunni Brown


Chapter Two: Collaboration Strategic Visioning / Design Thinking

Design Thinking Workshop

Graphic taken from “Gamestorming” by Dave Gray and Sunni Brown


Chapter Three: Curiosity Only the curious have something to find

General Awareness “Deep, broad reading habits are often a defining characteristic of our greatest leaders and can catalyze insight, innovation, empathy, and personal effectiveness.” John Coleman, Author on HBR blog network

Observation and meaningful conversations “Artists are humanists. They are experts of the ‘human condition’ and observe human desires, needs, emotions, and behavior with a sharp, discerning eye and a high degree of empathy. They can feel with and for others.” Tim Leberecht, CMO NBBJ on CNNMoney

Reflection & Serendipity* “I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.” Franklin P. Adams, Journalist

Out of curiosity necessity is generated

Salvador Dalí Source: http://theredlist.com

*Philippe Rixon talking about the role of serendipity in Harvard Business Manager

Rob Austin and Lee Devin talk about the “ability to swerve” in Artful Making


User Research 40 Partners, 100 + hours of interviews

Proof of Concept (clickable prototype)

Chapter Three: Curiosity Proof of Concept and User Research

“The research distilled from partners proved to be hugely valuable as a resource to help align viewpoints and establish common ground,” Vincent Matyi, User Experience Team Lead, SAP

“I was part of your 100 hours of interviews…you guys really came through…I wasn’t sure if I was wasting my time again. Clearly, I wasn’t.” Partner commenting when confronted with the new experience


Chapter Three: Curiosity What we found

Partner Types

Value Added Reseller

Education

Authorized Reseller

Distribution

Global Strategic Service

Volume Service

Language Services

OEM

Software Solution & Technology

Software Solution & Technology - B1

Roles

Executive

Marketing

Sales

Presales

Solution Consulting

Solution Support

Developer

Administration

Task

Onboard and register for Partner Portal

Log in

Update profile / preferences

Find and locate information / solutions / assets

Upload assets and contribute comments, ranking and tags

…

How we segmented so far:

How we thought we should do better:

Segment of one: How we should really segment


Partner Experience Map

Partner needs grouped by tasks addressed with 2013 project scope

Chapter Three: Curiosity A verified Experience Map as a result of our research efforts


Chapter Four: Creation The hand and the head – Thinking by making (Richard Sennett – Sociologist)

Challenging “Artists are contrarians. Artists can see the ‘cracks through which the light gets in,’ as the old adage goes.” Tim Leberecht, CMO NBBJ

Striving for simplicity “Poetry teaches us to wrestle with and simplify complexity.” John Coleman, Author on HBR

“I used to tell my senior staff to get me poets as managers. Poets are our original systems thinkers.” Sidney Harman Founder of Harman Industries

Experimenting and iterating “The true method of

knowledge is experiment” William Blake, English poet and painter of the

enlightenment era

Talent? “If I can see further than

anyone else, it is only because I am standing on the shoulders of giants”

Sir Isaac Newton

Intuition

Robert Delaunay, Le Premier Disque, Source: Wikipedia

“Artwork is really just 'sublimated problem-solving’” Eleanor Blair, Painter


What is the SAP Partner Experience?

A unified solution that serves and enables partners to successfully work together with partners, customers and SAP

employees for proactively communicating, enabling, and continuously providing information in a timely, accurate, relevant,

consistent and cost efficient manner.

register for

online SAP

Resources

are engaged through a

personalized experience

Find the right expertise and

connect with SAP Employees,

customers and other partners.

Continuous learning at the

right time and place

account managers

continuously measure

partner performance

content managers curate

and seed communities for

integrated collaboration with

partners, employees and

customers for optimal KM

Experiences

Partners manages the Sales

Cycle

4 3 1 6 6 5

Measure to Manage Relevant and Essential Access is First Contacts and Learning in Context

SAP

Organization

content managers equip

partners through publishing

assets and continuously

measuring utilization

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Chapter Four: Creation Consolidating and simplifying – User Value Scenarios


Stefan logs in to the SAP

Partner Website with his

registered e-mail address &

self chosen password

Stefan is welcomed with

resources based on his profile,

preferences and interests

Stefan reads a news story and

instantly shares it with a

colleague

Stefan saves a news story to

his favorites library and ranks a

demo as five stars

Stefan later views items saved

to his favorites library on his

iPad

1 2 5 3 4

Chapter Four: Creation Storytelling - Stefan is engaged through a personalized experience


Chapter Four: Creation Visualizing – Wire Frames & Mock Ups


xx

Personalized access to relevant information

Key visual tailored to partner segment

Widget surfacing relevant information from back end systems

Personalized news feed

Chapter Three: Four The Solution (1/3)


Details from back end system on available funds

Required training to keep partner status

Additional training and development offerings

Accomplishments



Recently added knowledge assets of relevancy

Personal favorites/library

Suggested events

Communities / Social Media



Chapter Five: Communication When the curtain opens…

Source: Flickr John Thurm

Perfection?

“make it good before the deadline” Rob Austin and Lee Devin

https://www.flickr.com/photos/thurm/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/thurm/


Chapter Five: Communication Powerful Vehicles Drive Awareness & Offer Consumption Choice


Chapter Five: Communication Impact and Reach: Multi-vehicle Approach Drives Consumption

8,000+ Readers Weekly E&C Internal newsletter

E&C INTERNAL SAP PARTNERS

3,200+ Visitors E&C Internal Workspace

1,300+ Attendees Quarterly E&C All-Hands Calls

655+ Members E&C Interactive Community

7,500+ Users SAPNow iOS App

1,750+ Views RTM Marketing ‘What’s

New in 2:00’ Videos

8000+ Followers +66% YOY Growth

2,260+ Likes Facebook group

175,800+ Views Of Videos Across Channels

3,616+ Members LinkedIn group

sappartneredge.com: 47,800 Unique Users Visit

the Site 470,000 Each Month +43% YoY.

35,000+ Readers Of CMS-based Global SAP Partner Newsletter

38.9% Partner Application Conversion Rate Of Applications Submitted from sap.com/partner

1,871 Applications Yielded 729 Active Partners

2,600 Unique Visitors come 4,000 a Month SAP PartnerEdge Interactive Community (+220% Q1-Q2)


Qualitative Measurement: Partner Feedback Quantitative Measurement: Executive Summary

• 21 % improvement in accessing

training material

• 63 % reduction of time when

accessing value points

• Similar results for other scenarios

Chapter Six: Impact of solution – partner feedback

On Simplicity... This is really useful and a lot more useful than the existing PartnerEdge site. Excellent work This is a really good dashboard. I like it a lot. Kudos to you, SAP! This makes things a lot easier.

On Productivity... This is about getting to it and getting it done quickly, cutting down on administrative stuff You don't have to go digging around. All of this information on one screen, in one place!

On Personalization... I think this is great that this narrowed down to my profile. This makes it a lot easier for partner to get what they want faster. Value Points available as snapshot? I dig it a lot. This is really good.

3V Solutions

Accenture

Back Office Associates

B1 Fixed Assets

B4 Consulting

CAP Gemini

CIS Group

IBM

Itelligence Group

Maringo

Megawork

Runbook

Seidor

Sofoscorp

Straten Consulting

Treeloc

Uniplex

Van Tree

Vision 33

Zantek IT

Consensus International

Deloitte

EB Solutions

Fujitsu

Go Adnet

HCL

Heinsohn

Marketing

Partner Manager

Sales Executive

Technical

Solution

Account Manager

C-Level

Alliance Manager

Pre-Sales

Development

Implementation

Support

PARTNER COMPANIES PARTNER ROLES

https://mediashare.wdf.sap.corp/public/media/Partner+Experience+-+Accessing+Relevant+eLearnings/0_sdrmmwhb

https://mediashare.wdf.sap.corp/public/media/Partner+Experience+-+Accessing+Value+Points/0_pjzyub3b


FEEDBACK ANALYSIS (average scores)

Qualitative Measurement: Executive Summary

• Overall rating: 4.2 (1 = very dissatisfied, 5 = very satisfied)

• All respondents said tested application is ready for release

• Scenario Assessed: Web page creation and content publishing

Sample: 10 employees; dated:4th February 2014

Quantitative Measurement: Executive Summary

• 91% Improvement in time required

• 93% reduction of clicks required

• No HTML skills required – less onboarding/training for editors

Chapter Six: Impact of solution – web page creation and content publishing

https://mediashare.wdf.sap.corp/public/media/Partner+Experience+-+Update+PE+homepages/0_3i3jsuvf


Epilogue

“I believe that human values ultimately win out over mechanistic values or technology for its own sake in an increasingly technological world.” Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google

“Indeed, the ’art’ of business has become more important as the ‘science’ grows ubiquitous.” Tim Leberecht CMO NBBJ

Are art like processes immature? Art is not a “one night stand” referencing Agnieszka Szóstek

Spieltrieb Friedrich Schiller

“When I look back on all the challenges with this project, I cannot believe that we are this close to going live, it’s the best experience I have ever had collaborating with colleagues from all across SAP.” Simone Keppler, project co-lead

Collaboration Curiosity Creation Communication Ambiguity Autonomy Agility Adaptability

…to be continued – on SAP’s Partner Edge Website and Art & Economy Group on Linked In

https://blogs.wdf.sap.corp/sapnews_en/files/2013/12/Simone-Keppler-Mitglied-der-Projektleitung-KES.jpg


Meet me virtually! Twitter: @dobiey LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dirk-dobiey/0/3ba/2a1 also: Art and Economy Group on LinkedIn

THANK YOU!

SAP Partner Experience Learning from Art for increased business success

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dirk-dobiey/0/3ba/2a1




http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Art-Economy-7467418?gid=7467418&mostPopular=&trk=tyah&trkInfo=tarId%3A1398141493473%2Ctas%3Aart%20and%20economy%2Cidx%3A1-1-1