When software conforms to how *you* want to work…
I rarely talk about SAP or my work on this blog. But something happened this week that marks a personal milestone for me and our team in this journey to transform how we work and connect with customers and partners. I’m privileged that my day job has been the vehicle to see this future state begin to materialize.
Pick any blog post here and you will see one consistent theme for the last 4 years: Collaboration in the context of what you do and directed at the functional KPIs you govern your performance.
Two years ago when I joined SAP, here is what I said about the needed design for social software:
The right design will come from the proper infusion of collaborative constructs right where business context emerges for individual users at every customer – a) not just inside or along side but across applications that power complete each business activity, b) when and where real-time business intelligence emerges, and finally, 3) at the right (device agnostic) points of consumption. Each of these contextual elements are core to SAP’s portfolio of offerings today – both directly and via its partners.
This is the strategy we employed and have remained obsessively focused on for the last 8 quarters. And so its especially gratifying to make the following announcements this week:
1. This strategy for social software is paying off. In eight quarters, SAP Jam has now surpassed 15 million subscribers.
2. The final part of that quote – the “via its partners” part, was put into motion this week. We announced a developer platform and program but with a twist. Instead of just announcing a bunch of tools that can clutter the canvas with no-use case, we co-innovated this program design with a set of initial partners. These partners have built specific industry or functional solutions that leverage collaboration but can now conform to how you want to engage and work and to the demands of your industry and competitive dynamics. Collaboration can be a strategic weapon. Here’s more on this.
The distinction between systems of record, transactions and engagement is over. It’s really one. Going forward, it’s about how we design the experience around each end user’s work patterns. Here is a video that expresses this:
My heartfelt thanks to so many of you who supported us along the way and to those of you who sent wonderful wishes our way, this week.
