Customers Speak, SAP Listens

Everyone is talking about the customer these days. At its recent SuccessConnect HR conference in Las Vegas, SAP SuccessFactors brought customers on stage to pitch their desired product improvements to the audience. The energy and commitment displayed by SAP SuccessFactors to its customers — and vice versa — was clearly evident. And as an organization comprised of customers, we at the Americas’ SAP Users’ Group (ASUG) warmly welcome this level of engagement. SAP is listening to customers and acting on their input.

Our goal at ASUG is to enable our members to interact, learn, and influence the HR space. To this end, ASUG continues to grow its HR Community by connecting customers and partners, creating virtual focus groups, organizing educational roadshows, and curating expertise in a central knowledgebase.

Customers Speak, SAP Listens

But how can SAP customers get their voices heard? The answer is crowdsourcing. The collective clout of the ASUG community — as well as that of dozens of other SAP user groups throughout the globe — create a collection of voices that might not otherwise be heard on topics such as migrating payroll to the cloud, managing US benefits within payroll, and having options for recording time to meet industry needs. SAP has in turn announced the SAP SuccessFactors solution for managed payroll, an option to “lift and shift” your on-premise solution to a managed cloud service.

At SuccessConnect, ASUG had meaningful conversations with customers regarding SAP’s HR software, including the need for more functionality around compliance with Canadian regulations and better integration between cloud products. ASUG believes that we will continue to see change in SAP’s product direction as the marketplace warrants it — and users will be no small part of that change.

Connecting Together

ASUG members — who include SAP SuccessFactors and SAP ERP Human Capital Management on-premise customers as well as SAP partners — are using the power of collaboration in new and different ways to get their opinions heard and enable change. For example:

• Customers and partners are connecting. ASUG launched Partner Place, a website where SAP customers can read peer reviews of partner products, to encourage productive discussions about what worked well in an HR implementation and what could be done differently next time.
• Focus groups are teaming up. In our HR Community, focus groups are helping each other with a variety of SAP SuccessFactors solutions. Customers migrating from on-premise to cloud HR are sharing their experiences, successes, and challenges in online discussions, webcasts, and at face-to-face events.
• ASUG is bringing the classroom to the customers. We are providing opportunities for partners and customers to engage directly in education and casual discussions at Recharge HR — the Innovation Roadshow. At face-to-face events, partners are sharing their extensive knowledge and experience with customers to help them make the best decisions about future software implementations.  
• ASUG is simplifying collaboration between HR and IT. ASUG is making it easier for organizations’ departments to join forces — especially at companies that run SAP SuccessFactors solutions — by providing an HR Community Professional Membership. This membership comes in different tiers depending on the customer needs and offers resources such as webcasts, discussion boards, and access to regional ASUG Chapters.

These are complex, rapidly changing times. The power of community to create success, to influence change, to establish strong partnerships — whether customer-to-customer, partner-to-customer, or customer-to-SAP — has never been more valuable. And that value drives customer success, enabling organizations to maximize the return on their software investment. Never doubt the power of one person to make a difference, especially when that individual’s voice is added to thousands of others.