SAP customers, by a slim majority, find the supplier’s account managers insufficiently knowledgeable about their businesses, according to an SAP UK and Ireland User Group survey.

In his keynote address at the user group conference in Birmingham, chairman Philip Adams (pictured) said: “SAP can help us, but we need access to the right people. Over 50% of respondents say that SAP account executives don’t have the level of knowledge about our members’ industry or business to help with adopting innovation.

“Yet we know, as a user group, these people in SAP exist. The challenge is that account managers at SAP don’t always guide us in the direction of these experts.”

Adams said 74% of the 117 SAP user organisations in the UK and Ireland surveyed stated that SAP is bringing technology to market that they are unable to adopt with sufficient speed.

Adams welcomed on stage Cormac Watters, the supplier’s new UK and Ireland managing director. Watters admitted that even he did not know, when joining SAP, that it had a “cloud extension policy” – where on-premise investments can be taken into consideration when moving to cloud delivery. A former CIO and COO of global baker Aryzta and DCC Technology, Watters said his plan was “to get much closer to customers and partners in the next few years”.

SOURCE: computerweekly.com