SAP wants partners to expand from implementation into sales, consulting

SAP wants more partners to get involved in sales, discovery, advisory and consulting, rather than just sticking to implementation.

SAP Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) chief partner officer Ashley McGibbon told techpartner.news that the enterprise resource planning (ERP) software giant has invested in a range of efforts to help partners expand in these areas.

“(Partners) were used to just doing the implementation for us, [but] now it's really that whole life cycle that they need to be a part of," she explained.

"So it's important that we support them through that transition and that's ultimately how SAP will scale as well, so it's a key part of our growth strategy,” she said.

McGibbon said this is a shift in strategy that will give customers more continuity from sales to implementation.

“Traditionally, if you think about how SAP went to market here in ANZ, SAP tried to own the entire discovery phase. The challenge with that is that then we're handing over what we had sold to the ecosystem to then deliver," she said.

"Now, I think there's a real benefit for our customers to have our partners involved at the front of the discussion cycle because we then ensure that what they have bought into is then delivered and executed.”

McGibbon said the company is increasing investment in marketing and development funds to support partners who may need help generating pipeline and demand.

“We've launched a programme called Partner On, which gives them a digital platform and curated content to send out to potential prospects. We're connecting them with relevant marketing agencies to boost their outbound piece,” she said.

McGibbon also spoke to criticism from some that SAP was trying to dictate customer migration roadmaps by ending support too soon.

She said that when customers are moving to the cloud, it’s part of a wider transformation that, SAP believes, will provide greater benefits. 

“What we're trying to do is get them to embrace new ways of working and take advantage of technologies like business AI, and they can't do that if they stay on-prem, so from our perspective, the most value that we are driving is when a customer wants to transform and wants to take advantage of these new technologies to drive productivity,” she explained to techpartner.news.

SAP has also invested in training and enablement, aiming to provide partners with the knowledge to act as advisors to customers.

McGibbon said this was especially important as boards had recently become more “risk averse” as moving to the cloud can be a large project.

“That move to the cloud is a transformative exercise and it is a change management exercise as well … partners are absolutely critical to driving that adoption in the suite, so there's been lots of new incentives for partners in that space,” she said. 

She said that the company’s new fast track certification programme – a one-day course for SAP’s new business suite capability – can help in this regard.

“We're really trying to fast track certifications in the key areas from a product development perspective as well, because we appreciate we're innovating really quickly and our partners are critical to delivering that innovation to our customers."