#58 SIs, ABAP FAM, Sustainability Two-fer
In this issue:
Customers vs SIs
I really don’t get why SAP consulting companies are called “system integrators” (SI). It’s like a guinea pig: neither pig, nor from Guinea. What “systems” are they integrating? Anyways…
Recent article about holding SIs accountable made me reflect on my scary long career that spanned across the customer/consultant gorge. Here are the major SI engagement success/failure factors I’ve observed from both sides.
Don’t mistake what should be a “time and material” gig for the fixed-price one. If you don’t have a very clear idea of what the final product should be AND have your own people committed to seeing this vision through, it will likely end in a squabble. If the idea is too nebulous, running a small “proof of value” (POV) project is a good start.
People matter. A lot. We all have seen it: there are consultants that are worth their weight in gold, 3 times over. And there are those who just aimlessly flutter from one project to another. No, not like beautiful butterflies or useful bees but like dumb flying Southern cockroaches (lovingly rebranded as palmetto bugs). If I had a 100% reliable way to tell in advance who’s who, I would be writing this from my private island. All I can say is keep an exterminator on a speed dial, just in case.
A Russian proverb says “trust but verify”. The article above covers well the “verify” part but, sadly, some engagements jump right into that and forget about trust altogether. Most SAP consultants want the project to be successful no less than you do (it looks fantastic on our resumes!). So let us do our job. If you don’t trust a partner, don’t hire them. That’s a pretty straight-forward (and solid!) advice.
Have an SI horror or love story to tell? Drop us a comment! JP
Nuve Platform
Brought to you by Nuve
Developers! Have you ever thought “gosh, if only I could just get my own SAP Sandbox to play with”? Are you stuck in ECC hell and wondering if your skills still have value in the job market? Want to learn modern ABAP without dealing with learning Basis or wondering if your laptop has enough RAM to run HANA?
Look no further than Nuve Platform! Get into the SAP Sandbox of your dreams with no playground bullies to deal with. Watch this cool video and use code NotBoringDevelopment to get the Developer Plan free for one month!
[PM: I use this product, and it really does work. Read my review here.]
Sustaining Sustainability And AI: That’s Better
I usually roll my eyes at award programs like Pinnacle or Innovation. If you’re sponsoring the awards, and they’re about your products…well, who’s the actual winner? But I held my nose and went pitch deck spelunking in this year’s winners, and found a gem: Martur Fompak International joining AI and sustainability. There’s enough information to actually get an idea of what they did!
Flip to page 7 for a one paragraph explanation further boiled down here: MFI customers can use AI to personalize products to optimize for sustainability. This gets at what my other sustainability story went deeper on - but in a concrete way. For us tech dorks, on page 10 it also lays out where SAP steps in as enterprise glue and where other (deeper?) tech platforms like GitHub, AWS, and Unreal drive their pieces of the puzzle.
No, generative AI did not invent a new phase of matter or predict markets years in advance. But my usual gripes don’t apply here. Without giving away the true, deep corporate secrets, we actually get some depth on what’s going on (and a video, if you like). That is how a dork like me will start to appreciate the connection. PM
IT’S ABAP MATRIX, FAM!
Wouldn’t it be nice if every ABAP developer received a free monthly (or heck, even annually) “ABAP Living” magazine from SAP summarizing everything new you should know in clear and concise way? Well, until it becomes the thing (HA!), ABAP developers are left with the scattered release notes and articles on increasingly difficult to use SAP Community.
Thankfully, good folks from DSAG (German SAP user group) thought about this and came up with this neat and useful ABAP Feature Availability Matrix (FAM). Well, that’s pretty much it: use it, share it, now upgrade it! JP
The Game Is Still Afoot
We saw how AI made chaos a ladder earlier, when jobs were eliminated in favor of AI investments. Google’s moves are becoming clear in this area now, as they announce finance employee relocations and layoffs. (Not that there wasn’t warning from CEO Sundar Pichai earlier this year.) A Google spokesperson said “a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, remove layers and align their resources” to company priorities.
This gets me thinking: part of the promise of AI is automation and efficiency. So while Google sheds employees to invest in delivering AI, they are simultaneously (potentially) enabling that same shedding across the customers who buy their AI products. I picture a rug, slowly fraying at all the edges at once.
If I’m hopping onto the therapist’s couch here, I think about that rug a lot. I recently changed my job to focus more deeply on generative AI solutions. Don’t get me wrong - I’m a HUGE dork for that stuff. The fascination hasn’t let up! Read this newsletter and you’ll see me nerding out about it in every issue! But there’s part of me that has to think about food on the table. It’s just plain practical to massively skill up in AI.
Some people say that this rug-fraying process leads to greater opportunity in the future, as human labor markets evolve to meet what AI might deliver. If that’s true…hooray! Champagne for everyone! But if I found myself on the chopping block tomorrow in favor of AI, I don’t think I’d be raising my glass. PM
Somebody Please Think of The Morons
“Moron in a hurry” perfectly describes a certain category of technology users. These folks aren’t necessarily full-time morons but either don’t care to learn about specific tech or are afflicted by temporary conditions. I can admit being such “moron in a hurry” in many cases (exhibit A).
My pet peeve with public signage in the US is that there are usually many signs leading up to destination. But then when you reach the last, crucial turning point, there are no signs! For example, in the airports you’ll see “Baggage claim” signs with arrows pointing straight but then poof, suddenly no signs! This means you needed to take a turn somewhere, but no one put a sign in your line of view to inform of that. Can’t tell you how many times we got lost the first year after moving to the US. WHERE DID THE SIGNS GO?!
There is, unfortunately, no shortage of applications which inevitably lead you to “I have no idea what I am supposed to do here” point. (People must experience quite a shock when opening SAP GUI for the first time, I reckon.) Back in the days, it wasn’t unusual to read the manual or even take a course before using some application. But we only had a few to deal with. In 2024, using software should not be more difficult than navigating an airport, even for a fool in a rush or some such. And it’s the scenario that UI should be tested for. JP
Sustaining Sustainability And AI: Needs More
Wherein Paul is a cranky old bastard who should maybe chill out a little. I found some balance, though - see Sustaining Sustainability and AI: That's Better.
In the spirit of last issue, I took the bait again. Information Week has SAP Chief Sustainability Officer Sophia Mendelsohn on "Using AI to Scale Sustainability". I think they got carried away, focusing on something that perhaps Mendelsohn wasn't.
Look at her background and read the linked piece above. The depth on sustainability is clearly there. But something's missing when this piece tries to incorporate GenAI:
"What GenAI does is match ERP data with sustainability data." How?
"Instead of manually having to map between ERP data and sustainability data for every regulation, GenAI does that for you." How?
GenAI is general-purpose enough that saying "GenAI does it" doesn't give us enough. I think the excerpts cut out some explanation of a feature Mendelsohn is describing.
The high hype environment for generative AI demands specificity. If there is a sustainability intersection, we need deeper explanations. (Gen)AI has not reached the state of solving every problem everywhere. If you're talking about it reshaping a major initiative or product but not describing in detail what the AI piece is doing, we're missing something. PM
Watch the Nerdletter Talk 58 video where we discuss the stories from this issue and share some material too controversial to print. Hush, hush.
Are you in the New York City area? If not, you should be. On April 26th, SAP Champion Sebastiano Marchesini is hosting the inaugural SAP Meetup in Big Apple. We have it on good authority that if you make it there, you can make it anywhere.
Like what you see? Consider supporting this Nerdletter by buying us a cup or two of coffee. Thank you for your continuous readership and support!