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The SAP Help Ecosystem: A Paradigm in Crisis

A recent survey conducted by cumulusIQ, the pioneer of Knowledge as a Service (KaaS), discovered that SAP customers consider themselves to be paying too much for SAP help, often without sufficient ROI. The survey revealed that 47 percent of SAP customers believe that they are spending too much on SAP help. Of this 47 percent: 77 percent believe that SAP Help (SAP’s official offering) is too expensive; 55 percent believe that consultants and system integrators charge too much for SAP help functions; 47 percent believe that it is too expensive to task internal resources to SAP help activities.
‘Too expensive’ is a relative category
Something can only be too expensive if you aren’t getting sufficient ROI.
SAP downtime is expensive, but guarding against a rainy day shouldn’t be the sum total of your SAP Help ROI case
There should be a more enduring takeaway.
SAP Help does not constitute much of a valuable resource when SAP problems occur.
Help from SAP support is of questionable value. Rarely am I satisfied with the level of attention or expertise. The experts are there (SAP Developers, Platinum consultants) but are rarely used.
I don’t need SAP Help anymore–I’ve been on SAP for the past 6 years and I trained for 6 months in PP before go live by consultants. I have seen every error SAP can produce and know how to correct all and I actually like SAP.
I believe our company would do better with a larger internal SAP Help skill set & personnel than the current third-party provider we use.
It’s like teaching someone to fish versus coming in and doing it for them
Someone who knows how to fish will have a better time, exert more control, and save money doing it.

Bethlehem, Pa. (PRWEB) June 30, 2009 — A recent survey conducted by cumulusIQ, the pioneer of Knowledge as a Service (KaaS), discovered that SAP customers consider themselves to be paying too much for SAP help, often without sufficient ROI. The survey revealed that 47 percent of SAP customers believe that they are spending too much on SAP help. Of this 47 percent,

The On-Demand Knowledge Marketplace
The On-Demand Knowledge Marketplace

 
  • 77 percent believe that SAP Help (SAP’s official offering) is too expensive.
  • 55 percent believe that consultants and system integrators charge too much for SAP help functions.
  • 47 percent believe that it is too expensive to task internal resources to SAP help activities.

“‘Too expensive’ is a relative category,” pointed out Monty Kalsi, CEO of cumulusIQ. “Something can only be too expensive if you aren’t getting sufficient ROI.” As it turns out, one out of five respondents to the survey claims that SAP Help ROI is insufficient. Well over half of the remaining respondents believe that SAP help ROI lies in its ability to prevent SAP downtime. “SAP downtime is expensive, but guarding against a rainy day shouldn’t be the sum total of your SAP Help ROI case,” added Kalsi. “There should be a more enduring takeaway.”

SAP Help in particular received negative assessments from some survey respondents. Here are some representative comments:

“SAP Help does not constitute much of a valuable resource when SAP problems occur.”

“Help from SAP support is of questionable value. Rarely am I satisfied with the level of attention or expertise. The experts are there (SAP Developers, Platinum consultants) but are rarely used.”

Fortunately, survey respondents also suggested ways to obtain greater ROI from SAP Help. In most instances, companies that developed SAP knowledge for themselves reported greater satisfaction with their cost structures and with SAP in general:

“I don’t need SAP Help anymore–I’ve been on SAP for the past 6 years and I trained for 6 months in PP before go live by consultants. I have seen every error SAP can produce and know how to correct all and I actually like SAP.”

“I believe our company would do better with a larger internal SAP Help skill set & personnel than the current third-party provider we use.”

The common thread in these comments is the notion of knowledge transfer. “It’s like teaching someone to fish versus coming in and doing it for them,” explains independent analyst Jon Reed, SAP Mentor and founder of JonERP.com. “Someone who knows how to fish will have a better time, exert more control, and save money doing it.”

cumulusIQ is pioneering a paradigm of SAP Help in the Cloud. Subscribers to this service pay for the number of SAP help questions they pose, and get to take away knowledge (in the form of instructional videos, PDFs, and other rich media) from verified SAP help desk analysts. Pricing for SAP Help in the Cloud begins at $2,000 per company per month, a fraction of traditional SAP help prices.

More About cumulusIQ:

cumulusIQ is the pioneer of Knowledge as a Service℠ (KaaS). KaaS is an on-demand knowledge marketplace that brings together consumers and providers of information on vital and timely topics. KaaS provides real answers by real experts in real-time. It breaks the tradition of a fixed model, with ever-changing or shrinking individual resources, only available during business hours, to a model that is flexible, available 24/7, and a compilation of community intelligence and resources. The information provided in this on-demand knowledge marketplace is always relevant, timely, economical and quality assured. For consultants, cumulusIQ is an opportunity to productize their services and turn their knowledge into recurring, passive revenue. For enterprise software customers, cumulusIQ is a destination for rapidly delivered, inexpensively priced services.

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