In February of 2012, SAP announced that it was replacing the defunct Development Request (DRQ) process, which had long been ineffective, with a new ASUG support Customer Connection Program. The programs goal was to allow customers to submit smaller improvements, and assuming they got the minimum support of five other customers, that SAP would review, approve or reject, and deliver the accepted ones six to seven months later. While I was initially skeptical given my previous experiences with the old DRQ program and the fact that I knew SAP had some major work efforts coming in 2012 and 2013 with the integration of SuccessFactors, building out of Employee Central and HR Renewal project but thought I would give SAP the benefit of the doubt.
In total, customers submitted 152 ideas many of which addressed minor and sometime major pain points I have seen first-hand at other customers. SAP announced this morning that it had delivered the first six via a customer notes which you will need a SAP Marketplace ID to view.
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Limited Scope – It appears that Personnel Administration, Organizational Management, Time Management (including ESS/MSS aspects) and recently eRecruiting are part of the program but it is interesting there is nothing for Payroll and some of the other key areas. I heard today from Sharon Newton that a new "Focus Topics" must go through an approval process and that is currently in process with SAP LSO. I am surprised this is not a global HCM initiative across all supported product lines with a budget allocated to each based on number of licensed customers or some other formula.
Platform – I heard from several customers that they found registration painful and wondered why it simply couldn't have been opened up for anyone with a SAP Marketplace ID though in a perfect world I would question why ideas should require any registration since there was already a process to ensure that it was voted on by five customers in place. They also found navigation within the site tricky as both the Idea Place and Customer Connection shared the same website.
It is always important that customers listen and stay informed as to not only what their vendors are saying and announcing but the follow through and what they are delivering. When customer purchase software they need to know that their vendor is going to continue to not only support and enhance the offering it but work with them where there is a common gap across multiple customers and deliver in a reasonable period of time. While SAP has delivered some solid new functionality around the HR Renewal and has big plans for HCM HANA, I am disappointed in where the HCM Customer Connection sits 16 months after its announcement. While I am 100% in support of the Customer Connection program it is important that it has the proper budget, resources and oversight to deliver on its promise if SAP is really committed to it.
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