SAPremains committed to improving its
relationship with UK users, Steve Rogers, managing director for SAP
UK & Ireland, told delegates at theSAP User Group Conferencein
Birmingham last week.
Rogers said that when he joined the enterprise software company
just over a year ago, he was surprised at how remote SAP felt from
its UK customers.
"A little bit of complacency had crept into the way we were
managing our relationships with our customers, and clearly that was
absolutely out of order," he said.
Although there was still some way to go, Rogers said SAP had
made progress.
"The feedback I am getting from meetings with customers is that
things are improving, that customers are seeing more of SAP, and
that SAP is trying to be more proactive in its support," he
said.
Customer satisfaction scores were "trending in the right
direction" and the UK management team had set the objective of
achieving "best in class" status, benchmarking themselves against
other SAP subsidiaries and other organisations in a similar
industry, said Rogers.
SAP UK is also working on improving its relationships with its
business partners. "A year ago, I felt we had not done an
enormously good job at nurturing good, strong relationships with
our partners. We had become a little arrogant," said Rogers.
In a highly competitive market, he said SAP UK had realised
that, like customers, partners had to be treated with respect and
given the information they need to support end-users in the most
effective way.
Rogers said SAP UK would continue to focus on working with its
customers and partners. "Our challenge is to get relationships in
the right place," he said.