SAP appears to have listened and taken on board user feedback on
how it should charge for its maintenance contract.
The ERP company and the SAP User Group Executive Network
(Sugen), a global federation of 12 key SAP user groups, have
reached an innovative agreement.
It will mean that SAP will be required to meet key performance
indicators agreed with Sugen before it can incrementally increase
its maintenance fees by up to 22%.
Bill Wohl, vice-president at SAP Global Field Communications,
says: "Any time we ask a customer to pay for a service we must
demonstrate value."
SAP and the user groups represented by Sugen will conduct
benchmarking exercises to measure the improvements SAP makes to its
maintenance service.
Alan Bowling, chairman of the SAP UK & Ireland User Group
says: "We are linking real delivery of value to SAP's price
increase."
The KPIs cover four business continuity, business process
improvement, protection of investment and total cost of operations.
SAP will be required to reduce the number of emergency software
changes it issues.
Bowling has called on the software industry to follow SAP's lead
by providing KPIs for value on maintenance contracts.
Gartner research director Thomas Otter described SAP's approach
as novel. "This is the first time a software supplier is offering a
tangible value proposition for support. Companies have previous
paid maintenance without assessing the value."
CIOs are looking more closely at maintenance, so it makes sense
for SAP to increase transparency of its maintenance programme.
Other software suppliers may be forced to take a similar line.
