User group KPIs to keep SAP honest

Beverley Head
Thursday, 06 August 2009 09:29

Business IT - Technology

A range of key performance indicators which will track the performance of SAP’s enterprise support services will be completed within the next couple of months, and from then on SAP price hikes will be indexed to the KPIs.

In a classic piece of poor timing, just as the economic slowdown bit, SAP last year announced the price of enterprise level support would lurch from 17 % of the initial software investment price, to 22 %, with the increase phased in over seven years. Battered by the flailing economy users reacted badly to the news, and the international SAP User Group Executive Network negotiated with the software giant a deal which would see it and users establish the KPIs to monitor how well enterprise service was being delivered, with any future price increases tied to SAP’s performance against the KPIs.

Grahame Reynolds, chair of the SAP Australian User Group which concludes its three day meeting in Sydney today, said 100 enterprise SAP users were now using the KPIs (including 12 organisations in Australia). These monitored a range of issues such as the number of support calls, the amount of downtime, utilisation of hardware and numbers of support staff needed, in order to track SAP’s performance.

Within the next couple of months the group of 100 enterprise customers will share their KPI data with the SAP User Group Executive Network in order to generate a KPI index with SAP committed to tying future price increases to the index.

Reynolds said that there would need to be KPI improvements to justify future price increases.

Although attendance at the user group conference is down about 20 per cent on last year, Reynolds said feedback from the 520 delegates had been largely positive. But by SAP’s own admission the big orders aren’t flowing as fast as they used to.

Its Australian and New Zealand chief executive Tim Ebbeck has confirmed that although the company enjoyed a strong first half, it is not predicting the second half of the year will be as strong.

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