The Evolution of Industry and Influencer Relations at SAP - Part One

To expand upon the mention in my inaugural post, I am the VP of Industry and Influencer Relations at SAP.  This is a relatively new 'title' and group that resides in SAP's Global Communication department.

In 2006, we conducted an exhaustive evaluation of our communication practices, org design, programs, processes and engagement strategies to understand the changes required to better support SAP's 2010 business strategy.  In a nutshell, the 2010 strategy is designed to double SAP's addressable market to a $75B opportunity.

Through the evaluation we found (to no suprise) that our structure and many practices and engagement strategies were based on outdated models that were inadequate to support the company's evolved growth strategy.

There are a number of important functions represented within Global Communications at SAP: Investor Relations, Government Relations, Employee Communications, Media Relations, etc.  As part of our reorganization, I was asked to lead a new group called Industry and Influencer Relations. 

Following the evaluation, we entered the next phase of reorg activities. The design process for what eventually evolved into the Industry and Influencer Relations team (which is the only aspect of the reorg that I will focus on) was guided by the fundamental question of: What problem are we really trying to solve? 

In answering this question, we determined that the charter of the new program should be to influence the awareness, reputation and experience of SAP (products and services) with business and IT decision makers in the industry.

To this end, we commisioned research to identify the IT and business decision makers in our industry and understand the dynamics of how they are influenced (e.g. where do they go for research, advice and education to support their decisions). 

We used social networking technologies to map the flow of influence up and through the decision maker.  We were surprised to find that a number of our assumptions on decision making authority and influence were challenged. 

Today, the mission of the Industry and Influencer Relations team is to enable sales execution and the accelerated adoption of SAP’s products and solutions by generating positive experience of SAP’s brand, products and reputation within strategic business and IT communities of influence (globally).

There are five dynamic teams that operate under the umbrella of Industry and Influencer relations, at SAP.  Each has a unique mission and a value proposition that stands very strong on its own:

o    IT Influencer Relations (evolution of traditional AR)

o    Business Influencer Relations

o    Customer Communities (e.g. User Groups)

o    Integrated Partner Communications

o    University Alliances

Each program utilizes a balanced mix of social media principles, technology, and 1:1 relationship practices to reach scale and effectiveness.

Using innovative research techniques we have found that the combined channels (above) that the Industry and Influencer Relations team manages has a $40B impact on purchase decisions world-wide (based on SAP's target $75B market opportunity).

The research and reorganization process that we went through was very enlightening and renewing.  It set the stage for creating a new ‘reality’ for communications at SAP with a more strategic purpose.

In future posts I will break down the value proposition of each team and share some of the insights that we learned as we moved from design to implementation – resulting in the creation of new engagement models, best practices, resource and operational design, and metrics for managing each component of the influencer program (above).