Q1. Could you start by giving us a brief overview of your professional background, particularly focusing on your expertise in the industry?

A consulting professional with 29 years in the industry in large enterprise solutions and experience working globally with various clients across sectors from consulting to delivery to P&L. 

Having worked with large consulting and technology partners, Ova now sets up an advisory with like-minded colleagues to provide the right advisory for clients in selecting packages and partners and providing the right steer to clients in the ERP journey. Of course, any ERP journey has to be guided by an overall digital strategy.

Q2. How is the SAP Platform Solutions market segmented (e.g., by industry vertical, geography, or service type: implementation, maintenance, upgrades)?

In the many years I have worked, SAP Platforms could be sliced and diced in many ways, and each will still be a very relevant approach, but in the end, it comes down to the right solution for that client. As the saying goes, "An hour of planning can save you ten hours of doing." The same is true for SAP implementations as well. Identifying the right reasons to implement will save countless challenges that could have been spent on improving one's business. All of the above come into play while making this path. Eg

• SAP Industry Solution vs. Standard S/4 and how much
• Extent of customizations for a region and how much standard
• Full functionality vs limited but key functions to limit and control your disruption to business but still get value
• Complete Greenfield, complete brownfield, or selective transformation as the right way of Time value vs Quantum of value

Q3. How does a SAP partner's service offering aligns with the shift towards cloud-based ERP solutions?

Any consulting partner looks towards leveraging the latest for their clients, and today, most clients /CIOs are experts themselves and may have been on the consulting side as well. As with the cloud, there is momentum from solution providers like SAP and clients in a cloud strategy; hence, every partner has also invested in offerings along the same lines.

Q4. What are clients' primary factors when selecting an SAP solution provider (e.g., cost, technical expertise, time-to-market)? 

Cost is often the unsaid primary parameter and usually the proverbial elephant in the room. To a large extent, time to market becomes a cause-effect scenario for cost, and reducing timelines has a linear impact on cost. Clients are not willing to pay anything more than a 5% premium for value.

But this is where clients very often make the first mistake as all consulting organizations have market data, and the solutions are engineered to a cost rather than for value, which is counterproductive as the solution will be within cost and perhaps not deliver the true value it was capable of. If one were to get 20% more value with a 10% higher cost, why 

Of course, cost is important, and setting that budgetary perimeter is critical. On the other hand, the selection of a partner has to be based on expertise and, instead of cutting on price, work with the right solution for the budget to make an impact. Companies that do a joint business case succeed far more often.

Q5. What percentage of a partner's revenue from SAP solutions comes from product innovations such as AI-driven analytics, RPA integration, or custom solutions?

For a partner, AI analytics, etc., are either sweeteners offered as part of a deal or so tightly integrated with the solution, which is very difficult to estimate, even for the partners themselves on the revenue contribution. However, the fact is that for any client, all technologies must be leveraged as they make the end-user experience far richer and hence encourage the use of the solution, which is a core goal to get value.

Q6. How might the emergence of alternative ERP platforms (e.g., Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics) affect the growth of SAP-related services for a partner?

In the end, it is about scale and functionality. For large enterprises with a strong manufacturing/Logistics component, it is a no-brainer to move to SAP, and that's what we see today.

However, for smaller organizations with simple setups, it is a different problem, and ERPs like Infor, Microsoft, etc, are very relevant players and very often provide far more value. These need to be assessed via a proper package selection process, which, irrespective of cost, looks at the degree of the problem, customization, maintenance cost, and even the availability of skills. Typically, SAP has a large availability of skills, but MS and Oracle are also very capable alternatives here.

Many of these vendors themselves invest in partners to develop these skills, and hence, choosing a trusted partner for this needs some guidance.

What one must remember is that many of these smaller platforms do not provide for too many variations from "Standard" approaches; hence, if the client has a slightly different process for, say, accounts receivable, they need to invest in change management of the process itself whose cost cannot be underestimated. For example, if the end-user refuses to change in reality and uses their Excel sheet, you are not getting the full value of a single consistent and dependable data source in which you have invested.

Q7.  If you were an investor looking at companies within the space, what critical question would you pose to their senior management?

As an investor, I would be very keen to know about differentiation, considering many of these skills are commodities, and we are at the stage where the lowest-cost solutions are winning the deals. 

Hence, the critical question is about quality over quantity. Some leading points are

• Who are the "The ground leaders," and what are their credentials? 
• What is the actual investment in solution building or leveraging built solutions in projects?
• How does the Center of Excellence look like and, who work in it and how are they measured?
• What assets do they have for industries, and how do they showcase value to the client?
• What is the investment in improving the capability of the talent ie soft skills, industry skills, and consulting skills, specifically