I attended the SAP HXM Partner Meeting (Newtown Square, NJ – 2/22-23), which brought together 150 partners to set partnership intentions for 2023, introduce new team members and leaders, preview new software releases and collaborate a group. Michael Pawlyszyn, SVP / General Manager of SAP SuccessFactors, North America, acknowledged the importance of SAP’s partner ecosystem and kicked off the event. “Our partners help us compete and differentiate our offering in a market where there is a lot of software parity. It’s partners that help us deliver differentiated value to our customers, and are key to our growth.” SAP’s partner ecosystem has 22,000 partners in 144 countries and is easily one of the largest and most open in the Enterprise Software space.
90% of SAP’s HXM projects delivered by partners. Consistency is key for a positive customer experience
Contextually, 90% of SAP HXM software projects are implemented by partners, and like all of the major Enterprise Software vendors–customer experience depends not only on the software but also on the relationship and quality of implementation that partners provide. SAP deems 2023 “The Year of the Partner,” and emphasized the need for orchestration, consistency, and accountability. Consistency throughout the sales process is key (between SAP and partners, and from partner-to-partner). The importance of getting partners involved in the sales process as early as possible, and shared resources are essential–from sales playbooks (aka “Sales Plays”) to demos. SAP’s HXM group is keen to measure not only partner work in terms of revenue, but to understand customer sentiment during implementation as well as business impacts post-implementation. Pawlyszyn closed out Day 1 with a recap of SAP’s customer satisfaction and project success metrics as measured by Raven Intelligence’s reviews in 2022, which lead their closest industry peers in several key performance indicators.
Average deal size up 37% and SAP S4 surge presents big opportunity for HXM if done right
The meeting revealed that the average deal size was up 37% last year, net-new business increased by 12%, and there were 6,500 cloud go-lives (of which 2,000 were HXM). SAP SuccessFactors is the #2 Line of Business (LOB), following SAP S4 HANA. SAP’s goals are to cross-sell and drive more SAP products broadly in deals, grow in the mid-market (goal is 56% market share increase), and speed time-to-value in terms of adoption and consumption. In terms of partner delivery, SAP are looking to increase the certifications of partner consultants and shared resources for best practices, tools, and access to any SAP resources who can remove customer roadblocks. The explosive growth of SAP S4 presents a huge opportunity for HXM (for customers that do not currently use SAP for HR) and positioning this effectively will be a force multiplier.
Open Dialogue provided a forum for improvements
The meeting included an open forum for “what can we do better?” which was a helpful exchange of ideas to improve coordination between teams. The topic of events management (better advance planning), growing pipeline / demand generation (increasing deal volume / leads) and software demos (fewer customizations) were the 3 hottest topics of discussion.
Local Events
In addition to SAP SuccessConnect (September), local HR events (HR Connect) will be held throughout North America early this summer (Toronto 6/1, Chicago, 6/8, Atlanta 6/13, Seattle 6/15, NY 7/13) to provide local connection, thought leadership and networking with HR leaders, partners and SAP.
Wrap Up
SAP’s HXM Partner meeting provided a solid forum to connect with SAP and partner peers and should bode well for 2023–both in terms of opportunity co-creation, and a more consistent and positive customer experience in the end.
To search for an SAP SuccessFactors services partner and read their reviews on Raven Intelligence, click here.