I was a big fan of Jimi Hendrix growing up and loved the way he changed the way a person could play the guitar for decades to come. He and the Jimi Hendrix Experience were an experience like no other and he’s still thought of as 1 of the greatest guitar players of all time. I’m sad I never got to see him play, however after all this time working in SAP User Experience in my career it’s also sad I haven’t yet made this reference in a blog!
I use this reference to call out a question to people running SAP day in and day out. That question is the exact title of this blog. Are You Experienced, Digitally? I have been thinking outside of the normal SAP box a lot lately. And something I have pondered is exactly how many ways are there to solve a technical challenge. Endless technologies, endless solutions, automation, machine learning, IoT, AI, AR, RPA, the acronyms go on and on as to what type of tool you can use to solve a problem. After pondering all the types of things you could do, at the end of the day, it all comes down to a very basic question. What is the “Experience” we want to give the person who will be using this tool?
In our line of work, it’s the experience of the employee logging into SAP every day. For our customers, it’s not only the employee experience they need to worry about but also their end customer experience. If an employee has a simplistic, easy-to-use tool they can use to complete their day-to-day tasks that makes them happy (regardless of technology). I read an article just the other day from a colleague on Linked In that said US Navy Destroyer ships are going back to manual controls after working with touch screens. It just makes sense to the user to do this regardless of the available technology.
I’ll give a quick example. If you didn’t know anything about SAP and were in charge of implementing software for your company. Would you choose software with an experience that looked like the first screenshot below? Or the second, and why?
SAP GUI
Desktop/Laptop computer-enabled interface. Transaction codes are needed to navigate to the functionality you desire. No contextual information and a lot of training are required to get started.
SAP Fiori Launchpad
Web-enabled UI5 Responsive design interface for all device types. Includes voice/chat UI, real-time analytics, and a role-based infrastructure so you see only the things you need to see in your job role. An intuitive interface means less upfront training to get started.
The SAP Experience lesson today? Start with the Fiori Launchpad as your central entry point to SAP.
In my webinar a few weeks ago I shared the types of experiences I’ve had in talking to customers about their S/4HANA upgrade, migration, greenfield implementation plans and how those are going. Are they thinking about user experience, what are they worried about, do they see 2025 as a looming deadline, what’s their business case, and other interesting facts we’ve heard along the way. You can see the recording here and/or reach out directly for more questions.
Are you Experienced is going to become a blog series of quick SAP UX ideas. Look forward to many more quick blogs/posts/questions in the near future about S/4HANA and the things you can do to enable your own Intelligent Enterprise… in an Experienced fashion!
As always, I look forward to your comments!
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