S/4HANA Playbook: AI, RISE & SAP’s Outcome-Based Future — Sana Asher | The BizTech Pulse Podcast

The BizTech Pulse Podcast — Season 2, Episode 1
S/4HANA Playbook: AI, RISE & SAP’s Outcome-Based Future
Guest: Sana Asher | Host: Krishna Hari
Timestamps shifted +5s to account for the intro animation.
============================================================

[00:05] Krishna Hari:
Welcome to the second season of the BizTech Pulse Podcast. We have today Sana Asher, a senior, very reputed consultant who has worked three decades in the industry, who has a wealth of knowledge and experience. And she is a person who wants to change and bring improvement for a lot of consultants who are struggling to get new jobs in this new platform, especially the RISE and the public cloud platform. She has contributed pretty well. She has written a book — the S/4HANA Playbook. It is an amazing piece of book which everyone, I feel, should read, to get a hang of what is happening currently in the enterprise SAP projects. So having said that, welcome, Sana — welcome to the podcast. It’s a privilege to have you on our show. Go ahead and introduce yourself.

[01:01] Sana Asher:
Sure. First of all, thank you, Hari. I appreciate you reaching out and inviting me to the podcast. I think it’s going to be a fabulous conversation. Everything that I’ve talked through so far has been very, very amazing, so I’m looking forward to chatting with you. And by way of introduction, my name is Sana Asher. I have spent three decades in the SAP ecosystem. And most recently, which is about two years ago, I started my entrepreneur journey 2.0, where I started working with clients on doing advisory work on their transformations, as well as helping SAP professionals make the move from legacy SAP to cloud SAP. So here I am.

[01:40] Krishna Hari:
Great, great. Let’s start. I know your 30-year journey in SAP — it’s a very long time, and especially with the way things are changing today. The entire modern era of business software, right? Take us back to the beginning. Why don’t you share your journey so that I will take it from there.

[01:46] Sana Asher:
Sure, absolutely. Thank you. So, my journey into SAP was by fluke. I want to say it exactly like that, because it really was. I was working with PeopleSoft, and when Oracle acquired PeopleSoft, I knew very well at that moment that I didn’t want to work with Oracle. And someone said to me, “Do you know about SAP?” And I’m like, “No, I don’t know anything about SAP.” And that’s how I got introduced to SAP. My background, Hari, has always been business. So I was very privileged to understand that it’s always about outcomes — business outcomes. It’s never about the technology you’re selling. And this was ’96, ’97 — that’s kind of when I got into the whole SAP world. I started with actually selling into the SAP solutions. And over the years, over the last three decades, it just feels like yesterday, because there’s so much to learn. There’s so much to continuously keep evolving, that you just feel that you’re learning something new every day. From 4.7 to ECC, ECC to S/4, S/4 now to cloud, to RISE, to GROW. And I think from an innovation perspective, SAP has done a phenomenal job of keeping that innovation spirit alive and the ability to keep pivoting as the market needs it. So I have been very fortunate working with large brand names, large clients, mid-size clients on transformations, helping them understand their business outcomes through the SAP technology.

[03:35] Krishna Hari:
Okay. I think, given your journey, I’m just thinking here — with the latest private and public cloud, what are the challenges? What are the challenges that customers are facing today? Is it resource-oriented, trained resources, or what exactly are you seeing in the market?

[03:42] Sana Asher:
Sure. I think it’s a combination of everything, Hari. So what I’m seeing in the market is, number one, customers are hearing a lot of noise. There is not any real data and information that they can take in from an unbiased source. Everybody’s giving them their version. So there is nobody who is giving it to them and saying, “Look, this is the reality, this is what you need to do.” That creates a lot of confusion for a lot of customers. Having said that, consultants or SAP professionals are in a similar situation. They know that they need to get upskilled. They know they need to get trained, but they don’t know what a learning journey is. They don’t know what is step one, what is step two, what is step three. Sure, can you go to the SAP Learning Hub and learn? Absolutely. But is there anyone who can hold your hand and say, “Look, you already have 20-plus years, why are you going back to the Learning Hub? Start here.” And I think there is tremendous opportunity for people like us, Hari — you’ve been in the ecosystem a long time, just like me — for people like us to take a leadership role and say, “Look, let’s help the entire ecosystem,” which means the clients as well as the professionals, the consultants, so we can lift everyone together. I mean, it has truly changed, to your point. RISE with SAP, private cloud, public cloud — so many decisions to make. But how do you make decisions when you don’t have the full depth and breadth of what you are getting into? And that’s what I’m seeing a lot.

[05:25] Krishna Hari:
Valid. The other thing — in the morning I had a call with one of my customers and they were talking about this person who has 15 years of experience. This person does not have public cloud exposure. I said, “Wow.” That’s one of the things which sometimes — I mean, this product has been renamed or re-christened to a new label called public, and the underlying thing, nothing has changed. Sometimes customers — even though they are a customer — they come and ask how many years of public experience he has. How does it matter? Anyway, that’s the…

[06:05] Sana Asher:
Yeah, no, you’re absolutely correct, Hari. But see, it goes back to the exact same point of the noise. So think about this just for a moment. If clients were in a situation where they were given, “Hey, this was public cloud now, this was called SAP’s private cloud two years ago, or five years ago, or three, ten years ago,” at that point customers know what they’re getting into. The problem is the marketing spiel is so high, and the density of changing terms is so high, that there is nothing but confusion. Clients are expecting consultants to walk in the door with five public cloud implementations and ten years of experience. And I’m going — okay, they have the experience. It’s not “public cloud.” So I think a lot of education is needed within both these communities, the customers as well as the professionals, where a lot of noise should be taken away, Hari, and really talked about what is the true thing. Like, peel the onion — and nothing has really changed.

[07:08] Krishna Hari:
Absolutely, absolutely. You’re right. Because I think the underlying data model or whatever the process — that’s not going to be drastically different.

[07:19] Sana Asher:
Exactly. Do people need to learn it? Absolutely, they need to learn it. Has there been changes? Yes. But it’s not like we have a completely different version and completely changed everything.

[07:31] Krishna Hari:
Going to the next section — I was just talking about the macroeconomic wind, the tariffs, geopolitics, and the AI disruption, right? The CFOs and the supply chain leaders are dealing with a level of change which is totally unheard of. As a consultant, as an industry veteran, where do you see — I’m seeing this talking to a few CIOs and supply chain executives — they feel a little bit, even though they have to migrate to the new platform, people are asking a very hard question: “What am I getting out of this? If I spend $40 million to move from ECC to S/4HANA, what am I getting? My business is still running. Everything is fine. What am I getting?”

[07:54] Sana Asher:
Absolutely. Very, very valid question. And I keep getting this question a lot. And I’m going to answer it exactly how I’ve answered it to the CFOs, CEOs and CIOs who I talk to. Number one: your business is running. Absolutely correct. It’s running today. What happens a decade from now? You and I are seeing the level and the speed of disruption in the market. So many tools coming up, so many AI-backed processes coming up. How are you going to keep up? So yes, the business is absolutely running. Is it going to be running for the next decade? That’s the first question you want to ask. The second question you’re going to ask is: when I am today with ECC, running, everything’s going well, the processes are running very well — what happens if I have to acquire another company? What happens if we get merged into, or we get bought out? What happens at that point? Again, disruption. Are you ready for that? That’s another point to think about. The third thing — do I really want to be sitting on an older platform for the next 5, 10, 15 years of my life, being unable to do any innovation? I can’t make any changes. I can’t do any of that. Those are the fundamental questions they need to ask themselves. And where it’s concerned to the 40 million — I personally feel, Hari, before you spend even one dollar, forget 10 million and 20 million and 40 million, those are numbers. At the end of the day, you want to ask yourself: have I done my homework? Have I run a phase zero? Have I done planning? Have I done everything that is in my control before I give it off to the SI or the vendor? And who do I have on my side who is an unbiased advisor? Who do I have on my team who is going to stand up and say, “No, this is wrong, and here’s why it’s wrong”? Unfortunately, those are hard things, and nobody wants to be the bad guy. Nobody wants to stand up and take that kind of responsibility. So you know what the answer is? If you don’t stand up and take responsibility, you’re going to run into project overruns. You are going to get into failures, and you continue to ask, “Why am I paying 40 million?” That’s the answer.

[10:27] Krishna Hari:
Absolutely. I also like your assessment engagement which you do, Sana, because that gives definitely a picture to the CIOs or the businesses — where they are today and what is it they can do. And definitely, I feel what you’re doing is amazing.

[10:40] Sana Asher:
Thank you. I can’t wait to get your feedback on that as well. So I’m looking forward to that.

[10:51] Krishna Hari:
Sure, sure. The other one — I know you have run a lot of transformations, Sana. Johnson & Johnson being a landmark example. The question is, is there anything we can share — what experience you gained at Johnson & Johnson?

[10:53] Sana Asher:
Not just Johnson & Johnson, right? Across the board. I’ve done a lot of pharma clients — Johnson & Johnson, Becton Dickinson. I’ve worked with Bristol Myers Squibb, a bunch of different pharmaceutical companies. I think across any transformation, it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in — the biggest thing about a transformation is who do you have on your team who is willing to stand up when things are not going the way they’re supposed to go. So everybody comes into a steering meeting — weekly, monthly — check, check, check, check, everything’s great. Who is standing and asking the question, “Wait, I don’t think this is right. Can we look at it again?” I think that kind of accountability I don’t see anymore in transformations. I see a lot of people trying to cover who they are, trying to protect their own organization, their own job. And look, I’m not against that. You have to do what you have to do. A lot of CIOs, CFOs, CEOs are thinking, “This is my last hurrah, why bother? I want to leave a good legacy.” And that’s exactly what I’ve talked about, Hari, in my S/4HANA Playbook. These are 30 years of experiences that I’ve had in the trenches, where I’ve said: look, transformations change people. They absolutely do. If it’s a good transformation, that’s going to change you. If it’s a bad transformation, that’s also going to change you. But the choice is up to you what you are going to do with it. And I think that’s very fundamental. As humans, we need to know what we’re getting into.

[12:41] Krishna Hari:
That’s great. I totally agree with you on that. The other one is AI disruption — is it a friend or a foe? People come up with a “SaaSpocalypse,” you name it. Every day, the number of changes, the models which are coming out, each outsmarting the other ones. If you are a CIO today, what are you thinking? What are you doing about it?

[12:49] Sana Asher:
That’s a great question. So, taking a step back, I think AI is a friend and a foe — depends on where you are looking at it from. Will AI, in a transformation, in a project, help you reduce the grunt work? Absolutely, 100%. You want to do testing? Definitely use AI. You want to do grunt work? Use AI. Will it take away from human intelligence? Absolutely not. You and I both know this. I’m sure you use Claude or ChatGPT — I use it too. There’s a disclaimer: “This is generated by AI, please double-check.” What does that tell you? You can’t rely on it. You have to double-check. So I think you have to be very, very smart about where you are going to use AI. That’s the number one thing. Number two: data. Data is a big conversation. It’s a big topic. How are you going to put your AI tools on data that’s 20 years old? You haven’t even looked at your data processes. So first, take a step back, clean your data, make sure you don’t have garbage. That way, when you’re using AI, it’s more effective. A lot of CIOs are starting these big projects — POCs, agentic AIs, workflows — fabulous. No one is stopping and asking, “What happened to my data? When is the last time I did a data cleansing exercise? When is the last time I did data archiving?” The answer is, “Ooh, I don’t even remember.” So I think step one is: look at your data. That’s the first indication of where and how your AI projects are going to progress.

[14:39] Krishna Hari:
That’s a very valid point. An ideal 100% correct data is never a situation, right? People go through acquisitions, people go through mergers, where even if you think your data is “clean” today, if the company acquires four or five companies every year, there you go — you’re inheriting something which the other company may not have. And so it’s a moving target. At any point, you cannot sometimes delay what you’re doing. If someone can find a solution where automatically data cleaning happens, then I think they will be the king.

[14:46] Sana Asher:
No, I don’t think that solution is the challenge, Hari. I think our governance around how we look at data is the challenge. So to your point — you just said if you may do three or four acquisitions in a year, do you even have a data strategy? What are you doing with the data? You and I know this, you’ve seen it in so many customers. A lot of customers don’t even look at their segregation of duties, don’t even look at the roles. So you have a contractor who comes into your landscape, you’ve given them access. The contract has long gone — a year ago. Have you taken the access back? Absolutely not. So my point is, we are not doing basics. We’re not doing the ABCs. But we want to go and build algorithms. How the hell is that even going to work? Just logically, objectively think about this. So get the strategy, get your governance in place, and then start playing around with your AI tools and all the disruptions you want to do.

[16:21] Krishna Hari:
Okay, coming back to AI in SAP — what is real and what is hype?

[16:26] Sana Asher:
This is such an interesting question. So a lot of things are real. Definitely Joule is real, for sure. But again, does it need a human being to verify? 100%. It’s again the disclaimer: “Generated by AI, please confirm the content.” So it’s real. Will the consultants change the way they are doing work today? Absolutely. But will their job go away? Absolutely not. You are always going to need people to make sure the configurations are correct. Will you be able to do more configurations if you’re an order-to-cash person or a finance person? Maybe you can work on three projects at one time — but you have to go back and check everything. So part of that, I think, is real. The other piece that I think is a lot of hype is “your jobs are going to be taken away, AI is going to take away your job.” I don’t know why people make these claims. Just take a step back and think. We are in the most transformative lifetime for all of us. Think about it, Hari — you, me, we’re in our 50s. Look what we’ve seen. We’ve seen Y2K. We’ve seen COVID. We are now seeing this whole AI disruption. It’s such an amazing time to be alive, because you can truly make an impact if you’re doing the right things with the right tools. But here we are, just scaring people. Where is your human objectivity gone? Where is the intelligence? Everyone’s kind of getting swayed into the current, and I don’t think that’s a great idea.

[18:05] Krishna Hari:
Yeah, I agree with you. I think the thing here is, maybe, the fear of the unknown. We went through the calculator era, the PC era — we went through all this. At every point, people said, “Hey, your job is over.” The computer era especially was a time where it’s going to take over. And here, it increased the overall skilled labor force. And even today, so many people have started using computers all by themselves. Similarly, AI is going to change the way people operate. The working model is going to change, and it’s already changing.

[18:22] Sana Asher:
Absolutely. And in the world of AI, Hari, I think human intelligence and human empathy is going to come out first. I’m seeing it on LinkedIn as well. I’m seeing it with so many people — people are using AI-generated tools to do comments. And I’m like, why are you guys doing that? Why are you not talking about what you’re experiencing? So I think we’ve taken it a little too far. It’s kind of time to pull it back a little bit and realize that fundamentally we’re humans first.

[19:17] Krishna Hari:
Yeah, that’s true. And the other thing is — how is this impacting a typical S/4HANA deployment? How is AI changing this whole thing? In coding, the percentage improvement in efficiency comes in using vibe coding or whatever, testing automation and stuff like that. But the rest is still there.

[19:33] Sana Asher:
Correct, absolutely, the rest is still there.

[19:41] Krishna Hari:
So are we looking at — for a huge S/4HANA transformation project — are we looking at 18 months? Six months? Three months? What are we looking at?

[19:55] Sana Asher:
It could be all of those, Hari. And I’ll tell you the reason for that. So, a colleague of mine who is an ex-SAP person has built a platform — you and I talked a little bit about that, called LeapGreat. And LeapGreat is a platform that does a lot of automation, does a lot of AI-driven things. And they actually start with a system. So they don’t even wait for the to-be. They start with the to-be, and then they retrofit. So my point is, it could be three months, it could be six months, it could be 18 months, depending on what you are looking to do for adoption. There are so many assurance services today which actually, once you are doing your workshops, will go back and say, “By the way, you’ve gone and changed your current process by 50%, or 13%, or 22%. Why are you doing that? Why are you not using a best practice?” So every step of the way, there is a mechanism to pull you back to where best practices need to be. The question is, are we ready to use it? Are we ready to believe what they’re telling us? And are we ready to implement that? An S/4HANA transformation could be a three-month deal, but if you’ve done nothing with ECC for the last 10-plus years — you’ve not even looked at your business process — how is AI going to help you? AI will map the new business process for you and say, “This is your new best practice.” But you have to review it, you have to agree with it, you have to implement it. So it again comes down to humans, on how we are going to use AI.

[21:21] Krishna Hari:
Okay, so definitely there is a reduction in the implementation. Maybe, as you said, automation — especially testing automation — documentation is much faster. The other thing — it’s very funny. We came up with a poll, which we asked: well, the SI is using AI and reducing cost — is the customer getting benefited by that? In the sense, are they reducing the bill rates, or the timeline, or are they committing on an outcome-based model? So what are they doing for you?

[21:26] Sana Asher:
What was the answer with the poll? I want to hear that.

[21:47] Krishna Hari:
The poll is still online. So far, people want an outcome-based pricing model. It’s very interesting, because if you look at it, they cannot control anything else — efficiency, even 20, 30%. But I think 60% of them have gone the outcome-based model. Everybody is going there nowadays. There are a few companies that have already started doing outcome-based models.

[22:05] Sana Asher:
And I think that’s the new reality, Hari. That’s the new reality. So it’s very simple. Even for us — in our day-to-day, as we are working — just think of the Costco model. It sounds very, very simple, but think about it. Costco, when they started, was recruiting members. Today they are close to, what, 120-130 million members? But these 130 million members renew their membership every year. And why is that? It is an outcome-based service that we’re getting. You walk into a Costco, you never have to worry about the quality of the product you’re buying. You never have to worry — if we want to take it back, it’s a lifetime guarantee, you come back anytime, we’re here. So fundamentally, that’s exactly what is happening with us in our industry. Clients are saying, “You want us to work with you — the SIs, the clients — you need to guarantee us this is what you’re going to give us for the money we’re giving you. And we’ll come back to you at any time, and you have to fix it.” It’s no longer about people, it’s about process. How do I take this process and how do I scale that process?

[23:40] Krishna Hari:
How do you do that in the SAP world? Do you have any idea? See, for example, the per-user cost of an SAP license is very high, and that’s why they came up with this FUE concept. Now, how will outcome-based pricing be for SAP?

[23:51] Sana Asher:
So think about it. As we talked about the S/4HANA implementation or transformation — today, SIs, mid-size companies are going in and giving an “X” price: “This is what we’re going to do for you.” But in the next few months, or the next couple of years, that’s going to change. There’s going to be, “I’m going to do this much work — maybe it’s business process re-engineering — and I’m going to charge you this much. So if you pay me this, you get this.” So the whole fundamental of “I’m going to throw 20 bodies for so many hours” — that is changing.

[24:39] Krishna Hari:
Actually, I have another example, which I’m seeing in a fintech company whom we partner with. That company is betting big on this. They made an open statement in one of their conferences recently, saying that the implementation is free, the license cost is free. They will agree with the customer what the business outcome is going to be. If the business outcome saves $2 million, for example, they will take 30, 20% — or whatever percentage they agree upon. And maybe, for them, the upfront cost is half a million, maybe they will earn more. They are saying, because we are taking the risk along with the customer, and we agree that, for example, the DSO days or the automation —

[25:06] Sana Asher:
Maybe they earn more. Exactly.

[25:28] Krishna Hari:
When I say the automation — the FTE — maybe with 50% of the FTE you can achieve the same thing. Instead of 10 people, 5 people, you can still achieve. You are automating a lot of process. This whole exercise, the company overall is saving $2 million, so we will take 20% or 40%, or whatever it is they agree upon.

[25:39] Sana Asher:
And at that point, the client will also give them that money, Hari, because they’ve proven it. They’ve shown them exactly that they can do it. So they won’t hesitate to pay them that 20%. Interesting. Wow.

[25:54] Krishna Hari:
Yeah. We are currently talking through a couple of deals like that. I’m still — because I haven’t gone through the whole process — but the contract needs to be tight. The whole sales cycle is a little bit lengthier because of that, because people have to agree.

[26:08] Sana Asher:
It’s a lengthier sales cycle, yes. And we’re doing exactly the same thing, Hari — a phase zero. That’s what we’re doing in our phase zero as well. It’s outcome-based. Everything is outcome-based.

[26:23] Krishna Hari:
So that’s a new change which is happening as we speak. Coming back to being a consulting organization, for the consultants — given your experience, how do they navigate the AI wave, in your perspective? What are the top three things people have to do?

[26:27] Sana Asher:
I think number one — they embrace it. That’s the first thing. Don’t resist it. There is no competition. Human intelligence is always going to be better, no matter what. So embrace it. Number two — look at AI on how you can automate what you are doing. For example, you’re writing code, you’re doing configuration — use AI to see how can that be better? Don’t look at it as, “Oh my God, this is competition.” And number three — be open to learning. One of the things I’m seeing with a lot of consultants is, if they’ve spent 10, 15, 18, 20 years, they just stop learning. And I personally believe the day you stop learning is the last day of your life. Because if you are going to stop learning, your mind is not open to capturing and understanding newer things. So be open to learning. There are better ways. People have come up with better ways. So keep learning. Those are the three things I would say to a consultant.

[27:46] Krishna Hari:
Yes, I totally am with you there. One of the things I’d like to add — in the AI world, the way I do it, I just play around with this. I give the same questions to two or three LLM models. I do Claude, I do ChatGPT — OpenAI — as well as Perplexity. Each LLM has certain strengths and weaknesses. It’s amazing to see the different results, and slowly you will understand that there are certain LLMs good in certain areas. Again, as that comes to your third point — be open to try new things every day.

[28:10] Sana Asher:
Yes, absolutely. And that’s where the innovation comes in, right, Hari? That’s exactly where the innovation piece comes in. If you’re open, you’ll stumble upon something that you didn’t even know before.

[28:40] Krishna Hari:
Absolutely. The other one — what do you see in the market, especially the skill gap in the SAP area? Where are the challenges? If you are a CIO, where are the challenges, if any?

[28:52] Sana Asher:
I think there’s a pretty, pretty big skill-gap challenge, in my opinion. And it’s coming in a couple of ways. Number one, we are going to have more than 50% of the workforce retire in the next 10 years. This is the workforce that has done 4.7, ECC, has done these transformations. So you are definitely going to lose a very large brain within the SAP ecosystem. The next wave of people coming in — they’ve not done transformations. They have no idea how to handle a transformation. So they need to learn, really step up, and understand how to do a transformation. The ECC folks working on ECC today — some of them have gotten very comfortable and don’t want to learn. “I’ve spent 20-plus years, I’m not going to learn.” You know what? Forget about waiting the next 10 years — you’ll be done in the next two years if you don’t step up, and if you don’t learn and pivot what is needed. So your experience is going to become your liability if you don’t pivot, and if you’re not open to learning. And thirdly — everybody thinks they’re very cocky. “We’ll figure it out.” No, you won’t. Unfortunately, the change is so massive. By the time we figure out this change, the next three changes are already happening. So please get onto that bandwagon, and start learning ASAP. That is a huge skill gap that I’m seeing.

[30:38] Krishna Hari:
No, I agree. The younger generation now has some advantage there. I have seen this in my own organization. People who have been there for a long time — their energy to change and do things quicker is really hard. I literally tell them, “Hey, gear up. This is not the time to even think. You’ll be sucked away.” The younger generation coming in is doing stuff three or four times better than you guys.

[31:00] Sana Asher:
Correct. You’ll be extinct like a dinosaur.

[31:13] Krishna Hari:
That’s a very hard message, but it’s very interesting. Yesterday I met a person who is a very senior-level person in Oracle consulting. He was saying a very interesting thing. His customers came back and told him — he says, “I do have my own team, and I’ve been asking them to look at AI, vibe coding, and bring efficiency.” He said, “On Friday, in my meeting with one of my customers, it hit hard that all these things I was telling — they started saying, ‘Guys, what is your organization doing to bring AI efficiency within yourself?'” And the question there is — he was saying, “I didn’t realize. We were still heads-down doing the projects that are going on. And I was questioned, ‘Why is it taking two weeks? We need to deliver such things in hours.'”

[32:01] Sana Asher:
Wow. Such a wake-up call, isn’t it, Hari? Such a wake-up call.

[32:14] Krishna Hari:
He literally said, “Man, it hit me hard, because I’ve been telling my team to get on the bandwagon and try stuff so that we will be ahead.” He was thinking that when this came directly from the customer, it was hard. So he was saying, “I think I may lose this customer if I don’t get up.”

[32:24] Sana Asher:
That’s crazy. Wow. Absolutely — because, see, customers, to your point, are also pretty savvy. CIOs and CFOs and CEOs know exactly what’s going on in the market. It’s changing to an outcome-based pricing model. So why am I going to pay you for the same service if I can get somebody else who’s going to give me a better service? Agreed.

[32:56] Krishna Hari:
Yeah. So coming back to our last question — I wanted to have your thoughts on two things. One is your assessment, and the other one is about your book. The book, honestly, I read three or four chapters, and after that I got diverted. But definitely, the take-home messages — you’ve brought in a lot of experience. The book speaks of your experience, what you have gone through, what a typical mindset of a CIO or enterprise organization is in going through this whole journey, and asking the tough questions, standing up and saying the right thing, even if it may not favor your side. I really appreciate that. Everyone should go through that — even if they take three or four messages from that, it will be very useful. So why don’t you go ahead and summarize the book, if it’s possible?

[33:40] Sana Asher:
Absolutely. So first of all, thank you for buying it and reading it. Hopefully one of these days, when you and I meet, I will absolutely autograph it for you as well. The message that I want everyone to take away is, like I said: transformations change you, good or bad. And it’s up to you how you work through those transformations. Not everything is going to be exactly as per project plan. Not everything is going to be exactly how you want it to be. But you have to have the ability to stand up and agree, and see where you are currently at, and pivot. We are not trees — we are humans. We can pivot at any point. But unfortunately, we put such rigid lines around us that we just feel like, “If I do this, I’m going to get judged.” So I have written that book through the human lens — of what happens to people as they go through transformation. The message definitely is: you will lose people along the way. You will lose a good team, you will find good people. But at the end of the day, if you’re committed to the cause, you continue and you keep moving as you keep changing. On the assessment — one of the things I saw continuously, over and over again — especially from 4.7 to ECC, ECC to S/4 — is all these clients getting into these transformations did not even have a handle on their current landscape. Forget about where they’re going to go. If you were to ask them, “Okay, you want to move to S/4 — what’s your current SAP landscape look like?” “I don’t know. I have the SAP readiness report.” I’m like, “Okay, but the readiness report only talks about Basis. What about your licensing, your custom code, your data, your integrations?” “No idea.” So I came up with this assessment tool — a digital platform where I go through 12 domains within the SAP landscape: your SAP licenses, your custom code, your integrations, your data, your strategy, your solutions, your cloud, your infrastructure — and also gives you a high-level dollar value on what a transformation should look like. So should it be brownfield? Greenfield? Bluefield? And what kind of dollars are you looking at? So I have taken the attempt to get the oblivious out — “I don’t even know what I don’t know.” Now this is from your system. It’s coming to you from what you already own. So in four weeks, you have all of this in your hands, you planned it. And now when you start your journey, you know exactly where you are starting.

[37:09] Krishna Hari:
Absolutely. Is there a way you can automate this to a version that will even — these are all a lot of questions which are even outside the system as well.

[37:22] Sana Asher:
Right. We’ve automated quite a bit of it, Hari, honestly. But these are the basic questions. What we are doing is trying to get a platform to understand and train as the questions start coming in, so we’d be able to preempt and say, “Hey, look, this is what we’ve seen in companies who have these kinds of answers. This is where you go.” And the next piece I want to build on top of this assessment is completely automating the entire transformation journey — right from your business process all the way down to your configuration. So that’s the goal. Let’s see where we go. I need to sell enough of this first.

[37:59] Krishna Hari:
No, definitely. I will try to see — a couple of people whom I know — I think if it works, it works.

[38:03] Sana Asher:
Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s a lot of value. And it’s not insanely priced. It’s priced very well. So it really matters. Perfect.

[38:16] Krishna Hari:
Sana, this has been an extraordinary conversation between us. I really enjoyed every minute of this recording. I just wanted to summarize whatever we talked about. At a high level, we had a good conversation about AI, the skill gap, about your book, as well as the assessment. Definitely it was a great journey for you as well, to come up with such a thing. And Sana, do you have any final words, final thoughts to the audience?

[38:41] Sana Asher:
Absolutely. So first of all, again, thank you. I’m so grateful that you reached out and I’m here. So I appreciate the opportunity. And to everybody tuning in — whether you are connected to the SAP ecosystem as a client, as a partner, as a consultant — this is one of the most thriving ecosystems all of us are in. I’ve been here for three-plus decades. I don’t see it running out anytime soon. What I want to leave you with is: be human, be empathetic. In the AI age, don’t forget that you are a human first. And lead your transformations with grace and grit and a lot of gravity. And I wish you guys all the best.

[39:31] Krishna Hari:
Thank you. Thank you very much. So nice of you. To the viewers — if you want to follow Sana and tap into the depth of content she shares, find her on LinkedIn. And if you want to learn more about Integrity Resource Management, Concept Vines, or Masterclass with SAP, those links will be there in the show notes as well. And for our listeners — if this conversation sparked any interest, any questions, feel free to comment on the LinkedIn page. Thank you very much.

[40:02] Sana Asher:
Thank you. Take care.