SAP set for vital KPI announcement

SAP had faced a customer revolt over its Enterprise Support package

Enterprise resource planning giant SAP is set to announce next month whether it has met a set of self-imposed targets which could give the green light to wide scale price increases for customers.

SAP had come in for strong criticism after forcing customers to migrate from standard support offerings to a one-size-fits-all Enterprise Support package, for which many would be paying for services they would not need.

The German company then agreed in April to set up key performance indicators (KPIs) jointly agreed by the SAP User Group Executive Network to monitor SAP Enterprise Support. If the KPIs are not met, the package will be halted.

SAP UK & Ireland User Group chairman Alan Bowling said at the annual SAP User Group conference today that he expects the company to announce next month whether the firm has met these targets.

"It's been hard work, but it's been groundbreaking stuff. SAP is the only software group I am aware of trying to do something like this, linking price to value," he said.

Bowling also encouraged SAP users to upgrade to the latest release of their current products in order to take advantage of new technology enhancements which will allow future upgrades to be applied as easily as a patch update.

He added that the UK has a problem in "not keeping up with the curve in the rest of the world" when it comes to being on the most up-to-date software.

"In a recent survey, 92 per cent of users said they wished that all software was designed this way," Bowling said. "One big thing we've been working on is to get those who've upgraded to share the benefits with others."