Forward Together

People are Our Priority

I’ve learned that the most important aspect of a business is its people. Our customers. Our workforce. Our partners. People are our purpose. 

A phrase one of my mentors used repeatedly was “focus on people and the results will follow. Many have heard this expression before. But as today’s situation deepens financial pressures and cost-cutting measures rise, this can appear to be a tough mantra to follow.

Hard as it may, our current reality makes it all the more urgent now, than ever, that we translate these words into action.

The Need to Lead Better: Translating Words Into Actions

The past few months have plunged economies, societies, and communities around the world into a period of profound change. 

Being a leader in a technology company that handles 70% of the world’s transactions, we impact a vast number of lives around the world. This means that we have a responsibility and privilege to lead better, with purpose, and with clear direction—whether it’s to our people, customers, or partners. 

Here are some examples of what we’ve been trying to do:

Our People: Inspiration is Exponential 

We need to keep our teams inspired and motivated even though it’s hard to physically reach them in a Work-From-Home (WFH) environment. The silver lining is, WFH offers us new opportunities to not only inspire our teams but also let ourselves be inspired by our teams. These new opportunities include an increased focus on training our people, helping them to improve their knowledge base, and providing them access to a greater network of leaders in our organization, who without the current challenges, would otherwise be undertaking extremely busy travel schedules. 

The creativity our teams have come up with across South East Asia to ease the burden of lockdown measures has continued to inspire me. Virtual happy hours, coffee corners, Open Doors Sessions all came with an element of fun, whether it be a theme, introduction of a special guest, or a costume competition. These activities were largely driven at the individual, team, and country levels giving me hope that when these measures begin to ease, we will take this period of time as an inspiration and learning into how to truly tap into every part of the organization to engage and empower teams. 

I personally had the opportunity to run a completely virtual quarterly All-Hands meeting focused around a Netflix theme with satirical movie titles to match; think ‘Crazy Rich [South East] Asian’s’. ‘Home Alone [COVID] and The [COVID] Avengers. This turned out to be equal measure entertainment and motivational for all of us. The team felt special due to the thought and effort that went into the activity. Our team also experienced first-hand how we can use the same “informative entertainment” with our customers and partners to achieve better outcomes, a learning we’ll put into practice a few short months with our upcoming virtual customer event ‘Forward’. 

We’ve also leveraged technology to drive a more inclusive environment, for the first time providing ever greater access to social activities, including parenting support, UFIT, and Yoga virtually. This new normal has allowed us to question old ways of working and re-evaluate the ways in which we can provide a greater sense of inclusion and most importantly, fun into the workday.

Our Customers: Forward Together, More Meaningfully

We need to support our customers through the crisis lockdown period and more so beyond that.

During this time where face-to-face meetings have been replaced by conference and video calls, one upside for me is connecting in new, more personal ways with some of our customers. For instance, instead of navigating complex travel schedules, it has become easier for customers and I to coordinate for time allowing us to connect more frequently. Many of us also feel more open to sharing the personal aspects of COVID-19 which has given me the opportunity to better understand and create more meaningful relationships with them.

But to help customers build resilience into their businesses beyond COVID-19, we need to take a smarter and more sustained approach to understanding them. People respond to crises in various ways, so we need insight into this broad spectrum of how our customers think and feel, to better support them. Rather than do so sporadically or at a point in time, it’s important to do it in a regular manner.  to continually track post-COVID-19 effects. 

In that regard, we have been using Customer Brand Pulse surveys to discover insights about our customers’ sentiments and experiences. We’ve also put them in the driver’s seat giving them access to this sentiment for their own teams through our free offering of the Qualtrics Remote Pulse Survey. The Qualtrics Remote Pulse is a solution we stand by in our own business and have actively been using it ourselves since the start of the COVID period to provide insight into key trends.  Most importantly, the feedback we’ve received through each pulse has enabled us to make rapid incremental changes to the way our employees experience this ‘new normal’ and provide the right level of support for them to continue to deliver outstanding customer experiences in a remote environment. 

Our Partners: Partnering for Change

We need to harness the power of our business ecosystems to drive future growth and change—which is more powerful than working in isolation. This has always been our philosophy. By working together, we tap on the collective capabilities of our ecosystem. We also leverage one another’s understanding of local customers and environments to deliver greater impact. 

To that end, we worked with EY to facilitate medical supplies to hospitals across Malaysia through a customer experience solution aimed at optimizing logistical support and response. The solution—delivered via the Disaster Response Network (GDRN)—includes tools to help governments pre-screen and route potential COVID-19 patients, support healthcare workers, and manage the flow of information and resources to their citizens.

A partner ecosystem often provides the last mile of success. In today’s environment, we need every advantage to succeed, so this is critical.

Tackling What Lies Ahead, Together

As technology leaders, we need to lean in. 

When we do, our organizations, as well as those of our customers and partners will gain the agility and resilience to sustain through these challenging times. This will support incomes and jobs for our people—to secure individual livelihoods so people can safeguard their communities.

After being privileged to work around the world, I realize universal one truth: People are people. If you can understand people's goals and dreams, you’ll know what their needs are. And that’s what we should focus on. 

SAP is a purpose-driven company with a clear mission of “helping the world run better and improving people’s lives.” This mission statement resonates with me even more clearly today. I’m proud of what we’re doing to support and work to mitigate the effects of this crisis, and to enable customer and community success. 

It’s not easy. But I know as long as we keep that focus and keep moving forward, we’ll tackle this together.