Partner Strategy

Driving Customer
Success at Scale
© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.
Executive Summary
Our ecosystem partners are critical to the success of our customers. With over 21,000 partners
worldwide, a majority of SAP implementations and an increasing number of sales deals are driven
by our partners.

Customer Success – defined as successful adoption of mutually beneficial collaboration between the SAP
SAP solutions leading to the realization of expected Customer Success teams and our partner ecosystem.
business value – requires proactively orchestrating the
customer journey end-to-end; SAP and partners jointly Our partners are facing a monumental challenge like many
showing up as “one” with coordination across solutions, of our customers and SAP, we need to embrace a
clear roles, responsibilities, and handovers. Only with a customer-centric culture that is centered on making
unified approach can we expect to reach our ambition to customers successful. We have to transform together.
drive world-class customer experience and business We want our ecosystem to partner with us in delivering
outcomes. customer success, aligning our engagement models to
deliver a unified experience. Addressing this opportunity
Since the beginning of our Customer First journey, we is the next step in our customer success journey. By
have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from collaborating on customer success, we expect our
customers and analysts as well as growing interest from partners to experience significant improvement on
our partners. Customer First has made a tremendous customer trust, advocacy, higher revenue potential for
impact on our customers’ experience. While we are very services, and new commercial opportunities.
proud of its early impact, it is also a reminder that there is
more to be accomplished. Based on market research, success stories, and customer
feedback, this document provides the foundation to scale
To capitalize on this momentum, we must stay laser customers success and expand our global reach with Sell
focused on the journey ahead. The next evolution of and Service partners.
customer success for SAP requires a strong and

“ Customers don’t come to SAP to buy technology…

they come to buy outcomes and value.

The only way to deliver on the promise of customer

experience… is to lead with a Customer First mindset.

Adaire Fox-Martin
”

© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

4 Our Vision

5 SAP Partner Ecosystem Map

7 The Value of Our Success Partnership

9 Collaboration with Success Partners

11 Changing Expectations
– New Experience Challenges

13 Building the Best Partner Experience

15 Success Strategy for Sell Partners

16 Success Strategy for Service Partners

17 Forward Together, Partners of the

Future

© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

Our Vision
We drive world-class customer experience and business outcomes.
In order to achieve scale, we strive to create a strong customer success
collaboration with our partners to orchestrate and deliver sustainable
customer value. All our partners need to invest in and build their customer
success practices to become a partner in ensuring customers’ success.

Partners Need to be Embedded for an Orchestrated

Customer Experience
At SAP, Customer Success teams are accountable for the Our partner ecosystem touches almost every SAP
adoption and consumption of SAP solutions. We enable our customer. Partners play a key role driving customer
customers to innovate and realize value by accelerating the success, from the moment customers identify needs,
adoption of SAP solutions to optimize and transform their to the successful adoption of a solution. For decades
business. SAP puts the customer first in everything we do to partners and SAP have worked together to deliver the
become a trusted innovation partner. Our customers best experience to our customers, supporting their
benefit from a proactive and end-to-end engagement transformational needs through SAP’s solutions. We
experience, one focused on their success in a holistic and recognize the changes in customer expectations and
structured way. We will increase the speed of deploying new needs have evolved in recent years. As the shift to a
capabilities and lower the risk of not realizing ROI. Customer First culture changes the customer experience,
Prescriptive adoption plans collaboratively developed with we have to embrace a new collaboration model to improve
the customer will help to lower the overall cost and how partners and SAP deliver customer success together.
decrease time to business value.

One Customer Orchestrated Engaged Loyal Customer

Success Strategy Execution Customer Lifetime Value
1 2 3

Partner ecosystem Empowered partner World-class customer

& SAP aligned on & SAP teams drive experience & business
customer success success & value outcomes achieved lead + Partner
& Customer First mindset realization together to happy customers

© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Page 4

Customer Success Relationship Management
SAP customers across all segments, regions, and industries desire dedicated support to meet their business goals using
SAP solutions. The ecosystem allows customers to get that support via partners that resell SAP solutions and partners
that provide consulting services. It is crucial to support and continue to nurture the customer relationship throughout the
entire lifecycle.
At SAP, customer success relationship management is divided into two key motions in our customer and partner
engagement, determined by our Go-to-Market:
§ Partner-managed: The partner manages and nurtures the customer relationship throughout the customer lifecycle.
The SAP partner has the overall responsibility to drive customer success.
§ SAP-managed: SAP manages and nurtures the customer relationship throughout the customer lifecycle. SAP has the
overall responsibility to drive all customer success where partners can play a key role in delivery and adoption in
collaboration with SAP.

81%
of B2B business buyers say that the experience a company
provides is as important as its products and services
Gartner

SAP Partner Ecosystem Map

Supporting SAP’s customers is a complex ecosystem of partners serving varying customer needs,
helping customers run at their best and achieve their vision. Our partners support customers
throughout the entire customer lifecycle to meet their desired outcomes. Today, Sell and Service
partners have the most immediate influence in customer success from the SAP partner ecosystem
and they play an essential role in creating an exceptional customer experience.

© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Page 5

SAP classifies partners in five types: Sell, Service, Build, Run and Hyperscalers.

Sell Service Build Run Hyperscalers

(Value Added (System (Solution (Partner Partner provides
Resellers) Integrators + Extensions + Managed infrastructure as
Partner sells, Global Strategic Independent Cloud + Global a service (IaaS)
implements, Software Partners) Software Technology
and supports Partner provides Vendors) Partners)
SAP solutions business consulting Partner develops Partner runs
(design, implement, and monetizes private cloud and
integrate) to packaged business process
customers of applications outsourcing
SAP solutions

Greater Customer Success Coverage: Focus on Sell and Service Partners

Today, customer success is more than retention and

renewals. It is about delivering the promise of our The importance of SAP’s
technology to achieve the customer’s desired business ecosystem for adoption
outcomes. Customer success is critical for business growth
and consumption
and has been elevated to a core strategy of cloud
companies. Our aim is to scale customer success through
consistent value delivery and to extend our reach across the
globe using all channels. Our partners enable us to cover the
full breadth of all customer segments and SAP and partners
must be aligned on how to ensure ongoing customer
of all customer
90%
success.
implementations
By embedding partners in our customer success strategy, are partner-led
we envision impactful change for both Partner-managed and
SAP-managed customers. It begins with two partner types,
Sell and Service partners that have a significant influence on
account management, implementation, solution adoption,
and ultimately business outcomes.

In 2020, Sell partners managed more than €500 million

Annual Contract Value (ACV), accounting for a significant
portion of total SAP revenue. of all sales are
driven by partners
Similarly, Service partners influence the purchasing
decisions, implementation, and adoption of SAP solutions
20% who then are also
responsible for
across lines of business at most SAP-managed customers. adoption and
success
A close partnership, collaboration, support, and enablement
between SAP and our Sell and Service partners is essential
to enabling customer success.

© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Page 6

The Value of Our Success Partnership
With our partnership and shared accountability, SAP Customer Success and the partner ecosystem
builds customer advocacy not only for SAP but for partners as well.

Customer Value

Partner Ecosystem Benefits

§ Customer success alignment significantly improves customer trust and advocacy,
and drives higher revenue potential for services and new commercial opportunities
§ Enhanced engagement with Sell Partners through new enablement, customer success
support and data and tools
§ Defined customer success collaboration at SAP-managed customers ensures an aligned
strategy to jointly drive success and value realization

Customer Benefits
§ Increased satisfaction in the across the end-to-end SAP experience
§ Realization of business outcomes from SAP solutions through a strong collaboration from
partners and SAP
§ Orchestrated approach to address top issues, adoption strategy, and continuous innovation

SAP Benefits
§ Improvement in customer advocacy, adoption, and customer lifetime value
§ Enable customer business value through the partner ecosystem
§ Deliver customer success at scale for all customers to ensure a harmonized customer experience
§ Proactive joint mitigation of at-risk customers between SAP and the partner

© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Page 7

The Value of Our Success Partnership
A strategy and culture centered around customer success is leading some of SAP’s most successful
partners to higher revenue, customer references, and business growth. A customer success culture
is facilitated by setting strategic objectives and KPIs around customer success, investing in the entire
customer lifecycle engagement, customer success resources, and inspiring a mindset shift in pursuit
of advocacy. VistaVu, a North American Sell partner, embarked on a transformation to embed
customer success as part of their culture and organization:

Culture Organization KPIs & Data

§ Fully embraced § Reinvented its delivery § Adopted Customer

the customer organization into two Success data like Net
success mindset by units: Net New and Promoter Score
implementing their Customer Success
§ Leverage customer
“Create Raving Fans”
§ CEE (Customer success data to
initiative
Engagement develop initiatives to
§ Shifted from traditional Executive) role was achieve and exceed
sales to focus on net created customer expectations
new customers and
§ Dedicated customer
nurturing existing
teams define business
customer
objectives with the
customer

Today, VistaVu’s reoccurring revenue comprises of 50% of total business revenue as a

result of adopting a “Create Raving Fans” customer initiative.

© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Page 8

Collaboration with Success Partners
It is imperative that SAP supports our partners in all aspects relating to
successful project delivery.
The Partner Delivery Quality Framework supports partners across three pressing business areas
that are crucial to high-quality implementations, helping our partners operate at the highest level
possible. Customer and partner success go hand-in-hand. This new approach delivers the tools
partners need to enhance project quality, build capacity, and safeguard the delivery of partner-led
customer projects. The goal is to help partners deliver valuable outcomes to customers beyond the
go-live and help ensure customer success.
The Partner Delivery Quality Framework consists of three key pillars:

Post-Sales
Partner
Management

Partner Delivery
Project Partner
Quality Framework
Delivery Services
Quality Quality

Post-Sales Partner Project Delivery Quality: Partner Services Quality:

Management:
The level at which the partner The standards by which the
Supports the partner in executes a project. Measured at partner organization operates
activities spanning across an individual project level § Continuous enablement plan
Partner Services Quality and
§ Execution of project health in place
Project Delivery Quality:
reviews § Workforce is certified
§ Standardized, holistic
§ Consultants involved in and stays current
approach for partner delivery
the project with minimum § Capacity reviews
management across all LoBs
experienced and up-to-date conducted by partner
§ New Partner Delivery certifications
Manager (PDM) role for § Engagement in the
§ Customer feedback process LoB community
dedicated partner post-sale
support and relationship § Commitment to SAP guidelines
on support including
safeguarding measures to
ensure project success

© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Page 9

Collaboration with Success Partners
World-class customer success will only become a reality if SAP and our partner ecosystem are in complete
alignment. But for our partners it often seems complicated to classify the different customer success roles and
responsibilities. While we have made significant progress in our customer success transformation, there is still work
to be done, including strengthening partner alignment.

Successful customer engagements provide strategic guidance to customers through a continuous lifecycle that
begins even before the purchase of SAP solutions. The engagement should progress to targeted consumption,
resulting in value realization. We separate two key motions in our customer and partner engagement.

Customer Success Roles Customer Success Roles

Supporting Partner-Managed Supporting SAP-Managed
Customers Customers

The partner manages and nurtures the At SAP-managed customers, we face

customer relationship to drive value complex partner engagements that help
realization and solution adoption. To support the customer achieve their desired business
partners in managing the customer outcomes. For 90% of all SAP-managed
relationship, SAP has introduced the role of customers, one or more SAP partners
the Partner Delivery Manager (PDM). The will lead specific workstreams of an SAP
PDM plays a crucial role in facilitating the implementation. This dynamic scenario
successful deployment of the Intelligent requires close collaboration with the
Enterprise to our customers through the partners to ensure a unified front across all
SAP partner ecosystem. In addition to the customer success activities. For SAP-
PDM role, SAP will pilot the Partner Hub managed customers, SAP deploys three
(see page 16) to provide support to the key customer success resources: Customer
partner ecosystem and introduce the Partner Engagement Executive, Customer Success
Success Executive. The Partner Hub aims to Manager (Preferred Success), and
provide the guidance, support and the data Customer Success Executive. In addition to
needed to deliver customer success services. these roles, the Partner Delivery Manager
(PDM) plays a key role supporting partners
for SAP-managed customers.

© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Page 10

Changing Expectations
New Experience Challenges

A collaboration framework and a well-defined customer success approach

are necessary to deliver a harmonized experience to all customers.
Our goal is to identify the transformation needs of SAP partners as they continue to adopt a customer-centric
mindset. To provide the SAP and customer point of view, a series of interviews of customers and the SAP Customer
Success leadership team were conducted. The overall feedback uncovered perceived partner experience gaps. The
results amplified the need to enhance the collaboration with our partners to deliver a great customer experience
through customer success services.

The following table summarizes the perceived partner experience gaps from customers and SAP Customer
Success leadership:

Governance Enablement Collaboration

“There is an opportunity to “SAP needs to support the “SAP and partners need a
Sentiment

improve the coordination partner ecosystem in the well defined and strategic
with the partner ecosystem” enablement of the solution collaboration to achieve
innovation and delivery customers’ business
quality.” outcomes”

Shared Customer Success Partner Enablement Shared Customer Success

Desired State

Governance Approach Journey Collaboration Service

Defining clear guidelines Continuous partner Consistent processes for
regarding onboarding, enablement on the latest Customer Success functions
implementation, solution innovations to to collaborate with partners.
adoption, and renewal, and safeguard go-lives, adoption,
ensuring they are followed. and renewal.

Training Adoption
Top Partner Expectations & Enablement Information Technology
Based on research from TSIA, partners have five
expectation areas from vendors like SAP to meet their
current challenges. These expectations are amplified with
the change in the cloud subscription model.3

Rules of CS Resource
Engagement Investment

© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Page 11 3 TSIA The Era of Partner Success: Driving the Journey
Changing Expectations
New Experience Challenges

We expect our partners to add value and help customers achieve business outcomes by
delivering highly tailored solutions and by engaging in end-to-end IT management, from vendor
selection through post-deployment.
SAP expects its partners to have deeper penetration into customers’ organizations by engaging line of business
(LoB) executives. It is crucial to develop a better understanding of strategic priorities for each LoB and the
customer’s dimensions of success.

SAP must play a key role in helping our partners navigate this transformation. Our Customer Success organization is
positioned to help our partners through the transformation to a customer-centric approach. While the XaaS model
presents significant opportunities for our partners, we realize that this change introduces new challenges.

A customer-centric approach requires fully understanding customers’ business challenges and desired outcomes.
Examples like VistaVu show the value of investment in customer success. However, we recognize the financial commitment
needed to build customer success teams can be out of reach for parts of the SAP partner ecosystem.

Partners Challenges Forward Together

1. Develop a customer-centric mindset; move Engage channel partners throughout customers’ IT-
from transactional to relationship-based buying and implementation journey; find talent and
decisions expertise, emphasize data, and develop analytics
competencies
2. Address the increased role of LoB executives in Promote the impact of focusing on achieving business
making technology buying decisions outcomes for LoB executives
(Emergence of end-users as key IT influencers)
3. Tackle new competitive threats driven by Expand the channel’s opportunity by broadening the
changing market dynamics portfolio of services; identify specific geographic and
customer market segments to determine targeted go-to-
market approach
4. Acquire specialized talent and expertise to Design targeted programs; create a common platform or
develop custom solutions framework
5. Manage short-term financial impacts, including Enable channel partners to transform in a phased
increased difficulty in making investments for manner; develop new pricing and billing capabilities
business growth 4

To achieve our goal of delivering a world-class customer experience and scale customer success via the partner
ecosystem, SAP must help our partners to address the emerging XaaS challenges. To develop a strategy that will deliver
customer success to all, we have learned from other technology vendors and market leaders on how they have enabled
their partner ecosystem to embrace customer success and shift to a customer-first mindset.

4 Deloitte Insights How Technology OEMs Can

© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Page 12 Guide Channel Partners Into XaaS (2019)
Building the Best Partner Experience
We have embarked on a transformational shift in how we engage with and care
for our customers, in collaboration with our partners.
Leading customer success organizations adopt a customer first mindset across the end-to-end
customer journey and invest in capabilities, incentives, and tools to enable their organization as
well as their partners to deliver customer success.

Enablement
Deploy business outcome
best practice standards
§ Customer success
teams through
Journey Frameworks

§ Partners/ Partner
Success Manager
through customer
Success Metrics success toolboxes
Provide clear guidance on how Education
to measure and track KPIs Share responsibilities for
§ Customer measures (improved customer positive customer outcomes
experience, predictable outcomes) § Guided learning paths (learning and
adoption content, online webinars)
§ Company measures (Net Promoter Score,
adoption and other measures) § Success certification programs
§ Predictive models to predict customer (Partner Engagement Executive)
churn and retention § Success communities and forums

Scale Data & Analytics Tools

Centralize / operationalize processes and Provide a common toolset and a
documentation on customer interactions 360-degree view of the customer journey
§ Journey mapping, success plans. and customer § Customer success platforms
success playbooks and partner portals

§ Scaling through automation § Customer Health Scores

and digital engagement § Consumption monitoring
§ Introduction of Partner Success Manager role § Customer experience analytics

© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Page 13

Building the Best Partner Experience
Ways to Reduce Churn
Implementation Improvement
§ Track Sell partner implementation performance and provide support if implementation issues occur
§ Monitor individual implementations and proactively switch between customer and Sell partners when
better combinations are suitable

Opportunity Qualification
§ Align financial incentives for renewals
§ Identify repeat offenders and discuss a plan to increase retention

Enhanced Satisfaction with Product Feature

§ Standardize customer touchpoints to understand concerns with product features and offer additional training
to our partners
§ Track issues throughout customer touchpoints and use to inform and to improve the product development
roadmap
6
Opportunities for Scaling Customer Success
Delivering immediate results while building a long-term plan for customer success at scale is a challenge.
How can we effectively deliver success to many customers?

Measure customer engagement Leverage partners to

and adoption with analytics deliver customer outcomes

Low touch and digital Connect technology

customer success with customer outcomes

Invest in different types Uncover potential upsell

of technology and trends and cross-sell opportunities5

5 TSIA, How to scale customer success, 2019

© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Page 14 6 Bain research & SAP analysis; Expert interviews
Success Strategy for Sell Partners
Partner Hub for Partner-Managed Customers
Sell Partners have the overall responsibility for all customer success topics for their customer. SAP must
help partners tackle the challenges of the XaaS business model regardless of the account type to deliver a
harmonized experience to all customers. In addition to the Partner Edge program, which supports partners along
their entire journey and is accessible to all partner types, SAP will pilot the Partner Hub in 2021 to provide the
needed support for Sell partners. The Partner Hub is a dedicated team and approach to enable and support
partner success teams. The Partner Hub will also introduce a new role, the Partner Success Executive, to provide
collaborative support. Ensuring customer success and ultimately commercial success for partner-managed
customer, this program will work in close collaboration with LOB experts and channel teams, ensuring customer
success and ultimately cloud commercial success.

Partner Customer
Customer
Business Growth Success at Scale
Lifetime Value

Harmonized Harmonized
Customer Success
Partner Customer
Experience Alignment Experience

Information
Cross-LoB Risk
Support and Processes Reduction

Enablement
Customer First Methodology | Customer Lifecycle Management | LoB Specific | Cloud Rules & Processes

Support
Expert Support | Commercial Support | Reference Management | Partner Success Executive

Tools & Data

Data & Dashboard | Analytics | Feedback

The Partner Hub addresses many of the challenges and expectations that our Sell partners face today. It gives SAP
the ability to scale customer success to reach all customers by enabling our Sell partners to deliver a harmonized
customer experience. Sell partners will be able to get the guidance, support, and the data needed to deliver customer
success services that make tremendous impact in customers’ business outcomes.

© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Page 15

Success Strategy for Service Partners
SAP-Managed Customer Success Framework for Partners
Partner-led implementations are the norm with SAP leading only 10% of all implementations. We depend on our Service
Partner Ecosystem to reach scale for all customer types and industries. Whether employing a high-touch or digital
approach, SAP assigns customer success resources to help customers derive value from the partnership with SAP and
achieve desired business outcomes.

The SAP-managed Customer Success Framework for Partners aims to establish a foundation for Service partners and SAP
customer success resources to deliver a better customer experience together for SAP-managed customers. Based on the
phases of the customer lifecycle, this framework describes the joint activities between the Service partner leading the
implementation and the customer success teams assigned to the account:

1 2 3
Consider & Select Implement Operate
1. SAP account team 1. Establish SAP Customer Success 1. Post go-live
enables partner on team/partner relationship and governance adoption strategy
SAP’s customer 2. Align on customer success strategy: define alignment
success strategy value realization KPIs, adoption strategy,
plan for joint customer success activities 2. Collaboration on
2. Service partner 3. SAP Customer Engagement Executive a joint customer
leverages the SAP- and the partner jointly deliver onboarding reference
managed Customer meeting to customer
Success Framework 4. SAP Customer Success team performs
for Partners to Enterprise Relationship Assessment
position SAP 5. SAP Customer Success team and partner
Customer First as jointly define Outcome Success Plan,
a pillar of the SAP defining ownership between SAP and
customer partner for customer success initiatives
experience 6. Partner and SAP quarterly alignment on the
implementation and customer success
7. SAP Customer Success team assists partner
with top issues after all support channels
have been exhausted
8. Pre go-live preparation and planning

This framework is a foundation to guide Service partners Customer Success Framework for Partners will be
and SAP customer success teams when establishing a an essential criteria for accountability and project
collaboration model that benefits both parties. The end goal transparency. The successful execution of the activities
is to improve customers’ experience with SAP by delivering outlined in this framework bySAP customer success
an aligned partner and SAP customer success strategy. It is resources and the leading partner will be closely tracked
also important to keep each other accountable throughout by the partner delivery quality program. We have made
the adoption of the framework at all SAP-managed incredible strides embracing a customer-centric culture
customers. The activities outlined in the framework are committed to redefining our customers’ experience with
imperative for the success of the customer. SAP is currently SAP. We have seen remarkable results, but the logical next
working on enhancing the delivery quality of partner-led step, is to fully embracing our service partners as part of
projects to build a best-in-class ecosystem. The SAP- the SAP customer success experience.
managed

© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Page 16

Forward Together, Partners of the Future
The future of customer success at SAP requires close cooperation between the SAP Customer
Success teams and our Partner Ecosystem, working and improving together to deliver a simple,
integrated customer engagement model which will drive these positive results:
§ Our customers will benefit from an end-to-end engagement experience, focused on delivering value and their
desired business outcomes.
§ Together with our Partner Ecosystem we will scale Customer Success and benefit from happy, loyal customers,
and higher revenue potential.

Today, we have a tremendous opportunity for SAP Customer Success and the Partner Ecosystem to provide a world-
class experience and deliver exceptional business outcomes for our customers. With the SAP-managed Customer
Success Framework for Partners and the Partner Hub, we aim to deliver a holistic integrated engagement model for
our Sell and Service Partners. Our partner strategy is the foundation for a strong and mutually beneficial
collaboration that will continue to deliver incredible results to our customers and partners.

“ Customer Success depends on “

We don’t expect our partners to
our Partners in 90% of the change over night, but we
cases. The partner delivery provide them with the strategy,
quality framework ensures a tools, and resources so they
high-quality ecosystem, leading can transform together with us
to increased customer – because the old way of doing
satisfaction and success. things simply is no longer

” ”
good enough.

Thomas Bamberger
Karl Fahrbach President
Chief Partner Officer SAP Customer Engagement
& Experience

© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Page 17

© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.