Do people who work for SAP use SCN to collaborate internally or do they use another platform?

[Former Member]

Hi - I've been reading about the SCN as an example of brilliant collaboration - but wondered, is it used by internal teams at SAP as well as external folk?

And also, does anybody know how many people use SCN?

I'm trying to find an example to inspire how platforms like this can create collaboration in organisations - internally and externally.

Thank you!

[agentry_src · Accepted solution]

There are an awful lot of SAP folks who use internal JAM Groups who could just as easily work within the context of SCN.  However, the trend has been growing where more SAP employees are finding faster responses from the larger pool of knowledge available in SCN rather than waiting for internal experts to respond. 

Support has also been much more visible in the communities as well.  The idea being that if they can address problems or questions in SCN, then they will have fewer that show up in CSS.  The jury is still out on how successful it is in reducing tickets.  I believe that for each they address here, there are two tickets which will not have been opened, one from the OP and one from someone else who saw the answer posted in the Discussion.  But I only have my observations to base that on and don't really have a dataset which supports my somewhat biased opinion.

Cheers, Mike (Moderator)

SAP Technology RIG

[Former Member]

Thank you all for your replies. To give a broader explanation:

I work for a capability consultancy called Brand Learning which specializes in lifting the performance of marketing, sales and HR teams.

At the time I was doing research into what drives growth in organisations - and collaboration was a key theme. Margaret Heffernan, in her TED talk referred to this SAP network as an example of helpfulness and collaboration - and so I was curious and wanted to verify how it worked before deciding whether to cite it as an example. You can find out more about the research - it is called The Growth Drivers Study on www.brandlearning.com.

It sounds like this is a broader support and collaboration tool for the SAP community than for inside the company - although employees are part of that community. And it is a great example of that if I'm reading your responses correctly. In our own company we use Yammer for internal communication and support in a similar way, but haven't extended that to customers.

I'm still looking for great examples of how companies involve their employees in shaping direction and solutions so thank you for continuing to respond. Although do not feel obliged, naturally.

[Steffi_Warnecke]

@Colleen & Lars:

I'm not so sure, you'll get an answer:

Regards,

Steffi.

[Colleen]

I just noticed the date of the post. It hit the activity stream which is where I picked it up. Either someone replied or a Moderation Alert was cleared on it

Oh well

[Steffi_Warnecke]

Yep, Yang replied first today.

I just wanted to point out the age of the thread, before more people jump in.

IMO is the information helpful either way. Not for the OP, but others who might have the same question. So all is good.

[lbreddemann]

Just like Colleen I'm curious: who are you and why do you want to know about SAP internal communication models?

[Colleen]

Hi Hayley

I'm not an SAP employee but I do observe SAP members actively participating in SCN to the point that I'm certain they do it outside of work hours/voluntarily. SAP employees have an icon on their account to identify them (though position/area of business is not included). There are a lot of employees who also moderator the spaces, mange the spaces (and obviously the site is hosted by SAP).

In addition to Support teams, I do see Product Owners write material (blogs and documents) to share with the wider community.

I guess part of this would come down to the audience - if its between SAP only (internal to internal) then I would assume that it's a JAM or other private area for them to discuss. If it's a mechanism to reach out to externals (customers, independents and partners) then SCN would be a key platform.

Out of curiosity, what is this research for?

Regards

Colleen

[yang_bai]

Hi Hayley,

I'm working at SAP as a Product Support Engineer

I can confirm that we have a large number of collegaues using SCN, to communicate with others, to resolve questions, to share knowledge etc.

Of course we have other platforms, but SCN is a very important, active forum, and the coverage is really wide. You can find many experts here, some of them are from SAP, maybe from product support, development support or other business lines.

Best regards,

Yang