My research and findings about SAP communities

[Former Member]

Hi my name is Badr Bijjou, and I am a MBA student.

I am currently conducting research about SAP communities, this is an amazing time for the Enterprise and I’m having a fantastic time collecting data and interacting with people around this topic. If you are interested in what I have learned so far head over and take a look ( [www.bijjou.de|http://www.bijjou.de] ). If you want feel free to add your input as well, as I collect more and more data I plan to share my results, so others can learn from it as well – first I’ll have to finish my thesis though

Some of the more interesting things I’ve learned so far are from a small SAP community:

SAP community members share valuable information with others, even if they know that there might be competitors. This is quite interesting. Is the SAP community an area free from thoughts about competition?

as well as this little interesting bit of information,

SAP community members have high trust in the SAP brand and fun using it, an aspect which is in my opinion in contrast to the nature and complexity.

Any thoughts on either of those?

Cheers

Badr

[Former Member]

I took your survey, but am not sure what you mean by competitor in the sense of the SDN community.

Rob

[Former Member]

It is the regular case, that the most SAP community members are working for different companies.

These companies might have several intercorporate relationships e.g. some are partners, competitors, buyer -seller relationship etc. . (who knows)

We know that business processes are critical to corporate success, thats why SAP has a good business model :-). So there is a high need in the market for customized SAP solutions. The best solutions require good knowledge. Knowledge is shared in this community for free. Notice: There are some companies who might earn money, for knowledge / information waht you are sharing here.

Example: If you are an SAP consultant you might be interested to get a lot of orders from customers to design and implement a SAP solution. You competitive advantage and unique selling proposition / arguments towards the customer is your knowledge. In regular cases, there more SAP consultants out there. So you are in competition in the regular market (outside the community). But within the community you share your knowledge...

I hope could describe the intend behind...

Badr

[Former Member]

I completed the survey...Interesting...Also I take a look at the results...I'm a SAP die hard fan...So my results should help SAP to get better statistics -:)

BTW...Sure, we are in competition outside the community...But by helping other members, we also get more knowlegde, so it's good to help...

Greetings,

Blag.

[Former Member]

Well, I'm not sure I entirely agree. A lot of the competion seems to be from outsourcing firms who have hired completely unqualified people to turn out code. So we help them and if we do a good enough job the outsourcing firms grow and take over new jobs. Who knows? The next one may be...

Rob

[Former Member]

Rob:

Ok, you got a valid point...We learn, but also help lazy people to get their jobs done...

Greetings,

Blag.

[Former Member]

Well, that's true, but not really what I meant.

Maybe we're helping lazy people take our jobs.

Rob