11 SAP Executives to Follow on Twitter

[Pazahanick_Jarr]

There was an excellent interview with Brian Ellefritz and Jonathan Becher on SAP and Social Media at Sapphire Madrid, that contained a great quote by Jonathan “social media is the ultimate listening platform”. As a regular user of twitter over the past two years I can tell you first hand that SAP is really listening and it is extremely impressive how companywide they have embraced social media. The SAP leadership team deserves a lot of credit as they are leading by example and providing their insights, views, information and engaging with the community on a regular basis. This article outlines 11 SAP executives that are active (min 300 tweets) and have embraced social media that I would highly recommend that you follow.

Vishal Sikka – Vishal is the Chief Technology Officer at SAP and always has a keynote at the major conferences. A sample tweet is “@vijayasankarv thx sir. It takes massive personal toll. But our teams (hana+hotel_calif) & developer+customers' love make it all worthwhile.” You can follow him on twitter at vsikka

Jonathan Becher – Jonathan is the Chief Marketing Officer for SAP. A sample tweet is “SAPPHIRENOW and SAPTechEd in China was something truly historic. Largest IT conference in country. 50K people, incl 15K in-person.” Earlier this year an individual tweeted that he couldn’t get anyone to contact him regarding a piece of SAP software his company wanted to purchase and Jonathan not only noticed it but responded personally which show how closely SAP is listening. You can follow him on twitter at jbecher

Sanjay Poonen – Sanjay is the President and Corporate Officer, Global Solutions, SAP.  A sample tweet is “Did whirlwind visit to SAP Dublin Inside Sales & Dev Teams. The energy & strategic learning is fantastic, opportunity huge, keep WINNING in UKI!” You can follow him on twitter at spoonen

Sven Denecken – Sven is the Vice President of OnDemand at SAP. A sample tweet is “Good we do have this as a design priciple in SAPCareerOD SAPOnDemand http://lnkd.in/tsujVv.” You can follow him on twitter at SDenecken

Dawn Crew – Dawn is the Vice President of HR Solution Management at SAP. A sample tweet is “Why SAP HCM? Discover the value of selecting SAP HCM. Check out this new video to learn more. http://bit.ly/u3Ez5x.” You can follow her on twitter at dawncrew

Oliver Bussmann – Oliver is the Global CIO at SAP and very active with social media. A sample tweet is “We have 11,000 iPads out of 50,000 users at #SAP - more to come #sapchat.” You can follow him on twitter at sapcio

Steve Lucas – Steve is the Global General Manager and Senior Executive of SAP Business Analytics and Technology at SAP.  A sample tweet is “I am going to write a new blog post/article for Forbes and would like you all to choose the topic." You can follow him on twitter at nstevenlucas

Mark Yolton – Mark is the Senior Vice President of the SAP Community Network. A sample tweet is “Join the 100k club on SAP HANA and @vsikka will take your team to the real Hana (Hawaii)!" You can follow him on twitter at MarkYolton

Chip Rodgers – Chip is the Vice President and COO, SAP Community Network and Ecosystem Events at SAP. A sample tweet is “Love seeing SAP board member @vsikka do his own HANA demo at China Sapphirenow SAPTechEd Beijing.“ You can follow him on twitter at chiprodgers

Jeff Word – Jeff is a Vice President at SAP and heavily involved with HANA. A sample tweet is “Getting ready to amaze @sapmentors with all the geek porn in the SAP HANA test drive at SAPTechEd Madrid.”  You can follow him on twitter at jeff_word

Aiaz Kazi – Aiaz is the Global Vice President and Head of Technology and Innovation Platform Marketing at SAP. A sample tweet is “@applebyj On the contrary thanks 2 @vsikka 4 the passion, enthusiasm, & the opportunity 2 lead technology & marketing innovatios & +ve impact 4 SAP.” You can follow him on twitter at aiazkazi

SAP is also starting to roll out a new initiative called SAP Chats in which users can ask SAP executives and mentors live questions via twitter. Oliver Bussmann took part a few weeks back and covered 36 topics over 60 minutes and check out the great Q&A. Sven Denecken and Richard Hirsch are going to discuss SAP’s Cloud Strategy on December 7th using the same format. I would expect the SAP Chats to continue in 2012 and this is an excellent opportunity for you to interact with the SAP leadership team and thought leaders with the only requirement is having a Twitter account.

I have seen firsthand the value that Twitter can bring a SAP professional and over the past 18 months have written several articles including:

Five Ways Twitter will Help your SAP Career

How to find and follow SAP Content on Twitter

Value for SAP Customers to start using Twitter

Twitter and SAP - Whats in it for You

Ten Recommended SAP HCM people to follow on Twitter

12 Enterprise Software Analysts to follow on Twitter

How Twitter Helped me become a SAP Mentor

It is important to note that social media for SAP professionals is only in its infancy and going to continue to grow in popularity and importance. You all have a unique opportunity to be early adopters and if the SAP leadership team sees the value and can find the time for social media shouldn't you.