A focus on resources, both external and internal, was also a major part of the remedial work that Paris had introduced. Partners have sometimes been blamed for the troubled episodes, and in a number of instances SAP had to step in directly to rectify the problems and attempt to save the projects. However, ‘we have to look in the mirror’, admitted Rieker. He felt SAP needed to improve in terms of working with partners and ‘ramping up the ecosystem’. ‘We have to do a better job and avoid the mistakes that have been made in the past.’


It was interesting to hear the thoughts on partners from Nationwide. The building society’s Prestedge said partners had been one of the issues and his observations about the need for people to change or be replaced applied here as well, he said. For two years, Nationwide’s partners failed it, he felt. It got through a number and IBM Global Services came close to being kicked off the project as well. Prestedge flew to the US to relay this message and point out that, reputationally, it had a lot to lose. As a result, Nationwide gained a new project head from IBM who was experienced in major ERP projects. This person was brought onto Nationwide’s own remuneration scheme and, he felt, truly became a member of the society’s team, working for the duration of the project for the society, rather than for IBM. In fact, Prestedge said the discussion around partners was not particularly to do with the companies per se but about the people – if they are competent, then the company is largely irrelevant. SAP was ‘max’ed out’, said Paris, near the end of 2012. ‘It is not a demand problem, it is a supply problem.’ Indeed, a common theme from SAP core banking projects has been the dearth of resources from SAP itself. There was what he described as ‘massive recruiting’ for banking in SAP at this time. SAP was also moving across resources from ‘unstressful’ areas, such as analytics, to tougher project areas. It was also ‘putting our money where our mouth is’, said Paris, financing training and accreditation at some partners, such as Axxiome, which is influential in Latin America. In keeping with Paris’ pronouncements, 2013 saw less news about new wins for SAP and more about progress at some of the major accounts. As well as cutovers, SAP had eight takers of Loans Management and two of Deposits Management. By mid-year, SAP was claiming that banks now live with its


core banking system included Deutsche Bank, Nationwide, CBA, Standard Bank, ATB, Banco Galicia, Compartamos Banco and CMBC. Admittedly, some of these banks seemed to be only up and running with subsets of the SAP software, with a fair way to go their projects. SAP would now seek to win deals in the corporate banking space, said Rieker, who expressed frustration when competitors won deals here. SAP was recognised for its retail banking functionality, he said, but it also had ING Bank and RBS for corporate. He felt it wouldn’t be a stretch too far into wealth, so too to provide solutions for central banks and non-banks. For the latter, the fact that SAP is in so many


other verticals means it is well placed to talk to the likes of automotive or manufacturing companies about their financial services ambitions, he pointed out. From a geographical perspective, there was ‘massive investment in localism’. Brazil, as mentioned, was one main focus for this. ‘You won’t win a deal [in Brazil] without localising, because the regulator won’t allow it,’ he said. There was a handful of large banks here but a ‘huge variety’ of regional banks below these (although it lost out to Miami-based Technisys in a bid in 2013/early 2014 at São Paulo-based Banco Original, a private banking subsidiary of J&F, one of the biggest enterprise groups in Brazil). Other countries in focus included China, Russia and Mexico (‘thousands of microfinance institutions’), plus the US, with SAP talking jointly with CSC to banks in the US at this time, he said.


In terms of once more focusing on smaller banks, Rieker


felt it was impossible to solely focus on the top 100, so SAP would scale down, including using cloud delivery. The effort would include finding resellers, in markets such as the Middle East and Africa. To support this, SAP wanted to ramp up the number of certified resources, with a claim to have trained 1000 in the previous year alone.


The ambitions would be underpinned by SAP’s efforts to deliver a standard, global platform, suited to all tiers of banks. To this end, it was talking about ‘bank-in-a-box’ rapid deployments. Total cost of ownership also needed to be brought down, said Rieker. ‘We need to work on this, it’s been loud and clear.’ The current version of SAP’s core was Release 8 and there were customers upgrading to this, he said. While there looked to have been considerable customisation at some sites, he claimed the upgrade process is ‘smoother and less lengthy than for some competitors’. The company also seemed to be in recruitment mode for a while experienced core banking system middle and senior managers, with FIS as one source of new joiners. However, in mid-2015 SAP made a sweeping call for


voluntary redundancies from anyone with at least ten years of service at the company as it sought to reduce its headcount. A little ahead of this, Paris – who had gone on to head SAP’s somewhat lacklustre cloud efforts – had left to join Misys as president and chief sales officer. The OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) has been building an infrastructure to improve its automation and streamlining its core business processes. The initial vision was laid down in 2005 to have a fully integrated enterprise platform, inspired by a major organizational restructuring within OFID. SAP hoped to improve implementations of its core banking system with a pre-configured front-to-back office approach that will incorporate fixed price and fixed timescales. Dubbed the Integrated Banking Delivery Model (IBDM).Additionally, SAP came up with a framework to try to accelerate implementations of its Deposits core banking system.


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