The Support Accreditation course offered by SAP plays a vital role in educating partners, customers, and internal employees about SAP’s support services. In this interview, Simone Engelhard, SVP and head of Customer Engagement Support for Customer Services & Delivery at SAP, discusses the importance of support channels, the 24/7 support structure, service continuity, and best practices for interacting effectively with SAP support teams.

Feedback from participants highlights the training’s success in improving the understanding and utilization of support services. Ongoing updates help ensure the course remains relevant amidst evolving technology and business landscapes, with future developments likely to incorporate advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning tools for support services.

Q: Can you provide an overview of the Support Accreditation training and its significance for anyone engaging with SAP’s support processes?

Engelhard: The Support Accreditation is a vital learning tool for our partners and customers as well as for our employees. It’s an informative course that can familiarize participants with SAP support services and help maximize their support experience. This is a unique opportunity to understand all the tools and resources available when interacting with SAP support and to learn efficient ways of engaging with our teams and resolving issues.

In situations of urgency or escalation, customers might try to contact someone at SAP they personally know rather than follow the regular process. How does Support Accreditation address such situations and educate participants on the importance of following the proper channels?

That’s a great point. In urgent or escalated situations, individuals might feel tempted to bypass the usual channels and seek immediate remedies. However, these uninformed measures can result in delays. The Support Accreditation course emphasizes following the correct SAP support processes, which can ensure their issues are routed to the appropriately skilled support teams, leading to more efficient problem resolution.

Can you shed light on how the Support Accreditation training details the importance of our 24/7 support structure and how customers and partners can take advantage of it?

The course thoroughly details our 24/7 support structure. We work to ensure that participants understand how, no matter their time zone, they can harness this around-the-clock support. It’s about making sure that our customers and partners know that they always have the backing of SAP, no matter when an issue arises.

How can customers and partners ensure that their issues are addressed efficiently even when their primary contacts at SAP are out of office?

We indeed cover this crucial aspect. The training delves into detail about the Customer Support organization, which aims to ensure service continuity even if specific account contacts at SAP are unavailable. Our course participants are made aware of the various support structures in place to assist them.

The Support Accreditation training also covers the etiquette and best practices for interacting with SAP support. Can you talk more about this and why it’s important?

Interacting with support teams forms a large part of managing SAP services, so etiquette and best practices in this area are covered in our course. We guide learners on the most effective ways to communicate with our teams, provide necessary information, and follow prescribed processes for optimal support assistance.

Do you have any insights related to the feedback from Support Accreditation participants? How has the course improved their understanding and utilization of our support services?

Feedback from Support Accreditation participants has been overwhelmingly positive. Our learners report significantly improved knowledge about SAP support services and tools, and they’ve been successful in applying this knowledge to engage more effectively with SAP support. This has resulted in smoother, quicker issue resolutions, translating to improved satisfaction and service experiences.

With technology and business requirements evolving, how will the Support Accreditation course adapt to these changes? What future developments can participants expect?

The course isn’t static; it evolves with the technology landscape and business requirements. We continually update it to include new tools, offerings, or changes to existing processes. This helps ensure that the Support Accreditation training remains up-to-date and continues to be a valuable resource for our customers and partners. Future developments will certainly involve advancements in AI and machine learning tools in support services, so participants can be well prepared for the future of support services.

For the 10th consecutive year, SAP has been named as a Leader in the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Transportation Management Systems.

SAP is positioned in the Leaders Quadrant based on our Ability to Execute and for the Completeness of our Vision.

We believe that this recognition confirms our strategy in Logistics, which is based on three pillars:

• Connecting every process and providing synchronized logistics execution to support highly efficient and fast paced fulfillment cycles
• Collaborating with a single network of carriers, digital forwarders, and visibility providers to spot risks and avoid disruptions and thereby provide best-in-class delivery experience
• Contextualizing every decision, leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to optimize operations and to provide business insights

SAP Transportation Management is an integral part of the overall SAP strategy and gives companies the ability to manage their end-to-end transportation processes from procurement through planning and execution to freight settlement with analytics to support each step.

We continue to innovate in SAP Transportation Management based on our market analysis and even more importantly based on feedback from our global install base and ecosystem. Recent innovations include advancements in areas like sustainability, planning and optimization, supply chain execution, and generative AI.

SAP Transportation Management and SAP Business Network for Logistics enable logistics partners to collaborate with each other and provide visibility to all stakeholders throughout the shipment lifecycle and help manage risks as they arise through intelligent insights. We continue to grow SAP Business Network, adding more carriers and additional networks to provide expanded coverage around the world and across all transportation modes. 

As more customers evaluate SAP Transportation Management, we continue to strategically expand our partner network to ensure our customers have access to an ecosystem that supports their operations no matter where they are in the world or how they move their freight. Our global partner network made up of systems integrators, business consultants, and technology providers help our customers manage their transportation transformations, whether they be system replacements, upgrades, greenfield deployments, or part of larger enterprise transformations. 

“Our customers use SAP Transportation Management and SAP Business Network for Logistics to manage transportation operations in more than 20 industries and in every corner of the world,” said Till Dengel, global head of Logistics and Manufacturing Product Marketing at SAP. “Because we look at logistics holistically, clients can confidently confirm their orders, knowing that fulfillment can be executed as promised, since ERP, warehousing, and transportation are always in sync.”

“Adopting logistics solutions from SAP across our facilities in all our markets allowed us to optimize freight transportation,” said Carlo Noè, Global Process and Applications Manager for Trade, Transport, and Logistics Division at Hitachi Energy Ltd. “We can interact with our stakeholders and carriers in a digital way, helping us manage supply chain risk, enhance agility, and build supply chain resilience.”

For more details on the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant for TMS read the Gartner Reprint here.

Bill King is senior product marketing manager for Logistics at SAP.

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WALLDORF — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) will release its full results for the first quarter of 2024 on Monday, April 22, at 10:05 p.m. CEST/ 4:05 p.m. EDT.

SAP CEO Christian Klein as well as CFO Dominik Asam will host a virtual analyst conference to present first quarter financial figures, as well as an outlook on the current financial year.

Media representatives may listen in on the virtual analyst conference via Webcast on April 22 at 11:00 p.m. CEST/ 5:00 p.m. EDT, accessible at broadcast.sap.com/go/QReport.