#564 Why Does Everyone Hate SAP? The Real Story Behind ERP Frustration | Artikel von Niels Brabandt

Why Does Everyone Hate SAP? The Real Story Behind ERP Frustration

Few pieces of software generate as much frustration inside organisations as ERP systems, and few names carry that frustration as visibly as SAP. In this week's episode of The Leadership Podcast, leadership expert Niels Brabandt tackles the question head-on: why do so many people genuinely dislike a piece of software their organisation cannot function without? His answer is more nuanced than the provocative title suggests.

ERP Means Complexity, Not a Bookkeeping Tool

Niels Brabandt starts by clarifying what ERP software actually is. The E stands for enterprise, meaning the planning needs of large organisations. According to Brabandt, SAP is never found at freelancers, small businesses or mid-sized firms operating in a single market, only where complexity grows exponentially rather than linearly, such as international corporations juggling different currencies, labour laws and bonus structures across countries. The R stands for resources, the P for planning. “These enterprises need to plan their resources,” Brabandt explains, “and also be sure that no one changes anything they shouldn't.”

A common misconception, he argues, is comparing ERP systems to Excel. Spreadsheets can handle calculations, but a bank cannot run its account ledgers on an editable file where anyone could quietly change a balance. ERP software has to allow legitimate changes during daily business while making it structurally impossible for data to simply disappear. “Try to design that,” Brabandt challenges his listeners.

There Is No Standard Product, and It Is Never Self-Explanatory

In practice, this is where frustration takes hold. There is no single product that works identically for Siemens, Bosch, Airbus, Boeing or General Motors; every organisation requires extensive customisation. Niels Brabandt recalls a manager telling him, word for word, that SAP training was being cut because “SAP is self-explanatory.” In his experience, the opposite is true. Even across companies using the exact same ERP system, day-to-day processes look completely different. Under-qualifying the people who use the software, he argues, is one of the biggest drivers of the resentment usually blamed on the product itself.

Brabandt also raises a grievance he considers legitimate: some vendors ship half-finished software, develop it further together with the paying client, and are then free to resell that jointly built knowledge to other customers. “You basically pay the vendors' research and development,” he says. “That is of course something where people are deeply frustrated.”

The Practice That Actually Works: Floorwalkers Instead of Ticket Queues

As a particularly effective measure, Niels Brabandt describes the concept of floorwalkers, drawn from his current work as an interim manager on a live SAP project. Rather than leaving employees with two days of training and a support line that tells them to “open a ticket with IT”, trained experts are stationed on every floor for four weeks after go-live, solving problems on the spot or escalating them directly. “Very important here is, floorwalkers help,” he says, noting that the investment pays for itself by building shared knowledge and experience rather than starting from zero with every new version.

Why ERP Is Never Purely an IT Project

One recurring mistake, according to Brabandt, is leaving ERP projects entirely to internal IT. He compares this to hiring a single all-rounder for plumbing, electrical, window and carpentry work in your house because specialists seem too expensive. “That's not safe,” he says. “They are not qualified for all of that.” Internal IT exists to keep daily business running, not to carry out highly specialised ERP implementations alone, which is exactly why professional services firms exist. Their daily rates may be startling, Brabandt acknowledges, but cutting corners here typically costs four times as much later.

Leadership engagement matters just as much. In the project Brabandt is currently leading, board members, department heads and future users were involved from day one, largely on a voluntary basis, with only two teams requiring a nominated representative. “Leadership and IT are, in the end, two major pieces that have to actively work together here,” he says. When leaders decouple themselves from a core business system and treat it purely as an IT matter, Brabandt warns, frustration across the organisation becomes almost guaranteed.

What This Means for Decision-Makers

Niels Brabandt's message to business leaders is direct: the widespread dislike of SAP and comparable ERP systems is rarely a software problem in isolation. It is usually the result of insufficient training, inadequate day-to-day support, and leadership that stays disengaged from a system central to the organisation's daily operations. Businesses that invest instead in professional implementation support, continuous knowledge-building and genuine engagement from both leadership and end users see measurably smoother ERP projects. “Your project will run way more smooth,” Brabandt concludes. “And maybe you now have a bit more understanding of why some of these systems are as complex as they are.”

Niels Brabandt

---

More on this topic in this week's videocast and podcast with Niels Brabandt: Videocast / Apple Podcasts / Spotify

For the videocast's and podcast's transcript, read below this article.

Is excellent leadership important to you?

Let's have a chat: NB@NB-Networks.com

Contact: Niels Brabandt on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nielsbrabandt

Website: www.NB-Networks.biz

Podcast and Videocast Transcript

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

Let's talk about ERP software—SAP, or as you often say, "SAP,"—and many people say, "Thank you, I wanted to tune out anyway, have a nice weekend." Off you go. The question is, and that's exactly what we're going to talk about today: why do so many people—why does almost anyone—hate ERP software? And by the way, SAP, as they say in Germany, or SAP as they often say internationally, why do so many people hate that piece of software? Why do people often say the ERP software is the most horrible piece we have in our organization? Why do people often genuinely detest to work with it and say, "No matter how hard I try, I will never fully understand how this piece actually works, I hate it with vengeance"? And now we have to talk about why does this happen. Welcome to this week's episode. My name is Niels, Niels Brabandt.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

So why does everyone hate—of course this is a bit of a punchy title here, a bit edgy—why does everyone hate SAP, or SAP? That's of course not the case. We do not want to say that they all hate one piece of software. Some people will now say, "Well, I do," because I had people genuinely saying that, but that's of course not the representative majority. When we talk about this piece of software, let's set the record straight first: we talk about a category which is called ERP software. Talking about ERP software means you have to understand what it means in the first place.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

So let's say you have a small business, and you say, "Hey, you have to keep your books. How do you want to do that?" And people say, "Well, you just take an Excel file, right, and you have a structure of folders, and that's going to work." Yes, poorly, that's going to work. Then you grow larger, and larger, and larger, and then at a certain point I say, "Hey, did you grow?" They say, "Yeah, we're now in multiple countries." And I say, "Okay, do you pay everyone the same?" And they say, "Well, we can't, they have different currencies." Okay, so do they all work the same hours? No, they can't, because we have different labor laws in different countries. Okay, do you all get given the same bonus? No, because we have different regulations, different countries. That's exactly the point: why at a certain point complexity doesn't go linear but exponential.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

So the first aspect here is we talk about enterprise software. Enterprise software. When I tell you a company such as Siemens, or Bosch, or Airbus, or Boeing, or General Motors, or whatever large corporation you mention, if I tell you they all use the same piece of software, you would say, "How does that work?" And here we go. These enterprises need to plan their resources. So E is for enterprise, so we know there's a high level of complexity. Then you have resources across all industries. And of course all of these corporations probably do not say, "Yeah, you know, we just live during the day, and then we see how things go, and yeah, let's see how." No, that's not how they work. They need to be able to plan their resources and also be sure that no one changes anything.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

Because I give you a very simple example. Let's say you have an international bank, and you have your bank account with that bank. And now I tell you, "Let's don't make it too complicated. We could just have Excel sheets to run your accounts." And then you probably will say, "Wait a minute, in Excel someone can just change the data, and suddenly money is gone." That doesn't work. Exactly. And that's why we have to admit in the first place: the complexity we talk about here. When someone tells you, "Please write a piece of software which is going to be deployed around the globe in different industries, and no matter if it's an international bank or a globalized noodle company, it has to work for them." Quite a challenge, isn't it?

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

So let's be serious here. If you hate that piece of software, the complexity this piece can portray in software is quite beautiful. Because what you need to be able to do is, when people work with the data, they need to be able to change during daily business. They need to be able to change anything they need to be allowed to change. They need to make changes when changes are necessary. However, they should never be allowed to make anything disappear so no one's cheating in the system. Try to design that.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

So here comes the reality. Now we talk about reality. And of course, the first thing that matters is people say, "Look, I have a daily business to run, and ERP software works the following. It takes forever to implement it, and once it's implemented, after years and years and years of work, then they tell us, 'Oh, there's a new version, so we have to update it.'" And of course then the management says, "Oh yeah, we do this at the end of the year, beginning into next year." And people are sitting there and say, "So while we have the end-of-season mayhem, we change the software, which leaps way into the next year, where we should do all the accounts for the tax filings." And in due course of that, you change the software. Are you serious? And that is a massive issue.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

People are, and we have to admit that they have a point here. People are frustrated about software vendors that push out half-done software, half-baked pieces of software architecture, and then businesses have to pay consultants to actually get what they paid for in the first place. And sometimes even after they paid these businesses, they say, "Oh, now we have a really good piece on your local VAT regulation. By the way, can we sell this to others? Because it's really nice." And then they're even allowed to sell it off to others. So you basically pay the vendors' research and development. Product matures at the client side. And that is of course something where people are deeply frustrated.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

On top of that, quite often people experience the following. They say, "Yep, we got this new ERP software, and then we got training. Two days. Two days from 9 to 12, that was it." And from there, people said, "Good luck." That was it. Nothing else. When you leave the people behind, you will never be able to succeed with your software implementation.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

As we always say in—I do internal management, and I'm now a project leader in a SAP project. I'm not a SAP, SAP expert. However, I know how to manage people, I think, reasonably well; otherwise they probably wouldn't call me in. Very important with this kind of people project is, people are the ones that use it every single day. So listen to them first. The first thing we found out was, who are the opinion leaders? Who are the most affected people? Let's talk to them first. And please, do not come along with, "Management told you it is how it is, and you have to accept it." Because I can tell you, the revolution from the ground will cause mayhem up to board level. So you really have to pick up the people, train them professionally, with professional trainers.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

And just a best practice here. What we have in the project I am leading right now is the following: we have floorwalkers. If this concept is unknown to you, it means the following. It's quite a large international organization, and they have quite a number of floors. On each floor where they people use SAP, SAP, or any kind of ERP software, we have floorwalkers, experts on the matter, and they have mobile phones with them. People can call the mobile phone of the person on their floor, and then they come along, and they solve the problem with them on site. If they can't solve it, they take it with them, they open the ticket with the IT, and of course the user can add something to it if they want to. However, very important here is, floorwalkers help.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

On top of that, we told people, "Look, if you don't use the floorwalkers, that's your problem then." Because you have the floorwalkers for four weeks' time. Four weeks is quite a while, and it's a tremendous amount of money we invest here. So when you have any kind of issues, please test them now. Please test your reporting, test your processes, test your procedures, test your daily everything. Test everything, because after four weeks, we are down to open a ticket with the IT. So it is important that the training is done professionally.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

Because as soon as you get to the implementation—and let's be real about that—when I still hear that organizations tell me, "Oh yeah, we have this ERP project, our internal IT is doing that." Really, are they? Okay, I give you an example. Let's say you have a couple of issues with your house, and you say, "Yeah, you know, a bit of plumbing work needs to be done, a bit of electricity work, not running too well. Windows are not doing too well either." So some window work, a bit with the ceiling, a bit carpentry work, carpenters needed, and a bit of concrete crippling down here, so maybe a bit of that. And then I will tell you, "Oh, you know, all these experts, way too expensive. I'm going to send you an all-rounder. They can do all of that." You most likely will say, "That's not safe." They are not qualified for all of that, and that's exactly the metaphor you need to hear here.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

Your IT is there to make the daily business run. And of course, you have specializations for different pieces of software within your organization. Software which is used on a daily basis. Implementing an ERP software. Of course, your IT should help with that, but it's not a daily business task. Implementing an ERP software, or updating to the next version, usually happens every—depending on what happens with laws—usually every two to five years. Not very much more often. Sometimes, depending on which industry, you can push it very far to five to ten years, but then you usually have a huge investment backlog. So not advisable.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

So very important is, ERP software means you need to get specialists in. This is called professional services. And I'm not self-advertising myself here. I'm not a SAP, SAP expert. I am a resource manager in this project. That is my leadership role there. So there are people professionally focusing only on, for example, Navision, or Dynamics, or SAP, or Salesforce, or whatever else you're implementing. Use these professionals. What you think you save, because you probably fell off the chair when you saw their daily rate. And yes, it's high, but they are very good at what they're doing. So when you think you can save money there, I can tell you, you pay quadruple the amount of that afterwards. So be sure not to make a short-sighted decision here.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

And by the way, as soon as your IT helps, you grow your own knowledge and experience. And please document that. Have a wiki, have something where you write things down, because otherwise you always have to rely on an external company. You grow more and more knowledge, more and more experience, yet your job of the core internal IT is not to do ERP implementations on their own. That's why you have professional companies assisting you with the matter. That's where the project of knowledge and experience documentation always comes in.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

On top of that, we have one last bit of issue here. When still I see that organizational leaders say, "Oh yeah, ERP, right? Yeah, that's an IT project." Hint: it's not. It's also an IT project, but leaders are involved in exactly the same way. One of the main aspects why people get frustrated with ERP software is because they see, and they feel, and they realize, and they perceive, and they get that people are sitting on a very high level saying, "I'm not using any of these pieces of software, so I genuinely don't care. Yeah, we just update the system."

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

Tell them they have to deal with it. And people see that you did exactly that. When leaders decouple themselves from the whole system, which is a core business aspect of your daily routines, a core business aspect of your value creation, and you think, "I couldn't care less because, you know, I'm C-level something. I just give presentations that others created for me." When you think that this is the work, I got some really bad news for you. So it's extremely important. Leadership needs to be sold on the matter. Leadership needs to engage. Leadership needs to interact with the project. As soon as you stop doing that, everything goes south from there.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

So as soon as you have everyone on board, the leadership team from highest level to mid-tier level, and then you implement everything together with the people who later will use it, your project will run way more smooth. And then I can tell you, way less people will hate it afterwards. You will not make anyone a fan of it. However, as soon as you approach it with the right amount of human understanding for real organizational issues within your organization, your project will go a lot more smooth than you can ever think. And I wish you all the best putting this in your organization. And when you now say, "Wait a minute, I have a couple of questions here."

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

So first, of course, when you now watch me on YouTube, feel free, of course. So first, thank you very much for leaving a like here, and of course, you can subscribe to my channel. Thank you very much for doing so. You can also leave a comment, or if you like, when you now listen to me on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, leave five stars here. Thank you very much for doing so.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

We had great ranking again last week for the very first time in Luxembourg, where all the big financial firms are. We were in the top 15, actually ranked 12. I didn't expect that. So beyond all of these big law firms and big publications and financials, suddenly, Niels is in between there. Thank you very much for making this possible, and thank you very much for helping me on the way to grow this podcast further.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

Of course, you can recommend the podcast online, offline, to friends, family, colleagues, anywhere. Online, offline, social media. You can tag me in your postings, of course, because then I will comment. I'll also give you natural outreach into my networks, so feel free to do that as well.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

One thing I always recommend is, we have leadership tips. The leadership tips you see are on YouTube. So as soon as you go on YouTube, the YouTube Shorts is what you're looking for. And we have the big episodes once per week. However, we often have a daily tip at least, or even more. We are far ahead of the goal. I promised you one leadership tip per week. You see now, there's a lot more out there.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

So the YouTube Shorts, as the name says, only available on YouTube. So it really pays off not only to subscribe to my channel, but also put the little bell in there. When you put the little bell in there, you get a tiny, tiny notification as soon as something new is online. And that, of course, means you're not going to miss out on anything new here. You can, of course, also follow me on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

On top of that, when you now say, "Hey, we need something really specific. We need a trainer, a speaker, coach, consultant, mentor, project interim manager." Feel free to contact me anytime. nb-networks.biz is my website. Looking forward to seeing you there. And of course, you can drop me an email at nb@nb-networks.com.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

So when you drop me an email to nb@nb-networks.com, we can always discuss something very specific, or just exchange thoughts, have a discussion. All of that is possible at any point in time given. On top of that, when you say, "Do we have live sessions?" Yes, we do. expert.nb-networks.com. As soon as you go there, put your email address in there. You receive only one email every Wednesday morning, and no worries, it's 100% content at free guarantee.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

In this email, you get full access to all the podcasts, the articles, the video casts, everything. No paywall. In other contact means, in other media, you will have to pay. That's all free. So I'm looking forward to seeing you there. And of course, in every email, you find the date, the time, and the access link for our live sessions. And then we can do a Q&A there, and you get all the questions answered you actually want to have answered.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

If you now say, "We have a larger group within our company, I'd like to have a private Q&A." Just drop me an email, and we do a private Q&A just explicitly for you. And of course, you can follow me on social media. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or leave a follow on Instagram. You can also, of course, leave a like on Facebook, or follow me on YouTube, and put the bell in there so you actually don't miss out on anything.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

The most important thing, however, is always the last bit that I say. Apply, apply, apply what you heard in this podcast, because only when you apply what you heard, you will see the positive change that you obviously want to see. I wish you all the best doing so. Feel free to contact me anytime. And good news here, I answer every single message within 24 hours or less. So I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

At the end of this podcast, as well as at the end of this video cast, there's only one thing left for me to say. Thank you very much for your time.