SAP’s users were 15% more likely to cite licensing costs as a barrier to adopting the firm’s new technology than they would in the case of other vendors, according to a poll conducted by the company’s British and Irish user group.
Two-thirds of those surveyed said SAP’s subscriptions and licenses posed such an obstacle, the second most common reason behind the lack of a business case, which was cited by 71% of members.
Philip Adams, chairman of the UK&I user group, said the discrepancy between SAP and other firms was a surprise "considering the moves SAP made in the summer of 2013 to make it more commercially attractive to adopt innovations through its cloud and on-premise extension policies – which in theory, enable you to leverage existing investments to pay for new innovations."
"However, maybe this isn’t so surprising when you look at the data around these extension policies. Only 23% of people said they made it more attractive to adopt SAP innovations, and only 10% of organisations have actually used these policies to take advantage of SAP innovations."
Half of members said their SAP representatives lacked knowledge of their business needs in order to move them to better tools, with a similar amount saying they would be interested if the company provided industry-specific experts to help them draw up strategy plans.
Adams added that while the stats looked like "depressing reading…some uptake is better than no uptake. SAP simply needs to do more to educate and help customers understand how these policies can help them take advantage of innovation, and overcome the barrier of license or subscription fees," he said.
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