Episode 1: Your New Podcast Journey Through the SAP Universe with Alexander Greb & Johannes Langguth

Welcome to the inaugural episode of the Transformation Every Day podcast! We are Alexander Greb (Consulting Director @ cbs – Corporate Business Solutions) and Johannes Langguth (Head of Business Transformation & Architecture @ SAP).  In this first episode, we share our personal journeys and outline the vision for our podcast. We emphasize the importance of authentic, insightful conversations around digital transformation, reflecting on our own extensive experiences in the industry. Together, we explore the rapidly evolving technology landscape, the strategic value of enterprise architecture, and the essential roles that SAP and ecosystem collaboration play in successful transformations. Throughout the discussion, we highlight the crucial intersection between theory and practice, encouraging organizations to embrace technology as a powerful driver of transformation, not merely efficiency. We also touch on the growing impacts of AI, mobile technologies, and the increasingly strategic relationship between business and IT.

Chapters

00:00
Introduction to Transformation Every Day Podcast

02:46
The Need for Real Talk on Transformation

06:05
Understanding the Ecosystem of Transformation

08:51
Personal Journeys in Transformation

12:09
The Role of Technology in Transformation

15:03
Empowering Users Through Technology

18:08
The Academic Perspective on Transformation

23:01
Navigating Academic and Professional Paths

24:10
Experiences in University Life

26:23
The Disconnect Between Theory and Practice

27:32
The Evolution of Academic Approaches

29:27
The Role of Architecture in Business Strategy

30:34
Demystifying Architecture as a Strategic Domain

31:55
The Importance of Business-Driven Technology

34:11
The Impact of AI on Future Technologies

36:57
The Role of Mobile Technology in Daily Life

39:11
AI: Efficiency vs. Transformation

41:17
Behavioral Science in Business and IT Interaction

43:09
The Emancipation of Business from IT

44:47
Recommended Reading: Pivot to the Future

Follow Alexander: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandergreb/
Follow Johannes: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johanneslangguth/

Thanks to Steven Spears for lending his voice for our podcast intro.
Theme music by Luis Álvarez a.k.a. Fourth Dogma

Transcript

Alexander Greb (01:00.918)
And we're on by the way, we are recording. Welcome everybody to our new podcast, which is called Transformation Every Day. I'm Alexander Greb and joining me is my co-host Johannes Langgut. Welcome Johannes to our first joint episode.

Johannes (01:19.703)
Yeah, welcome back, Alexander. I should say welcome to not welcome back. We've been talking too long already. Anyways, happy to co-host.

Alexander Greb (01:32.033)
You're not wrong, you're not wrong. It's a return. It's a return in a certain way. Yeah.

Johannes (01:36.917)
It's a return, return of the dark side or a return of something good. You tell me.

Alexander Greb (01:42.881)
 People said I moved to the dark side when I went back to consulting from SAP. But to be honest, I'm not always sure what is the light side and what is the dark side of the force in that respect. But we will probably find that out in the upcoming episodes.

Johannes (01:56.129)
Yeah.

Yeah, I guess it depends on the receiving end. So in all transparency at SAP, I'm part of the service organization as well, CS and D. So we're both dark or light side. I think that really depends on the perspective.

Alexander Greb (02:08.193)
That's true.

Alexander Greb (02:16.426)
we move between the worlds, that's true. Why are we talking? I think what we definitely should tell our guests is we have now the first episode, which means that this is for us something like an introduction, which is meant for you. We want to talk with you about first who we are. We want to win you as listeners, which means you will spend quite considerable amount of time with us. So that means

Johannes (02:18.412)
Yeah, it depends.

Alexander Greb (02:46.048)
you should probably know us a little bit better to judge if that's actually a good idea. And what you want to do, we want to use this as basically telling you why we are doing this kind of podcast. And I think this is the talking point, what we should start. Johannes, for you, why did you start or why are you interested in starting this podcast now? What is the compelling event for you to say, hey, I want to be on air, I want to...

Johannes (02:54.605)
So,

Alexander Greb (03:15.233)
talk with people about digitalization, transformation, SAP in general.

Johannes (03:24.417)
I think there are so many things changing these days. mean, I think that's, I think it's a very marketing like term to say change is the new constant. But I think we got hit by reality over the past months and years. So I believe it's important to have some real talk about what works. What are things that, you know, made other companies successful? What are.

Alexander Greb (03:46.464)
you

Johannes (03:53.869)
things that other people make successful because I think transformation is not just about a company, it's also about a person transforming. So I think it's important to speak about that, learn from that, but also think about what are things that didn't go well and learn from mistakes that other people have. So it's not about just speaking about the good. I think it's also important to speak about

Alexander Greb (04:07.871)
Absolutely.

Johannes (04:22.156)
transformations that failed and learned from that. I believe bringing in some real talks and war stories, I think that's how we call it, right Alexander? Some war stories of transformations from our end and from my end, from our customers can add quite some value to our listeners. How about you, Alexander?

Alexander Greb (04:42.352)
Absolutely. I fully agree with you. Well, for me, I think we are more or less at the same point again why I started the SAP Experts Podcast five, six years ago. The situation that we are in as an ecosystem, customers, SAP, SAP partners, and so on, I think is very,

interesting at the moment. Because we see from the technological side, like the trap value gap is opening up, the innovations which are happening. It's like rapid gunfire. Every year you see something completely new. Why we talked three years ago, maybe mainly about the cloud. Now we talk about cloud plus AI and so on. I think it's when we look, for example, in our customer landscape,

We have lots of challenges there with customers trying to keep up others still looking for their case, have problems navigating these kinds of environments. since we are now at the brink of we want as an ecosystem move from ECC to S4HANA, we want to move customers in that way. And I think we fully agree that we have to become better and faster doing that.

better and faster leveraging innovation together with our customers. I think there are so many stories to be told in an area where communications is sometimes a little bit oversimplified. On the one side, you have very marketing-laden messages. And I think you and me agree about that. This is, of course, from one point understandable. On the other point, it's part of the problem. But we have on the other side, of course,

enough people who are not like you and me talking every day about technology or experience in technology, who are working in their own area as on the customer side. And as such, course, lacking in a certain way quite often the, I'm not saying the fantasy, but the entrance point to make their case for that.

Johannes (06:54.399)
Yeah.

Alexander Greb (06:58.814)
And I, for example, got the feedback with the SAP Experts podcast that these kinds of conversations massively helped them to get the inspiration how to approach the topic, how to get maybe stuck digitalization initiatives running again. And that's why I think the world needs a podcast like that more than ever.

Johannes (07:23.614)
Alex, this is a marketing message. the world needs us.

Alexander Greb (07:26.864)
Yeah, I know, but we were setting now the point. We want to justify why people should listen to us. I think some bold statements are fine.

Johannes (07:36.97)
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But I think you covered an important point, right? This podcast is called Transformation Every Day. And it's not about bringing in a solution brief about X or Y product from SAP or any other provider. So you mentioned SAP customers, you mentioned, of course, SAP products, but I think it's important

for our listeners that this is not about, we tell you what does product A do and how does it compare to product B and what's the migration path. So we're not going to zoom into specific products unless maybe conversations go this way with our guests, but it's not the intent to share a certain capability of a product. It's really to share insights on approaches, methodologies on

Alexander Greb (08:26.781)
Absolutely.

Johannes (08:34.206)
how customers, how people, again, coming back to the people topic, I think people is important, how people tackled transformation and technology itself, products from SAP themselves, might have been a lever to achieve that. I think it's important for our listeners to understand that.

Alexander Greb (08:37.404)
Mm-hmm.

Alexander Greb (08:51.413)
Yeah. Absolutely, fully agree with that. And I think we have set up here something like a safe space where we can talk freely and openly about the do's and don'ts, about what works and what does not work. And as such, I think

This is something which really can bring our listeners value, getting the kind of inspirations, getting the kind of interesting points that they need to step forward. And we will cover many different topics, of course, which are relevant. will talk about SAP. We will talk about implementation. We will talk about all the things around that which matter. And as such, think also our

setup is quite interesting in that case, because you are working for the OEM. I will not say you represent SAP, but you are... Technically, it's right. You're representing SAP. I'm representing now more the implementation, the consulting area. And as such, think there will be really interesting conversations.

Johannes (09:40.946)
Yeah.

You call it OEM. Okay. Well, it's right. Technically, it's right.

Johannes (10:06.777)
I mean, I think it's super beneficial to have both perspectives, the OEM, I just keep that wording if you like, as well as the ecosystem.

Alexander Greb (10:14.96)
Which is, the way, a wording so many customers and so many consultants use. And to be honest, when I was at SAP, I was not so fully aware of that. But the moment I stepped again into the consulting world, was completely wrapped around into that wording again.

Johannes (10:22.012)
I

Johannes (10:35.303)
Yeah, mean, but again, that's the beauty of it, you representing the ecosystem. And I believe transformation is nothing that happens in silo. need partners, you need the ecosystem to use now the official SAP wording for that, to make a transformation successful. I think

Alexander Greb (10:54.278)
Mm-hmm.

Johannes (10:57.481)
transformation itself is never something of course it has to be intrinsically motivated. Of course our external factor is driving it but I think the crucial success factor is having a motivation and an ecosystem that's driving that. So I think there will be quite some interesting conversations coming out of that with our guests.

Alexander Greb (11:04.294)
Mm.

Alexander Greb (11:20.896)
Definitely, definitely. before we talk about that, let's introduce ourselves or say differently, Johannes, who are you?

Johannes (11:31.282)
Who am I? Okay, that's a broad question. And where I'm from? So

Alexander Greb (11:33.19)
Who am I or how many, how many are you? Tell us something about you. What was your approach, your way, your journey till now? What made you what you are?

Johannes (11:47.676)
I I've seen quite some stations in my life, to be honest. So I've been, I worked in the industry segment, supporting a large wholesale trading company, where I actually lived in China for three years. think it was a very interesting time. China, amazing market, great food, by the way, great people. And I learned a lot. And if you ask me about my Chinese, no.

Alexander Greb (12:09.901)
I believe so.

Johannes (12:17.768)
It's not there anymore. need probably some, yeah, what a pity. I need some beard and I can use some catchphrases, I guess that's how you would call it. But I lost most of my Chinese. Yeah, and then I moved to consultancy. I have been part of the ecosystem. I know how it feels to implement solutions, not only SAP in all transparency. I got exposed to quite some other OEMs to use the wording again.

Alexander Greb (12:20.121)
What a pity.

Alexander Greb (12:28.079)
Hmm.

Alexander Greb (12:45.168)
Mm-hmm.

Johannes (12:46.318)
And moved then towards the startup world as you know, being part of the Berlin ecosystem now I live in Potsdam here. And obviously, the startup capital of Germany was very attractive to somebody who was seeking innovation like me. So I joined a company called Deliver Hero and built up the IT there driving a lot of transformation initiatives around the finance domain.

the customer domain. So it was a fun time and then I moved to SAP to actually

Alexander Greb (13:20.727)
But that's exactly to interrupt you here. That's exactly what I think so interesting about you because you felt the pain in your life. You're not one of those guys who all the time exactly who worked full time in the SAP ecosystem on that side, be it at SAP itself or at consulting companies. But you've been a customer. You've been a user. You had to justify all of that.

Johannes (13:29.095)
In all ways, right?

Johannes (13:43.954)
Yeah. And frankly, I can share some very interesting war stories. know, we started with a back then with the kind of a, it was the Sfin time where they have like simple finance, I don't know whether you remember that, you know, and we went into the conversion and

Alexander Greb (14:00.058)
Mm-hmm.

I remember that, the Patri Dish of S. Forana back then.

Johannes (14:06.957)
Yeah, yes, yes, yes, it was, it was, it was very interesting, because we went into the conversion mode. And there were not so many customers that actually want to run a conversion. And yeah, we set up the system a year ago. So and said, okay, we now need to go into a full blown upgrade. And for SAP, I think SAP learned with us together about customer vendor integration. And we had quite a quite intensive support from the SAP side to make it happen. overall,

Alexander Greb (14:29.658)
Mm-hmm.

Johannes (14:36.379)
when it was successful. Yeah, but as you said correctly, I have some interesting stories as an as somebody who implemented but also as somebody who had to run the system and and, you know, justify the investments that go into it. Yeah. And now here at SAP, responsible for the architecture domain with regards to the rise with SAP promise that we gave to our customers.

Alexander Greb (14:52.012)
Absolutely.

Johannes (15:03.437)
bring more architecture knowledge to all of the rice customers. Well, but you Alex, tell me about you. Why? How many are you?

Alexander Greb (15:11.663)
Me? I'm a little bit older than you, so...

Different person each day.

Johannes (15:18.571)
So I should call you Mr. Greb, is that what you're implying now? Because of your age?

Alexander Greb (15:26.118)
No, not really, not really. I have become 48 by the way, a few days ago, which was shocking again to see the sheer number. But since I'm still getting in Bavaria where coming from, you know, the kids when they go to the supermarket, they are asked like, do you want a gatewurst? Sausage and so on, free sausage for fun and so on.

Johannes (15:26.992)
Share your wisdom, mister.

Alexander Greb (15:55.03)
I always tell to my butcher, as long as you also offer me that I'm young and not old. But this is a different story. seriously. Yes, I'm a little bit older than you, I think. So probably more stations, more things to tell. I guess I'm the old white man of this podcast. But yeah, I started after studies at Siemens back then. It was absolutely...

Johannes (16:01.881)
Yeah.

Johannes (16:24.239)
You've been with Siemens? I never... You never told me.

Alexander Greb (16:24.777)
Non-SAP. I've been with Siemens, actually. Siemens Business Service. Yeah, because when I started, it was the, we were called the Generation Praktikum. It was that kind of ugly time where when you were graduating, it was very difficult to get a job. People were offered unpaid internships. It wasn't the area of...

Johannes (16:36.825)
Johannes (16:50.821)
That was right after the dot com bubble. Right? Right after dot com.

Alexander Greb (16:54.168)
Exactly, it was 2003 until 2005, this area. And this was really quite disillusioning time for many. And I know many who worked like for one or two years without payment back then. I was happy and glad that I got a job which was actually paid after university, which was at Siemens. Where I had my first step, was by the way at Siemens Business Services, which was the IT consulting arm back then.

Johannes (17:19.225)
the way it is with people.

Alexander Greb (17:23.417)
which later was acquired by Arthos, which was then the time when I left. We did not do SAP back then, I was in the SCM realm. So we did optimizations for shop floor installations and so on, which I did for a few years also after I moved to another company. And that was...

Johannes (17:27.514)
that

Alexander Greb (17:48.473)
me when I was joining SAP in 2009, 2010. I was not the SAP guy. I've never coded any ABAP or stuff like this, but I was more the project program manager. And so I continue to, for example, we optimized the pre-series for a major German car manufacturer, car OEM, automotive OEM for a few years. And then I was asked in 2014 if I wanted to do something new.

Johannes (18:03.749)
Awesome.

Alexander Greb (18:17.928)
And I was asked by boss back then, yeah, to implement this kind of new technology for the first time. One of the first times we were a small group back then at a major German company and the technology was called HANA. And this was quite a, quite a, the database first. was first a database and then we moved on to also implement the first.

Johannes (18:32.933)
But the database, right? Just the database.

Alexander Greb (18:46.794)
really big HANA version 15.11 with that customer. And it was quite interesting because, really, SAP had to learn a lot because it was a new business for them, too, going into the database market. So the learning curve was very steep. you had conversations with many interesting folks and people.

Johannes (18:55.662)
Thank

Alexander Greb (19:12.674)
from SAP and from the technology area, like with bandloy cards, weekly alignments, hustle, platinum, call several times, how is baby is doing and stuff. this worked out quite good. And for me, I was then later asked if I wanted to join and build up the customer advisory for S4, which was then a few years later where we both met until I decided then to move back closer to the customer again in 2021.

corporate business solutions or also called CBS responsible as consulting director for the whole public cloud topic developing transformation and so on and so on. So quite exciting times, lots of things to do.

Johannes (19:49.189)
Let me ask a question. Let me ask a question on this. So when you implemented a database, HANA, how did customer use a database for transformation? Do you consider that a transformation? Or was it more a vehicle to achieve something?

Alexander Greb (20:11.447)
Absolutely not, to be honest. For that, was an implementation of a technology which was supposed to deliver certain value aspects. But this is really 100 % bottom line. You definitely do something different just because you have a new database which is now in-memory based. But you were hoping back then because of the accelerated speed, you could use now different capabilities.

Johannes (20:26.724)
But I, yeah.

Johannes (20:40.451)
Yeah, I think that's where it comes into play. I think the database itself is great, but it's the use case, the capabilities that you realize with the technology lever that determines.

Alexander Greb (20:41.375)
And we're talking about 2005, 2014.

Alexander Greb (20:47.487)
Absolutely.

Alexander Greb (20:52.19)
Absolutely.

And if you remember back the communications, it was all about speed. Now you're faster and so on. And now you can make these kinds of postings within a blink of an eye and so on. But to be honest, I fully agree because at that time already, it became clear that speed for speed's sake is practically worthless if you still continue to do the same things like you did before. But to be honest, is at that...

Johannes (21:05.921)
Yeah.

Alexander Greb (21:24.759)
where my personal mission started in that way. Because like we often discussed, we are developing and implementing technology. And the question is still for what? In the end, it's just a tool. It's an instrument and you have to play it, you have to work with that. And there is this famous example about moving from a hammer to an electric drill. If you still use the electric drill to hammer nails into a board,

Johannes (21:33.653)
Yeah.

Alexander Greb (21:54.774)
the whole initiative was for nothing. And that's why my mission and yours, your mission is similar, is to really empower users to do things they were not able to do before. And this is also what we want to achieve with this podcast.

Johannes (22:07.608)
Yeah.

Yeah, fully agree. mean, using the driller as a hammer will most probably destroy the driller. That's think fair to say as well,

Alexander Greb (22:17.298)
Exactly. Absolutely. What would Johannes Langwood have become if you would not have done that SAP stuff and the technology stuff?

Johannes (22:32.428)
sounds strange, but I would have most probably stayed at university. I like university work and life. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, I always thought about doing my PhD. So I was would have most probably stayed at the university and, and went into an academic career. If not, this would have you know, I like the theory around it as well. I think there are great things that you can learn from from academics that that really

Alexander Greb (22:39.082)
Really? Okay.

Alexander Greb (22:57.6)
Mm-hmm.

Johannes (23:01.788)
can create quite some impact. So I would most probably not work in the SAP space, but rather in the academic world and look into papers. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So I studied quantitative finance, so doing some statistics stuff. I don't want to just, you know, put too much statistic or econometric wording in here because otherwise our listeners might shut off.

Alexander Greb (23:04.694)
Mm-hmm.

Alexander Greb (23:09.482)
as a scientist.

Alexander Greb (23:14.048)
Did, so you.

Alexander Greb (23:18.046)
huh.

Johannes (23:28.405)
But frankly, I would most probably stayed in that space, computational finance, stuff like that. It's very interesting. I don't use much of it these days, to be honest. But I would have most probably stayed there and did some equations on the whiteboard. How about you, Alex?

Alexander Greb (23:36.533)
Mm-hmm.

Alexander Greb (23:47.541)
To be honest, to resonate on that, I hear that you definitely enjoyed your time at university. To be honest, was the absolute opposite of that. I absolutely did not enjoy it. I have to be very, very honest about this. It was fun in the beginning.

Johannes (24:04.812)
Why is that? How can you not enjoy university, Alex?

Alexander Greb (24:10.389)
when you were enjoying this kind of freedom and so on and those people. And it was not like school, it was much more open. But the problem for me started when I financed my studies myself. So I always had jobs. did some odd jobs. For the most time I worked as a long distance truck driver. Went to Algeria and yeah, for the big rigs.

Johannes (24:33.632)
Long distance. Okay.

Alexander Greb (24:37.734)
I went to Algeria and Israel and Norway and Moldavia. Moldavia, sorry, that's the correct pronunciation. So it was quite interesting. So this was for the financial baseline. And then of course I had my jobs. I worked in the new economy back then. And there it started for me that I said like, I'm not really sure if I'm so fully convinced about that theoretical stuff because I...

first-hand experience that kind of excitement of course we all had with that internet 1.0 back then when these kinds of new ideas that were spreading and it was cool and so because you these people there they I knew I knew offices like it's it's NCR and Siemens from the 80s from where my father worked yeah but but these were different this was was hip and young and juvenile and childish in some points yeah but

Johannes (25:15.75)
Yeah.

Alexander Greb (25:32.872)
But then you found out, because I was back then wondering, but how do we earn money? Where does the money come from? And nobody could tell me. And I thought like, okay, maybe it's just me that I'm stupid and I don't get it. But then I realized when things went south quite quickly after a few months, that, probably there's actually an issue there. And so the company I was working there for as a student went, of course, bankrupt, like so many back then.

And this of course had a quite impact about me, like thinking critically about statements, about business models, about approaches. And I tried to transport that back to university, into the conversations we had there as professors and so on. But then I realized that they were not really interested in that. Nobody cared.

Johannes (26:16.858)
Mm.

Alexander Greb (26:23.591)
because we still were forced to write in exams about how great everything is and what kind of possibilities they are, why I firsthand realized, no, it's not that easy. It's not that black and white, there's a lot of gray in there. And the non-existing possibility to really discuss that, then to be honest, was killing my joy quite tremendously.

I'm not saying this is a problem of university itself. I work together now with universities, with Hochschule München, for example, as a guest lecturer there. They are doing great stuff there, absolutely. And in Stanford, what they teach there is absolutely awesome. I would have loved to be there. But my personal time at university was like, OK, get your paper and get out. Get into working life. Get into the reality.

Johannes (26:53.024)
Mm-hmm.

Johannes (27:11.288)
Yeah. Yeah. I think they are, of course, I think that's a very individual problem that some of these established professors have. But I think recent academic research, I think it's very interesting how how

Alexander Greb (27:15.62)
it like

Johannes (27:32.104)
changed. Of course, you still have to put a solid theoretical fundamental around things. But if I look, for example, what Henley School does these days about the studies regarding enterprise architecture, where you can see, how are things evolving? think there are many different universities that go into kind of a, I don't want to call it a pragmatic, but rather a practically oriented approach. they speak to

Alexander Greb (27:59.261)
Absolutely.

Johannes (28:00.095)
speak to customers or companies, do research in the field. So it's not so much about just putting a theory together, I think. Of course, that's part of the academic life. I think if you do academics right, you need to have a touch of reality and make that a realized and kind of a field study environment, to be honest.

Alexander Greb (28:21.926)
Yeah, absolutely.

Alexander Greb (28:27.172)
Absolutely. And it's interesting that you say that because we will have an episode coming up featuring professor Dr. Alexander Zeyer, who is the father of HANA and professor at, I think he was, was for years guest professor at the MIT and now professor Magdeburg and heavily researching in the AI sector. And you are absolutely right. It's like jobs. How do you interpret your profession?

Johannes (28:33.545)
I know.

Alexander Greb (28:57.66)
be it as a scientific person, be it as a consultant, being as a manager, massively matters. And that's definitely, definitely the important thing in that area. Concerning the purpose of this podcast, what is your personal mission in that way that you say like, there are certain myths probably you want to bust by that or certain

Johannes (29:01.459)
up.

Johannes (29:14.559)
Thank you.

Alexander Greb (29:27.325)
things you want companies to stop doing immediately or to start doing immediately.

Johannes (29:38.09)
So I mean, I think you know that I'm very passionate about architecture itself. So also a little bit methodology. I think that comes back from my interest in academics. And something that I would like to achieve is that, you know, companies start interpreting architecture in a way how it is really intended to be. It's not a technology domain, actually. It's actually a strategy business domain that needs to be strengthened.

And I think it's a muscle that is existing in a lot of companies. But I think we need to bring across a message to train that muscle, to establish architecture practices in companies that are worthwhile to call it an architecture practice and not just, I don't know, infrastructure. And I think that's a core thing that I would like to achieve is

Alexander Greb (30:19.361)
Mm-hmm.

Johannes (30:34.729)
to demystify the word architecture as a database infrastructure savvy topic, but rather establish it as a strategic domain on a C level agenda, because that's where it needs to be. There are so many things changing and there is somebody who has to, you I keep saying an architect is somebody who creates that digital twin of a company.

Alexander Greb (30:41.476)
Mm-hmm.

Alexander Greb (30:56.369)
Yeah.

Johannes (31:01.424)
And you need somebody to understand what are the dependencies of that digital twin if you want to lift an arm, if you want to walk. And I think that's where we need to, you know, educate our listeners and learn from our guests what they think how that digital twin could look like.

Alexander Greb (31:24.91)
Absolutely. Fully agree. Same here, yeah, because I see it since years that digitalization initiatives and under this umbrella, put all SFO HANA implementations, RISE implementations and so on, are still done and seen too much as a technical exercise. Are seen as that's what the IT should do. Yeah. And I'm business. I'm not really involved with that. And this is

One in a 10 year chance, which is wasted every time exactly this happened, because I am convinced that what we are doing now with all the technology parts in there, with AI, with next gen capabilities in there, has to be treated as a business topic. It is something where you first really should talk about your strategy. What are you up to? What are the challenges that you're facing as

Johannes (31:56.062)
don't

Alexander Greb (32:21.943)
as a enterprise, as an organization, then be aware of what other capabilities you need to achieve that. And then based on this kind of capability discussion and this kind of capability awareness, discuss what kind of architecture is able to deliver the features and functions and capabilities to make that happen. And this discussion, of course, is happening before that. And it needs guidance in a phase where quite often the

Johannes (32:24.957)
Fully.

Alexander Greb (32:50.797)
SAP customer is fooled by himself. And that's, think, where we should carry this discussion more and more. That this is a business topic. This is a strategic investment that you're doing, not a cost case. And if we raise awareness with our podcast for that, to do that, and by that enable customers to leverage much more value than they have in the past, then I think our mission would be accomplished.

Johannes (33:08.513)
And I think we have us, help us achieving it.

Alexander Greb (33:24.396)
Absolutely, absolutely.

Johannes (33:27.217)
We don't want to spoil too much, right? But I think there is quite a great lineup that we can rely on. And it's not all about SAP.

Alexander Greb (33:30.808)
No, not yet, not yet, not yet.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. And no, definitely not. Definitely not. But as you see, our setup is very interesting. You come from different perspectives than me. Everybody brings his stuff with him and his passion and his past. And I think this is going to be really interesting. When I would ask you what are the topics, let's say the technological topics, that excite you more if you would have

two of them, what would they be?

Johannes (34:11.182)
Only two technology topics.

Alexander Greb (34:14.64)
Just two, for time's sake.

Johannes (34:19.302)
I mean, I have to say AI, right? Because that's the hype everybody looks at. And I think there are fantastic things coming out of it. Of course, it's still the impact has to be shown substantially in the long run. But I experiment myself with AI toolings and it's very interesting what you can get out of it.

Alexander Greb (34:37.007)
Mm-hmm.

Johannes (34:47.067)
And I think that's one of the core topics that will drive the next centuries, in my opinion. that's one of the topics I would pick. And that also, by the way, relates back to one of the mission that we spoke about earlier. I think we as architects need to shift away from a...

descriptive architecture towards kind of an intent based architecture to anticipate AI cases and stuff like that. think we should speak about that in one of the episodes because I think we need to change our way how we do how we perform architecture activities away from the classic, I think it used to be called instant economy, then experience economy. I think now we've reached the era of the intent based economy. And that means that we as architects need to do things a little bit differently.

Alexander Greb (35:15.395)
Mm-hmm.

Alexander Greb (35:20.587)
Absolutely.

Alexander Greb (35:30.617)
Mm-hmm.

Johannes (35:39.836)
Definitely pick AI. And from a technology standpoint, it's a hardware thing, but I would use my cell phone because I'm a cell phone addict, to be honest. I have my cell phone with me every day, so all the stuff that I need to do is on my cell phone. I keep getting asked how I walk the stairs when writing emails and stuff like that. So I definitely need my cell phone. Otherwise, I will have a big problem.

Alexander Greb (35:53.73)
Mm-hmm.

Johannes (36:08.636)
How about you, Alex? Are you a cellphone addict yourself?

Alexander Greb (36:09.646)
that sounds if I would.

at least this is by the way, something that really hurt me when my daughter said like a year ago to me, dad, can you survive without your mobile phone? Yeah. Which is like, am I now a bad parent? When my daughter says that to me and she realized things that I do not realize. So I tried to tone that down to be honest. Yeah. With having not that gadget all the time around with me, but we cannot live without it anymore. I fully agree with you.

Johannes (36:45.071)
Alex, we need to do a pilot. We need to do a pilot. We need to record an episode on the cell phone. I don't know whether it's going to work though, but just to have the proof point that cell phones are capable of doing everything. Sorry.

Alexander Greb (36:45.374)
but since I'm

Alexander Greb (36:53.58)
Yeah.

Absolutely. worries. No worries. No, but concerning the things which I'm at the moment, I'm completely fascinated about are yes, also AI. know the word AI is awful at the moment because certain people now start to get AI fatigue. Yeah. Since we are now again, and this remembers me, remember it's the same like those 20 years ago or 25 years ago doing the dotcom base.

why even SAP back then called itself suddenly for a few years, mysub.com. Now it's everything.ai. And we are again in the exact same craze, I think, in the moment, where we are now with the two in an ocean of possibilities. Of course, are, in my opinion, not aware at all what we can do with that and what that means. But of course, we try to find it out.

Johannes (37:30.651)
okay.

Alexander Greb (37:52.984)
There are lots of ideas happening, some of them great, some of them stupid. But I think concerning AI, we are now, and I would call it now, in an AI 1.0. Yeah, similar like web.1.0, where we are now trying to try out certain things. But to be honest, in my opinion, they are not really AI-driven.

what we are doing because we add AI to legacy functionalities and legacy processes most of the times now. I have not seen, to be honest, something which is fully AI powered because it would mean to completely leave away certain things, functionalities, processes, and let AI do its thing in that area. So I think we are just in the beginning there, but I'm really looking forward to what comes up.

Johannes (38:15.322)
.

Alexander Greb (38:43.21)
and how our business, how our society will change by this. I'm not, I may be a little bit careful with certain things. It's not that I say like, AI will mean the end of all, but definitely it will be something exciting, interesting.

Johannes (38:59.805)
I think what you are describing is if people use AI as yet another technology feature to increase efficiency.

So AI driven efficiency is obviously not a game changer, but AI driven transformation can be a game changer. but that implies that the narrative that you use to implement your AI scenario is driven out of a business idea and not out of an efficiency input output optimization problem.

Alexander Greb (39:39.436)
Yeah, absolutely. But I think that's manageable when you are able to bring these topics to the business. If you pull it out of the IT, into the business. Because the IT partners in many areas, are cost centers. They are efficiency driven because on CIO in many cases is measured to deliver a certain service for the least possible amount of budget. And as such, IT

It's not 100 % always that case, but in many areas it's that case. as such, IT driven initiatives are, like you said, all about improving efficiency, but they're not really about improving effectiveness. And this kind of raising the top line, what you're talking about, I think it's so important in any cases, even without AI to...

even when you implement S4HANA, for example, not to look in how can I do the things I did all the time quicker, faster, and cheaper, but what kind of new things am I able to do and what kind of new businesses am I able to embrace by implementing and using this kind of new technology.

Johannes (40:37.131)
Thank you.

Johannes (40:48.71)
But you know, I mean, that relates back to how we need to interact as it to the business. And there's a book that I recently read. There's nothing to do though, with, with SAP, it's called Predictably Irrational. Very interesting. It's about how it's, I think it's written by behavioral scientists, if I remember correctly, I can't recall the name, then something anyways.

Alexander Greb (41:07.149)
Mm-hmm.

Johannes (41:17.305)
And it was about how can you get people adopting something? How can you get people buying something? And it's very, very interesting. think there are a lot of great learnings out of that book, how you could use behavioral science to steer that interaction between business and IT. I think oftentimes also fear driven, because business units, and that by the way is one of the paradigms of that book,

Alexander Greb (41:43.926)
Mm-hmm.

Johannes (41:47.385)
It's oftentimes that there is the fear that if I rely too much on another department that kind of creates dependencies and by that fear comes up and resistance comes up. That's why I see, by the way, a lot of so-called business ITs evolving because I think it's all about the span of control that business units want to have.

I also want to emphasize that we should talk about that. How do you really steer the interaction between a business and IT? But do you have a book, Alex, that you think is worthwhile mentioning here that influenced you? And don't tell me it's your logistics book that you just recently published.

Alexander Greb (42:24.99)
Absolutely.

Alexander Greb (42:33.374)
I have one which influenced me heavily.

Alexander Greb (42:39.04)
No, no, no, it's not my book. It's a different book. I will show it to you, but to reply to what you say, because I think this is a hugely interesting point. One of the things which changed massively in the last four to five years is that IT is not the only channel for business anymore to consume technology. With cloud and being able to subscribe to something and get a service here and there and so on, there has been an emancipation.

Johannes (43:06.466)
Yeah.

Alexander Greb (43:09.483)
of business from IT in a certain area. And IT try to catch up and in many cases struggling to still get hold and do their job in governing what's actually happened. And this is something where especially architecture comes heavily into place because this is then formulating the guardrails where this can happen because sometimes it should and sometimes it should not.

Johannes (43:27.928)
Yeah.

Johannes (43:37.903)
Yeah, I think it really also depends a bit on how the company is run as a whole. know great companies where basically business and IT are one unit because IT itself is a full-blown differentiator and not just an enabler or a commodity product. So I believe there are great examples, but

You are right. are the entry barriers to consume technology. I think that should be the right wording that we need to use. Consumption of technology has dramatically changed over the past years indeed.

Alexander Greb (44:19.339)
Absolutely. And to answer your question with the book, it's this one here. It's Pivot to the Future. Yeah, no, no, just grabbed over there in my other bookshelf, which is on the right side. But it's Pivot to the Future by Omar Abush. It's, I think it's now something like six or seven years old. And it's really, really interesting because it's all about discovering value and creating growth in a disrupted world.

Johannes (44:23.479)
You prepared it.

Johannes (44:28.747)
That's why I asked.

Alexander Greb (44:47.403)
It's about all these kinds of mechanisms and mechanics which happen. Also, what you were saying in the behavior dimension when you are all about digesting new possibilities in technology. And I highly recommend it to everybody read it because it shows the laws of change in that area and how we can

in the best way act to, on the one hand, get the most out of it, but on the other hand also, do not leave anybody behind. Because that's one of the big, of course, risks that you cover and that you face when you are moving into that direction.

Johannes (45:22.758)
Yeah, cool. I think I need to send it over. Hand it over to me when we meet next time. I don't have it yet.

Alexander Greb (45:43.166)
Definitely we will do that. Good. Thank you very much. I think this is our first episode. I think our listeners will have something of an impression now, what they can expect and whom they can expect. And I think this is going to be very interesting. We definitely have the promise that this is not something of a one-time thing, where some people try now to do some podcasts and lose interest.

Johannes (46:00.308)
I hope so.

Alexander Greb (46:11.71)
nothing from them anymore, but this is going to be, we have it scheduled and it's serious. Absolutely. It's serious. And our ambition is huge to be nothing less than the, to go to SAP podcast globally. So we'll measure ourselves on that. But Johannes and non-SAP by the way, exactly, exactly. But Johannes, it's great to have you on board and great to.

Johannes (46:12.704)
We have it scheduled, Alex, we have it scheduled. It's in the books.

Johannes (46:28.552)
And non-SAP. Joe Rogan would comment on that.

Alexander Greb (46:40.516)
embark with you on that journey and I hope many, many listeners will feel the same and join us on that.

Johannes (46:42.507)
Likewise.

Johannes (46:50.068)
Likewise, I can only echo that what you said, Alex. I look forward to great conversations and great learnings for us, but also for our listeners.

Alexander Greb (47:00.787)
Perfect. See you next time.

Johannes (47:03.318)
See you next time.