Sprechen Sie "Engineer?"

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

The Wall Street Journal ran an interesting article ("SAP's Plan to Globalize Hits Cultural Barriers") back on May 11 by Phred Dvorak and Leila Abboud about the efforts going on at SAP (the German software engineering company) to globalize its technical workforce.

A number of things caught my attention as I read the story.

In my March 9 posting, I talked about how one can describe and understand corporate cultures through the lens of behavioral styles. In the SAP Story, the clash between Shia Agassi (we'll assume he represents the Driver culture - started four companies by age 24) and the German programmers (we'll assume they represent the Analytical culture -- took a year or more to hone programs) is a classic struggle between speed and quality, which are not natural allies. But the important thing to consider is that if either side "wins," SAP loses. Here's why.

If the Driver side wins, a SAP product will get into the market faster but may experience quality glitches that undermine its credibility and drive its customers to its competitors who have comparable products with better quality. If the Analytical side wins, the products will be technically sound but will most likely be late to market or outdated from an innovation or customer requirements standpoint. The trick for SAP, or any other technology company, whether they are in software or pharmaceuticals, is to find the right balance between responding to market pressures for faster release of products and ensuring quality. It can take a company and individual members a long time to realize that both, speed and quality, are needed in most markets today.

Adding to this dynamic is the fact that five German IBM engineers founded SAP. I don’t know about you, but when I hear the words “German, “IBM,” and “engineer” spoken in the same breath, words like “precision,” “methodology,” and “quality” take on a whole new dimension. I think it’s safe to say this history has embedded an engineering mentality deep within SAP’s DNA. What implications does this have for SAP’s business? Well, for one thing, engineers tend to view suspiciously any argument for speeding up a process. They understand making a process more efficient but they don’t “get” doing it faster because quality is bound to suffer. An engineering mindset also tends to want to build a complete and thorough version of whatever product they are working on, often because they are capable of including additional features and of course there is the “cool” factor to consider. This can lead to really cool products that the customer finds too complicated or irrelevant.

Another piece to this puzzle is what work SAP leaders assigned to which global center. Palo Alto handled the products’ look and feel (sounds glamorous and high visibility); India specialized in analytical tools (sounds like this could be cool); Walldorf (Germany) managed hard-core coding. The little I know about the assembly line culture of software development tells me that hard-core coding responsibilities aren’t glamorous or career-advancing roles, particularly when compared to project management roles. So on top of all this change, the German programmers got the grunt work (somebody tell me if I’m off base here). Keep in mind as well, these are programmers who take a great deal of pride in their national and personal reputation as engineers. As one German developer commented about the Hercules project, “it’s not ‘good, old German engineering.’”

So what’s my pithy advice to SAP?

1. Educate everyone in SAP on the external environment – rapid advances in technology demand innovation and adaptability if SAP is to compete effectively.
2. Focus on the customer and their needs. Just because you can build it doesn’t mean customers will spend money to get it.
3. Experiment with finding the right balance between speed and quality. Learn where speed will compromise quality and where it won’t. Understand as a Driver or Analytical style person that one’s predisposition to a particular way of doing things doesn’t make it right in every situation.

Most of all, viel glück!