Unlocking Collective Potential: SAP Customer Influence Program
In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, the ability to innovate and adapt is paramount for success. Recognising this, SAP has established the Customer Influence Program, a dynamic platform designed to harness the collective potential of its customers and partners. This program goes beyond traditional feedback mechanisms, empowering stakeholders to actively shape the future of SAP products and services.
Empowering Customers Collaboration
At the heart of the SAP Customer Influence Program lies the opportunity for customers and partners to contribute their ideas, suggestions, and feedback directly to SAP's product development teams. Through this forum, participants can:
- Explore and Vote: Customers and partners can explore existing improvement suggestions across various SAP products and vote on the ones they deem most impactful or necessary for their operations.
- Propose Enhancements: Contributors are encouraged to propose their own enhancements, initiating discussions and collaborative efforts with peers and SAP experts. These proposals undergo a voting process where fellow participants can lend their support.
- Engage in Discussions: The program facilitates meaningful discussions and exchanges of insights among customers, partners, and SAP representatives. This collaborative environment fosters innovation and drives the evolution of SAP solutions.
Navigating the Customer Influence Site
Getting started in the Customer Influence Program is straightforward:
- Open SAP Customer Influence: Access the platform to explore the available sessions and improvement opportunities.
- Register and Accept Terms of Use: Register for an account and agree to the terms of service to start contributing.
- Choose a Session: Select a session aligned with your interests or the SAP product you're engaged with.
- Submit Improvement Requests: Propose enhancements or improvements based on your experiences or requirements.
- Vote and Comment: Participate in the community by voting for existing improvement suggestions and engaging in discussions with fellow users and SAP representatives.
Popular SuccessFactors Influence Opportunities
The Customer Influence Program covers a wide range of SAP products and modules. Some of the popular sessions for SuccessFactors include:
- Foundation, and Technology
- Employee Central
- Customer Influence - Recruiting
- Onboarding
- Performance, Goals, and Calibration
- Learning
- Succession Planning and Career Development
- Compensation and Variable Pay
- Time and Attendance Management
- Reporting, Workforce Analytics, and Planning
Critical Evaluation Parameters
Ideas submitted to the Customer Influence Program undergo a meticulous review process led by SAP Product Management. Key evaluation parameters include:
- Desirability: The volume of votes an idea receives indicates its popularity among users. Ideas exceeding a predefined threshold prompt in-depth review and consideration.
- Viability: Global relevance and alignment with SAP's product strategy are assessed to determine the idea's feasibility and potential impact.
- Feasibility: The effort required for development and integration within the product's architecture is evaluated to ascertain the idea's practicality.
Understanding the Voting Threshold
While meeting the voting threshold is indicative of significant user demand, it doesn't guarantee immediate implementation. SAP evaluates requests that surpass the threshold for potential inclusion in future releases. However, open requests consistently failing to meet the threshold may be closed.
Tracking Request Status
Each improvement request is assigned a status to indicate its progress through the review and implementation process. The statuses include:
- Submitted: Initial submission of an improvement request.
- Need More Info: The description of the issue and solution may not be complete and needs additional information.
- Acknowledged: The improvement request has undergone verification to ensure its clarity in description, alignment with the appropriate project and category, adherence to scope, and originality, confirming it is not a duplicate.
- Under Review: The Request has received enough votes and is included in the current review cycle.
- Accepted: The request is being considered for development.
- For Long-term Consideration: The improvement request is viewed favourably as a valuable suggestion that could potentially be implemented in the future. Nonetheless, at present, it does not appear to align with SAP immediate plans and priorities.
- Planned (Long-term): Request is planned for development in upcoming releases.
- Delivered: The request has been implemented and delivered in a SAP product update.
- Already Offered: There is an existing solution for the issue described. That solution is explained in the status comment of the request.
- Not Planned: The request has been reviewed and will not be developed.
- Merged: The improvement request has been recognised as a duplicate and integrated into another request. The parent request will show in the information section, and further updates will be done through the parent request.
Conclusion
The SAP Customer Influence Program is more than just a feedback platform; it's a collaborative ecosystem where customers, partners, and SAP work together to drive innovation and enhance product experiences. By actively participating in this program, users not only contribute to the improvement of SAP solutions but also unlock the collective potential for innovation and growth in the SAP community. So, join the conversation, share your ideas, and be a part of shaping the future of SAP products.
Stay tuned for upcoming articles on Customer Influence SuccessFactors Sessions, where we'll be exploring the latest and most valuable enhancement requests. Join us as we delve into these requests and work together to drive votes and prioritise the features that matter most to you.
Source: Influence Opportunity Homepage - Customer Influence (sap.com)
