Case Study

SAP was migrating three legacy intranet systems into a single NetWeaver portal — simultaneously validating the product’s go-to-market readiness. The Americas PMO role carried responsibility for migrating twenty regional lines of business and the entire U.S. field through the transition.

Company & Position

SAP Americas, Program Manager, Sales Operations (2001-2005)

Details

The system being replaced was the knowledge backbone for the global sales and consulting organization — the place reps went to find collateral, templates, sample proposals, and real-time community answers during live proposals. Going live on a broken platform would have brought the field to a standstill.

The new system couldn’t render data-heavy screens. The global PMO wanted to proceed. Against their recommendation, a launch delay was proposed and escalated to the CEO of the Americas — who carried it to the global CEO. The recommendation was made against significant organizational pressure, based on firsthand knowledge of what the field depended on and what the product wasn’t ready to deliver.

Actions

• Guided the migration of twenty regional lines of business; managed risks, conducted U.S. field training, and provided regular status updates to the Office of the CEO.
• Identified critical performance failures; documented and escalated findings to the CEO of the Americas.
• Recommended and successfully advocated for a launch delay against the position of the global PMO.
• Co-created a global, cross-Board area governing body; recommended methodologies, engagement models, and communications for the re-launch.

Outcome & Impact

• Go-live prevented that would have disabled the sales and consulting knowledge infrastructure for the global field.
• Performance issues addressed during the delay; system launched successfully on the second attempt.
• Completed implementation became a showcase for NetWeaver’s go-to-market readiness — a reference deployment demonstrating what the product could do when properly prepared.
• Global governance model established that outlasted the migration itself.