Case Study

As SAP grew rapidly, its web infrastructure — maintained across regions and business units — grew increasingly complex and disjointed. Core capabilities including identity management and search were inconsistent across platforms, resulting in a fragmented user experience, duplication of effort, and rising maintenance costs.

Company & Position

Global Senior Director, Strategic Programs & UX Consulting (2010–2011)

Details

Each property had separate ownership, separate budgets, and its own implementations of shared capabilities. The web landscape couldn’t deliver a coherent experience to SAP’s customers, partners, or employees — and could only be addressed through cross-functional collaboration at the executive level.

Actions

• Mapped the full web landscape across properties, ownership structures, and capability layers — creating the executive visibility needed to drive alignment.
• Secured a company-wide commitment to harmonize budgets, identify common opportunity areas, and mobilize cross-functional teams.
• Established cross-functional governance structures; prioritized shared infrastructure investments: SSO across all properties, a common CMS where feasible, and consistent identity and search implementations.

Outcome & Impact

• Cross-functional governance established and sustained across functions.
• Investment shifted from redundant infrastructure to shared capabilities — reducing costs while improving experience consistency.
• Properties gradually harmonized over several years — visually and technically integrated where feasible.