Monthly Archives: November 2016

14 Ways to JumpStart #SAPJam Collaboration, Communities or Groups

How a Group Admin or Leader Ensures Adoption!

Important strategic initiatives, business outcomes and processes, collaboration, content, communications, and/or community building takes “time and effort” to translate onto SAP Jam.

The recent study, “Forrester Total Economic Impact™ of SAP Jam Collaboration for Learning, Onboarding and Employee Development” showcases the impact to cost savings, productivity,  operational efficiencies, and overall strategic objectives. Several customers that my team and I work with participated in this study and continue to realize the value highlighted. Together we see on a first hand, daily basis …that it works!

And yet, sometimes a SAP Jam group admin, business owner, or leader needs to consider ways to drive (or “spark”) sustainable growth and momentum for their respective audience. They need to step back, assess, and plan out the priorities. The last thing any of us want to see is that 3 to 9 months after go-live that the group has “zero” activity.

As a result, my team and I, based on hundreds of work experiences and success stories pinpointed a “Top 14” list to help organizations JumpStart their SAP Jam initiatives.

Which of the following are applicable to you and your current or emerging SAP Jam initiative?

Business is complex. And from complexity we want simplicity. It takes a certain skill set to turn the complex into simple. There are business challenges and technical requirements. SAP Jam can be stand alone or integrate with other SAP, SuccessFactors, or 3rd party applications and data. All of these requirements take cross-discipline expertise.

Every quarter their are new SAP Jam releases. New features and capabilities. My team and I welcome the challenge on a daily basis with the multitude of business and IT considerations (& approaches) to help our customers achieve successful SAP Jam implementations and adoption.

At the end of each day, we appreciate the many important and diverse groups we work with to address their challenges and find solutions. It takes both the “science and art” forms to achieve success.  No matter how many implementations take place and questions are answered there is always more to address, learn about, and discover.

Consider a 1000 piece puzzle. We work together to put the pieces together.Plane.Blog.png

The Many Attributes of SAP Jam
SAP Jam is compared to other platforms which is fine.

The part that’s comforting is that SAP, SuccessFactors, and the SAP Jam product team are market leaders.

SAP Jam and the attributes it represents rank very high in Analyst reports including:

  • Integration – SAP SuccessFactors integration is built in by way of SuccessFactors foundations (previously BizX) (i.e. SuccessFactors Learning / LMS, SAP HCP, SAP CRM, Hybris Cloud 4 Customer, Fiori, S/4HANA, SAP ECC (SD), Document Repositories such as OpenText, Box, etc.) with an excellent Developer and Open API environment (OData).  SAP Jam  works well with SharePoint, Microsoft Office 365 SharePoint (Web Parts), Outlook Plug-in and YouTube. Public documentation is excellent.
  • Social Learning – SAP Jam for Social Learning (Jam + LMS) reduces the cost of training
  • Roadmap – SAP Jam is part of the overall SAP roadmap so the enhancements and value continue to grow in leaps and bounds throughout the SAP portfolio. The SAP Jam roadmap is based on customer feedback and provides continuous innovations on a regular basis.
  • Admin Controls – Strong Permission Levels… Moderation Levels… Language capabilities built into the platform for the users… Users can be removed (made inactive quickly…)…
  • Groups –  Enterprise collaboration goes beyond feed conversations. Both structured and unstructured collaboration is available along with sub-groups and auto groups.
  • Feed Aggregator – SAP Jam provides a feed aggregator, SAP Jam Activity Hub, that can be used. to follow and chat in Yammer, Connections and Jam which allows for one view without having to log-in to multiple applications..
  • Mobile App – SAP Jam Mobile App, which is used for Apple (iOS – iPhone or iPad) or Android, is ready out of the box! No extra programing required.
  • OpenSocial Gadgets – Feeds and data can be embedded  such as RSS Feeds, Stock Tickers, Countdowns, Facebook, Twitter… Survey Monkey which go into widgets.
  • Work Patterns – Admins can leverage templates available, out of the box, to enable repeatable best practice and business processes when creating a group. With work pattern builder, templates can be changed and enhanced easily for custom specific needs.
  • ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS…
    >
    SAP has “1” enterprise collaboration platform only which it invests heavily in.
    > All the information is in one place (uploaded, linked, or embedded), one enterprise collaboration platform, one “central hub.”
    > Offline access allows users to select content from SAP Jam to and from a local file system via Jam File Sync Client

Summary: SAP Jam is the Best Bet!
Given the investments and attributes of SAP Jam and with a long-time career in the high tech, entrepreneurial, cross-industry, and SAP Ecosystem space, my team and I bet on SAP to make the continuous investments in collaborative enterprise business software as an essential part of the portfolio to support customers.

The value of SAP Jam is both a today and tomorrow decision. Today for what it can deliver and tomorrow for the investments to the roadmap which is based on a 40+ year history of SAP success.

At the end of the day, my team and I enjoy working with a diverse, smart, progressive group of senior executives, leaders, business owners, instructors, group admins, and stakeholders who want to work on a platform, which delivers the most value and impact, to help them and their fellow internal and external colleagues do their jobs and realize the type of outcomes highlighted in the Forrester Study.

The ideas associated with enterprise collaboration have been around for hundreds of years. However, the realization in the cloud with digital transformation are available NOW in full force with SAP Jam.

About the Author

  Richard D. Blumberg is a SAP Jam Practice leader who works with both SAP and SAP Services. He is the President of World Sales Solutions, LLC (WSS) (www.WorldSalesSolutions.com) providing 29+ years of thought leadership on a variety of “View from the Top” strategies including: Enterprise Social Business, Go-to-Market Strategies, Business Development, Talent Development, and Community Building.  He and his team are recognized SAP Jam global experts for implementations and adoption.


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Featured Link: SAP Jam Collaboration Help Portal

This video highlights the value of turning the complex into a more simple productivity resource.