Exploring new ground - Leaving SAP

Some of you might have heard already. I will leave SAP at the end of August. And this is one of the moments where you look back and appreciate the past while very much looking forward to the future. And this is what I would like to share with you and at the same time invite you to stay in touch with me.

I have spent meanwhile almost 27 years at SAP, more than a quarter of a century, unbelievable! It has been my mantra over my whole professional career at SAP to always strive to do really well what I committed to do, while staying curious and being open for new opportunities. This worked out really well at SAP, because people welcome if you take up responsibility. It is ok to dare doing things also a little different. And yes, sometimes I also had to be a pain in order to get certain things done. And yes, you can also change SAP, if you want to. And sometimes you have to.

I met sooooo many incredible people at SAP from whom I learned a lot. This is so precious. Sharing knowledge, collaborating, getting our act together for the bigger goal and going beyond local objectives. Giving a damn on organizational boundaries. This is what makes SAP special. And is in my mind one key secret of its success.

I also worked with so many bright people of SAP’s customers and partners. It has been an honor! It was the mix of small, midsize and large companies that made it extra interesting. You get so many different perspectives. Having been for my first 10 years in consulting and experiencing day in and day out customer’s POV in an implementation project was an unforgettable treasure for the rest of my journey. I could always relate back to our customers when designing new solutions for them. And I could always go back to the people you got to know and just ask their opinion. Because it is all about lasting relations. Not a one off. Be a trusted long term partner.

SAP also gave me the possibility to basically “change job” every couple of years without having to leave the company. Which is super awesome, because you again learn a lot, try new things and still can build on what you already know. And build on the network of people you already have. And extend it.

Now is the time for an even bigger change. I will move on to my next challenges and opportunities. Outside of SAP. Along my same mantra: “exploring new ground”.

I will open up two new businesses under the branding “Aventurin One”.

• The first one is “Aventurin Waste” with which I will create a small company in the Senegal to establish a value chain for plastic waste by transforming it into diesel and by this being able to pay money for plastic waste collectors and people working in the company. It is going to be a “Social Business”, which acts like a normal company and needs to be also financially sustainable, but not with the objective to maximize profit, but using every surplus made to solving more of the problem.
• The second one is “Aventurin Consulting” for earning a living, in which I will offer coaching and training to “come from ideas under constrained resources to a sustainable solution” which will enable businesses including especially startups in IT and non-IT, classical IT departments as well as governments / NGOs to come with proven methodologies to the best possible success by meeting their customer’s needs. Whatever “customer” is in this context. Like in my Aventurin Waste example, this is not the classical understanding of “customer”. Yet the same mechanics and methodologies apply here, that I learned and used at SAP in product management and the “corporate startup” context.

Let’s stay in touch and keep shaping our own destiny! I wish you all a bright future with everything you aspire. Have fun creating it – your own future!

Cheers and see you at some point again

   Achim