Mark Yolton of SAP orchestrates the large, open communities of innovation for the benefit of customers, partners, and SAP. These include:

SDN – SAP Developer Network – http://sdn.sap.com
BPX – Business Process Expert Community – http://bpx.sap.com
BOC – Business Objects Community – http://boc.sap.com
SAP EcoHub – http://ecohub.sap.com
UAC – University Alliances Community – http://uac.sap.com
SAP TechEd & SAP Tech Tour – http://sapteched.com
SCN – SAP Community Network – http://scn.sap.com

Together, these communities have ~1.7 million members in 200+ countries, with forums, wikis, blogs, eLearning, downloads, whitepapers and articles, plus 400,000 bi-weekly newsletter subscribers.

Yolton uses an interesting phrase in his response to the question below: richness of relationship. Everyone says relationships matter, and implicit in that statement is that they matter from a financial perspective. He goes on to say that “communities have brought SAP tremendous financial and non-financial benefits.” What is a non-financial benefit? Is it perhaps a financial benefit that just can’t be measured the traditional way?

Q: According to Charlene Li’s Altimeter Group’s recent report that deep brand engagement correlates with financial performance – do you think that’s true? Or is it the reverse? SAP was listed as a brand using best practices for engagement – your engagement is not limited to a few social media experts, but extends across your brand.

A: It’s a chicken and egg question. Are successful companies more engaged in social media because they can be – because they are successful, or are they successful because they are engaged in social media? There is a correlation…we don’t know if there is causality. I can say that being engaged in community and social media has brought SAP tremendous benefits, including product adoption, market penetration, and so on — and also richness of relationship which can translate into customer satisfaction and success – and I would guess that would translate into customer loyalty. I know that these communities have brought SAP tremendous financial and non-financial benefits.

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