Confusion reigns around the changes that SAP has made to its support contracts - changes that could lead to significant price hikes for some users. Participants at a recent Forum workshop - all enterprise level buyers of SAP products - expressed confusion and frustration around SAP’s communications with them so far.In short, it appears that few users are sure what the changes are, what the benefits will be and whether the changes will definitely affect their organisations.

There appears to have been scant consultation with UK organisations and some SAP account managers appear to be far better informed than others about what the new support structure is and what it will mean.

Indeed, the majority of participants in this event had found out about the changes second hand via the media or via user networks such as The Corporate IT Forum.

Whilst users are not necessarily against seeing better support from SAP, they do need to understand what benefits they will receive - some say they haven’t yet experienced any improvement in service despite the changes supposedly starting from July this year.