LV Podcast_MartyMenard_PacificCoast 0:00 Hello, I'm Robert Holland and this is the SAP Insider, a Las Vegas 2025 podcast. 0:06 Thank you for listening. 0:07 And we speak as we speak with SAP insiders and industry experts about their experiences in the SAP space. 0:14 In this episode, I'm speaking with Marty Menard of Pacific Coast Companies. 0:18 Marty, please tell us a little about yourself and your role. 0:21 Hey, Robert, thanks for thanks for having me today. 0:23 Absolutely. 0:24 So I'm the chief information officer for Pacific Coast Companies. 0:27 We're a 73 year old family run third generation business. 0:31 We're a couple billion dollars in revenue, so kind of a mid tier company. 0:36 We operate in 16 states across the Western United States and we manufacture products for the construction industry. 0:42 We sell them through our distribution centers. 0:45 And then we also have a speciality contracting group that does installation of our products and many, many others. 0:52 And we really serve the construction industry, the contractors and subcontractors across the United States. 0:59 Great, thank you. 1:01 So what's your history with SAP? 1:03 And you know what, What does the SAP landscape look like at Pacific Coast Company? 1:08 So I, I worked for Intel for a number of years and actually got recruited three times to support an SAPIT organization. 1:19 And I avoided it three times. 1:21 It was just, it didn't seem like it was very fun back in those days. 1:26 And eventually left Intel, went to, went to HP and that's where I started getting my SAP chops. 1:32 That was 2008. 1:34 So I've been involved with SAP for kind of 17 years. 1:39 The landscape that we have at Pacific Coast is we're on S4, we just moved to version 2023 in September. 1:50 And our ecosystem, of course, we use a lot of different solutions that are that are part of the SAP environment. 1:57 We have about 1200 users inside the company today. 2:02 So it's pretty heavily used. 2:05 It's pretty extensive. 2:06 All of the subsidiaries use SAP. 2:08 We obviously do all of our consolidations from the accounting perspective and then each of the groups use different components of, of SAP. 2:17 Now, you know, in your role and obviously, you know, in the history you have working with Intel, working with HP, you know, you've interacted with a lot of SAP customers and, and insiders, because I know that you're part of our technology executive forum. 2:30 You're speaking with other CIOs. 2:32 What are the biggest challenges that you're sort of seeing customers experiencing today? 2:36 And what are the conversations you're having with other CIOs? 2:40 You know, when, when you come to an event like SAP Insider, it, it's so rich in terms of what you can learn and, and learn from other people. 2:48 I, I think just a lot of people are still trying to figure out what to do about moving to S4 from ECC. 2:55 Met a couple of people this morning. 2:56 We chatted about that. 2:58 People are still trying to figure out are they going to go rise or grow or or be on premise. 3:03 We're still an on premise customer. 3:05 When we moved test four in 2020, it wasn't really a great option for us to go into any kind of a cloud based solution because we had to be so vanilla at that time where there's a lot more flexibility I would say from an SAP perspective to move to to a rise or a grill. 3:23 And so I think a lot of people are just trying to figure it out. 3:25 I met a couple folks today from Kentucky, I believe they were from and still an ECC customer and trying to plan it out and you know, so how do you get there? 3:34 There's a lot of how do I get there from here. 3:37 I don't know what the percentage of customers that are on As for today. 3:40 I know it's been slow as an adoption perspective and as SAP moves out that date for not supporting ECC no longer, you know, people drag their feet even even longer. 3:52 Yeah, something in the research that I've been doing because I mean the research area I cover is primarily ERP and the underlying technology platform. 3:59 Maybe at most 40% of the existing SAPERP customers prior to the release of SAPS for HANA have licensed SAPS for HANA at this point. 4:10 And it's a steady growth, but it's certainly not accelerating at any pace that we would see most of those customers complete a move by 27 or even by 20 by 2030, right, right. 4:24 I, I think it is, you know, it, it, it's a big change, right? 4:28 If you're on an SAP, you're not going to move to Oracle. 4:31 And if you're on Oracle, you're not going to move to SAP, right? 4:32 It's just, it's just way too hard going from SAPECC to SAPS 4 is also a heavy lift, right? 4:40 There's there's I think one of the challenges that CIOs have with their business partners is how much of your business process are you going to change at the same time you're moving into this new environment because there's so much richer of an environment that's there. 4:56 SAP really stopped evolving ECCA number of years ago. 5:00 And so that that becomes really the challenge of, you know, can you can you change the wheels on the car while it's driving at 100 miles an hour and and get your business partners in particular to agree to want to do that with you. 5:14 Yeah. 5:15 And you know, perhaps further complicating this picture is, is continued new SAP releases, right? 5:21 SAP have just sort of relaunched a revamped SAP business Suite, which is, you know, underlying BTP. 5:28 It's got business data cloud as part of, it's got cloudy IP and it's got line and business applications that are sort of the, the main that it's interconnected with. 5:39 And at the same time, probably 10s of thousands of customers are still running the old SAP business suite and that sort of complicates the picture. 5:47 And so how do you, what do you sort of think about these announcements and, and the impact that they're likely to have on SAP customers? 5:56 So just a little bit of a tongue in cheek answer, but if I had contacts with the SAP marketing department, I would tell them to stop changing names of things So frequently. 6:05 It becomes very challenging as a CIO or or somebody in the organization to keep up with all the changes. 6:12 And you know, it's kind of an E i.e. 6:14 I/O situation of where did that go from what happened to this? 6:19 You spend all of your time trying to connect the old to the new and it's challenging. 6:24 In all seriousness, I've made, I think that SAP continues to evolve the platform to help customers do what they need to go do. 6:31 We're super excited about what BTP offers for us. 6:35 We're, we're certainly migrating all of our middleware over to integration Suite and that's a, that's a big move for us. 6:43 So I think the underlying technology is solid. 6:47 Where we struggle really is keeping up with the conversations of what's changed and trying to, you know, people like to have logic in front of them and A equals AB equals B, well, A = C, what is C equal? 7:02 And it just becomes challenging. 7:05 Yeah. 7:05 I mean, you know, I worked during my time at SAPI was it was called Honda Enterprise Cloud and it was called the SAP Honda Cloud Platform. 7:13 And then it was just the SAP Cloud Platform and then it was the SAP Business Technology Platform. 7:18 You know, and that's just in a seven or eight-year. 7:21 Maybe not even that long. 7:23 I've never asked the logic around why they do what they do. 7:26 I've just had to accept that it has. 7:27 But it is is baffling why they make the change that they do because it is I, I think it delays people making decisions because you're constantly going back. 7:35 Wait a minute, I thought it was this. 7:36 Oh, no, it's that and and so forth. 7:38 Yeah, it does add a layer of confusion at times, to be sure. 7:41 So, I mean, obviously there's a lot that that is still happening in the SAP space. 7:46 Many customers are still, you know, on their move to either rise SAPS for HANA, some sort of combination of that. 7:54 What are the skills that you think are going to be the most critical for SAP customers and for SAP insiders over the next couple of years? 8:01 You know, I, I, I think that's a really important question. 8:05 I may not get exactly to the, the, the point, but let me, let me meander here a little bit. 8:11 I, I think still it's all about the data. 8:15 And if, if your data isn't good, no matter what you try to go do, it's going to be hard. 8:19 And, and we're still struggling with that. 8:21 We have one or two the subsidiaries that have really done a fantastic job around their data and the benefit that they're getting out of that is tremendous. 8:28 And the other groups are struggling and and we try to make up for it in the business intelligence side and trying to come back to this matching conversation we were we were having. 8:39 You can't go to a conference, talk to people without hearing about AI. 8:43 And So what does AI mean and what are those skills? 8:45 Well, I think people are still trying to figure it out. 8:48 The the learning associated with energetic tool is tremendous. 8:54 It can be as little six weeks, but probably it's more like 6 months in many cases. 8:59 I was talking to Steve last night from Bhoomi and, and you know, the number of things that they're doing to integrate that for us is tremendous. 9:07 And then the third thing I would say is really the, the expectation around access controls and governance risk and compliance. 9:18 We're, we're just re implementing GRC and we thought it would be kind of a four to six month challenge. 9:24 It was closer to 8 or nine months and we've only done Phase 1. 9:27 And so as companies are thinking about this, are they thinking about the addition of resources for things like access controls governance? 9:36 Because all of a sudden, if you're exposing all this data to people, how do you know which people really should have access to that data? 9:42 Forget about the fact that it might go outside of the company if you're using artificial intelligence, but just the controls with inside and our company, you know, we're a family run company. 9:51 We've, we like each other, we're kind and we tend to give people access because we trust them. 9:58 But there's a there are times, you know, CIOs get paid to make sure things are reliable and risk free. 10:04 And when we struggle, it's because we've given people too much information, which goes back to the risk and compliance and then access control. 10:13 So I, I would say those three things. 10:17 And I guess I would add a fourth, which is just the integration is you're trying to merge information together from a data analytics perspective. 10:24 I think that's really important to we've invested in folks that are data scientists to help us better understand our data and and provide the resources that allow our business leaders to make better decisions. 10:36 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 10:38 And then, you know, and part of that GRC conversation also has to include cybersecurity, right? 10:43 Because the more you're exposing data, the more data is moving around the organization, you have to make sure it's protected, not just in terms of, you know, people accessing that data through legitimate means, but the integration points, you know, network. 10:58 I mean, everything is so much more. 11:00 So many more cybersecurity challenges in enterprise, enterprise computing today. 11:05 It's a kind of a matter of just when something's going to happen and and not not if something's going to happen. 11:11 Yeah, there used to be two types of companies, those that had been ransomware's ransomware and those that hadn't. 11:18 And now it's those that have hadn't and will do it the second time. 11:23 And so it's it's constant. 11:24 I had a conversation with the person this morning and she was asking me, what's the number one fear that I have? 11:31 One number one concern, it's that we're going to get ransomware. 11:34 And so you have to really, you know, go back to the access controls who should have access. 11:39 We've been ransomware, had successful deletion or denial of those things, but it always comes down to the one employee who's not paying attention. 11:50 We can put all the systems and tools and solutions in place, but if your employees aren't educated and are paranoid about what they're doing, it can be disastrous. 12:00 Yeah. 12:00 That that that's it. 12:01 That's key. 12:02 People have to be educated on what doing things means. 12:06 Right, Right. 12:07 So what's your perspective on SA PS partner ecosystem? 12:10 And here at this event, we have a huge exhibition hall, so many SAP partners in there. 12:16 What's your perspective on, you know, the role that they play in in in helping Dr. 12:20 innovation? 12:22 So the the partner solutions that are ecosystem is critical to our success. 12:29 SAP only does so much. 12:32 They leave holes in the road map on purpose. 12:35 There are areas that they don't want to make investments in or hope that the ecosystem will. 12:40 And without them, you know, we wouldn't be successful. 12:44 You know, it's frustrating sometimes when there is a hole and you have to go find a partner. 12:49 But the great news is, you know, especially in our environment that we see here today, there are lots of people that are out there to help and and fill holes for you. 12:59 We've been very lucky in our kind of strategy at our company. 13:04 So our strategy is SAP first, SAP partner second, non SAP partner 3rd. 13:11 And so we know we can find non SAP partners to help fill some the holes or solve solutions for us, but the effort to integrate that solution with our environment is not hard, but it's one more moving part. 13:25 And one of the things that we want is fewer moving parts. 13:27 We want greater reliability. 13:29 And so I think our strategy has worked well for us. 13:32 There have been a couple times when we've had to go to a non SCP partner and frankly, a couple times that I thought it was a bad idea and we went that way anyway because I'm a humble IT servant and we've pulled some of those solutions out because they did not work right. 13:48 And and so the partner environment just very, very important. 13:50 I, I have, you know, a handful of people that I count on to, to help us be successful and we're, we're lucky to have them as trusted advisors. 13:58 Yeah, that's, that's, that's fantastic. 14:02 And yeah, you're right. 14:02 I mean, those who are fully SAP partners and integrated better with these solutions are going to going to be very different than, you know, someone who isn't correct. 14:11 When you get ASAP partner you, you're sure that you're, you're highly confident that the integration is going to be there in some form or another. 14:18 That's why SAP works together. 14:19 They have these gold platinum partnerships that exist. 14:22 I don't even know what the tearing is, but you know, it's fantastic making a sign for money. 14:33 So this is an SAP insider event. 14:35 You know, we wouldn't be, I would be remiss in, in not asking a question, You know, what advice would you offer to members of the SAP Insider community? 14:43 So the last couple days I've just, so I, I got invited to be an advisor to the board, which I'm thrilled to, to do and, and help with and very humbled that they would care about my opinions. 14:58 But we'll see after I've had my first meeting. 15:00 They may not, they may kick me out, but my advice is lying to what I heard the last couple days, which is I, I asked a simple question, you know, why do you come right at lunch and different And they said, you know, no offense SAP, but we like it better than Sapphire. 15:18 Talk to some of the, some of the partners today and they said something similar, which is our conversations are deeper and richer. 15:26 And I think what that means is Sapphire is great for understanding what the SAP vision is, where they're headed, the road maps. 15:34 It's more sales and marketing oriented to get back to the marketing of we're constantly changing the names of things. 15:39 We have to put time in that where the SAP Insider event is more about education, opportunity to talk to experts, opportunity to talk to cohorts that have been there, been there, done that, so to speak. 15:53 And then you have this rich experience with all the all the partners are here. 15:56 So I think both play an important role in helping companies figure out where they're going. 16:02 What the insider event does, though, is give you that deep technical knowledge to help people grow and develop. 16:07 And they can go back and then say, hey, I I heard from these experts, I've taken this training, you know, this is this is an appropriate approach for what we're trying to accomplish. 16:16 Yeah. 16:16 I mean, I, I think I've said before that Sapphire paints the picture of the world as SAP would like it to be. 16:22 It isn't necessarily the way that SAP insiders are using their solutions today. 16:26 Right. 16:27 Well said. 16:28 Yeah. 16:28 So, well, Maddie, it has been absolutely a pleasure. 16:31 Well, thank you. 16:32 Thank you so much for coming by and sharing your thoughts. 16:35 You're welcome. 16:35 Thanks, Robert. 16:36 Appreciate it. 16:36 Appreciate it. 16:37 Alright.