Forget Clean Core—Fix Your SAP UX First, Lessons from AppHaus

Enterprise software has a reputation for being "functional"—but rarely user-friendly. And while usability might seem like a secondary concern, the reality is that poor user experience can put your entire ERP implementation at risk.

With ERP failure rates still estimated between 55% and 75% (heavy on the "estimate"), UX is no longer a nice-to-have—it’s a critical factor in success.

Where UX Meets ERP (and Why It’s Usually a Mess)

ERP systems are meant to make your business run smoother, but they only work if people actually use them. And that’s where most projects break down. Somewhere between the flashy demo and the Monday morning login screen, reality hits—users don’t understand the system, don’t trust it, or worse, find creative ways to work around it.

That’s the UX gap.

It’s not just about button aesthetics. It’s about process clarity, cognitive load, workflow alignment, and whether your team can do their jobs without a 200-page training manual. When that gap is ignored, adoption plummets, frustration skyrockets, and suddenly your "transformational" ERP investment starts to look like a very expensive mistake.

UX in ERP isn’t about bells and whistles. It’s about making the system actually work for the people who rely on it every day.

User Experience (UX) plays a measurable role in implementation outcomes:

• User Satisfaction: Only about 60% of users report satisfaction with their ERP system one year after go-live, pointing to widespread challenges with adoption and usability.

• Training Investment: Organizations spend an average of $1,200 per employee (yikes!) on ERP training. Systems designed with UX in mind reduce this burden and accelerate value realization.

• Customization Demand: Over 55% of companies now expect flexible, customizable ERP interfaces that align with their users’ real-world needs.

As the ERP market becomes more competitive and organizations demand faster ROI, UX-focused systems are no longer optional. They are essential. And if SAP sees that, we better listen up!

Enter SAP AppHaus

In this Bytesized Live, I sat down with the SAP AppHaus team—a unique team featuring designers and technologists who have made it their mission to bring human-centered design to the heart of enterprise systems—and not just any system, THE system—SAP.

I was honored to welcome:

• 👨‍🎨 Thomas Biedermann – or “Bee Dee” if you know him - is a UX veteran, partner lead for the Asia-Pacific region, and a designer who still occasionally gets ink on his hands. "Bee Dee"’s been building better experiences before “UX” was even a thing.

• 🧠 Tobias Gollwitzer – design-led innovation lead across EMEA. Entrepreneur turned SAP pioneer, Tobias helped shape SAP’s early mobile apps and now guides customers across Europe and beyond through design thinking and transformation that sticks.

• ⚙️ Dr. Peter Kaiser – architecture meets innovation. Peter’s the kind of technical leader who can talk SAML2 and HANA one minute, and design thinking the next. He’s helping bridge SAP’s biggest partners with innovation efforts that actually work, technically and strategically.

• 🎨 Karen Detken – storytelling meets AI meets design. With a background in digital media and a serious talent for making the complex human, Karen’s now leading the way on how to design for Business AI. She’s the brain behind tools like SAP Scenes and frameworks that make AI feel… less robotic.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit—I’m often tough on SAP. There’s a lot they could do better when it comes to usability, clarity, and customer experience. But credit where credit is due: the AppHaus team and their designer–enterprise architect partnership is a standout example of what SAP is truly capable of when it leads with collaboration and creativity.

Their model is, quite frankly, the gold standard. It’s not just about good design or technical excellence—it’s about how those disciplines integrate from day one. This isn’t lip service to design thinking; it’s the real thing. The way this team works together makes you want to up your game. It’s energizing.

I don’t know where SAP has been hiding them, but if I were running the show, I’d put the AppHaus team front and center. They’re not just improving the experience—they’re redefining what’s possible.

Top 3 Takeaways

1. UX Isn’t Fluff—It’s ROI (Seriously)

User experience isn’t just about making things “pretty.” It’s about making sure your $20 million ERP system doesn’t end up as the world’s most expensive shadow system.

SAP learned this the hard way. A decade ago, customers were threatening to walk—not because the backend was broken, but because the front end felt like it was designed by people who’d never actually used software. That wake-up call? It led to the creation of the AppHaus—a rogue crew of designers and architects who decided that software shouldn’t require a PhD in order to enter a sales order.

Today, they’re transforming SAP from “ugh” to “usable,” one role-based app at a time.

Here’s why this matters:

• Better UX = faster onboarding. When users actually understand what they’re looking at, you don’t have to spend that $1,200 per person teaching them how to click a button.

• Higher adoption = fewer workarounds. If your system doesn’t make sense, people will go back to spreadsheets—and good luck tracking ROI from there.

• Cleaner design = fewer support tickets. Every hour your IT team isn’t explaining how to find the “save” button is time they can spend on actual strategic work.

• And yes, it pays off. 60% of ERP users are unhappy after a year. That number drops fast when systems are built for them, not just around them.

AppHaus takes the classic SAP t-code jungle and breaks it down into clean, purposeful apps designed for actual humans—not abstract “users.” Pre-sales doesn’t need the same screen as your warehouse manager. And guess what? When people get tools that make sense for their job, they actually use them. Wild concept, I know.

If your ERP project isn’t prioritizing UX from day one, you’re not streamlining—you’re just digitizing the mess. And no one’s signing up for that twice.

2. Design Thinking Complements Agile (Because Someone Has to Ask “Why”)

Be so for real for a minute, most ERP projects run "Agile" in name only. Standups? Ok. Sprints? Sure. But somewhere between “let’s build something great” and “go-live is in six weeks,” we lose the plot. Enter the AppHaus team—who brought something wild to the table: empathy.

Their five-phase approach isn’t some corporate poster fodder. It’s how they keep big tech builds from turning into expensive guessing games: Explore → Discover → Design → Deliver → Run

Yes, it’s structured. No, it’s not waterfall. Think of it as sprint zero’s cooler, smarter older sibling—the one who actually talks to users before writing a single line of code.

Here’s why it matters:

• Explore: Where’s the real opportunity? Not just what IT says needs fixing, but what people are actually struggling with on the ground.

• Discover: Stop assuming. Start observing. AppHaus literally rides along with truck drivers and shadows production line workers. This is ERP built from the factory floor up, not the boardroom down.

• Design: Lo-fi wireframes, clickable prototypes, mockups that get honest feedback before your dev team burns 300 hours coding the wrong thing.

• Deliver: Hand-off to Agile teams that now actually understand the user journey, not just the Jira tickets.

• Run: Continuous refinement with clear feedback loops, not just “See you in 18 months when we do another upgrade.”

This process is how you align business, tech, and human behavior before the pressure cooker of sprint velocity takes over. It’s not about slowing down—it’s about setting up the work so you’re not backtracking two quarters later. Agile without purpose is just expensive motion. Design thinking gives it a compass and a conscience.

3. Golden Balconies Over “Clean Core”

“Clean core” is so cringeworthy to me. Not because streamlining operations is a bad idea—of course it’s not. Everyone wants leaner, faster, easier-to-upgrade systems. But the way SAP tosses that phrase around, you’d think achieving it is as simple as clicking a checkbox in configuration.

In reality, going “clean core” is brutally complex—especially for companies that have spent years building the exact customizations that made their processes work in the real world. When that all gets swept aside in the name of modernization, what’s left? A vanilla system that technically works… but no longer works for you.

That’s where the AppHaus team flips the script. They’re not here to dismantle your operations in the name of cloud purity. Instead, they help you build golden balconies—smart, strategic extensions that preserve the secret sauce of your business while staying aligned with SAP’s upgrade path (whatever yours may be).

The goal is:

• The structure and stability of a standard SAP core

• The flexibility to retain the workflows that actually drive your business

• The ability to modernize without bulldozing your identity

AppHaus understands that transformation doesn’t mean conformity. And they’re proving you can move fast, stay compliant, and still keep the things that make your company unique.

Because “clean” shouldn’t mean “sterile.” It should mean smart. Intentional. And yours.

Why Projects Fail (and How UX Keeps You Out of the Headlines)

Big SAP projects don’t fail because the tech isn’t powerful enough. They fail because people assume they know what users want, slap together Frankenstein’d requirements, and then act shocked when go-live is a disaster. And they're big enough to capture the “$Gazillion ERP Disaster—Entire Team Axed” headlines.

Here’s how it all goes sideways:

• User research? What user research? Most projects skip this completely or fake it with a few recycled personas from the last implementation.

• Requirements written by a committee. Translation: 17 stakeholders, 48 opinions, and zero actual alignment.

• Change management by surprise. “Congrats, your job changed overnight. There was a training doc, didn’t you read it?”

The AppHaus team approaches design the way it should be done—starting with actual humans, actual workflows, and actual pain points. Before a single feature gets built, they map out where friction lives, where communication breaks down, and what people actually need to do their jobs better.

This isn’t about making screens look nice. It’s about removing chaos from your timeline and uncertainty from your budget.

The result?

• Projects that solve real problems instead of imaginary ones.

• Adoption that doesn’t require begging, bribing, or retraining every six weeks.

• Teams that feel like partners in transformation—not victims of it.

AppHaus has seen a lot of this. They’ve been brought in to course-correct mid-implosion. They’ve sat in the post-mortems. And now? They design to prevent the fire before the smoke ever shows up.

Because at the end of the day, UX isn’t window dressing. It’s insurance. It’s alignment. It’s the difference between “It works, but no one uses it” and “This changed the way we do business.”

✅ Bytesized Advice

• Embed designers in your implementation team from day one.

• Don’t let GenAI distract from actual user pain points.

• Trust your design teams. Give them space—and executive air cover.

• Build with the user, not just for the user.

Final Thought

What AppHaus proves—loud and clear—is that ERP doesn’t have to feel like a punishment. When you bring design and architecture together from the start, you don’t just build systems that work—you build systems that people actually want to use.

And that? That’s where the real ROI lives.

This isn’t about trends. It’s about outcomes. And the AppHaus team is quietly leading one of the most important shifts in enterprise tech: putting people at the center of systems again.

If you’re navigating an ERP rollout, planning your S/4HANA migration, or just tired of explaining the same screen to five different departments—go watch the full session. Better yet, rethink how you’re building from the beginning.

🎙️ Bytesized Quote of the Week

“Designers are the voice of the user, even in a room of ten product owners looking for shortcuts.”

Tobias Gollwitzer, SAP AppHaus

Sources: Gartner, Bloor Research International, Forrester, B2B International

📺 Watch the Full Episode: 🔗 https://www.youtube.com/live/4YacGmhkI1A?si=4oCRE97SnjvO22yw

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Reach out. Seriously—I do these to add real value to the community, and your insights help shape every episode. Whether it’s feedback, a follow-up question, or a topic you want us to tackle, I want to hear from you. Reach me directly at kyler@theconfluencial.com

Thanks for reading,

—Kyler

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