An SAP Consultant’s Guide to Executive Alignment

Functional modules, configuration depth, and project experience all build credibility for SAP consultants. But over time, achieving a senior level of influence often has less to do with technical delivery and more to do with executive trust.

When you are engaged on a project, those at the C-level aren't watching the detailed work of consulting tasks. They're watching whether the transformation they’ve staked political and financial capital on will make their business better. And while they may not understand the details of your work, they definitely notice whether or not your work speaks their needs and concerns.

This quick guide from IgniteSAP is written for consultants who want to move past delivering and start creating the substantial added value that executives actually talk about after the project ends.

What C-Level Roles Want From SAP Projects

Let’s begin with the executive perspective. Executives think about things like their growth targets, operational risk, market reactions, and investor calls. Each type of executive is different, and each looks at the SAP project with a different lens.

The CEO often looks at SAP as part of a broader effort to become more adaptable. They're asking questions like: can we respond faster to market shifts? Can we accelerate the implementation time? Their view of SAP is of a means to contribute to their plans for entering new markets or changing pricing models.

The CFO, on the other hand, thinks in numbers. They care about whether the project improves margin, cuts cost per transaction, or frees up working capital. They're usually less interested in the architecture of the system and more interested in whether it will reduce manual work in reporting or speed up financial close.

The COO usually views SAP through the lens of supply chains, inventory accuracy, and factory throughput. They want things to run without friction. Disruptions during rollout frustrate them, not because they affect shipping schedules or increase overtime.

Meanwhile, the CIO sits in the middle, trying to modernize the system without putting compliance or security at risk. They’re often the bridge between your team and the rest of the board.

This is why consultants who stay in their own functional lane often miss the wider goals. If your inputs don’t translate into executive outcomes, the value of your contribution may be high, but still go unnoticed.

Making Sense of Executive Success Criteria

Consultants equate project success with go-live, but that’s not how leadership measures value. Most executives judge these programs by what they do for the business six, twelve, even twenty-four months after go-live.

If margins go up, inventory shrinks, days sales outstanding drop, that’s success. If costs go down in a way that can be shown in a budget review, or if new capabilities allow the business to do something it couldn’t before, that’s also success. But if nothing changes operationally, they see failure.

And it’s not only financials. User adoption, process simplification, the speed of decision-making, all these are signs that the new system isn't just running, but making the company better.

Consultants who know this, and can bring it into functioning SAP systems, tend to get asked back. Not just for support work, but for new challenges. Because the leadership team remembers the people who helped them get credit for implementing meaningful and beneficial change.

What to Do Before the Project Starts

Most people think executive engagement begins after the kickoff, but the story often starts during pre-sales or early scoping workshops. Even if you're not leading those sessions, this phase is a chance to observe what matters to executives, how they talk about success, and where their concerns seem most concentrated.

If the CEO is asking about customer response times and the finance team keeps talking about reporting delays, take note and look for related patterns. Bring these insights back into your work later when considering what aspects of the project are most important.

You can also do your own homework as preparation. Browse earnings reports, investor briefings, or recent public interviews with the company’s leadership. You’ll often find statements like “We’re focused on expanding into new markets” or “We’re under pressure to reduce logistics costs.” These are objectives that the system SAP needs to support.

By the time the blueprint starts, you’ll understand the backdrop. You’ll be able to explain your part of the system as a way to solve real business challenges.

How to Make Yourself Heard by Executives During a Project

From the executive’s point of view, governance is about control and clarity. They want to know if the project is doing what it promised, if costs are contained, and if surprises are being handled.

If you're ever asked to present or join an executive meeting, don’t waste time on technical progress. Speak about how the consulting team is addressing business outcomes. Where possible, rephrase all statements about progress in business terms.

Don't assume everyone knows the context for the discussion. Set the initial scene. Then describe what changed. Why did you do it? What will it let the business do next?

And even if you’re not in those meetings, you can sometimes influence what goes into them. Brief your team leads with value-focused summaries. Help your manager prep executive updates. Be the person who always has the answer to “What’s the business impact?”

Turning Features Into Business Conversations

It’s not that technical detail doesn’t matter, but executives don’t have time to digest and contextualize it.

Let’s say you’re delivering a feature like Fiori tiles for plant maintenance. You could explain it in terms of UX, real-time updates, or device compatibility. Or you could say: “This means that maintenance engineers can now report issues on the spot, reducing time to repair by half a shift.” Which one do you think gets noticed?

To help you reframe features, think in terms of: time saved, steps reduced, delays avoided, errors caught, revenue protected, decisions accelerated. Don’t build it up too much. Just deliver the facts in a way that is meaningful to executives.

In some projects, consultants use business capability statements to link system features directly to executive-level objectives, making it easier to translate technical updates into clear business outcomes.

The Work That Builds Executive Trust

Executives don’t often have the time to get into long conversations with consultants. But that doesn’t mean they’re not paying attention. Smart executives notice the people who help their teams deliver. They remember the names attached to updates that solve problems. Be consistent in order to build that trust.

That might mean going beyond your duties to help others: like preparing a better slide for a stakeholder who needs to present to their CFO. Or helping a business lead frame a trade-off in a way that defuses tension. Or quietly identifying a risk early and sharing it with someone who can act on it. None of this is part of the project plan, but all of it matters.

Executives often rely on comments and one-line summaries from their lieutenants. If your work makes those others look good, by giving them clarity, predictability, and progress, they’ll speak well of you when it counts.

Speaking Business Without Buzzwords

Speaking the language of business doesn’t require a financial degree or fluency in business jargon. It requires care, to frame your work in terms others can understand. Care to avoid buzzwords that alienate. Care to pick examples that relate to how people actually work.

For instance, you can say, “This gives the sales team real-time inventory, so they stop promising what we don’t have.” That sentence lands because it reflects a real tension. It’s simple, visual, and addresses someone’s daily problem.

When explaining options, don’t overwhelm your listeners. Offer two or three scenarios, illustrated using short sentences. Describe what changes, what it costs, and what it lets the business do differently. If possible, show how the result connects to the primary goals you heard early in the project.

And when you write, imagine your audience is distracted, because they often are. Write like you talk. Give them something they can repeat in their next meeting without having to translate.

Seeing the Big Picture When You’re Deep in the Details

Consultants are often pulled into the weeds. But if you want to raise your profile, you have to step back and think about the whole picture.

Ask yourself: who benefits from what I’m building? What business goal does this relate to? What might be affected downstream? These questions help you connect your work to the bigger story.

If you can tell that story simply, you can help your project lead or your client sponsor explain it to others. Those who can take on communicative tasks, like tying a change request to a business reason, and explaining it in one sentence, often end up in more senior conversations.

Write down what you learn. Capture those one-liners. Collect examples where a feature saved time, reduced cost, or improved decisions. This becomes your library of moments that matter. Over time, it becomes your voice in the business, and can be used to add to your professional profile.

Don’t Wait for Go-Live to Start Thinking About What’s Next

Many consultants focus on cutover as the final act. But for executives, go-live is only the beginning. They’re thinking about how quickly the business can adapt. How well users adopt and embrace new processes. How to get more return from the systems and services they’ve just bought.

This is your chance to show you can continue to be useful. If you’ve been involved in the rollout, you’ve seen where the system is strong and where it still gets in the way. You’ve probably spotted features nobody is using, shortcuts that bypass controls, or other insider knowledge. 

If available, try checking the project roadmap for any mention of continuous improvement initiatives. 

Bring these up, but do it with care. Instead of saying, “This should have been fixed earlier,” try “Now that users are working in the system, we’re seeing opportunities to make reporting easier or reduce handovers.” That opens a door without triggering blame.

Even small improvements post-go-live can have a big impact on user experience, and protect the client’s SAP investment. And if you help identify and frame these ideas clearly, you’re not just fixing things. You’re adding even more value long after the project is “done.”

Shaping Your Career Around Executive Fluency

As an SAP consultant, it’s your ability to speak to the bigger picture that gets you promoted, or hired for leadership roles. If you want to future-proof your career, start thinking like an executive.

That means addressing executive needs and concerns, spending less time talking about functionality, and more time talking about effect. Not “What does it do?” but “Why does it matter?” Start observing how decision-makers speak, what slides they use, what data they request. Borrow that style and make it your own.

It also means building a public presence that reflects your strategic awareness. A well-written LinkedIn post explaining how an SAP feature improved a process in simple terms can open doors. Sharing real, specific outcomes sets you apart from most consultants who rarely speak publicly.

Inside a firm, it’s often the people who help shape proposals, or participate in early discovery sessions who get marked for senior roles. These are the moments where executive thinking is most visible. Being able to participate in them comfortably is one of the strongest signs that you're ready for more.

Executive alignment means about being useful to the right people, at the right moments, with the right message, but also seeking ways to bring cohesion to projects and organizations. By doing that consistently, you’ll find yourself invited into the conversations that determine what happens next.

Not because you asked. But because you made yourself someone worth listening to.

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