Hana Součková heads the Czech branch of a German software company SAP since 2018. According to the company’s estimates, its products, which help clients manage internal infrastructure, including orders and distribution, somehow contribute to roughly 80 percent of the Czech economy. This position allows a relatively good insight into how the Czech Republic is doing.
When was the last time you met a Czech company that does not use SAP applications?
Recently now. I have been talking with the owner for 2.5 years now, when he says “I know I would need and want it, but we already have our old system so ingrained in the DNA of our company that it would cost us a lot to replace it”. We had an agreement that when he was doing something new, he would give us a chance to come and see if we could help them. Last week on Thursday he called me that this is the moment and that I can come. So there are still a lot of companies that don’t have SAP.
I asked because, according to your estimates, you are somehow involved in roughly 80 percent of the Czech economy.
We recalculate it in such a way that we somehow touch 80 percent of the gross domestic product, which of course is mainly due to the fact that we are used by energy companies, telecommunications, and the state as such, that is, according to the volume, it comes out like this. If you look at it from the perspective of end customers, there are roughly 1,400 companies that use SAP.
You talk about the SAP environment as a kind of social network, how do you understand that?
Over the past 10 years, we have made several significant acquisitions aimed at building global networks, one of which is called Ariba. It is the world’s largest supply chain network. It enables a whole range of services, starting with the fact that the companies are, of course, somehow vetted, certified, and meet certain requirements. It allows you to look for alternatives, it allows you to work with some degree of risk when, for example, supplier X is located in a region where a natural disaster can occur or something like that. In this way, you can relatively easily find alternatives in other parts of the world. We are now very focused on sustainability, which means working with how the whole supply chain works.
Among Czech companies, sustainability and ESG are increasingly less popular topics, what do you think can be done about it?
Society in general today is terribly prone to grab a “buzzword” and hide a lot of other things behind it. As if the three letters ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance – environment, society, functioning, editor’s note) have de facto become only one, and it is connected to a lot of politically and lobbyist sponsored things.
This is how I see it for myself. Our planet has almost everything in terms of mineral resources, water. Nothing will probably land here from space in the foreseeable future, which means that if we want to preserve the planet for our children, I think we need to think about long-term sustainability.
What exactly do you mean by that?
To really perceive and monitor whether I can make the operation of my company more efficient, from the point of view of working with water, energy, and minerals. Or in the form of the supply chain, if I can’t transport some raw materials cheaper, by a shorter route, or in some other way. That’s the “E”.
The other part is that the structure of the workforce is really changing, and that “S” is going to be terribly important. To keep productivity and efficiency roughly where the company needs it, but also to somehow respect where the company is moving. For example, the possibilities of different working hours, or the fact that what you have graduated once will not be enough for you for the rest of your life, and you will have to prepare to be a lifelong student.
The point about “G” is that some processes are long gone and we only maintain them artificially. Some rigid old structures will not be able to respond to what the world needs. To be able to go through those individual steps, you need data so that you don’t make decisions based on your gut feeling. You can’t even make them based on historical experience, because those are no longer relevant.
When you mentioned your studies, you yourself studied civil engineering, but now you are doing something completely different. Do you think this is a direction?
Today, there is a huge trend in the fact that individual fields grow into each other, and I think that interdisciplinarity will be the basis for you to be able to connect things. When I talk to customers, I realize more and more how important it is to see connections. For this, we will educate ourselves throughout our lives. We need experts, sure, but even in the largest laboratories you don’t need a thousand of them, but only some percentage of those who are really very narrowly focused. But then you need many more people who know the context and can connect individual points of interest, perspectives on the matter, and education is related to that. And I’m trying to move on and this year I finished my studies in London Master of Transformation, so I got the title Master of Interdisciplinary.
What specifically does your original school give you?
College generally gives the ability to work with information, evaluate it and receive new ones. That will be needed the most. What are the most important features today? According to surveys, it is analytical thinking, the ability to make decisions and contextual understanding of the situation. Any college will teach you that, because it guides you a little differently than elementary and high school.
What should change in Czech education?
In the Czech Republic today, we know how to create talent, but then we don’t know how to work with it as much. Academia needs to work with commercial organizations to broaden the scope. In Germany, for example, it is common for someone to work while studying.
Mainly courage
The prevalence of SAP in the Czech economy gives you a very good insight – how are Czech companies prepared for changes?
I would divide it into three categories. There are international companies, such as SAP, Bosch, Škoda, that have their own programs and the capacity, strength, finances and resources to create programs that will be aimed at their individual fields, such as automotive. Their power needs to be harnessed because they can form a large part of the working population.
Then we have a large part here that is entrepreneurial, where I think there are enlightened entrepreneurs who are pushing their companies towards new technologies. In this regard, I dare to say that we are in the front line, if we compare it with, for example, the other states from Visegrad. The pitfall is that they don’t have enough pressure or space for their own programs. The biggest downfall is with the end users, because they don’t want it, and when you don’t have a systematic long-term program to help you work with those end users, it’s very difficult for you as an owner to enforce those changes.
And then there is a third group of Czech companies that have not grown to the size where digitization and new technologies in general would help them much, but they do not perceive it and do not have the ambition to cross borders.
Sometimes it’s such a snobbery, maybe they think that’s enough for them. But when you have no comparison with the competition from the outside, nothing motivates you to go into those things. And there is our role. We are trying to make Czech companies world-class.
What should a company want from digitization so that it is not just another “buzzword”?
I perceive today’s world in such a way that it is really in a phase of change to the point of chaos, when a whole range of structures and things that we were used to are being dismantled, whether you take it economically, politically, security-wise, or technologically.
On the other hand, what doesn’t change is the essence of business as such – you have some group of people creating something together to sell it to someone. This doesn’t change no matter what chaos you are in. That means you need employees, production and customers.
When we talk about digitization, I always try to inspire our customers to go back to the basics here. Are my customers changing, if so, in what direction and how do I need to respond? Are the needs in my production changing, do I need to innovate the production process, product or service as such?
It is about continuous innovation, how companies can maintain their innovative potential. It’s in the mindset. Actively working with it in the sense that I have the possibility and the right to change the status quo and constantly think if there is something different, even if it is a small thing, how I could improve the status quo. For me, digitization is not a project, for me it is a never-ending journey.
If I come back to the education system, it has to form the foundation so that people have a wider awareness, so that scientists really bring the latest knowledge, because the world is changing very quickly.
This also means supporting science and research, and at the same time business must not be closed to new impulses, because then it is the bearer of change.
In this regard, can business provide the kind of leadership that politics seems to lack?
I believe in islands of positive deviance. There are lots, really, lots of very interesting activities and platforms that are trying to deal with this. One of the basic prerequisites for being a leader is that you must be able to take responsibility not only for yourself, but also for others.
Do you have an example of such a platform?
For example, scouting is growing enormously, in Prague they have already stopped receiving because they don’t have the capacity. I am relatively optimistic, there are more and more islands of positive deviation around me. That generation perceives the need to make decisions, accept risks, and act. The important word is actionability.
We have had a period of relatively very good life now, but the generation that is coming, with everything that is happening, it will put pressure on them, maybe they will grow up to be a much stronger generation than we think.
When I gave a lecture at a high school, I asked what qualities inspire them in the personalities they watch. And you know what came out? Courage. So I thought it wasn’t so bad.
