CIOs and CFOs avoid “the charge of the AI Cherry Bums”
CIOs and CFOs avoid “the charge of the AI Cherry Bums”
A cursory AI tale …
In 1854, during the Crimean War (It’s always the bloody Russians), the British Army launched one of the most infamous actions in military history, the Charge of the Light Brigade.
Because of a confused order and poor leadership, a cavalry brigade charged straight into concentrated Ruski artillery fire. The soldiers could see the guns. They knew it made no sense. They went anyway.
They were brave.
The system was broken.
At the time, the British Army had barely modernised since the Napoleonic Wars more than fifty years earlier. Command structures were rigid. Decision making was remote. Warfare had changed, leadership had not. The men, sometimes nicknamed the “Cherry Bums” because of their bright uniforms, were not reckless. They were the human cost of decades of deferred change.
That story still resonates, because SAP customers recognise the pattern.
Today, boards are told to move fast on AI, it’s everywhere. The message is simple, charge or be left behind, “no time to experiment” was the SAP message from Davos.
But most SAP estates are not ready, they are a mix of legacy SAP ECC, legacy S/4 (it’s been with us a decade) and BW.
Behind the AI excitement sits the reality of customers battling to mitigate the perma crisis and rapidly changing global economy.
Many have inflight or committed to SAP migrations they no longer believe will add value, and lack the governance models to enable the new nimble (agile is the wrong term) world of AI kaizen delivered primarily through bi-modal.
Dropping AI into that environment is not transformation. It is a role the dice 🎲85% probability of failure play.
Boards know this. CEOs know this. CFOs definitely know this.
AI does not fail quietly 💣. When it goes wrong, it does so at scale, with real financial and reputational consequences. Early adopters are only heroes if it works. If it doesn’t, they become examples.
No CEO wants to be the AI Cherry Bum.
This is not an argument against AI adoption, as I’ve previously blogged and SAP then used, MIT say SAPs AI is in the 5% of enterprise AI that isn’t junk,
It is an argument against blind heroics.
The real lesson of the Light Brigade is simple, focus on the right target (outcomes) with an “adaptive” governance and delivery model in place before the battle, to enable bite size chunk AI experimentation, not during the charge.
AI in SAP should start as a canter.
Make safe the process and date core, don’t rip out and start again you don’t have time.
Run controlled pilots and Keep your options open as AI singularity will mean most AI investments will be a one year wonder and should go straight through the P&L.
At Dragon ERP
I prepare organisations, so AI becomes a force multiplier, not a cautionary tale.
You do not win modern AI battles with speed alone.
You win them by going back to basics,
All the Ps + Kiss
No CEO wants to be an AI Cherry Bum.
About the Author
Alisdair Bach is a recognised SAP Programme Director and turnaround specialist — often called a “turnaround king” by clients for his ability to stabilise and recover the most complex and failing SAP programmes. With decades of experience across global private equity and public sector portfolios, Alisdair has led high-stakes SAP S/4HANA transformations, finance and supply chain turnarounds, and complex delivery rescues.
Alisdair is also a SAP analyst working to define for investors where next with SAP, he is a author and lecturer, he defined the SAP upcycling concept as the alternate narrative to rip it out and start again clean core that is counter intuitive to AI adoption and SAPs 5X growth strategy.
Through Dragon ERP, he brings board-level assurance, forensic diagnostics, and hands-on leadership to programmes that others have written off — combining empathy with no-nonsense execution to deliver results where failure once seemed inevitable.
