SAP on Azure: Designing a C-Suite Journey Through Art & Technology

This project, undertaken for Microsoft UK around the 2018 financial year, focused on designing and delivering a unique, high-value engagement experience to vividly showcase the compelling advantages of SAP on Azure to C-Suite executives across the United Kingdom. The primary objective was to secure 50 new account sign-ups for SAP on Azure from existing strategic target accounts by the year’s end. Concurrently, the initiative aimed to significantly broaden awareness of SAP on Azure as a premier platform amongst an extensive Microsoft audience, thereby cultivating substantial market momentum towards Azure. The campaign specifically targeted UK-based C-Suite executives, employing a carefully orchestrated fusion of art, technology, and business storytelling as a cohesive service experience.

The Core Challenge: Engaging Executive Audiences

Microsoft encountered a common yet significant hurdle in how to effectively engage with senior business leaders. Capturing the sustained attention of busy C-Suite executives proved difficult, as this influential audience is often overwhelmed by, and therefore resistant to, typical corporate messaging saturated with “cold cloud jargon.” This prevailing fatigue with overly technical language was identified as a key frustration within their existing information-gathering experiences. While the combined technological strengths of Microsoft, Azure, and SAP undoubtedly presented a strong business case, it became clear that a more compelling and resonant approach was essential. The fundamental challenge, therefore, was to move beyond merely listing features and instead to provide each C-Suite member with a distinct, personally relevant reason to embrace the integrated cloud solution. This necessitated designing an experience that would not just inform, but would genuinely inspire and persuade these top-tier enterprise leaders.

Our Approach: Weaving Art, Technology, and Experience Design

The chosen strategy centred on creating a profoundly experience-driven engagement. Moving decisively away from traditional marketing methods, the team meticulously designed a service journey tailored specifically for the unique needs and expectations of the C-Suite. With a keen understanding of this audience’s aversion to overly technical presentations and their requirement for clear, resonant value, the campaign harnessed the profound and emotive power of art. This was not simply a creative styling or a superficial flourish; it was a deliberate service design choice. Through this lens, art became the primary medium to spotlight the SAP on Azure partnership in an accessible, memorable, and human-centred way, thereby making complex technological benefits tangible and understandable. The core idea was to facilitate a co-creation of value perception, achieved by demonstrating future possibilities in a strikingly visual and interactive manner. This vision was brought to life by fostering collaborations between renowned artists and SAP on Azure technology experts. Together, they produced “legacy artwork”—a series of installations and interactive experiences that were not only emotionally engaging but also deeply rooted in technological intelligence. These unique creations, driven by a sophisticated blend of human creativity and advanced analytics, ranged from physical sculptures to immersive virtual reality environments, all powered by the capabilities of SAP on Azure and meticulously designed to offer a distinctive, high-quality service interaction.

The Journey: Blueprinting an Immersive C-Suite Engagement

The campaign meticulously orchestrated a series of interconnected touchpoints, which together formed a comprehensive service journey. This journey was designed to thoughtfully guide C-Suite executives from initial curiosity and intrigue, through a period of deeper understanding and engagement, and ultimately towards informed advocacy and adoption of the platform. Foundational to this was an inferred phase of deep audience research to truly understand C-Suite needs, motivations, and prevailing pain points, which in turn informed the overall value proposition and the specific messaging crafted for each touchpoint.

The project was inherently collaborative, involving close partnerships with several key groups. Esteemed artists were commissioned to co-create the aesthetic and emotional layers of the service. SAP on Azure technologists provided the essential technical underpinnings, ensuring authenticity and demonstrating capability. Microsoft’s own subject matter experts acted as crucial service delivery agents, sharing insights and facilitating discussions. Furthermore, strategic partner companies, including Carlsberg, City & Guilds, and Co-op, played a role by sharing their success stories, which likely informed the “Cloud Stories” and provided tangible, real-world proof points within the overarching service narrative. Throughout this process, the C-Suite audience remained the central focus, with their journey carefully mapped and each interaction thoughtfully considered.

The narrative heart of this service experience was built around the “Cloud Stories” framework, strategically positioned at the intersection of Art, Business, and Technology. This framework cohesively wove together contributions from the creative storytellers (the artists, delivering emotive engagement), business storytellers (showcasing tangible partner successes and offering peer validation), and technology storytellers (SAP and Microsoft Azure, providing the credible technical foundation). A portfolio of unique art experiences was developed to serve as the primary physical service touchpoints. This included a prominent, reusable “Awareness Beacon”—an interactive hero art installation designed for public spaces to drive broad awareness and meaningfully convey a customer narrative. This was complemented by two “Hero Gallery Art Experiences,” also reusable and interactive, hosted within a dedicated gallery environment to tell customer stories in a more focused and engaging manner. Finally, seven smaller, reusable “Additional Partner Art Experiences” provided succinct visual stories within the gallery, offering partners a credible and creative platform to engage directly with the C-Suite audience during the event.

The orchestration of the C-Suite journey itself unfolded through several key stages. The engagement was initiated by designing a high-impact first touchpoint that deliberately subverted expectations: C-Suite executives received a distinctive direct mail piece, conceptualised as a work of art, creating an immediate sense of exclusivity and intrigue that set the tone for a premium service experience. Following this, a seamless transition to deeper content was facilitated through a dedicated web hub—an online service touchpoint offering behind-the-scenes content and teaser material, allowing users to engage at their own pace and build anticipation for the main event. The physical event was designed as the pinnacle of the service experience, where the C-Suite audience participated in a press launch, immersed themselves in the curated gallery environment (a key multi-sensory service touchpoint), attended workshops (interactive service encounters), and heard from influential speakers (expert service delivery). Importantly, the main art installation was also made accessible to the public in a prominent open space, significantly extending its reach and impact. The campaign was also designed for sustained impact beyond the event itself. Post-event, its reach was amplified through strategic media partnerships, notably with the Financial Times, targeted Public Relations efforts, and paid social media campaigns. Plans were also in place to extend the life of the campaign by touring the art installations and their compelling stories to other key locations and future industry events, leveraging both physical presence and virtual reality technology, thereby creating ongoing valuable touchpoints.

The central launch event took place in an environment meticulously designed as a service stage, intended to feel like “the nexus of art, business, and technology.” This space was envisioned as a “blank canvas”—a co-creation environment purposefully designed to encourage open conversation, networking, and collaboration. Here, company leaders could discuss and sketch out their future digital transformation roadmaps with the guidance of Microsoft experts, transforming what might have been a passive viewing experience into an active, value-generating workshop. The service environment itself was strategically structured around three core components: the “Cloud Stories” delivered through the art installations, which provided inspiration and context; dedicated “Networking Spaces” to facilitate peer-to-peer interaction and relationship building; and formal “Presentation Spaces” for focused knowledge transfer and direct engagement with experts.

Reflections: Outcomes, Impact, and Service Design Learnings

The campaign was benchmarked against a clear, measurable target: the aim was to achieve 50 new SAP on Azure account sign-ups from the existing pool of target accounts by the end of the 2018 Financial Year, an outcome directly reflecting the desired result of the designed C-Suite journey. Beyond this specific KPI, the initiative itself embodied a significant strategic recommendation—that to effectively engage the C-Suite on complex technological propositions, a considered shift towards more emotive, experientially-designed service engagements, such as this art-infused project, is highly effective.

A core learning from this endeavour was the profound efficacy of applying service design principles to complex Business-to-Business engagement. The initiative underscored that traditional marketing approaches, which are often laden with technical jargon and can fail to address the holistic needs and experiential preferences of the audience, were insufficient for reaching and resonating with the C-Suite. Instead, a holistic, end-to-end service journey design proved paramount. This involved carefully considering every touchpoint, from the initial invitation to post-event amplification, and meticulously focusing on delivering tangible value, fostering co-creation, and crafting memorable experiences. It was this comprehensive approach that was key to capturing attention, fostering belief, and ultimately driving strategic action. The broader impact, beyond direct account acquisitions, was an acceleration in conversations and a significant boost in the adoption rate of SAP on Azure. The campaign successfully generated widespread positive momentum for Azure as a platform, ultimately differentiating Microsoft’s enterprise cloud offerings by delivering a superior and more meaningful engagement experience, and in doing so, fostering a strong perception of innovation, partnership, and forward-thinking.