When the scope keeps shifting and the clock won’t slow down, some leaders tighten their grip. Saurabh Asthana does the opposite.
“Delivering high-quality projects isn’t about control,” he tells us. “It’s about creating clarity, inspiring confidence, and guiding teams through uncertainty.”
The Spark: Seeing the Whole System
Saurabh’s curiosity began back in 2007, fresh out of engineering. The ERP market, especially SAP, was rising, and he found himself captivated by how an entire business could be connected through one system — from order to invoicing with the involvement of various sales, procurement, warehouse management, and finance processes.
He began his career in the back end, writing code, before gradually moving into techno-functional roles and eventually into solution and technical architecture. Along the way, one lesson stayed with him: it’s not enough to focus on your own piece of the puzzle.
“Not just understand the part that you are doing — understand the whole process end to end and the impact on the end users.”
The Wobble That Taught Him to Lead
A few years back, Saurabh found himself in the middle of a Greenfield S/4HANA implementation where everything that could go wrong in an SAP project seemed to go wrong. The product was still maturing, the scope was shifting, the timelines were tight, and the team was stretched thin. In that chaos, he turned to a simple mantra:
“Start wherever you are, use what you have, and do what you can.”
That mindset helped the team regroup and focus on what was within their control. They played to their strengths, found creative ways to overcome obstacles, and eventually brought the project back on track.
Delivering on time felt rewarding, but for Saurabh, the real success was in what the experience taught them about patience, perspective, and trust.
Clarity Over Control
Today, Saurabh leads with clarity as his compass. He focuses on setting expectations, aligning people, and ensuring everyone understands the “why” behind the work. He brings stakeholders into the process early and makes sure scope and expectations are aligned from the start.
He also believes in involving end users as soon as possible, especially during implementations. For him, clarity isn’t just a leadership tool — it’s a kindness. It helps teams feel confident and connected, no matter how complex the delivery becomes.
Curiosity as a Daily Practice
For Saurabh, curiosity isn’t just a quality; it’s a daily practice that keeps him growing. He continues to explore automation, AI, and the latest innovations in SAP technology. At Accenture, he works with accelerators that improve both speed and accuracy in various SAP programs.
What drives this curiosity is simple: he wants every project to make life better for the people who use the system. That means designing solutions that simplify processes, reduce friction, and make work a little easier.
Learning, he says, never really ends in ERP. There’s always something new to understand, and that’s what keeps the work exciting.
Keeping Calm (and Passing It On)
Stress is a constant in large-scale transformation work, but panic doesn’t have to be. With experience, Saurabh has learned to take a step back, breathe, and look at problems from a higher perspective.
“Keep calm and carry on.”
He reminds his teams that pressure is part of the journey and that leadership means transferring calm, not anxiety. He encourages his people to focus on what they can do next, to take challenges one step at a time, and to trust in the process.
That calmness has become a defining part of his leadership style — and it’s something his teams now mirror back.
Paying It Forward
Saurabh believes that true leadership means showing, not telling. He leads by example, whether that’s through earning new certifications, team learning, or experimenting with new tools. If he asks his team to grow, he makes sure he’s growing too.
That approach has created a sense of momentum and a culture where people feel inspired to try new things beyond their day-to-day work. He says it best:
Continuous learning is contagious when people can see it in action.
The Bigger Picture (and the Life Around It)
Outside the world of ERP, Saurabh finds balance through family, sport, and music. With twin eight-year-olds at home, life is full and joyful. When he’s not with his family, you might find him at the Sydney Cricket Ground appreciating wonderful matches, or unwinding with music after a long day.
If he weren’t working in ERP, he says he’d probably be teaching. Over the years, he’s realised he has a knack for simplifying complex ideas and helping others see the bigger picture — a skill that translates beautifully between consulting and the classroom.
For anyone new to ERP or feeling overwhelmed, Saurabh offers three pieces of advice:
- Understand the bigger picture. Why are we doing this? Who benefits? What’s the actual outcome?
- Choose mindset, then method. Keep learning, stay positive, and always prepare and prevent rather than repair and repent.
- Build trust early. Clarity with stakeholders and end users is the shortest path to success.
Because in the end, transformation is as much about mindset as it is about systems — and the most reliable architecture is the transparency and clarity you cultivate in the middle of change.
Connect with Saurabh on LinkedIn
