Glad to help out.

You have it simplified, but what about the linked server?   Is that still a part of the equation?   You haven't provided any detail on that....

Create table #Temp (
    person_id varchar(8),
    starting_point Varchar(1),
    ending_point varchar(1)
);
insert into #Temp (person_id,starting_point,ending_point) VALUES ('00000001','A','B')
insert into #Temp (person_id,starting_point,ending_point) VALUES ('00000002','C','F')
insert into #Temp (person_id,starting_point,ending_point) VALUES ('00000003','B','C');

I'm guessing it's the server default collation, but it is a guess.   Not sure which collation would be satisfactory to SAP.   I know that might not be all that helpful,...

Oops!   Forgot to...

HOLDLOCK is equivalent to SERIALIZABLE.   TABLOCKX just makes the table level lock exclusive.   Does that help?   You can review these table hints here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/queries/hints-transact-sql-table

To help others see that long line of code in a more readable format:
CREATE TABLE program (
    ProgramID int primary key not null,
    ProgramName varchar(30)
);
GO
insert into...