SAP TechEd: Better and Better
After two weeks of back-to-back events, I was thinking about the key message from SAP TechEd so far.
As a technologist and innovator, of course I’ve talked about our technology platform direction and our innovations in in-memory computing, cloud architecture, and mobility. But the key message is really about a new perspective, a new reality, a new SAP. As the new Run Better campaign demonstrates, we enable an entire foundation of business around the planet. And we do so with trust, with responsibility and with an ecosystem around us. It is a great feeling, of pride and satisfaction and joy that comes from creating something great together. Perhaps nowhere was this feeling more exemplified than in the innovation weekend at TechEd. A great team, led by Kaj van de Loo, Anne Hardy, our GEPG colleagues and many others, organized a fantastic event of co-innovation using our new technologies, that led to some amazing, fun and creative outcomes, and even more importantly, demonstrated our ecosystem values in action.
Standing in front of over 9000 customers, partners, and employees at my keynotes I got the same feeling. The conference was full of people who have trusted their business, and their livelihood with SAP. That is a huge responsibility. At the same time, these people want more: They want and need to do more with the software they have and innovate as well, so their customers continue to enjoy their products. Meeting the customers, partners, analysts, mentors and the media, reinforced this. And their feedback has also reflected an increasing recognition of our return to our roots of technology and innovation, with our ecosystem, and without disruption.
So, the key message from TechEd is very simple: we are in this together.
The announcements from Las Vegas are the culmination of work that SAP has done with over 40 customers and partners. These are customers that have been willing to share their data with us to test-drive HANA in real-life scenarios. And partners like Dell, Cisco, EMC, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, VMWare have been working on providing the infrastructure for cloud computing and virtualization management and Hana. Capgemini and Microsoft showed how Gateway made it possible to build a hiring portal 6 times faster. Walking the exhibition floor, you saw the power of collaboration and co-innovation.
Money can’t buy an ecosystem like this, and the experience and expertise they have and share with the ecosystem is invaluable. At the next TechEd event in Bangalore, I will show just how fast innovation can happen when you bring together the best in the industry real partnerships.
Sent from a mobile device
Thank you for your post.
Regards,
Kevin
In the case of the SAP ecosystem, we each have vested interests, and we can all be categorised (customers, 3rd party product partners, SI's big and small, salaried and independent programmers and consultants etc). However, there are two important common areas;
* We are all individuals, and ....
* the SAP ecosystem provides a way (i.e. SDN, SAP tech Ed, ASUG, etc) for us to learn and grow and provide better value.
In my job, as BASIS / Netweaver consultant for a large SI, both the 'value' and the 'customer' are different people, compared to someone who works as a Business Process Analyst for an SAP Customer. However, both of us 'can reach out and touch somebody' (OK, I apologise right now for that) via SDN, ASUG, Tech Ed etc to people who have had experience with what we are having problems with.
There's not necessarily any immediate cash benefit in exchanging ideas and thoughts, but it helps us provide better value, better results for the same or less cost effort. But more importantly it makes the SAP ecosystem a bigger, more attractive space to work in, because one more member of the community knows how to create this extra value.
In short, We are all in this together, so spread your knowledge and help grow both the community and your own future.
Collective intelligence is what helped shaped civilizations from hunter gatherers to where we are today; better tools, efficient methods and precise science. So in a nutshell we witnessed again collective intelligence working towards a singular goal.
These are exciting times and we are happy to be part of it.
Best of luck in Bangalore and Shanghai
Thanks once again for a good teched.
sa
I would like to tell you that you´re a great source of inspiration for me and many people I talked to at TechED Berlin. Since you have the technical knowledge necessary to "sell" your message to the technical people, your words has a great effect. I hope to hear many more messages like the Teched ones from your side in the future.
Thank you so much for being in this with us.
Yours faithfully, Otto Gold, SAP Mentor
That is all.