What Do Plastic Forks, Night Vision Goggles, the Auto Industry, Robots, and SME Solutions have in Common? Day One in the Partner Center at SAPPHIRE NOW.

[former_member1394]

Day One of SAPPHIRE NOW from Orlando saw a flurry of activity in the Partner Center.  Presentations from Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), HP, Wipro Technologies, Samsung Electronics, EMC, and Oracle Corporation highlighed the many ways SAP partners are helping customers leverage innovations around Analytics, Cloud, Mobility, SAP HANA, and more in order to run better. 

The day started with a panel discussion hosted by Dawn Crew, Global Vice President of Marketing for SAP, about the investments SAP is making in its partner ecosystem so that more SME customers can benefit from the same innovations as their larger competitors.  Dawn was joined by Rinse Tamsma, Vice President, Channel, SAP Business One, SAP Business All-in-One, Claus Gruenewald, Vice President, Global Partners Large Enterprise Business for SAP, and

Carrie Maslen, Vice President, Global Channel Development for SAP.  If you missed it, you can check out the replay at SAPPHIRE NOW Online.

Dozens of microforum discussions ran throughout the day, hosted by SAP partners and their customers.  Some examples:

Hillel Zafir, CTO for EMI Yoshi Inc. -- a manufacturer of premium disposable plastic servingware -- hosted a discussion about how his company optimized the entire business with SAP solutions like ERP with SAP Partner YASH Technologies. Hillel spoke with SAP's Jerry Rosa following his session about the company's success with SAP and YASH, and what he's most excited about at SAPPHIRE NOW.

Jeff Harvey, Director of IS for Edmund Optics, hosted a discussion about how the company --  a leading supplier of optics and optical components and another SME customer -- uses SAP software to manage complex business processes at lower cost.  Jeff spoke with Jerry after his session about how Edmund Optics benefitted by working with SAP partner Answerthink:

Vaibhav Nadgauda, Executive Vice President at SAP Partner Sparta Consulting, gave a preview of what he'll be covering during his Tuesday microforum at SAPPHIRE NOW, which is focused on how automotive and manufacturing companies can get the most value out of their SAP deployments.

The most unusual interaction of the day came courtesy of Wipro Technology's Goodwill Ambassador -- Robot WeBot -- who stopped by the Partner Center to share his thoughts on the SAPPHIRE NOW conference, including his interesting dinner plans with SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott:

I'm looking forward to Day Two.  And don't forget - even if you're not in Orlando, you still can experience the excitement and all of the great information from the event via SAPPHIRE NOW Online.