The conclusion I reached when I came away from the Business Cloud Summit last week was that Her Majesty's Government probably supports SAP's Cloud strategy. They may not say that, they may not know that - but I think it may be true !
It's a real testament to the profile of cloud in the UK public sector at the moment that the Business Cloud Summit was divided into two streams. One of which was entirely devoted to the public sector. The first time this has happened in the event's four year history. To have your own stream is one thing. But to fill it with almost as many delegates as a business stream devoted to all the other industries put together is quite something else. And SAP were proud to be a platinum sponsor at the event
Some high profile (and passionate) speakers were in attendance - such as, for example Liam Maxwell.
Liam is Deputy Government CIO and champion for the increased presence of SMEs in the public sector supply chain. And he must be delighted that 75% of the 458 suppliers on CloudStore II are SMEs. SMEs, he repeated at this Summit, will be the motor of the UK economy and it is vital that government does all it can to promote their success. SAP agrees and it was interesting to note that, on exactly the same day that Liam Maxwell was speaking, SAP was hosting a SME summit in New York, where two out of every three new jobs are created by the SME sector.
I have produced a separate blog on why SAP's cloud strategy is good for SMEs. And here is the link, but it's worth summarising a few of these points again.
1. SAP provides pre-packaged integration scenarios which allow integration of SAP Cloud solutions into hybrid Cloud and OnPremise environments, whether SAP or other 3rd party. These can be easily extended by SMEs to address public sector specific integration needs.
2. SAP makes its Platform as a Service (PaaS) directly available to SMEs to provide value added Cloud services which stand alone or compliment and extend other Cloud solutions – whether from SAP or non-SAP
3. SAP provides software developer kits (SDKs) in the form of the SAP Cloud Developer Studio. Enabling SMEs to provide customised capability to enhance pre-delivered Cloud applications.
4.SAP provides Analytics, Mobile and Social capabilities within its individual Cloudstore cloud applications and also makes them available from standalone environments . This provides a great opportunity for SMEs to offer value added services . E.g. using SAP analytical tools to build specific end user and management insights.
5. SAP provides the means for SMEs to monetise their solutions, not only by listing them on the Cloudstore for the Public Sector but by also listing them on the SAPStore making them available beyond the UK's boundaries and into other industry markets.
But Liam also said something else - for him driving down public sector cost was not just about the rapid adoption of the Cloud paradigm or about embracing SMEs, it was also about consolidation and re-use at all levels. Consolidation though, he said, would take time, which was why he was so focused on driving the SME agenda.
It has long been SAP's message that standardising on re-usable, COTs components and processes across the entire public sector and configuring them rather than bespoke customising them for each eventuality was the right way to go. This drives down the cost of delivering public services and achieves business agility at the same time. And it's nice to know that Her Majesty's government agrees.
It's just that now SAP offers these solutions in Cloud and hybrid environments as well as OnPremise !
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