Written by Ruxandra Zamfir
The 11th edition of "Wirtschaftsinformatik", the leading business information systems conference in the German speaking countries took place in Leipzig, Germany between 27th of February and 1st of March under the patronage of Saxony's Minister-President Stanislaw Tillich.
The conference provides opportunities for practitioners in the academic environment to discuss and exchange knowledge around the ever growing importance of information systems in business and everyday life.
The conference is aimed at German speakers, but also welcomed international attendees and consists of keynotes, research and student tracks, panels, as well as a doctoral consortium.
How SAP Participated in Wirtschaftsinformatik
This year, the leading themes were innovation, individualization, and integration with various topics emphasizing the growing relevance of IT in all business-oriented areas.
SAP has continued a tradition established since many years and was the gold sponsor for this conference.
SAP University Alliances and the University Competence Centers had a booth in the exhibition area that provided attendees insights into the latest curriculum projects and new product innovations like SAP HANA.
Photo: Dr. Bernd Welz awards Best Paper Awards to students at Wirtschaftsinformatik 2013.
Speaking to the academic world, Dr. Bernd Welz, Senior Vice President, Global Head of Solution & Knowledge Packaging, held the keynote on Friday, March 1, 2013. In his speech, Dr. Welz started by putting everything in the context of a rapidly growing and interconnected global business environment with an emerging middle class that represents 1 billion people in social networks, data doubling every 18 months, an environment where there are more mobile devices than people and by the startling fact that in 2013 there are a recorded 15 billion web-enabled devices.
Big Data Requires New Strategies
With more data that has been created in the last five years than in the entire history of mankind, unlocking the secrets inside this data presents breakthrough opportunities for businesses.
With these facts in mind, Dr. Welz stressed the fact that businesses will require new strategies for resource optimization, innovation and growth.
With the lines between personal lives and business lives becoming blurred, businesses have to fundamentally transform themselves and change the way they interact with consumers.
In the context of needing to respond in real-time to changes in demand for higher market responsiveness, where companies have to empower employees with real-time business insights for higher engagement, where there is the need to connect to machines and devices in real-time for higher customer service and deliver personalized offers in real-time for higher customer experience, Dr. Welz introduced the audience to SAP HANA.
Explaining how In-Memory Computing enables a new architecture for business applications, Dr. Welz emphasized the paradigm shift between the traditional architecture and the new architecture of HANA, SAP’s in-memory, column-based appliance, that has the capability to combine transactional (OLTP) and analytical (OLAP) data in real-time for data analytics.
Setting the Stage for SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA
Keeping in mind the value of in-memory computing that helps customers develop breakthrough business applications and run real-time analytics, Dr. Welz set the stage to talk about the Business Suite powered by SAP HANA.
By powering Business Suite to run on HANA, SAP brings together 41 years of experience and stability with the best of its innovative technology power, to bring effective solutions that respond to customer’s needs.
HANA, as a next generation platform will provide the basis to increase the performance of Business Suite applications and to continue to innovate on an open platform by simplifying the customer’s IT, with HANA being used as a primary database for the Business Suite applications with no need for data replication.
As a next step in his speech, Dr. Welz introduced the audience to Rapid Deployment Solutions that bring everything customers need to be up and running quickly, including preconfigured software and implementation services – in just weeks—including SAP HANA solutions. With a defined scope and predictable costs, there are no surprises. And customers can expand their solution footprint as they go.
The Open World of HANA Learning
Dr. Welz ended his speech by reaching out to students and letting them know that HANA can be an open world for them and that they can reach to various sources, including End2end Learning maps, 10+ HANA and mobile curricula and 20+ Industry plug-ins, with 200+ video tutorials on HANA Academy, all distributed via multiple channels like e-learning, classroom, simulations, mobile apps.
By learning and applying their knowledge via courses provided by Interaction Design, SAP University Alliances, openSAP and other free online courses, students will be ready for becoming the next industry leaders.
SAP also sponsored two best paper awards consisting of 1000 euros each that were handed out by Dr. Bernd Welz (above) during the closing ceremony:
- The paper "Indicating Knowledge Development: An Empirical Investigation from the Perspective of Knowledge Maturing" by Andreas Kaschig
- The paper "Envy on Facebook: A Hidden Threat to Users’ Life Satisfaction? " by Hanna Krasnova, Helena Wenninger, Thomas Widjaja and Peter Buxmann
Professors from the academic environment were impressed by Dr. Welz’s speech and by what SAP has to offer with it’s in-memory, column-based database that serves as a completely re-imagined platform for real-time business.
Since the professors words speak for themselves, I will close the blog with a few quotes:
"We are proud that SAP was a gold sponsor at WI2013 since SAP's offering perfectly embodies the topics of WI2013. The keynote on HANA-based Cloud Computing received excellent feedback as did the additional donations for the best-paper awards. On behalf of the organizers of WI2013 I cordially thank SAP for their valuable support." - Prof. Dr. Rainer Alt
"Bernd Welz's speech on in memory computing was inspiring. He showed impressively with ERP on HANA how the combination of ‘In Memory Computing’ and ERP can change the way executing business processes positively in many ways. In my opinion ‘In Memory Computing’ will become a substantial part of all next generation ERP software, as relational databases did before. " - Dr. Holger Wittges, Dipl.-Wirtsch.Inf
"As a track chair I have been involved in the conference's organization and scientific quality assurance process. All the more I was glad experiencing it a real success, attracting interesting speakers and competent panelist like Bernd Welz." - Prof. Dr. Klaus Turowski
"True to the WI 2013 motto 'Innovation, Integration, Individualization' academic papers, key notes and panel discussions focused on current trends in business and IT. Especially interesting for our team were the insights into SAP's big data and mobile solutions presented by Bernd Welz during the conference." - Stefan Weidner, Executive Director, SAP UCC Magdeburg
RDS Provides HANA in Weeks: A Solution Portfolio Reference
The SAP HANA Rapid Deployment Solutions mentioned in this article can be explored in the media and officially on SAP.com, including the newly-released:
- SAP CRM rapid-deployment solution with SAP HANA
- SAP ERP for Finance and Controlling rapid-deployment solution powered by SAP HANA
- SAP ERP for Manufacturing rapid-deployment solution powered by SAP HANA
- SAP ERP for Trading rapid-deployment solution powered by SAP HANA
For More Information on SAP HANA and the full portfolio of SAP Rapid Deployment Solutions, go to SAP.com for more information on:
- SAP HANA Operational Reporting rapid-deployment solution
- SAP HANA Profitability Analysis rapid-deployment solution
- SAP HANA Financial Reporting for Banking rapid-deployment solution
- SAP HANA Accelerated Finance and Controlling rapid-deployment solution
- SAP HANA Customer Segmentation rapid-deployment solution
- Rapid database migration of SAP NetWeaver BW to SAP HANA
- SAP HANA Data Services, Rapid Marts, and BI Platform rapid-deployment solution
- SAP HANA CRM Analytics rapid-deployment solution
- SAP G/L Financial Planning rapid-deployment solution
- SAP Planning for Retail rapid-deployment solution
- SAP Situational Awareness rapid-deployment solution for public sector AND SAP Situational Awareness (analytical application)
- SAP Customer Usage Analytics rapid-deployment solution
- SAP Grid Infrastructure Analytics rapid-deployment solution
- SAP HANA Sentiment Intelligence rapid-deployment solution
- SAP Shopper Insight rapid-deployment solution
- SAP Business Intelligence Adoption rapid-deployment solution
- SAP CRM rapid-deployment solution powered by SAP HANA
- SAP HANA Net Margin Analysis rapid-deployment solution
- SAP Demand Signal Management rapid-deployment solution
- SAP HANA Financials for Public Sector rapid-deployment solution
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