Top 10 Takeaways from SAPPHIRENOW 2013

After following SAPPHIRENOW online, thought of writing about 5 takeaways, but guess we have so much out there, so had to expand it to 10 key takeaways

1. 3 Quantum Leap

Jim Snabe gave an amazing keynote and explained the 3 quantum leap steps that SAP took over past few years

#1 – Take Big data in Memory: solve analytical use cases with large volumes of data

#2 – Cloud: acquisitions of Successfactors,Ariba and laying out Public/Managed Cloud options

#3 – People and Ux Focus : amazing user experience on any device including Mobile strategy

2.       Sports as new Industry

Bill McDermott introduced in his energetic keynote a new industry that we all love “Sports” and had an impressive lineup of US based sports personalities from NFL,NBA. Looking forward to expanding this to the sports we love in Europe, Latam and Asia – Soccer, Tennis and Cricket

3.       Clear Cloud Strategy

Lot of questions around SAP’s cloud strategy leading into Sapphirenow and especially after the launch of HANA Enterprise Cloud was very well clarified by Jim in his keynote. SAP is going to be both in the Public Cloud and Managed Cloud. While Line of Business applications for Customer, Supplier, Money and People will be provided through public cloud (Ariba, SuccessFactors etc), SAP’s On Premise applications running on HANA can be completely ported to SAP’s Managed Cloud infrastructure which is HANA Enterprise Cloud.

4.   4.   Success from Success factors

Customer stories are the best success stories. With Successfactors, the factors for success are many as laid out by Pepsico and Timken, global giants talking about their global rollout in multiple language, to manage the most important asset they consider : People. These companies really value the affordability that cloud applications brings to the table, and with the backing of SAP trust it’s the best combination. But above all , the Ux experience is the most compelling as these customers’ users love it.

5.       Driving value from Inside four walls to outside four walls – SAP + Ariba Combo

Bob , CEO of Ariba gave a content rich keynote and explained the real value of SAP + Ariba. While SAP optimized the process within the four walls of a company, Ariba optimized the network outside the four walls across the value chain with eCommerce. Now both coming together, and with HANA and Analytics on top, this is going to killer combination.

6.   Social JAM

Go Social. Go JAM. An amazing part of the Successfactors product, now being rolled out across SAP to really get all the people in the company to collaborate. Whether its like sharing the lighter side office grapevine or more serious monthly S&OP meeting collaboration now possible in new fashion. This is going to be a compelling application. Really can network the SAP extended ecosystem across customers, employees, partners , consultants and many more.

7. .Millions of Devices/Billions of Apps/Trillions of Content

Sanjay Poonen launched Mobile Secure on cloud and talked about the power of mobile, including some great discussions that you can watch here. SAP covers this entire value chain of millions of mobile devices, that holds billions of apps and that contains trillions of content

http://events.sap.com/sapphirenow/en/clips.aspx?s=121186

8.   8. Clearing HANA Myths and Show real demos by Hasso Plattner Institute Students

Day 3 keynote by Hasso Platter, Chairman of SAP Executive Board really cleared the myths about SAP HANA…many myths clarified in there and with his very frank and direct style. It was really entertaining, while getting the real point out to all those doubters. See it for yourself in the replay

http://www.sap.com/events/sapphirenow/index.epx

9.   9. Expanding our Horizons

The Theme for Vishal’s Keynote. Math & Design are the key to expand our horizons. Predict every thing in per seconds to run real time business. Design everything to unleash any business problem, and re-invent how to solve this. The combination of Math + Design in HANA platform can change the way we live.

User Experience Marvel (the design part) – Vishal Launched SAP Fiori , amazing new ux html apps for key business process. Designed for the Gen Y users. Thinking UI with the beauty of flower designs.

10. 10. HANA Market Place

While this did not get huge attention, it was mentioned by Sam Yen in keynote by Vishal.

http://www.saphana.com/community/marketplace

Realized that this is “Try it yourself” for cool HANA apps.

Coming from the Planning area, found it interesting to try out S&OP on HANA. Try it out- small hint – install the Excel Addin which is prerequisite.

http://www.saphana.com/docs/DOC-3545

Overall very overwhelming information flow in last 3 days….compelling stuff …SAP is truly expanding horizons.

Your thoughts are welcome..