RDS Day in Singapore – Sept 2013

The first RDS Day in Singapore was successfully ran on 11 September 2013 –this follows the concept of the earlier (and first in APJ) RDS Day in Mumbai on 4 June that generated very positive feedback blog.  Held in Marriott Hotel Singapore, the event was attended by 29 participants from 20 unique organizations.

Built on the theme ‘Take the fast lane to success with SAP Rapid Deployment Solutions’,  the agenda was structured to get participants thinking how they can accelerate innovations with RDS/outcome-based delivery approach and experience ideation through Design Thinking. For the first time, the organizing team also decided to leverage on a Regional Industry expert to share the latest trends/use-case in Retail (an industry most customers can identify with) as the ability to explore opportunities from analogous industries are becoming increasingly important.

The session was opened by Chris Long (Head of Business Development-Services, SAP SEA) followed by keynote from Ashish Manaktala (Head of Services, SAP Singapore) who shared how consumer revolution demands ‘smarter’ solutions and that shapes SAP’s innovation agenda to develop new Services approach delivering fast time-to-value.  The second speaker, Lard Oversier (Head of Retail and Wholesale Distribution Industry Services, SAP APJ) said that Retail Industry is at a ‘Reset’ moment and needs to move beyond ‘channels’ & towards onmi-channel maturity supported by SAP’s holistic approach to reduce TCI/ improve ROI. He also gave an overview of RDS portfolio in Retail and Retail analytics and quoted case study from a ANZ Retail/Wholesale customer. After the coffee break, Claus Andresen (Head of Solutions & Practices) spoke about Services’ duties along PLAN-BUILD-RUN phases and RDS has indeed revolutionized the way customers buy and consume SAP solutions and highlighted case of Woori FSI in Korea.

At this stage, a panel discussion was introduced by Narayanan Iyer (Head of RDS Services Sales, SAP APJ) who sum up that ‘No Innovation -> No Growth’ and he reiterated the RDS journey from Pre-RDS, RDS 1.0 to current status (this is not the traditional SAP!) which mean that RDS is here to stay and is now the new business solution adoption standard. He then interviewed the panelists made up of Ashish, Lard and Claus who gave their inputs on customers’ adoptions and experience with RDS. 

After lunch, Marcel Wilhelm (Business Consultant, BTS SEA) delivered an introduction of Design Thinking along with ‘Remember the Future’ challenge and then divided participants into 3 teams.  During the report back, Team 1 with 7 participants (coached by Marcel) came up with a game-changing process that will improve forecasting with higher focus on customer segments. Team 2 with 6 participants (coached by May Seet and Aneesha Shenoy from APJ Services team) delivered the idea of an improved online grocery shopping experience. Team 3, with 7 participants (coached by Erica-APJ Services Marketing) shared how a sports equipment company was transformed into all-round ‘Health +’ organization enabled by cloud/predictive/mobile technology. The participants were asked to vote for the best presentation and Team 3 emerged as winner.

The event proved to be of value to participants as we can gauge from the positive feedback received :

-Interesting sessions. New information on RDS and cloud solutions. Design Thinking is a promising technique’

-This event provided good insights of RDS and value/benefits.’

-‘I find it good & interesting for the RDS solution where it give us a starting point to deploy SAP in our company’

-‘The (DT) workshop was really very interesting. Gives a new way of Thinking to manage expectations’

-‘It provides great insights to SAP which we can invest in new innovations in new future’

-‘The takeaway is clear and precise’