SAP has grown big with Finance after it all started with its first financial accounting system back in 1973. Finance has been the core of all enterprise, resource and planning systems that followed in the years and decades since then.
At SAPPHIRE NOW 2014, it was time for Finance to take center stage again!
Finance at the center of SAP keynotes
Bill McDermott unveiled SAP Simple Finance in his keynote – a comprehensive set of Finance solutions offered as a managed service in the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud. “Now it’s time for SAP to make sophisticated Financials simple,” Bill said. “SAP Simple Finance, powered by SAP HANA, is another SAP game changer for the business software industry.” Indeed it is.
Watch the replay (relevant timestamp 52:10).
Finance was literally everywhere during the second keynote. Yes, Prof. Clayton M. Christensen ("The Innovator's Dilemma") was brilliant, although he didn't say much about Finance. Even more so, others did. Hasso Plattner went into the details of how a simplified financials system (namely the financials add-on for SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA, which again, is the core of SAP Simple Finance) leads to a radical change by bringing disruptive innovation and sustainable innovation. Helen Arnold, newly appointed SAP CIO, followed with a demo of SAP Accounting powered by SAP HANA in action along with an SAP Fiori dashboard. Bernd Leukert and Luka Mucic, joined in a conversation with Dennis Hickey (CFO of Colgate-Palmolive), had more to say about the power of SAP HANA and Finance also.
Watch the replay (most relevant Finance-related timestamps: 06:32, 47:25, 1:40:20, 2:10:15).
Finance in other theater replays
More than 20 theater presentation replays are available which relate to SAP solutions for Finance (here or on this site).
In particular, I recommend watching:
- the panel discussion with Deutsche Telekom AG, Deloitte, and SAP
- Discover the Future of Finance by martin.naraschewski
- Employ SAP Simple Finance to Empower the Finance Organization by kai.finck (select "LoB Finance")
- Reinvent Financials Management with HANA by Wieland Schreiner (select "LoB Finance")
- and certainly all customer presentations (e.g. Care Fusion, ExxonMobil, or Petrobas to name just a few)
Finance on YouTube
- Interview with Kai Finck on the Future of Finance (4:18)
- Interview with Peter Maier on Digital Business goes into the Cloud (5:02)
- James Fisher on Finance Solution Innovations (1:31)
Finance in related blogs
- SAP Simple Finance launched at SAPPHIRE NOW 2014 by christian.horak
- Top 10 Takeaways from SAPPHIRENOW 2014 by muthu.ranganathan
- Why Finance Operations Shined at SAPPHIRE NOW by joseph.pacor
Now that you may have an (almost) complete picture of how Finance took center stage at SAPPHIRE NOW 2014, I hope you are all set for entering the new future of Finance.
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