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JerryRosa
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
If you didn't get the chance to go to the SAP Global Partner Summit held on May 15, you can still catch the replays of the sessions to get access to great information that you can use to stay on top of the latest business, program and software developments.



The SAP Global Partner Summit was packed with amazing partners, high-energy and a thirst of learning and always-on networking

There were plenty of options for partners to enhance their business with SAP, including all-day networking opportunities, 28 demo sessions, a digital sales motion tour and 16 sessions spread across four tracks: Platform and Innovation, Digital Disruption and Adoption, Selling and Driving Business. And Maximizing the SME Opportunity.Access the Facebook Live Replays.


The conference kicked off with Rodolpho Cardenuto, president of Global Channels and General Business, making a cool, grand entrance on a Segway before taking the stage where he told partners that SAP is focusing on three crucial areas for partners: monetization, enablement and customer engagement.



Cardenuto praised the success of SAP PartnerEdge Cloud Choice, profit option and Cloud Choice, referral option - two go-to-market programs announced at last year's partner summit, which represent about 18% of partner business this year, up from 5% last year.

“We expect it will be responsible for 75% by next year. That’s how we monetize opportunities for our customers, through the development of new business models for you to make money,” Cardenuto said.





Cardenuto brought several SAP partners and customers on stage, including FreshDirect CIO Nitin Chaudhary, who noted the company standardized on SAP when it was founded in 2001.

“Technology is the backbone of every department of FreshDirect. It allows us to process thousands of orders and generate lots of data to gain efficiencies to serve our customers in a better way,” Chaudhary said.

Most recently, FreshDirect launched a one-hour food delivery service in some markets thanks in part to SAP technology, Chaudhary said. “SAP is the foundation of our business. We want to talk to them for artificial intelligence, analytics, big data. How we leverage the power of data makes it exciting for customers to be with us.”




SAP CEO Bill McDermott previewed to partners the new SAP Leonardo and told them that their commitment to SAP is more than a business partnership.

“I hope you know that this isn’t just a partnership with SAP. This is family,” McDermott told the crowd of channel partners.

 A Shout Out to SAP Pinnacle Award Winners




SAP's Hernan Marino, COO of Marketing, acknowledge the SAP Pinnacle award winners saying they embodied the best of innovation in delivering business value to customers.

Great News About SAP S/4HANA






SAP’s Melissa Di Donato, chief revenue officer for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, and Sean Thompson, head of business development and partner ecosystem for SAP’s SMB team, also emphasized the importance of partners to the company.

“As we’re building the S/4HANA business, I’m proud to say that every single opportunity is aligned with our partners. You are critical for our success,” Di Donato said. “We could not build industry solutions but we need to be fast in the market so we rely on all of you to partner with us to develop for industries. Also, we’re not creating an S/4HANA services business. We’ll never compete with you on services.”

Next, three SAP line-of-business leaders Alex Atzberger, Mike Ettling, and Carsten Thoma detailed the successes that partners have meant to their respective businesses.

“We invested in open APIs. We believe in the power of many. You have built applications t make our product more unique, more valuable. Innovation is democratic and everyone in this room can help us innovate,” said Atzberger, president of SAP Ariba.






SAP Cloud Platform 

Sam Yen, chief design officer at SAP, talked about the evolution of SAP Cloud Platform, which should be a primary way for partners to engage with the company going forward.

“We are building applications for the future, experiences you can use by leveraging the SAP Cloud Platform,” Yen said.

New SAP App Center

Diane Fanelli, general manager and senior vice president of global channels and platform GTM, announced the next generation of the SAP App Center is now live, with more than 70 applications, including several offering automatic provisioning and free trials. “It’s one click to make it all happen. We’re encouraging our customers to experience our partner apps through incentives and quota crediting for purchases,” she said.



"Shark Tank" Celebrity in the House


Daymond John, founder of fashion line FUBU and start of TV’s “Shark Tank,” told event host Alexis Glick that there are many examples of successful businesses that didn’t start out with a lot of money—rather, it’s important to learn from mistakes and invest in the right people.