The Customer Empowerment Event that took SAP HQ by Storm – Literally!

[dania_fayyaz]

On Thursday, September 13th, 127 eager customers and partners braved the outlying blustery effects of Hurricane Florence to attend a key event at the SAP headquarters in Newton Square, PA.

In partnership with ASUG, the SAP Beyond Advocacy team held a joint Customer Empowerment Day event open to customers interested in learning more about SAP S/4HANA Cloud. Opportunities to network with other customers and subject matter experts from SAP, as well as gaining a better understanding of the SAP Activate methodology, were also presented. In the Executive Briefing Center, customers were able to see the enhanced SAP S/4HANA Cloud Community in action and learn where to submit questions and how they can access the latest content. Our community, by the way, is open to any existing customer – not just specific to SAP S/4HANA – provided they have an S number.

Customer Empowerment Days, of which 15 are scheduled for 2019, are a global event series focused on putting the customer first. These are not sales or marketing events, although prospects can attend. Customer Empowerment Days events exist for the sole purpose of guiding the customer in each stage of their SAP S/4HANA Cloud journey – from consideration to preparation, to implementation, and finally renewal.



Harold Rostoker, Area Product Manager of Machine Learning at SAP, was manning one of our booths and engaged in insightful conversations with customers about which areas of their organization can benefit from machine learning (ML) capabilities, as well as where customers think ML functionality could have immense value. These Customer Empowerment Days provide a feedback mechanism where customers can influence the SAP S/4HANA Cloud product roadmap and provide suggestions on how SAP can help serve them better.

Lori Paulin, Global Head of Customer Empowerment for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, said this:

"Our aim for the Sept. 13th event was to provide a constructive and collaborative forum to have an open exchange of views, ideas, and experiences. We are delighted that the overall feedback has been so positive.”

Below are some of the areas where customers gave feedback which we plan to relay back to Product Management.

1. Scope requests especially for localization and integration.

2. Create enablement sessions or webinars around integration with Concur, Fieldglass, C/4HANA, and SuccessFactors.

3. Develop a feedback loop to the Product Management on Subject Interest Groups (SIGs), roadmaps, and the implications of too many roadmap changes.

Our next Customer Empowerment Day event will be in Montréal, Canada on October 11th where we will conduct a two-hour hands-on SAP S/4HANA Cloud business simulation. All SAP S/4HANA Cloud customers and prospects are welcome and can view the agenda here and register via this link.

For more information on Customer Empowerment Days scheduled for 2019 please reach out to Lori Paulin (lori.paulin@sap.com) and Dania Fayyaz (dania.fayyaz@sap.com).

We look forward to seeing you.