Chatting to SAP’s new CTO
Forbes shared a short but interesting transcript of theirconversation with new SAP CTO, Juergen Mueller, in which he describes howanalytics and machine learning feature in all SAP applications as part of theIntelligent Enterprise promise. In a predictable response to a question on thefuture of HANA, he shared that SAP has more than 28,000 customers on HANAplatform and that almost all SAP applications use HANA. “This turns it into oneof the largest scale — if not the largestscale — enterprise application databases”.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2019/04/08/what-is-saps-greatest-challenge-and-opportunity/#3339a1c3332b
The Intelligent Enterprise concept
The “Intelligent Enterprise” vision that SAP have been sharing is interesting, especially as many long-term customers weigh up their options on ECC. S/4HANA, HEC, etc. This short video helps position SAP’s ideas quite well, making it easier to understand SAP’s definition – “In Intelligent Enterprises, data feeds intelligence which in turn feeds process automation and innovation. At SAP, we believe best-run businesses are data and process driven – and we’re committed to helping deliver on this promise”.
Changes at SAP
At the beginning of the year, SAP announced a scary €950m restructuring project to update internal skills, move on some of the old guard, and “simplify” the org chart. As CEO Bill McDermott delicately put it – “SAP has amassed the requisite level of IT skills in the areas users care about”. “We’re giving people the chance to do some early retirement in countries where we need to do that,” “In countries where we don’t have the skill set that we want, we’re obviously going to come to a nice agreement with our employees to treat them very fairly… and hire the best minds in the world.”
However, long-term heavyweight Rob Enslin, tipped by some as a potential successor to McDermott, departed recently to join Google Cloud as president of global customer operations. Rob was head of the cloud business group, so this is a significant change, and follows recent exits of Bjoern Goerke, chief technology officer and head of SAP’s cloud platform business and Bernd Leukert, the board executive who ran global service and support.
McDermott’s email to all SAP’s troops sought to be transparent, positioning Rob’s departure to a new and different opportunity as something Rob had been keeping an eye out for the last few years. By way of continuation he announced “To ensure we continue accelerating our momentum, I’m happy to report that Jennifer Morgan will ascend to President of CBG as Rob’s successor, while Adaire Fox-Martin rises to lead Global Customer Operations (GCO) as sole President”.
IDC survey “SAP Customers on the Move to SAP S/4HANA”
An SAP sponsored IDC survey of 300 SAP clients across 10 countries in April 2019 revealed that 54% of SAP customers are planning on deploying SAP S/4HANA within 3 years, with 72% of respondents indicating they will be moving to the cloud.
IDC found that SAP S/4HANA is seen as mission-critical to businesses because it optimises their digital transformation strategy; improves agility, visibility, and innovation; and reduces costs and time-to-process information.
The full report is available here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2019/04/08/what-is-saps-greatest-challenge-and-opportunity/#3339a1c3332b
Apple teams up with SAP to help clients develop iPhone business apps
Tim Cook, Apple CEO, confirmed these native apps are developed specifically for the device’s hardware and software, meaning they run more smoothly than web or cloud-based apps designed to work across multiple platforms. Sharing the stage at SAP’s Sapphire annual conference, Cook said that Apple’s CORE ML technology would enable companies to create customised apps on SAP’s Leonardo platform which will help give freedom for workers to do their jobs on the move. The announcement was recorded and can be watched here:
