UKISUG Connect 2016 – The Highlights

Another year and another hugely successful conference. Over three eventful days, nearly 1,000 attendees from the User Group, SAP, and partners and customers, flocked to the ICC in Birmingham. A number of journalists also attended the event, and plenty of media coverage followed – with a focus on S/4 HANA adoption, SAP licensing, IoT, cloud and digitalisation.

S/4 HANA was a hot topic after UKISUG chairman Philip Adams’ revealed the findings of the latest User Group survey looking into S/4HANA adoption. The majority of publications, including Computerworld UK, discussed the need for SAP to help customers understand the benefits and make costs more clear. diginomica covered the key points of the research, and IT PRO covered the User Group’s view that extended support of other SAP products, such as ECC6 or ERP until 2025, might explain why customers are not willing to upgrade just yet. CBR focused on the news that half of users have no plans to use S/4 HANA; while V3 wrote about how 12% of SAP users were unaware of S/4 HANA.

Improved clarity on licencing when it comes to the Internet of Things (IoT) was also on the conference agenda. V3 and Computing looked at the topic of ‘indirect usage’, and why this is a bigger issue thanks to the IoT. CBR also highlighted the need for the issue to be solved before businesses are hit with unexpected costs. diginomica discussed this further with Philip, pointing out the sheer number of use cases in the IoT that need to be covered.

Finally, the conference generated a number of headlines around the success of some SAP users. Cloud Pro looked at how Greggs is using the cloud alongside SAP to become more responsive to customers’ needs. Computer Weekly looked at how Boots has created a SAP CoE, while Barnsley Council were featured in bothComputerworld UK and Computer Weekly for their use of SAP Fiori apps in HR. Finally, Computerworld UK also reported on how social housing authority Sanctuary Group has transformed its HR, finance and customer service tools and is now running them on SAP.

As 2017 draws closer, we looking forward to seeing what the New Year will bring – and of course, we are counting down the days until next year’s conference! To look back on more conference highlights, follow this link