Last week I had the pleasure of representing the UK and Ireland SAP User Group at the ASUG Annual Conference and SAP SapphireNow. It is only weeks until I ‘celebrate’ 18 years since my first SAP implementation back in the heady days of SAP R/3 3.1i, but this was my first Sapphire!
My conference kicked off with an inspirational start at the ‘Call to Lead Summit – The Future of Leadership and the Power of Diversity Across Every Generation’. The speakers called upon powerful reflections of their family and career backgrounds to show how they had managed to reach their leadership roles and how the power of authenticity and diversity at work were driving the success of their organisations. Oh and there was some fascinating insights on leadership from Former First Lady Michelle Obama and President George W Bush but I can’t risk saying anything about that!
Personal highlights of the main event
The scale, it is enormous with more than 20,000 participants, SAP exhibits, the ASUG hub and a plethora of partners anyone with a Fitbit must have hit their daily step target. The visual centrepiece of the exhibition hall was the SAP Leonardo Experience, a hint of what was to come in the Keynotes.
The keynotes, Bill McDermott started by revisiting his theme from last year – empathy and listening to the customer he related this to the SAP proposals on ‘indirect licensing’ published that day by Hala Zeine (SAP Corporate Development Officer). (As a User Group we are pleased that SAP is finally taking action and we are working with SUGEN to influence the next steps on this journey for our members and SAP.) Bill finished by discussing trust - “Trust is the ultimate human currency” and the opportunities ahead to run better and improve people’s lives
Hasso Plattner used humour and self-deprecation to discuss machine learning, usability, intelligence and collaboration. One of the main points of his presentation being the enhancement of SAP Leonardo – not another product but a suite of tools for building intelligent applications.
Watch out for, amongst the hundreds of potential sessions you can attend I made time to look at a few things that caught my eye from mentions in the main keynotes.
Collaboration and networking, its always great at events like this to be able to catch up with people, and discuss the latest innovations and exchange SAP anecdotes. There were a contingent of SUGEN members, colleagues old and new, plus myself and Craig Dale (UKISUG CEO) took the opportunity to speak to the Keynote speakers who will be at this year’s UKISUG Connect. Of course, the evenings also present the opportunity to relax and get together, including SAP and the User Group hosting a reception for the UK and Ireland visitors to the conference.
Many of the Keynotes and presentations are now available online if you want to learn more from SAPPHIRENOW. I hope that I will not wait another 18 years before taking in my next SAPPHIRE / ASUG Conference!
http://events.sap.com/sapandasug/en/sessions.aspx
#SAPPHIRENOW #ASUG17
Paul Cooper
Chairman
UK & Ireland SAP User Group
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