Can Humans Keep Up with Big Data and Get Work Done with Social?

SAP Radio host Bonnie D. Graham caught up with me once again this time in the cone of silence at SAP SAPPHIRENOW in Orlando and asked me for my big thoughts on SAP’s big announcements.  My podcast is now available on SoundCloud.  Key thoughts: can humans keep up with higher velocities of big data and can they learn to get work done effectively with social business systems?  Also my story around SAP Jam and its evolution as a social business platform is now available on my SCN blog in abstract form and Tech Target’s searchSAP.com in its entirety.  Thanks to Bonnie and Malcolm Kimberlin of the SAP Influencers Program for the interview!

Can Supply Chain Visibility Save Lives?

My recent SCN blog post “Focused Brand Management via Supply Chain Visibility” has received nearly 1,000 views since it was posted earlier in the month following my interview with Markus Rosemann, Head of Supply Chain Execution at SAP during the SAPPHIRE Orlando conference.  It is provided here as an abstract to create visibility in non-technical circles so we can all consider if increased supply chain visibility can detect issues before they occur. Or kill. 

Read the full article on SCN under the Business Trends topic for Sustainability and Supply Chain.

Rena Plaza collapse (image courtesy NY Times, Reuters)

In the wake of devastating tragedies in Bangladesh and Paskistan over the past 18 months, OEMs are developing action plans and mitigation strategies to avoid collateral brand damage associated with poorly run and often dangerously unsafe external contract manufacturers.  During my recent podcast for the IXN (Episode IXN002 on iTunes) I was asked what is the top challenge facing global supply chains.  My answer was terrifyingly predictive: brand management and the impact it has on brand sales when a horrific event happens overseas.  Two weeks later, over 1,000 workers (mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers) lost their lives in the building collapse at the Rena Plaza factory in Bangladesh.  While the death toll rose, Disney was one of the first brands to pull out of the country, and the EU developed a memorandum of understanding that many appareland footwear manufacturers were voluntarily adopting.

This week at SAPPHIRE I sat down with Markus Rosemann, Head of Supply Chain Execution, LOB Solution Management, to discuss this problem.  Given the actions of the previous several weeks this issue is top of mind in supply chain operations and risk management functions inside, it was a familiar topic.

Integrated supply chain issues for brand management is a critical success factor because as Rosemann put it, “you cannot lose on this front. How you integrate with your partners is a growing need, not only the process and order level (for example, who was manufacturing on Bangladesh and what percentage of your portfolio), but also the need for the supply network to create visibility.” While this has been an issue for years, the impact on brand management today creates a new need to track and trace supplier activity so companies can protect their brand.

Social and sentiment analysis can also play into that from a demand signal management perspective. Social plug-ins can see the sentiment analysis on brands, platform, and customer preferences. So what does this mean having a true voice of the customer in the wake of a horrific supplier event?  According to Rosemann, “that is finally changing, best margin is not the only driving force” in industries such as apparel and footwear. “This is an area that we see changing in the market place – demand patterns which are changing, and this can all be viewed inside real-time analytics. We see this as a huge opportunity to leverage the power of HANA, for massive data which can be analyzed and understood. From this, information can be pushed onto strategy, supply planning, and then sourced.  This is the real integration and opportunity for a real time supply chain.” I agree and none too soon.

ASUG TV Explores Duet Enterprise Costs, Integration, Value and User Experience

My recent interview with SAP Solution Manager Ella Morgulis, Evangelist Himanshu Pande, and ASUG News Vice President Tom Wailgum discussed a number of topics including the SAP relationship with Microsoft that Tom and I first noted in our “Frenemies with Benefits” article last month.  Here are some of the chronological topics I bring up in the interview which can be viewed on the ASUG TV YouTube Channel in its entirety.

1:30 Discussing the enhancement of the user experience.  Why is SAP doing this? Himanshu opens up with 20-25% of the organization users who are using SAP.  They need a simplified way of using SAP on an infrequent, easy to use manner.

Photo Credit: ASUG News, ASUG TV

2:50 Ella discusses the importance of data collaboration, particularly with Microsoft SharePoint.  Fun and collaborative.

3:30 Himanshu discusses SAP relationship with Microsoft and how the two companies share 90% of the customer base.

4:30 I discuss the unique play between Microsoft and SAP using Duet Enterprise as a platform, whether its Microsoft Phone, SharePoint, or Outlook as a user interface to consume the data already running in SAP.  Most of the building blocks are already in place.

5:45 Ella discusses how you use NetWeaver Gateway as a information layer and how the user may never know they are using SAP data.  Himanshu and I jump in: use the data how you want to, when you want to, where you want to.  Customer is king.

6:52 I point out how most companies today are heterogeneous.  This is a new way to bring options to the table to use SAP data.  Ella jumps in on more integration points.

8:00 I address the misconceptions around pricing and costing of how to use Duet Enterprise.  Key point: you don’t need full user licenses for every user who may use a Microsoft solution built on Duet Enterprise.  If you have 000s of users you can capture the $500-600 net license cost different between full and base user licenses.  It’s easy to make that mistake and cost everyone at a full user license.  Mea culpa for all consultants out there.  It’s so easy to develop the wrong business case quickly.

9:40 Himanshu brings up the long view approach.  Build ROI models on 30 apps on Duet Enterprise rather than just use it as a point to point solution option. ROI skyrockets.  Ella also jumps in.  I add the importance of getting the business case correct.  Pound that one home.

11:20 I talk about the Millennials - what Time Magazine calls the “Next Great Generation” – who want to create and make things with a predictable and easy user experience.  80M workers in the US alone who will be our economic engine for the next 30 years.  They are creating the New Normal of user experience moving forward.

12:30 Himanshu calls them the “XBox Generation” and now everyone has access to software and has this idea of a user experience and expect that gamified environment in the future.

13:20 Our 30 second check outs.  Ella says just talk to us about it.  Himanshu says you already have what you need if you are already invested in Microsoft and SAP platforms.  Use what you already have.  I go the same, “better together.”  Learn the Duet Enterprise story.

This Week at SAPPHIRE / Wednesday May 16

This week during the ASUG Annual Conference and SAP SAPPHIRE program, I will be providing a summary of key announcements, trends and discussions each day. For more detailed information and analysis please refer to the content links that will be updated and added into this post and at my SCN blog.

Wednesday this week SAP Co-CEO Jim Snabe challenged everyone to consider their “inner tiger” and build innovation through the capture of human talent. Focus of the conversation was clearly on the SuccessFactors brand and their platform of services.

Later in the day, Sven Denecken provided an update on the SuccessFactors portfolio of cloud based applications for both private and public cloud offerings. With a focus on People, Customer, Money, and Supplier. (Sounds a bit like core data entities, doesn’t it?) From his perspective, Denecken was clear that SuccessFactors was not a “rip and replace” business model. Most cloud based customers are looking to enable key functions or processes in the cloud in slices rather than a complete removal of core on-premises systems.

My personal meeting with Sameer Patel, Global Vice President of Enterprise Social Solutions focused on how SAP Social solutions – particularly SAP Jam – help get work done. SAP Jam designers followed the day in the life of customers across business processes to determine the social touch points in key business processes and have created collaboration points inside of SAP BusinessSuite and LOB Solutions. So social collaboration is not another “layer” or outside of core processes, it is fully integrated in work steps of core processes. My article on SAP Jam and a compare and contrast to the structure of StreamWork will appear shortly on searchSAP.com (I will post the link here when available).

Finally I had the true pleasure to meet Bill McDermott again after nearly 10 years. Bill was a VP of Sales US at the time and I was still at Volkswagen and we met at a customer reception in Chicago. It was a long time ago and we were both a little shorter in the tooth back then. Bill established a cancer research foundation in honor of his mother who passed away from pancreatic cancer. A well known story is how Steve Jobs, who succumbed to the same cancer as Bill’s mother, shared a long discussion on the fight against the disease. Bill is a gracious man and his commitment to hire and promote inside SAP that culture has created a VP layer with great integrity which will serve the company well in the future.

Up today is the always lively Dr. Hasso Plattner and CTO Vishal Sikka who will provide a technical overview of HANA and SAP future direction. And maybe there will be some sparring with competitors tossed in for good measure.

(Photo credit: Timo Elliott … Thanks Timo!)

Minding the C-Suite Gap: Preliminary Results from CXO Study, Webinar Invitation

Preliminary findings of the CXO Engagement study conducted by Newport Consulting Group and the University of Oregon were released last week during the ISSP National Conference in Chicago. I highlight some of the key points from my exclusive article for Sustainable Industries Magazine.  Join us June 13 at 1PM ET for a full briefing on the study findings, registration is now open.

As we begin to crunch the numbers for our findings of the CXO Engagement Study sponsored by Newport Consulting Group and University of Oregon’s Sustainability Leadership Program, we can now begin to take a step back and gauge where we thought sustainability was falling down inside organizations and what can be done to make sustainability strategies more strategic with the help of the right people inside of the C-suite.

Over 140 organizations responded to our survey which cut across a broad swath of roles, activities, intentions and experiences. Before I get too deep into the analytics, I’d like to offer a personal word of thanks to those of you who took the time and responded. We may yet invite you to serve as interview subjects as we probe a bit deeper into some of the findings and rationale. To our knowledge this is the first time any group or institution has tried to correlate CXO behavior with perceived sustainability performance. We understand and acknowledge we are treading into new waters, and we appreciate you being along for the swim.

First, the high level numbers. There was a predominance of C-suite participants with C-level and vice president titles (38%); directors and managers represented the middle reporting management levels (41%), and the remainder were staff, project team members and consultants (21%). Participant primary job functions were dispersed across a number of areas including management (27%), sustainability/CSR (21%), operations (11%), with areas such as finance, human resources and marketing all represented under 10% levels.

Based on our preliminary findings, we can make some high-level determinations as to what is happening. This will lead over the next several weeks into a clearer picture as to why these things are happening (or not happening) inside organizations.

You can review these trends in my exclusive article for Sustainable Industries Magazine.  Join us June 13 at 1PM ET for a full briefing on the study findings, registration is now open.

This Week at SAPPHIRE / Tuesday May 15

This week during the ASUG Annual Conference and SAP SAPPHIRE program, I will be providing a summary of key announcements, trends and discussions each day. For more detailed information and analysis please refer to the content links that will be updated and added into this post and at my SCN blog.

As Day 2 of SAPPHIRE rolls in, we heard some pretty big words around massive real-time data analytics and predictive behavior.  Bill McDermott’s keynote emphasized this point with venerable sports anchor James Brown joining a team of executives from the NBA, the San Francisco 49ers, and Under Armour who through the use of HANA and real-time data feeds are pushing new and more connected consumer applications to the market.  In this space, SAP hopes to capture the “customer’s customer” by enabling massive data sets in real-time, in-memory so that humans can digest what they want, where they want it and how they want it.  McDermott also called the Millennials ”the most important generation, they use social as their dial-tone and we need them to answer.”

Other highlights from yesterday include my interview with Markus Rosemann from SAP LOB Supply Chain.  In the wake of such devastating plant fires and building collapses, we spoke on brand management and key functions of SAP SCM which, now enabled by HANA, OEMs can make decisions like sourcing share, capacity balancing, and portfolio balancing in real-time with the help of public sentiment and opinion.  This is important since supplier visibility – when enabled by real-time analytics – can deter supplier issues proactively.  And save lives.  The full interview is now available on the Business Trends Forum of SCN.

Yesterday I was also joined by Ella Morgulis and Himanshu Pande from the Information Worker group were we joined Tom Wailgum on ASUG News TV to discuss Duet Enterprise strategies, NetWeaver Gateway, and the Millennial Shift in workers to new UX designs. Look for our interview at the ASUG News site this week.

Today I’ll be hosting an ASUG round table, a “birds of a feather” session on mobility, HANA, and upgrades at the ASUG Community Lounge, CL14 on your program.  There will be door prizes – must be present to win!  Enjoy Day 2 of SAPPHIRE.

This Week at SAPPHIRE / Monday May 14

This week during the ASUG Annual Conference and SAP SAPPHIRE program, I will be providing a summary of key announcements, trends and discussions each day. For more detailed information and analysis please refer to the content links that will be updated and added into this post and at my SCN blog.

On the heels of last week’s enterprise HANA announcement, SAP has not let up on the gas for companies looking to move their business to big data and cloud computing. The new notion of BYOL (bring your own license) creates a theoretical space where organizations can mix and match their application and data needs, from small to large and from on-premises to cloud based platforms.

When it comes to cloud platforms, SAP has come a long ways from its announcement one year ago about the acquisition of SuccessFactors, but much work to integrate a fully portable topology from mobile, to cloud to on-premises remains. Over the past 12 months SAP has added both Syclo (mobile field management) and Ariba (cloud and mobile purchasing and supply chain) solutions to their brand. While the cross-customer opportunities abound, the integration work has yet to be defined. Syclo representatives were casual in their conversation around the 12-month initial platform integration work that lays before them during pre-conference partner day sessions, while SuccessFactors executives were touting the ability of the cloud based talent management solutions to out-perform and out sell previous versions of SAP (pre-acquisition) that “customers hated.” (I was always taught that “hate was a strong word growing up as a kid.”) While the technical integration work will be hard and will take some time to get right, the cultural integration will perhaps be the toughest slog.

Ariba is an interesting play. Years ago the automotive industry gave Ariba strong push into reverse auctions and VPN purchasing models. Today, SAP brings on 12 million from the Ariba platform. This could be one of SAP’s biggest opportunity for customer out-selling our its biggest opportunity squandered. Taking the SAP message of “fast, secure, in-memory, social, mobile” computing into that population will be a bit like Moses convincing the Hebrews to dump the golden calf. But it’s a subscriber focused customer base, similar to SuccessFactors customers, who are accustomed to writing smaller checks (and in some cases bigger checks) more frequently. Subscriptions as a percentage of revenues could potentially rival the annuity of enterprise maintenance revenues over time. That’s big money that takes pressure off of an enterprise software sales force that increasingly faces customer price pressures and financial risks of large on-premises implementations.

Another shift that SAP will take on in the Americas is a shift in go to market partner indirect sales strategy to a geo-regional approach in NA. SAP President Americas Cardenuto stated market unit partner governance models which drove indirect sales revenue to 40% of sales in Latin America would be applied in the US and Canada. Will this work and drive indirect sales revenue to that level? Hard to say, however SAP does need its partner network to drive indirect sales much like it has for Microsoft over the years.

Up next today … Duet Enterprise showcased at ASUG News TV at 2PM ET US and a quick check in with my friend and host of SAP Radio Coffee Break with Game Changers, Bonnie Graham. Unfortunately no home made Irish cream today (but you can still find my recipe in this blog).