SAP Sapphire is the German software multinational’s premiere conference for customers and partners held annually. Coming off from the pandemic environment of virtual conferences for the past two years, this year, SAP Sapphire is reimagining the conference experience by offering a hybrid series for customers and partners worldwide from May to September 2022– combining a virtual event with an in-person event experience across nine cities namely Orlando, Mexico, The Hague, Madrid, Zurich, Beijing, Tokyo, Sao Paolo, and Munich.
SAP Sapphire 2022 has officially kicked off in Orlando City on the 10th-12th of May 2022 with SAP CEO Christian Klein and Chief Marketing Officer Julia White opening the floor with the inspiring keynote “Realise the Power of Becoming an Intelligent, Sustainable Enterprise”. More than ever, the conference is putting its customer and partners in more than 140 countries at the core of the global series, paying both an homage and encouragement for demonstrating agility and success amidst the pandemic disruptions.
In his keynote, SAP CEO Klein expressed SAP’s continued commitment to support its customers’ modernisation journey to becoming intelligent, sustainable enterprises. He said:
“For 50 years we have revolutionized together the way businesses are run, and in the next 50 years, together we will continue to deliver market-making innovation. While the world around us has changed significantly, our purpose is more relevant than ever: to help the world run better in times of geopolitical tensions, disruptive industry transformation, and supply chain disruptions, and to improve people’s lives in times of war and climate change.”
Throughout the three-day hybrid conference in Florida, SAP announced multiple cloud and product innovations and collaborations across the supply chain, sustainability, business process transformation, and no-code application development domains. The event also showcased the tech giant’s contributions, achievements, and vision for the intelligent, networked, sustainable enterprise.
SAP Sapphire 2022 Highlights
Cloud and Product Innovations
Helping customers achieve a resilient supply chain and harness intelligent business networks, SAP launched a suite of new apps centred on supply chain management made available on the Apple App Store on the 10th of May. This includes mobile apps SAP Warehouse Operator and SAP Direct Distribution, making SAP apps accessible to iPad or iPhone users. Klein compared SAP Business Network, the world’s largest B2B network that connects buyers, suppliers, manufacturers, and logistics providers, as the LinkedIn of the B2B space.
Acknowledging the increasing demand for no-code/low code development platforms, enhancements on SAP AppGyver and SAP Process Automation– both part of the free tier model for SAP BTP– were also announced. In addition, SAP is also including in its pipeline free learning journeys in the SAP Learning portal designed for citizen developers to prepare them for new no-code/low-code certifications skills.
New capabilities in the SAP Cloud for Sustainable Enterprises and SAP Product Footprint Management solutions were highlighted to help enterprises better manage their green line. The SAP CEO mentioned other solutions that help organisations measure environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors such as SAP Concur, SAP SuccessFactors, and SAP Sustainability Control Tower.
Driving Customer Success
RISE with SAP, the company’s concierge, Business Transformation as a Service offering, was also highlighted throughout the conference, featuring customer success stories and solution collaborations with partners. Several SAP partners including Philips, AMD, and Accenture shared how they maximised business value in their digital transformation journey by leveraging the BTaaS offering. Klein stated:
“We want to transform each and every enterprise into an intelligent enterprise. RISE with SAP takes you on a transformation journey that’s tailored exactly to your needs. Over 2,000 customers have selected RISE with SAP; more than 60{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} are new customers to SAP.”
SAP CMO White led a series of innovation demonstrations featuring SAP SuccessFactors and SAP Fieldglass that helped companies deliver excellent, digitalised employee experiences such as the success story of Vodaphone Group.
During Day 2 of SAP Sapphire, keynote speaker Scott Russell, SAP Executive Board Member and Customer Success lead, shared that customers recognise leadership and transformation as critical success factors. He invited Melissa Goldman, Vice President of Engineering at Google, to detail how SAP enabled the tech company’s digital transformation journey.
“Google is a data-driven company, and SAP is the foundation. There is a lot of complexity around change,” stated Goldman. “Google has the best engineers in the world, but SAP is the industry leader in this domain and has the best practices for bringing change to an enterprise from start to end. If you want rigor and discipline and the right data model, get SAP.”
Russell acknowledged the 2,200 partners in the SAP ecosystem that ensures customer success including his final guest Geoff Scott, CEO of ASUG, who highlighted that establishing trusted, collaborative partnerships increase the chance of a company’s success during these unprecedented times.
