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Former Member

I joined SuccessFactors just before Sapphire in 2013. The 1305 release was pretty much baked, and I spent the first few weeks getting to know my new colleagues, and reconnect with those that I had known from my earlier times at SAP. Moving from talking about software as an analyst to being responsible for making sure SAP SuccessFactors built the right stuff was a steep learning curve, and one that I'm still on. I learn new stuff every day, and my curiosity has not been sated. I continue to make lots of mistakes, but hopefully not the same ones. I'm lucky to be surrounded by clever, determined and open minded people. That makes my job a lot easier.

At times it feels like yesterday, sometimes it feels like a century ago. Since the 1305 release, we have shipped the best part of 6000 enhancements. Some large, some small. Most of what we have built, we built it by listening to customers. This week, before Sapphire, we finalizing the 1608 build plan. The scope and scale of the build plan is far bigger than it was 3 years,ago and we continue to Kaizen (is that allowed as a verb?) the process, but we ask ourselves the same questions. Who are we building this for? Why? How can we simplify it, how can we make it easy to deploy?

As I was writing this post, I reflected back on what I wrote when I left Gartner, and I'm pleased to report that my expectations have been met. Over the last three years there have been many highlights. I think of sharing the stage with Plan, one of the world's leading charities, or EC hitting the 1000 customer mark, the Brook Brothers moment, or seeing the next generation of leaders develop in product management team.

This year at Sapphire I'm looking forward to meeting partners,colleagues and prospects. We have a number of exciting announcements on the product side, and there is one in particular that I'm very excited about. More than that though, catching up with live customers is what makes these events worthwhile. Seeing Woolworths Australia, Timken, PepsiCo and several others on stage will make the trip to Florida all the more worthwhile.

There are many sessions going on, have a look here.

Some of the session descriptions a tad cryptic, but if you read the session details you will able to pick out the ones that work for you.

If you want to meet up at Sapphire, work through your account manager to set up a meeting, or ping me directly.

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