A famous German songwriter, Rheinhard Mey, once wrote a song about flying. “Above the clouds, freedom seems to be unlimited”. This does not seem to apply to cloud solutions. Once an Enterprise organization has their head in the cloud, they will find security immediately the #1 concern and the indomitable beast.

© Dreamworks

Don´t get me wrong, this is a serious topic but I prefer to see it with the eyes of Hicks, the young Viking from the Dreamworks movie “How to train your dragon”. It is a question of knowledge, it´s a question of awareness of the risks. And you finally need to question how well the vendors did the homework to domesticate the beast and unlock the value of the cloud in your Enterprise.

Working in the strategy and customer Co-Innovation space, this is a perfect chance to regularly meet customers and discuss expectations, opportunities and concerns about cloud. Many roundtables, discussion forums and expert sessions from different organizations and customers, as well as user group meetings fueled these thoughts. Let´s share some of them.

1)     European perception is different than US, security itself is not

European conferences are dominated by one question: “How secure is the cloud”. This is the tip of the iceberg questions which needs clarification around

• Physical  data location
• Unauthorized data access
• Data steal from insiders
• Firewalls to prevent 3^rd party attacks
• Operational compliance
• Shallow security
• Data Portability
• Business Continuity

According to Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, 86% of all security breaches were accomplished by the use of stolen login credentials, making secure enforcement of employee passwords and single sign-on policies a must.  For multinational companies compliance with different local codes was another top concern. No wonder Security is top of mind on the list of concerns with SaaS vendors. Though we would argue that the question applies to any on premise solution as well if you can get physical access.

The location of a datacenter (e.g. especially in light of US regulations and access to data from 3^rd party) fires up further discussions and IT responsible people should definitively ask where the data is stored physically. Interesting enough we also see many US and Canada based companies asking to be hosted in an European data center.

This is an important topic where strictness of European regulations can help build trust, and where Enterprise usage of data differs from consumer cloud services. Take an example “Google”. The nature of their business makes it valuable to immediately duplicate each search pattern and result to all global server farms. This ensures repeatable results. But it does not apply to Enterprise data and a determinable geographical storage location is a must.

The pressure along the isobars of US based IT decision makers is security affine as well but often leaves enough room for a value and business oriented conversation, while many European conferences often remain too long at this point. Because security is – after all - only the vehicle to come to better results, help business become more agile and insightful, and also to complement processes that run today.

2)     It is all about trust

With cloud computing the perception of security changed fundamentally. Security, data protection, and data privacy became more important.

This makes trust the #1 asset in cloud business and drives us, so it should any other vendor in this area, handle data with the utmost discretion and strives to deliver software solutions and support that allow business-critical processes to run securely.  We do protect customers against unauthorized data access and misuse, as well as confidential data disclosure, using various measures for employees, applications, organization, systems, and networks.

Now, if you compare the investment a company like SAP can make in this area, sometimes much more than an IT Organization inside other large companies is able or willing to do, not even thinking about mid size or smaller companies. Just do the math with a couple of examples:

You can expect an average ~20.000 attacks/day (active and passive) from the web, it is a business imperative to run all Apache server at the battlefront of the web (we talk about a militarized zone) any time on latest patches. Just compare this with a bank. Even if banks might have slightly different perception since the economic crisis, most people would consider them as safe regarding the physical storage of cash (and other things).  The latest patches on all online servers are comparable to locking all doors in a bank. Keeping development systems for test purpose online and forget to update them later is like keeping the back door of the bank building open for the smokers to easier get out and back into the building. This is not fictive, it happens much too often.

Data encryption for user devices using SSL is another good example. You need to control every level of the cloud-computing stack, from datacenter to database to middleware and the applications layer.

In our Public Cloud model, every layer of the stack goes through rigorous security audits and adheres to most stringent security standards. We follow transparent security and auditing standards and adhere to the most stringent data privacy standards.

Back to our bank example: Store data unencrypted or not using encryption tools between device and backend is comparable to put the cash “next to the safe” instead of “into the safe”.

The combination of this laxness is an inexcusable negligence and results in a thief who entered the bank via the open backdoor. Once in, he can´t believe that the cash is beside the safe, ready to be taken. Sounds absurd, happened in reality.

3) How to Train Your Dragon

EU 95/46 EC, PCI-DSS, ISO 27002, BS7799, ASIO-4, FIPS Moderate, BS10012, SSAE-16/SOC2… this is some of what it takes to train your Dragon. Just to name the most important audit standards and certificates, which you should apply to our datacenter and services.

Integration between cloud and on premise or 3rd party cloud is another area where we experience every single day lack of knowledge and risk assessment. B2B and partner integration is tough, a tribute to the disparate integration technology. And the number of technologies continues to grow. This is a challenge day in day out, but for each chosen technology you definitively need an adequate new set of best practices and design patterns to secure the solution.

At SAP, we provide several integration methods to meet different business needs: Packaged Integrations via integration platform with pre-packaged connectors, community driven process maps and last but not least user interfaces for developing and deploying file-based, events and process integrations from scratch.

Our Network Architecture is multi-tiered. End-user traffic is limited to the front Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) tier of Web servers only. Each single tier in the hosting environment is organized into a DMZ-like pattern. This allows a firewall or Virtual Local Area Networks (VLAN) separation between each tier. A request is individually validated before creating the next tier independent request.

These are just a few examples of an endless list. To answer all challenge, we frequently are undergoing a SSAE16-SOC2 Type II auditing, twice a year.

SAP is the leading provider for Enterprise business software – in the market for 4 decades, and may to go. We are used to work with customer data for our entire life. Together with SuccessFactors, an SAP company,  and Ariba, an SAP company we are now running the most comprehensive portfolio in the cloud as well. Data security and data privacy is part of our DNA – and to earn your trust every day is our utmost mission.

See this link for more in depth information, and some of the myths busted which are floating around.

We are helping customers and partners to do the right thing in cloud and we have done all our homework to secure your data and processes in the cloud. There is more to come for sure to keep the dragon trained.

We are prepared and are looking forward to hear your thoughts, Bert Schulze (@BeSchulze) and Sven Denecken (@SDenecken).

As the global leader in business software, SAP offers the most comprehensive business solution portfolio in the market. With strong investments and focus on cloud in the last years, SAP now has the most comprehensive business solution portfolio. First an foremost, appeal and simplicity characterize the solutions that come with pure cloud or integration options for hybrid deployments. “Rip and Replace “ have never been SAP´s mind set but flexibility and choice for the best run business.

Why should end user care about Integration? Well, co-innovation customers and partner tell us: “single source of truth, accurate data - I can rely on what I see, better customer meetings, faster sales cycles, higher pipeline conversion” exemplifies a Sales Rep´s point of view.

Cloud computing is the future of business that needs speed in business change, and a core part of SAP’s growth strategy.

Cloud stands ultimately for velocity

• Velocity of innovation delivered to end-user
• Velocity of assimilation in dynamic business environments
• Velocity of solution adaptation in changing environments
• Velocity of onboarding, time to value

To achieve this, SAP’s cloud strategy rests on 4 major elements:

• Applications
  • More than 20 applications, designed to be adopted as Line of business Applications in customer´s own pace and sequence. Featured to run independently or complement existing cloud or On Premise solutions — people, customers, suppliers, and money and business which represents a full suite in the cloud
  • Cloud stands for Adoption in core/commodity processes today. Increasing the value, SAP offers in addition to core Line of business solutions a fast-growing set of cloud-based industry solutions and special topic solutions. SAP´s industry diversity have always been rated market leading, bringing the value of cloud solutions to our customers’ industry core business is the next logical step in the evolution of the business cloud.
  • SAP delivers ‘Social with a Purpose’. Exploding numbers of communication channels, “searching context rather than finding” require the next generation engagement model for the modern employee. SAP Social solutions, leveraging SAP Jam in the fabric of each solution, drives social enterprise capabilities to a adequate level of productivity
  • Cloud applications are designed Mobile first, with embedded Analytics and leveraging SAP´s PaaS platform and SAP HANA where appropriate

• Platform
  • Serious Business requires an open platform for customers and partners to rapidly adopt existing and create new applications in a world increased business dynamics.
  • SAP evolved the HANA Database Services towards an open platform in the cloud, SAP HANA Cloud, allowing customers, Independent Software Vendors, freelancers and partners to adapt or verticalize existing cloud applications or to create new Apps. The advanced technology allows to build solutions mobile, social, analytical and create them with build-in integration

• Business Network
  • The Ariba Network is the preferred network for buying, selling, and/or managing cash with more than 800.000 businesses, operating in 186 countries. This made SAP THE customer choice in the fast-growing segment of inter-enterprise cloud-based business networks
  • Nearly 232.000 SAP customers can benefit from pre-built integration points towards the Ariba network

• Lifecycle Management
  • Virtualization and private clouds allow customers and partners to immediately benefit from cloud economics. SAP’s virtualization and cloud management solutions open the way to reduce TCO´s whilst safeguard existing investments at minimized disruptions – start their journey into a private cloud environment
  • Internal management of cloud solutions via consistent lifecycle-management tools

SAP is in the unique position to offer customers choice. True choice in where and how to adopt cloud based solutions - to complement or innovate existing processes in a non-disruptive mode and at own pace. This opens up the opportunity to all our customers and partners to WIN in the cloud.

And let´s not forget, the beauty is also about consistency and clarity with our cloud strategy - more than many would like to accept that are poking holes - just let the customers and partners proof - we are in this for the long run. Thanks for all the customers, partners and influencers who are helping us to get better every day.

Looking forward to your feedback Sven Denecken (@SDenecken) and Bert Schulze (@BeSchulze)

Watch out for Part 2 with a portfolio deep dive and learn more at

http://de.slideshare.net/SAPcloud/sap-cloud-strategy-update-q1-2013-sapcloud

http://de.slideshare.net/SAPcloud/sap-cloud-strategy-update-q1-2013-sapcloud-16220637

I love those little radio controlled helicopters; not the ones which recently became popular as autostablized aircraft but the real 4-channel machines. A helicopter, in general, is neither automatic nor stable. There is a simple analogy explaining the complexity of flying a helicopter.  Maintaining control of a car is like centering  a ball in a bowl. If you change direction, the ball moves accordingly.  When you go back to the start position, the ball comes back to the center. This is called auto-stable.

Flying a plane is like centering a ball on a flat surface area. When you change vectors, you need a correction at the end of the maneuver towards the opposite side to get the ball back to the center. Flying a helicopter is like balancing the ball on the outer side of an upside-down bowl. You’re constantly correcting and the ball is never stable.

Like a helicopter, a sales account is never auto stable. Waiting for the next move may mean losing.

We even wonder why people consider a full view 360 degrees. This already limits the view to a single dimension.  360 degrees merely describes a circle; however, a sphere is much more than this. We reached Web 2.0 some years ago yet some people still think in terms of flat dimensions. It is an easy task to make available data from a single solution, but this is not enough. 

A full view on my Customer means looking at a significant number of data sources.  “I can rely on what I see” is key for high user adoption.

More than a few customers during the past few months have mentioned a common experience in the cloud. Some solutions initially do the job for the Line of Business user.  At a certain point in time; however, people recognize that cloud data are on a one-way-street and that the Enterprise consistency has been lost.

Let´s make it more tangible.

Our Customer360 solution is designed for Sales Hunters:  the people chasing down the customers in their respective markets. They are a very specific group of people with very little tolerance for a bad user experience. Their productivity, in €/working day, is tremendous.   Everybody wants them to spend as much time with customers and prospects as possible. This is a perfect group for a best in class cloud user experience…. AND …. the “customer” in their Sales system is exactly the same “customer” that gets an invoice, receives a quote and is managed in the distribution logistic after deal closing.  They analyse their client´s contacts before each visit via Linked In and use other 3^rd party data completion services.  In this way, they are sure to pitch to the right part of the company. Do you want to manage any of this data twice? No way.  Not in the Web2.0 century. 

How do you create a full view of an Account?

This is what Sales Reps want and need. “What´s going on at my customer? Which deals are cooking? Which escalations do we have? What has been invoiced last month? Which campaigns have been directed at my contacts by marketing? Who recently joined my customer´s organisation? Sales Executives typically think to themselves: “I want to stay on top of shipping status, accounts receivable, orders and back orders until the customer is deployed and launched”. There are two ways to solve this issue. You can deploy a full blown solution in the cloud and hope your customer only uses this single solution for all corporate functions.  Alternatively, you can be clever enough to connect the cloud solution with API´s and Mash Up´s with various sources incl. an ERP backbone.

Let´s assume, in the long run, that both solutions are an option.  We’ll focus for the time being on smart connectivity. The cutovers between cloud and on premise have blurred boundaries. Requirements follow a simple pattern: Get things done. NOW.

Standard data containers in an A2A connection ensure master data is exchanged permanently and bi-directionaly. Webservices trigger processes like quotes or price requests in the corresponding systems and send status information in real time back into the requesting system. An additional mediated integration enables customers, on nearly any backend release, to book a ticket on the cloud train.

Depending on the industry, there is a lot of information that a sales person has to rely on to do business. During the last couple of months, our CoInnovation team (see link:http://blogs.sap.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/2012/01/Co-Innovation@SAP1.pdf) has met with many customers and discussed many such use cases. No doubt this is KEY to success. Some examples should illustrate this use cases. We talked to a customer in a B2B2C business. Their sales  people can only rely on last month’s invoiced revenues compared to a rolling 12 month average to analyse if a NON-Exclusive Dealer still sells their products in addition to the competition. A full account view wouldn´t be complete for them without accounting data. Another example is a B2C client who needs stock management at the Sales Rep’s fingertip to commit a delivery date during the onsite visit.

A  real time 360 degree view on service requests and escalations to the Sales teams is needed before the Sales REP enters the customers site. 

System alerts help regular sales people get better

We all know the cases when you prepare for ages for a customer negotiation.  Arriving onsite, you are faced with a service escalation… surprise, surprise. This is not a good day to defend your prices with quality arguments. Wouldn´t it be great if escalations were pushed to an account dashboard?   Take another example: You miss the end of the long lasting maintenance contract and the competition is smarter.  They now run the service at your customer. What kicks it up a notch now? We have learned that creating a real full account view is like flying a helicopter: you balance a ball on the outer side of an upside down bowl and need to make sure all data of all views are up to date anytime. This is highly dynamic.  Monthly exchange of flat files is stone age technology. And the product pitchman´s way of selling is from the last century.  A significant portion of the buying process is already complete before the customer contacts sales.   

Let us know what you think!

Bert Schulze (@BeSchulze) and Sven Denecken (@SDenecken)

Check out this VIDEO for an update on SAP’s Cloud strategy in time for #SAPphirenow. 

You’ll learn how SAP executed upon the strategy laid out earlier in the year while expanding the vision going forward.  The acquisition of Ariba, in particular, increased the number of arrows in our quiver. 

In addition to new capabilities, there are further details on evolving components.  Learn, for example, how SAP is turbo charging NetWeaver Cloud with the in-memory database HANA. Last, but not least, see how rapid innovation cycles are further beautifying the portfolio. 

In brief, see us check the boxes and move the stakes.

Looking forward to see some of you in Madrid!

Sven Denecken (@SDenecken)

Blog 4: Why Social Relationship Management is more than just a CRM topic

Major elections in global economic powerhouses including the US and Germany are marking the news right now. As a result of the ever increasing attempt of candidates to win hearts (votes) and funding for their campaigns, Social Media in turn is experiencing another big boost. After all, being close to voters is as “en vogue” for politicians as it is for companies to be close to their customers – also known as customer-centricity.

And with Facebook breaking the 1 billion user mark, there are some significant social relationships that can be established or managed on social networks. Established or managed? What is the difference and why should we care? Actually, there is a big difference.  The context of the interaction is extremely important.  This is where Social CRM provides help. Are we dealing with a customer or is this a prospect? In fact, last week’s CRM Expo event in Germany was a perfect showcase for the proliferation of Social CRM – well I’d even say for Social Computing at large. Yes, it’s probably a fair statement that Social Computing is one of Silicon Valley’s most hyped topics currently.  Nonetheless, there’s tremendous innovation happening: in Consumer as well as Enterprise IT. Let’s quickly point at some significant developments we are observing at the intersection of both IT worlds.

Given the relevancy of Social Media for customer-centric processes, it is not surprising to see CRM being one of the key Enterprise Application areas that strongly buys into the concept of Social. Social Media has certainly reached mainstream adoption in many parts of the world and with it companies have become increasingly open to Social Media activities. This has, however, opened the door for new operational challenges. Companies are now interested in monitoring and analyzing such activities (e.g., via SAP Social Media Analytics by Netbase).  They are also interested in integrating social customer data back into their CRM systems to allow for a 360 degree view of their customers (e.g., via SAP Customer OnDemand). Lastly, they want to directly engage with the customer (e.g., via SAP Social Customer Engagement OnDemand).

As mentioned, this is what customer-centric companies are fostering – being close to customers which also requires direct engagement. Software vendors and consulting service providers alike are now helping (B2C and increasingly also B2B) companies to manage such operational Social Media challenges. However, true productivity will only result from context-rich interactions. This is because high quality engagements require the right context.

It must be clear what we are trying to achieve and who is it that we are dealing with. This concept is not only applicable to Social CRM but to social activities at large, such as HR, R&D or supplier activities. Therefore, Social Computing also reflects the ability to foster collaboration at large – internally and/or externally.

Consequently, the term “Social biz” not only addresses our company’s mindset towards social media and dialogue marketing, but also our openness and IT capabilities around social collaboration technologies. SAP social software offerings provide such cross-enterprise social platform capabilities so we can collaborate as a team, as a division or as a company with our customers and partners. Check out the blog by Esteban Kolsky (@ekolsky).

One potential starting point is to contact the Co-Innovation team at SAP. We hope you’re enjoying the blog series: “march to Madrid”.

See you next week at SAPPhire NOW!  Please let us know your thoughts and Social Computing activities or ideas.

Niclas Otte (@ottenic) and Sven Denecken (@SDenecken)

Audacious goals are great for channeling the passions of a large group behind one common objective.  At SAP, our stretch goal is to have one billion users by 2015.  There are numerous initiatives underway bringing us closer each day.  In this blog, I’d like to discuss the role of user experience in this context.  Specifically, I’d like to share another* proof point of design thinking:  ”Bubblegum”.

Experience it live at HRTech Europe this week in Amstedam.

Bubblegum is the code name of a personalized portal SAP delivered to cloud customers in August.  As you can see from the videos below**, this state of the art applications allows users to access information from various sources, consume it in user friendly formats and collaborate with others within this context.

Customer feedback has been very positive.  And why shouldn’t it be?  This project was born out of multiple customer discussions at SAPPHIRE just three months earlier.  That’s right.  The cloud unit has processes in place that allow us to deliver new functionality with minimal lag time.  This allows us to remain in lock step with the market.  We develop what the market wants when it wants it.

So what’s the significance of such a development in the context of the billion-user objective?  This solutions helps us to go beyond our traditional customer base, power users, to serve the casual user.  Research shows that the information held within SAP applications is of broad interest.  The issue has traditionally been one of accessibility.  Bubblegum breaks down these barriers by presenting the information of interest, on the device of choice in an easy to consume manner.

Design thinking is core to exploiting such market opportunities.  Already at SAPPHIRE, we were assessing the viability and feasibility and not just the desirability.  Throughout the development process, we remained engaged with design customers via our co-innovation program.  Any potential gaps between plan and reality were nipped in the bud.  As we continue to meet or exceed user expectations with these new development principals, a billion users starts to feel like a modest objective!

Check out the latest user experience in people, customer and money area of our portfolio.

Employee central

Customer Insights

Business Insights

Regards Sven Denecken  (follow me @SDenecken)

Finance has always been about improving results.  What could be achieved; however, has changed over time.  Consider now the potential impact of velocity and people centricity of cloud computing.  It is expanding finance beyond departmental optimization and fueling bottom line growth through collaboration.

Before ERP, staff meetings in my old company were lively events.  Unfortunately, the only thing we regularly agreed upon was that the organization as a whole was underperforming.  Every department had a well-documented theory as to why other departments were at fault.  We came to meetings with stacks of reports from our independent systems proving we were ahead of plan.  Invariably, we would point to the paint department where containers overflowed with scrap.  The paint department, in turn, pointed to poor surface quality from injection molding.  All agreed that purchasing was at fault for not lining up better suppliers. It was a fascinating discussion; however, it rarely yielded results.  The good news was everyone was engaged.

When ERP came along, things improved.  Henceforth, there was only one report.  Your department’s yield was whatever the CFO said it was.  Sure, departments continued to blame processes upstream; however, there was less wiggle room.  The largest remaining challenge was lag time.  When we finally became aware of issues via financial reports, significant damage had already been done.   Matters got worse when we moved to focused factories and contract manufacturing.  We still had a single version of the truth within our four walls; however, more and more of the manufacturing process took place elsewhere.  By the time we gained a consolidated view, even more damage had occurred.  Staff meetings were like autopsies.  The CFO dissected problems from previous accounting periods while the department heads sat back helplessly.

How would this situation play out today with a modern cloud based financial application like SAP Finance OnDemand?

First of all, there are fewer and smaller batch processes.  The lean movement toward one-piece flow and the power of in-memory processing make up to the minute profitability analysis feasible.  This applies not only to internal operations but potentially the entire supply chain.  Next, modern integration platforms allow different entities to run best of breed systems like the departments of yester year yet still consolidate results in real time.

Lastly, thanks to new collaboration paradigms, interdepartmental interactions need no longer be a zero sum game.  In other words, department heads have more attractive options for improving the status of their department than shifting blame.  Two department heads can sit together looking at the same real time KPIs and nip problems in the bud.  Indeed, such collaboration can even lead to improved processes making everyone look better.  Thanks to the ubiquitous nature of cloud computing, this dynamic even holds true for plants located in different parts of the world. And lets not forget, controllers are often starving to get their value out to the business, in their hands.

There’s never been a more exciting time to be in finance.  Technology is changing the conversation from “who did what” to “let’s build a better future”.  The department heads are no longer the problem but rather part of the solution.  What number cruncher can’t get excited about adding one and one and getting three!

Check out the video and engage with us.

Regards Sven Denecken (@SDenecken) and John Hunt (@johnanthonyhunt)

Also see:

Financials OnDemand: Using Collaboration to streamline finance

As I began preparing my cloud presentation for upcoming events, I reviewed my SAPPHIRE blog to see what had changed since May.  As one would hope, the only major difference was execution.  In other words, in May we talked about developing a cloud product for financials.  In the meantime, the product has already launched!  What is it that allows us to remain so consistent?  Consider our unique competitive position in the cloud as summarized below:

SAP has a seat in the boardroom of Fortune 2000 companies.  We are committed to the cloud and uniquely positioned to help our customers leverage the cloud without disruption. SAP in respect to cloud is now the grown up in the room. Boardrooms around the world are making the decision to invest in the cloud. And no one knows the boardroom like SAP. The cloud offers real advantages and opportunities.  Few companies are better positioned than SAP to help customers take advantage… and reap the benefits… of this next logical step in their IT strategy.  SAP has over 4 decades of experience in serving the world’s largest and most complex companies.  This experience spans every industry and line-of-business and this at the business process level. These benefits include the ability to do more with less, to grab new business opportunities in a more nimble way without being disrupted or hindered by the need for IT to play catch-up, and lastly to encourage far more fluid collaboration and decision-making within a team, department or entire organization.

SAP addresses the cloud from the enterprise level in as opposed to the niche departmental level out. The reality is that our nearly two hundred thousand customers worldwide have made huge investments in their business software infrastructure. This is not going away in the near future. Nonetheless, they are eagerly looking to extend and improvethe use of these applications through the use of cloud solutions; especially in areas like HR and customer-relationship management. This is where cloud adoption is at its fastest and most enthusiastic. Hence, this is where SAP, SuccessFactors and soon Ariba come in.

• With the combination of deep business process know-how, nimbleness and sheer pace of innovation, SAP is now looking at a completely new ball game. In other words, we now have nearly 4,500 cloud experts (soon 7,000) focused on bringing the broadest AND deepest cloud portfolio to market.
• 17 million users and counting. Our focus is on solutions that help customers manage their most important assets.  This is also where we see the fastest and most enthusiastic adoption of cloud: People (HCM), Customers (CRM) , Suppliers (SCM+SRM) and Money (Financials). Specifically, in the People space, this is very significant as every single employee in an organization touches the application.  These processes flow through the very heart of a company.
• Integration is key as customer have invested in their on-premise systems over years to enable their core business processes and hence hybrid IT landscapes across on-premise, cloud and mobile will continue to be a norm as customers adopt cloud solutions.

The cloud is excellent for some areas of a business, and on-premise continues to be the norm for others. We live in a hybrid reality.SAP can bring the advantages of cloud to our customers to consume as they need it and when they are ready for them. Combining a cloud solution with your existing on premise investment is key. There is no value in ripping out your existing solution – loosing decades of valuable data. The best outcome is achieved when you combine – best practices and best processes with people centric best of topic solutions – delivered via the cloud with fast innovation.A Different Approach to Apps: Social, Mobile, Analytics and Big Data Built Right inAlthough the market sees social, mobile and big data as separate trends, SAP sees all of them as essential elements of our cloud solutions.  Our cloud solutions are designed to work the way people do. Just see it in action.  In fact, the solutions have been designed in close collaboration with our co-innovation customers and partners. This ensures they truly fit the needs of the business.

• We design, and deliver, beautiful cloud solutions as a loosely coupled Suite. With this approach, customers can adopt services at their own pace and in their own way. When combined, however, these solutions offer the value proposition of a suite. Furthermore, they are intuitive and fun to use.  This helps drive adoption within a company.
• We offer standard integration with the SAP Business Suite (on-premise) to support the hybrid landscapes of customers. Specifically, we offer Integration as a Service from SAP or from partners. After all, much of the world will remain hybrid for a long while. Where this isn’t the case, we lead with the cloud option.
• We offer a unified and open platform for our customers and partners to create and run new apps in the cloud and/or extend SAP cloud solutions. See our latest on our PaaS offering via SAP NetWeaver Cloud.
• To take social to the next level, we are working on an open platform.  The objective is to eliminate social silos inside and outside the company.  Social should be in the fabric of every solution. This will create an aggregated, open and seamless experience across SAP and ecosystem applications. We are putting the “Business” back in Social.
• We will continue to offer fully integrated suites for mid-market customers, subsidiaries of large enterprise (ByD) and small customers (B1 OnDemand). Not only is there a huge potential for modern solutions in the mid market, but also larger companies need solutions for Two Tier ERP to increase efficiency.

Our agenda is customer focused and people centric. We deliver software solutions for companies of all sizes, industries and in every region. With our cloud approach, customers now have a one-stop shop – one hand to shake – which can be seamlessly integrated with their on-premise landscapes. Customers no longer need to look beyond SAP. We feel strongly that this strategy sets us apart from the competition in several important ways.

In closing, please don’t interpret “consistency of execution” with “nothing new to say”.  On the contrary, you won’t want to miss the next level of detail we will be exposing at Tech Ed, HR Tech, SAPPHIRE Madrid, User group meetings, ….  At SAPPHIRE Orlando in May, for example, we only briefly mentioned our next generation cloud platform.  Wait until you see what our customers and partners have already begun building with it!

Blogging for you soon Sven Denecken (follow me on twitter @SDenecken)