Day 2 and 3 started with inspiring keynotes from Jim (day 2), Hasso and Vishal (day 3). Jim nicely related nature to business – nature teaches us to constantly adapt and new species emerge, also the business world requires constant adaptation and creation of new business models to survive or even thrive in a more and more complex and volatile environment (examples: New risk management models in banking or the SMART GRID with energy reduction
potential of over all 50%). Hasso demonstrated the importance of big data and analytics quite impressively by showing how billions of Point of Sales data can
be aggregated, disaggregated, related to cross selling opportunities and visualized in just seconds. Vishal highlighted the latest product developments
– SAP FIORA, a set of 25 highly intuitive applications, optimized for browsers like Google Chrome and SAP LUMIRA, the next generation of HANA based Analytics should serve as examples here.
I attended the following quite interesting ASUG sessions:
- WR Grace showed how SAP Data Quality Management and Data Services could help to standardize customer data, hence reducing administrative efforts and mitigating security risks
- Chemtura presented the results of a co-innovation project with SAP which should significantly reduce the efforts to exchange exposure scenarios with value chain partners within the scope of REACH (expected reduction of administrative efforts: 50%)
- Dow Corning established a powerful platform for analytics and integration based on SAP MII with which batch process data and analytics can be made available in just 5 minutes by pulling together information from various operating systems
Most important and interesting part of Sapphire this year was clearly our Chemicals and Mill Products Industry Forum on day 3. Here are some highlights:
- In the keynote Don Mahoney (Head IBU Chemicals) shared with the audience how best run chemical companies typically use SAP and DuPont and ArcelorMittal explained on how SAP solutions helped and will help them to drive innovation and growth
- In a panel discussion Dow Chemical, Nova Chemicals and WiseAlloy explained how they drive Innovation and Operational Excellence across the Entire Value Chain using SAP’s latest solutions
- SAP partner ROLTA presented a holistic data model built around SAP solutions like MII, HANA, EAM and Business Objects and the ROLTA “OneView” solution which allows to establish a powerful KPI framework comprising operational excellence, asset maintenance and reliability as well as EHS performance.
- DuPont presented how SAP S&OP on HANA enables their Integrated Business and Operations Planning process and emphasized the criticality of IT tool support for this process
- Finally The Mosaic Company elaborated on their journey to Operational Excellence through Environmental and Sustainability Performance using SAP’s Environmental Compliance and Sustainability Performance Management solutions.
Also a variety of demo theatre sessions and Micro-forums were held with focus on SAP’s most recent innovations, relevant to Chemicals. Overall the Forum was well attended and customers very much appreciated the “one stop shop” concept and the content provided. Many Forum sessions have been live-streamed and recorded, so watch out for more information coming soon on replays.
Additional noteworthy aspects:
- Many interesting and promising meetings with partners were held to enhance our Ecosystem and Channels in Chemicals
- Great feedback was obtained on our new CRM on Demand solution, in particular for the intuitive GUI, which makes it a quite powerful alternative for
SalesForce.com - ROLTA was certified for 3 Rapid Deployment Solutions building right on top of SAP as enhancements
- Within ASUG very good discussions were held in context with safety systems and master data impact
Overall great event! We look forward to see you all again in 2014!
