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Former Member

At this year’s German-speaking SAP User Group DSAG e.V. annual conference in Nuremberg, Germany, a record number of 4,500 visitors attended the 3-day event under the motto “business transformation from the electrical outlet?"


But is this even possible?


According to Michael Kleinemeier – Member of the Executive Board of SAP SE – it is. We are in the era of digital shift. Industries, business models and processes, as well as the behavior of all market participants are changing rapidly and dynamically. It no longer is the question of whether businesses need to play an active role in this digital transformation to stay competitive and enter new markets, but rather the matter of how this can be done. This how includes questions around the organizational maturity within this digital transformation, the innovation roadmap, as well as possible approaches and methods within SAP's product and service offerings.


It is very important to strengthen the collaboration between SAP and DSAG and to place even more focus on aspects such as:

  • Where are my customer insights?
  • How can I support my customer’s innovation journey?
  • And the need to quickly be able to react to the customer interface.


Along with digitization, all of these aspects will play a big role for successful companies over the next few years. The speed at which we need to adapt to changes will also rapidly increase in many respects: Strategic exchange, influence, and knowledge transfer.


Now, how can we roll out knowledge and how should we do so? SAP has provided a number of webinars and roadmap sessions over the past year - an example that shows our partners’ and customers’ thirst for knowledge. The SAP Enterprise Support Academy currently offers more than 40,000 learning opportunities. Furthermore, SAP and DSAG have joined a number of events and info-days such as CeBIT and Hannover Messe.

How digitization is changing the way we work as well as our business processes was then shown in a virtual reality demo which described a warehouse behind the scenes:

Michael’s first conclusion: Digitalization is coming. Whether we like it or not. It is coming at different speeds, from industries to regions. But first of all, who is leading this business transformation? Interestingly, everyone seems to be involved – from the CIO to governments, from young to older generations, from start-ups to mature companies.

Secondly, where is this taking place? According to Michael, we can find business transformation where we can see a direct increase and impact of effectivity: within the business processes themselves.

For example: Under Armor may seem like a retailer as any other – they sell shirts and shoes. But: they now connect customer data through wearables. With a data volume of billions of workout and food records, they are a proof point of where digitalization is needed.

Michael Kleinemeier also welcomed on stage Dirk Zeller, Head of IT Consulting Mercedes AMG, who shared his experiences with SAP and the seamless transition into the SAP HANA Cloud Platform: “We of course also want to grow, find new customers, and optimize our resources. This we can successfully do with our trusted partner SAP.”


SAP’s digital framework is growing immensely since its inception six years ago, thanks to IoT, Big Data, new acquisitions, such as Concur and hybris, and more. And: The digital core is more important than ever (see Bernd Leukert’s keynote). In the digital transformation, Michael pointed out three scenarios of how customers can move to SAP S/4HANA:

  • System conversion
  • Greenfield approach (starting from scratch)
  • Landscape transformation (how to simplify and reduce running processes?)

Michael then brought Mr. Schnackerz, Head of WEIG-Gruppe, on stage, who shared the company's experiences of going live with the SAP S/4HANA implementation and SAP S/4HANA Value Assurance service packages in only six months! Key to this success was the close collaboration with SAP! Find out more here.

And finally, Matthias Melich from SAP presented the latest features of SAP Solution Manager 7.2. The key three things our customers now need are an SAP S/4HANA Roadmap, SAP Solution Manager 7.2 with all the required tools, and of course, an SAP S4/HANA Value Assurance service package.

So, is business transformation possible from the electrical outlet? SAP and Michael Kleinemeier say: Yes!

Find the replay (in German) here.

About DSAG e.V.

The German-speaking SAP User Group DSAG e.V. is the independent lobby for SAP users in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. More via: http://www.kongress.dsag.de/