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c821311
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SAPPHIRE NOW 2011

This year I have been fortunate enough to be selected to attend SAPPHIRE NOW in Orlando USA. You may ask why an Australian SAP practitioner would consider flying around 10,000 miles over a 27 hour stretch across the Pacific Ocean to attend this event?

Quite simply, networking with customers and participating in forums and educational sessions helps me to build a global perspective and understand the SAP technology vision. This perspective will help my customers innovate with SAP, and driving business improvements and hopefully long-term profitability.

 

The SAPPHIRE NOW 2011 message

 

The message from SAPPHIRE NOW 2010 of On Premise, On Demand and On Device will be supplemented this year by many of the exciting announcements made during the Run Better Tour and Virtualization Week events. No doubt, Analytics and Social media will feature heavily – but for me the growth area I am most excited about is the improved SAP Orchestration capabilities required to manage SAP systems in virtualized and cloud environments.

 

The main problem SAP customers are experiencing is the prohibitive costs and time taken to provision the servers required to fulfil business requirements. We are all looking forward to the SAP Landscape Management Software solving the common problems of:-

 

-          Reduced testing cycles caused by the reluctance to clone Production instances;

-          Inability to evaluate new functionality such as GRC 10 or BI4.0 because it is too expensive to provision a new Sandpit server; and

-          Over-allocation of CPU and Memory to the Production systems and no spare capacity to run a one-off training course in a test system.

 

With the recent certification of HP, there are now over 10 SAP-certified global cloud service providers including IBM, Fujitsu and NEC. Make no mistake here; SAP is counting on Cloud infrastructure to drive agility, flexibility and optimisation at the right cost – allowing customers to focus on core business processes. 

 

Something for everyone:-

Whether you’re looking for other customer experiences to help you avoid common pitfalls, or advice on how to use SAP Technology to gain a competitive advantage, SAPPHIRE NOW 2011 has something for you.

 

For the Chief Finance Officer interested in the stabilisation of the current landscape and the reduction of operational costs, you can listen to best practice tips and real-life experiences focused on:-

-          Optimising your current SAP landscape;

-          Deploying the latest SAP Technical maintenance without disruption; and

-          Utilising Application Lifecycle Management techniques to reduce cost.

 

For the Chief Technology Officer interested in deploying new SAP functionality or renewing an existing SAP landscape, you can listen to the latest SAP Technology offerings focused on:-

-          accelerating upgrades and new SAP Landscape deployments;

-          maximising the benefits of strategic SAP Landscape modernisation;

-          improving SAP integration techniques; and

-          integrating a Business Analytics layer into an existing SAP landscape.          

 

For the Chief Innovation Officer interested in the latest SAP offerings and roadmaps, you can listen to visionary keynotes from industry thought leaders:-

-          How to introduce mobility into your SAP landscape;

-          Understanding SAP In-Memory and On-Demand offerings;

-          How is SAP integrating with non SAP applications?;

-          How is SAP preparing for integration of Social media as a rich data source?; and

-          What are the latest tools and techniques for self service orchestration in an On-Demand environment?

 

Still time to register

There’s still time to register and join me at the Orange County Convention Centre in Orlando, Florida from May 15-18, 2011. This year the ASUG celebrates its 20th Anniversary at this year’s ASUG Annual Conference – run in parallel with SAPHHIRE NOW.

 

My top 10 tips to make the most of your SAPPHIRE NOW experience

Here are the steps to follow to help you make the most out of your SAPPHIRE now experience

  1. Use the personal Agenda Builder tool to customize your experience by selecting wisely from over 600 sessions
  2. Consider one of the eight Pre-Conference Seminars. My favourite selection for great value and personality is Ingo Hilgefort’s Business Objects BI 4.0 Tools in a Single Day.
  3. Last year, over 50,000 customers, partners and employees attended SAPPHIRE NOW 2010 on-site and online. Many of the sessions can still be enjoyed online.
  4. Check out the Twitter stream for what others are saying about the event.
  5. Join me on Wednesday night to see the multi talented Sting in action.
  6. Introduce yourself to an SAP Mentor to witness SAP Community engagement and an unusual human touch in SAP enterprise software. You will recognise us from our blue SAP Rugby jerseys and our honest approach built on several years of experience in the SAP industry.
  7. Listen intently to the Visionary keynote speakers on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I am looking forward to Hasso outdoing his two iPad presentation from SAPPHINE NOW 2010.
  8. Participate in one of the 50 demonstrations in the Mobility Campus
  9. Share experiences with other customers during one of the 56 tracks offered as part of the 2011 ASUG Annual Conference.
  10. Spend time learning about SAP Partner Solutions from the exhibitor’s booths. I know from personal experience how much effort goes into preparing for an exhibitor booth. You might be pleasantly surprised with the amount of technical knowledge on show at the booths.

 

Get answers to your questions.

Any Australian customers looking for assistance getting access to best SAP knowledge at the conference should establish contact with me before the event. As part of the SAP Mentor and SAP Blogger programs, I might just be able to broker that personal connection which makes a difference to your company, improves your competitiveness – and helps to improve the Australian SAP ecosystem.

 

 

Other information:-

SAPPHIRE NOW 2011 Registrations:

http://www.sapandasug.com/

 

SAPPHIRE NOW 2010 past session:-

http://www.sapphirenow.com/

 

SAPPHIRE NOW YouTube channel:-

http://www.youtube.com/user/sapphirenow

 

SAPPHIRE NOW Face Book page:-

http://www.facebook.com/SAPPHIRENOW

 

SAPPHIRE NOW Twitter stream:-

http://twitter.com/#!/sapphirenow

 

SAP Virtualization and Cloud week event:-

http://www.sapteched.com/sapvweek/agenda/

 

SAP Run Better Tour event:-

https://www.sapevents.com/SAP/RunBetterTour

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