The SAP Partner Summit for SME is back in three locations for 2023 including Bangkok, Panama City and Vienna. Last month we conducted a poll of partners worldwide to determine the post Covid interest and partner perceived value from the event. As the annual event grows nearer excitement and interest continue to grow as partners make plans to attend. I am personally excited to attend in Panama City May 23-25th to:
- Network with the partner community
- Talk with SAP executives
- Learn the latest technology trends
RISE with SAP and Cloud Technology
SAP has gone “all-in” on Cloud computing over the past 15 years. Huge acquisitions such as Concur, Success Factors and Ariba have provided growth and know-how. The most significant investement was Sybase in May 2010. Sybase brought the HANA in memory computing technology that now powers SAP ERP products. SAP has made significant investments in retooling its ERP systems into world class products powered by HANA.
RISE with SAP
RISE with SAP is a bundle of products and services to provide digital transformation as a service. SAP products can scale to the largest of enterprises and accordingly are extremely functional, flexible and resultingly complex. RISE makes the transition to an SAP Cloud powered by S/4 HANA easier and more cost effective through embedded workflows and commercial simplification. In other words, RISE navigates the complexity of all the component SAP products with bundling of:
- cloud infrastructure,
- database, applications,
- transformations,
- business network transactions and
- analytics
- in a single contract with a single service level agreement.
If RISE sounds like a large company offering, that is because it is. However, Mid-Market customers are accesing these tools through the “Public Cloud Edition” of SAP S/4 HANA. All SME customers can learn from the concepts embedded in the offering.
Business Transformation Platform (BTP)
It seems like everything is a “platform” these days, but what does that mean? Similar to RISE, the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) is a collection of cloud computing power and low-code/no-code tools to automate and integrate processes. The idea of low-code/no-code platforms are to replace the tedious and complex programming tasks out of the work with an easy to use drag and drop user interface. Because it is written by SAP for SAP, BTP widgets perform coding with the knowledge of the database built in.
Through process knowledge, “Citizen Developers” lower the cost of automating work. Programmers using BTP report drastic reductions in time to value. Technologically savvy end-users also have been able to use the platform in place of IT professionals. Attendees of SAP Partner Summit for SME can learn more about BTP and how it can serve customers.
Like most platforms, BTP uses consumption based pricing. For initial development and low volumes BTP can be affordable, but becomes pricey quickly for small businesses. The good news is that other providers like Fisher Technology and their BPA Platform will also be at the event!
SAP Business One
Our survey showed that the largest constituency and #1 reason for attending the SAP Partner Summit for SME was to learn about what is new with SAP Business One. SAP Business One has come a long way since SAP acquired Top Manage in 2002! This product has more customers is more countries than NetSuite and Acumatica combined but continues to be SAP’s best kept secret. SAP Business One (B1) is the “S” product in the SME market.
SAP Business One Cloud
20 years ago I-BN began hosting SAP Business One on dedicated servers using an indefinite financing agreement (operating lease). 15 years ago SAP created the first official hosting program called SAP Business One On Demand which enabled subscription pricing. After the acquisition of Sybase and the HANA technology, SAP made B1 the first in-memory ERP product in the portfolio. SAP invested heavily in the SAP Business One Cloud Control Center (CCC) which enabled secure multi-tenant automated deployment.
SAP Business One Web Client
The client free interface offered by a browser client is a key component in a Cloud Maturity Model. The B1 Web Client has been expanding to cover all the modules and functions. Every version of B1 expands the functionality and the Version 10 web client is now extremely powerful. Understanding the additional advances and roadmap for the Web Client is one of the most anticipated sessions at the event.
Networking
The #1 reason to attend SAP Partner Summit for SME is networking. Whether it is networking with other partners or SAP executives, nothing beats face to face meetings for developing relationships. In between the morning keynotes and the afternoon concurrent breakout sessions SAP schedules plenty of time for networking.
If you need introductions during the Panama event, send me an e-mail or if you want to connect, book some time on my Calendar.