I was invited to an analyst summit on SAP's Data and Analytics portfolio of products. What a remarkable difference from last year! I had flown to a similar event in Vancouver - first to Seattle, then taken a bus across the border (I enjoy taking buses and trains during my travels). This year it was virtual using ON24. I participated and took screen shots on my iPad while racking up FitBit steps. Missed the spectacular Pacific Northwest scenery and hospitality, but this was a bit more productive.
More impressively, the SAP analytics product portfolio has become much more coherent. Last year, each of the products had slightly different slides and messages. This year, they had similarly wide coverage around HANA Cloud, Data Warehouse Cloud, Augmented BI and Planning, Data Intelligence and Master Data Management. A bit jargon-heavy - they were presenting to analysts, after all - but much better integrated and with considerably more emphasis on the cloud.
There were several production nuances I appreciated. They stayed on time across the 3 days. Quite a feat. No confusing NDAs - all the presentations were public (though I am waiting for permission to use some of the video from the NHL presentation). Every evening, SAP helpfully shared the slides for the day and the recording with an index with timestamps. They encouraged questions through the chat window (disclosure - I find q&a on ON24 a bit limiting. You tend to type short questions, and the answer time is usually limited. I much prefer verbalizing questions on Zoom. But ON24 gives you more flexibility on presentations, surveys etc.) and were generous with gift cards to encourage questions. Even a cheerful 10th birthday celebration for HANA. So, the production quality overall was excellent.
Timo Elliott of SAP kicked off the event asking a panel 'How has COVID changed the way customers are looking at analytics?"
At home, his question led me to ask review what I have learned from executive interviews in my "acrobatics during the crisis" series and I jotted down 12 data streams and use cases I hoped would be covered during the 3 days:
1) chaotic, broken down supply chains, massive eCommerce and last-mile logistics spikes and significant opportunities for next-gen supply chain analytics and IoT mining,
2) a relentless stream of continuous planning as CFOs updated forecasts and scenarios almost hourly.
3) healthcare planning heroics as we opened pop-up clinics, expanded diagnostics and ICU capacity overnight, scrambled for PPE inventory, parachuted medical personnel from wherever, accelerated clinical trials for vaccines.
4) citizens who have seen countless public health visualizations on COVID positives, hospitalizations, fatalities etc. from Johns Hopkins and other sources. (btw, the term "single source of truth" that is bandied by analysts is cause for caution these days as media has cherry picked this health data in its reporting. The need for pandemic modeling agencies similar to the National Hurricane Center has become obvious. )
5) an explosion in video content from telemedicine, streaming TV, digital real estate, countless Zoom sessions and related emergence of a new generation of video analytics
6) WFH productivity, gaming and other metrics
7) intense focus on diversity and inclusion HCM metrics
8) more precise outage mapping and storm tracking given the spate of forest fires and hurricanes this summer and sustainability metrics as climate change becomes more of a "burning" issue
9) trading data even for a much more Wall Street-savvy cohort of Millennials thanks to sites like Robinhood and due to unprecedented market volatility
10) a new wave of polling data and sentiment analysis in the US elections
11) data from sports with seasons which will definitely show asterisks - without fans in stadiums, teams in bubbles, shortened playoffs etc.
12) a changing competitive landscape as vendors like Snowflake and Palantir are getting a lot more attention given their massive IPO/public listings.
Somewhere in the vast SAP customer base across verticals, I am sure you could find customers who could talk about the realities I list above, and in passing some of the items were covered during the event. I was particularly pleased to see a presentation from Greg Notch of the NHL. He focused on the SAP-NHL Coaching Insights App for iPad. Real-time analytics and visualization from the ice rink - a good metaphor for what every executive would like to see in their own industry settings. It was reinforced on live TV as the Stanley Cup Finals are played this week and you see coaches and players looking intensely at their tablets.
Most of the other sessions focused more on longer-term projects. They were professional and included presentations from customers like Siemens and Stryker.
I know this is SAP's reality - multi-national customers with plenty of complex needs with mountains of data and legacy products to carry forward. But I am not sure they would meet Greg Tomb's filter. He had presented a month ago about SAP's Amplify initiative - a focus on bite-size projects with remote teams that have been selling in the last few months.
In fairness, I could have asked via the Chat format about some of my points but not sure they would have had enough time to elaborate. Look forward to more direct conversations with SAP executives and customers. And similar with all other vendors who compete with data and analytical products. There is a brave new world of analytics they all have to compete for.
The good news for SAP is the products and the case studies they presented will be more relevant next September. Or possibly June or November? When exactly? Now, that is a Looking (into the future) Glass analytic application most companies would pay SAP dearly for as they navigate projections of U, V, W, L economic recoveries.
