I have long believed navigating SAP is like going on an Easter egg hunt. You know there are lots and lots of goodies, but it takes effort to find them. That was reinforced when I wrote SAP Nation 3.0. I kept asking about CX, AIN, IBP and vertical products. Thanks to Stacey Fish, I was able to delay the book a few times and get those perspectives in the book.
I have been pushing SAP to hear more about verticals especially after seismic changes in so many industries with the pandemic last year. It took a while but Stacy Comes managed to put together a briefing for me with the following executives
- Torsten Welte - Aerospace & Defense
- Matt Laukaitis – Consumer Industries
- Hagen Heubach – Automotive
- Achim Schneider - Retail
- EJ Kenney – Consumer Products
- Markus Bechmann– Utilities
It was exhilarating and there was very little mention of S/4HANA and cross-industry business networks, which usually get plenty of SAP coverage.
We identified several topics where one of them will present as part of my Analyst Cam series over the next few weeks. Here are a few:
- Direct to Consumer trends
- The shifting transportation/mobility market and related networks
- Outcome based business models
- Circular economy trends
- Fragmentation in the utility sector
- Energy transition in utilities
- Personalized Medicine
SAP, of course, plays in many more sectors and it will be good to also explore those in future. SAP's backyard is full of impressive customer brands across industries and countries. Makes for a nice egg hunt.
