The SAP Business as Unusual book by Thomas Saueressig and Peter Maier was released on December 20. (click on badge on left to link to the Amazon page). The book relies heavily on conversations with SAP, customer, partner, research firm and SAP.iO Foundries startup executives in over 25 countries and on visits to Industry 4.0 and Customer Experience Centers at key SAP global locations.
We ended up with hundreds of hours of videos and 2,500 pages in transcripts, slides and research papers. We plan to showcase a selection of video excerpts for each chapter so readers can get to know the contributors a bit better and get a glimpse at some of the SAP assets described in the book. These are bite sixed excerpts – in most cases less than 5% of the conversations we recorded.
Leading off for Ch. 5 and Megatrend 4 of 8 – Lifelong Health – is Michael Byckkowski, head of SAP’s healthcare Industry Business Unit (IBU) at SAP. The chapter includes plenty of his commentary and that from other SAP executives and those at Discovery Health, Zuellig Pharma, DXC Technology and others
Maia Surmava, now CEO of US of its Vitality division, explains the phenomenal growth of Discovery Health across countries and sectors from its humble beginnings when S Africa first became an independent nation. She also describes the intense data-centric culture of the company, a legacy of its founders who are both actuaries.
Daniel Laverick, head of digital and data solutions at Zuellig Phama in Singapore, describes for the SAP Business as Unusual book, the overnight need for eCommerce and other digital solutions across 13 Asian countries they service as the COVID pandemic started. He also discusses automation in the form of robots and drones in their warehouses, how blockchain is helping against counterfeiting in that part of the world and the complexities of cold chain logistics for vaccine distribution in distant and tropical destinations.
Copellia Rose, healthcare leader at SAP partner, DXC Technology in Brisbane, Australia discusses for the SAP book, Business as Unusual, enhancements they developed to assist healthcare providers deal with a highly stressed workforce due to the acute pressures resulting from the COVID pandemic.
Mandar Paralkar, head of Life Sciences at SAP, discusses how SAP is delivering new functionality in the form of cloud apps surrounding S/4HANA. He elaborated on two such applications already delivered - Intelligent Clinical Supply Management and Batch Release Hub for Life Sciences and two in early stages of specification and development - Cell and Gene Therapy (GCT) orchestration and Cold Chain logistics.
The twin of this post with text and graph excerpts is here