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Analyst Cam: SAP Verticals – Public Sector

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Ulrike Kleifeld, VP Strategy, Global Public Services and Chris Atkins, VP Global Digital Transformation at SAP.

Ulrike starts off with some of the challenges government bodies face in nearly every country. The COVID pandemic accelerated digitalization in every industry but also exposed how much the public sector lags. This was followed by the Ukraine war and other geopolitical crises. We have economic burdens from the pandemic, and the energy crisis has only added to that. Disruptions have been coming in waves and governments are struggling to adjust to that “new normal”

They also address the loss of trust in government. I ask if it is lack of trust in politicians v  government agencies. They say there is a view that government is not agile or farsighted. Ulrike says “on the one hand we want governments to be cautious and risk-averse with tax payer funds, but we also need to help them accelerate their execution capabilities.”

Chris walks through the functional scope of their solutions across the value chain from policy and planning to public finance to supporting programs and services – the citizen facing part. He shares several customer examples. About the State of Arkansas he describes the amazing outcomes the project delivered: “they were able to achieve a 95% reduction in accounting processes, from a time perspective, going from four weeks to one click for many of their processes, a 91% reduction in cost allocation process from six months to 10 days. And, yes, you heard this right, a 1,150% improvement in creating their budget reports, what used to take days now take them minutes. And for the first time ever, they were able to submit their federal quarterly reports on time.”

I like that he represented multiple countries and the “end to end value business model for how they deliver value to their citizens”

Talking of different countries, they all have their own demands around data sovereignty, security clearances etc. Ulrike mentions one “In the US, we have the NS2 cloud, which is on US soil run by US personnel in a special secured environment that is FedRAMP certified.”

They do a really nice job covering a lot of ground about this complex but vital sector in about 20 minutes. 

Analyst Cam: SAP Verticals – Aerospace & Defense

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Torsten Welte, Global VP and Head of Industrial Business Unit for Aerospace & Defense at SAP.

As you see in the image (and much more in the video ) below, the coverage is mammoth but as he says it's only the "guys that make the toys, not play with the toys". SAP's Travel and Transportation Group covers the airline operators, the Public Sector group covers space agencies like NASA and ESA, SAP's SuccessFactors and other units cover the human side of these large customers.

I tell him I am envious he gets to go to Paris, Farnborough and other airshows. The technology in modern spacecraft, avionics, eVTOLs and naval equipment he covers is drool-inducing and the design, manufacturing, monitoring, maintenance, earned value calculations, contract management have all evolved to keep up. Torsten talks about smart factories, digital twins, augmented reality, robotics, ML-enabled inspections and more as part of the solutions SAP and its ecosystem is delivering.

When we recorded the session, he was getting ready for the industry Innovation Day SAP hosts every year. This year it was in Huntington Beach, CA.

Torsten told me later they had “over 250 experts from the industry.  During the innovation days, the community comes together to network and exchange their best practices and learnings.  Our host company provides insights into their operations and innovations.  This year, Northrop Grumman was our host. Besides touring their facility, we got insights on the James Webb (telescope) project.  Truly an amazing innovation in technology and how it was launched in space.”

“Presenters showcased projects which tackled supply chain planning and manufacturing constraints.  It was all about visibility and operational improvements through digital. They showcased solutions to manage data to make the right decision to improve throughput, cost, optimize constraints, and stay flexible.

Very exciting to see SAP solutions helping the industry to not fly blind.”

Torsten does a really nice job covering all of that in half an hour.

Analyst Cam: SAP Verticals - Semiconductor

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Jeff Howell, Global Vice President, Head of High-Tech Industry Business Unit at SAP.

We have all heard about the geopolitics and risks of continuing to be dependent on SE Asia for a steady supply of chips. We have heard about the chaos in the auto sector with the inadequate supply of that increasingly important component as vehicles get smarter and electrified.

Jeff takes us through a much more nuanced perspective on the complexity, the long lead times and capital intensity of the semiconductor sector. I was first introduced to him as I was helping SAP with research on the recently released Business as Unusual book (available on Amazon – click on badge on left)

Here are just a few excerpts from the conversation in the video below:

• The semiconductor industry amounts to 0.3% of the U.S. GDP, yet semiconductors are required to produce 12% of the U.S. national output. It is even more pronounced in Japan -  with impact on 30% of their national output
• If you and I decide to go into the chip making business we would need to come up with $10 to $15 billion and spend about two to three years building that production capability
• Over 400 chemicals are used in a combination of solids and gases to make those chips. Over a dozen noble gases on the periodic table are critical supplies
• Roughly 30% of the neon that's needed in the semiconductor industry comes from Ukraine
• 2 to 4 million gallons of ultra-pure water are required every day during the chip production process. Almost half of all the world's chips are manufactured in Southeast Asia. Well, a couple years ago, there were droughts in Southeast Asia  
• Every wafer produced in a typical fab generates two to three gigabytes of data and you multiply that by 24 wafers in a lot and 1000s of lots per day, it's very easy to come up with terabytes, and generate even petabytes of data every day.
• The little known fact is more than 80% of that data is never even looked at - not enough process engineers who can examine that data

He spends a fair amount of time talking about networks like Catena-X which is auto industry-centric but heavily depends on semiconductors. He cites use cases at companies like NVIDIA and Wolfspeed (a critical supplier of silicon carbide) and partners like PDF which helps companies analyze that mountain of operational data for better yields and other outcomes. He also discusses how SAP is blending financial and operational data for the sector.

It is a master class on critical components for so much of the economy and the unique systems the industry needs. Very nicely done in about half an hour – he could easily have gone much longer

Analyst Cam: SAP Verticals - Chemicals

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Matt Reymann, Global VP of the Chemicals Business Unit at SAP.  He provides an overview of SAP’s extensive work in the sector. Did you know 99 of the top 100 chemical companies run SAP? And that SAP's first customer 50 years ago was a chemical company, ICI. So, as Matt says “Chemicals are in SAP’s DNA… as technology has evolved, as our customers have evolved, we've evolved with the industry.”

Matt has example after example of innovations in the sector like molecular recycling. He shares use cases across the enterprise as in the graph below.

He also covers business model changes where as with complex industrial products, chemical companies are learning to sell their products and capabilities as a service. He also cites examples from the new SAP book, Business as Unusual.

Very nicely done in 30 minutes. His passion for the sector really shines through. And you get a really nice perspective on the macro trend in a sector which has an impact on most everything we use on a daily basis.

Analyst Cam: SAP Industries – Partner Ecosystem

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Frank Ruland, Global Head of Industry Ecosystem at SAP. As we know, SAP has a massive ecosystem with 23,000+ partners employing over a million people around the world. While many of them implement and support SAP’s ERP, CRM and other products, a growing number are helping SAP innovate industry specific applications. Besides traditional SIs and outsourcers, he discusses ISVs, strategy firms, SAP.iO Foundry startups, Industry 4.0 robotics providers and provides examples of several emerging vertical applications the ecosystem helps innovate and support.

I had a chance to profile this wide variety of industry partners in the book by SAP executives, Business as Unusual.  You can see 6 of the partner interview cameos in this post.

Industries are increasingly morphing and encroaching on each other. Frank provides an example of what today’s EV charging applications require – utility asset management capabilities. the investment planning capabilities of a utility, public sector features when it comes to infrastructure permits and licenses to operate, subscription billing and managing roaming charges among other capabilities. So, partners need to be broad enough to support this new breed of applications.  

A striking figure in his presentation is 80% of new customers come from partner introductions – obviously many of those are small to mid-sized enterprises but it brings home that today’s partners don’t just implement, they also help SAP innovate and sell.

Not your Dad’s ecosystem. Very nicely done in under 25 minutes  

Analyst Cam: SAP – Enable Now

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Eva Zauke, Executive Vice President, Global Head of Enterprise Adoption at SAP.

She presented earlier about localizations. Customers need software which reflects unique business practices in multiple countries and also have trust and confidence that they can comply with unique government regulations in each of the countries. This time she presents on another role she plays which is focused on enablement of users and facilitating software adoption in the customer workforce.

Think back to the days we used classroom training to learn about features in enterprise software. Often that required spending weeks at a vendor’s facility.  When you hear Eva talk about SAP’s Enable Now you realize how far we have come when the training is delivered as employees are on-boarded, when it is available as in-application help and it utilizes much more friendly e-learning concepts. And as partners train their own employees through a similar regimen, how much better the knowledge transfer.

She goes through several uses cases and describes deployment at 8 customers across industries and countries.

Very nicely done in about 25 minutes.\

 

Analyst Cam: SAP – Think global, act local

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Eva Zauke  Executive Vice President, Global Head of Enterprise Adoption at SAP and discusses the massive localization effort as the vendor has 585 local versions (including support for payroll processing in 104 countries) as it supports 200+ million users at 440k customers worldwide.

The pace of legislation their software has to help their customers stay in compliance with keeps growing with COVID, and now sustainability regulations around a growing number of plastic taxes and ESG reporting. In 2022, these were 1300 legal changes across the countries. And this is a growth of 10% year over year.


click on the image to enlarge

 She also says governments are becoming more “creative” and digitalizing compliance a lot more. They are also adjusting to business model changes as companies move to more subscription billings. As governments turn over in most democracies, they invariably bring new legislation and override previous legislation. In turn, customers are constantly evaluating new locations as they try to avoid high-inflation, supply chain bottlenecks and high-tax regimes and jurisdictions with what they consider onerous requirements. So beyond compliance, there is also a planning angle for the CFO. She covers a handful of real world customer scenarios.

She ends with a reminder that SAP was born global 50 years ago. In fact, I have heard, Hasso Plattner, one of the co-founders talk about their work with one of their first customers, ICI, the global chemical company. This video takes you down that memory lane.

Very nicely done in about 25 minutes.

Analyst Cam: Visier – Workforce Analytics

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Jake Sorofman, CMO at Visier, a Vancouver, BC based vendor focused on people and broader workplace analytics. The management team traces its lineage to Business Objects and Crystal Reports with ties to the city, both now part of SAP

Jake does a nice job describing their niche in the market and positioning against analytical capabilities of bigger HCM vendors and specialists like Tableau. A telling comment from him is “Only about 15% of employee data lives inside of your HR”

He adds “On average, our customers are integrating data from seven to 12 different systems, where people data lives. We normalize it, we standardize it. And we deliver it as a set of insights to anyone who needs it to make better decisions, whether that's the HR team, HR, business partners, people managers, executive teams.  A key differentiator of Visier is that we've prebuilt 2000+ questions and corresponding analytic models to answer these questions.

So this is not a custom build platform, It is very different from what you'd expect from a general purpose, Business Intelligence platform. We are an analytic application that is built around understanding people with 80 to 90% of the questions you'd ever need to ask available out of the box.”

Another use case is customers benchmarking against peers using their database of metrics. They go to market direct and also embedded in the solutions of a few partners.

The slide below shows how SapientInsights rates them against the competition (BTW Stacey Harris, author of the slide, has summarized her annual results in this series – see here

As a CMO (and former marketing analyst at Gartner), he thinks we have been overly focused on the customer and on operations for the last couple of decades. It’s time for focus on human resources. Vinnie Vertical happens to think it is time for industry functionality but he does make an important point.

Very nicely done in about 20 minutes.

Analyst Cam: Salesforce Verticals – Media and Entertainment

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Christopher Dean, GM and SVP, Communications and Media for Salesforce.

He provides sweeping coverage of evolving media world. Contrary to popular belief print, radio, and store advertising are not exactly dead. Similarly, not everyone has cut their cable cords.

He points out that “retail media networks at both ecommerce vendors, as well as brick and mortar and clicks and mortar vendors, have about a $100 billion market opportunity to add an advertising business on top of their traditional e commerce business. And it's extremely high margin as well.” A subset of that is healthcare media with chains like Walgreens growing nicely in that segment.  

He spends a fair amount of time going through Salesforce capabilities supporting the lifecycle from development of content to revenue generation. Not surprisingly, Salesforce is strong in the revenue generating end and supports various business models - subscriptions, commerce, advertising and IP licensing and royalties.

He runs through several of their global customers – Multichoice which is Africa’s leading entertainment company with presence in over 50 countries, Sony Pictures, NBC, NY Times, Forbes Australia and several others

Very nicely done in 25 minutes.

 

Analyst Cam: Workday Verticals Planning and Analytics: Part 3 – Healthcare

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

We are running a series of posts on Workday’s Industries.  Tom Peff in Product Marketing kicked it off with their Planning and Analytics across the Service Sector where they focus. Yesterday, Greg Volpe, Solution Marketing Director, drilled down into analytical applications in Higher Education. Today, William Bercik, Sr. Director, Healthcare Strategy will do the same for Healthcare. In the New Year, we will have a focus on Workday’s transactional capabilities in some of these sectors.

William addresses the organizational areas Workday covers for healthcare customers even though they don’t have clinical functionality (but do have impressive administrative capabilities) in the graph below

He covers several use cases and solution sets – Advanced Analytics, Planning Model Toolkit and Cost & Profitability Management.

He also provides a synopsis of implementations at Fairview Health which operates 10 hospitals and 48 primary care clinics, and Christiana Care with 50,000 patient admissions a year.

Nicely done in 17 minutes