deal architect

Analyst Cam: Sora

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 Laura Del Beccaro, Co-Founder and CEO of Sora, I was introduced to them by Workday Ventures.

As with so many companies these days, the focus is on "employee experience". However, in their case it is also about a HR "command center" (Sora is Japanese for sky, to convey that top-down imagery). Besides reducing the need for users to access multiple applications in a HR process, it helps automate tasks like sending out standardized emails and assigning tasks.

She uses the example of migrating a spreadsheet based on-boarding process which syncs data from ADP, Ultipro, Expensify and several other applications and assigns tasks to staff in recruiting, marketing, IT and other departments. The pandemic has opened up many new processes like return back from wfh, vaccination status tracking and others where Sora can act as the "glue"

I think it is the shortest presentation (under 12 minutes) and Sora is also the youngest company (founded 3 years ago, with funding so far around $20 million) in the Analyst Cam series. Laura crisply articulates the value proposition and the employee experience is indeed pleasant once you remove the need for hunting and pecking, and ensuring data integrity across applications.

Analyst Cam: SAP Industries - Life Sciences Trends

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

I have invited SAP to present updates on various verticals as I discussed here 

This time it is Mandar Paralkar, Head of the Life Sciences sector at SAP.

He discusses increasingly personalized medicine, Big Data coming from public health, personal fitness tech and other sources, and the growing impact of regulatory focus on compliance and the massive cost of healthcare.

He discusses how SAP is helping customers with digital supply chains and leveraging a growing ecosystem of startups via the SAP store. He also covers the SAP RISE offering for the sector.

I would have also liked to have heard more about the extensive SAP role in the COVID Vaccination supply chain, but you can watch an overview video of that here.

He did a nice job summarizing a wide number of trends in 20 minutes. 

Analyst Cam: SAP Industries - Retail Part 2

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

I have invited SAP to present updates on various verticals as I discussed here 

This time it is Achim Schneider, Global Head, SAP Retail Business Unit. It is a two part conversation.

In Part 2 below he discusses logistics/supply chain issues, the store of the future  and new business models, and a roadmap for further SAP innovation.

Yesterday, in Part 1 he covered customer centricity and a "Segment of One" - the front office focus.

Analyst Cam: SAP Industries - Retail Part 1

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

I have invited SAP to present updates on various verticals as I discussed here 

This time it is Achim Schneider, Global Head, SAP Retail Business Unit. It is a two part conversation.

In Part 1 below which runs about 18 minutes he discusses customer centricity and a "Segment of One" - the front office focus.

In Part 2 tomorrow he will cover in a slightly longer episode,  logistics/supply chain issues, the store of the future  and new business models, and a roadmap for further SAP innovation.

Analyst Cam: SAP Industries - Utilities

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

I have invited SAP to present updates on various verticals as I discussed here 

This time it is Markus Bechmann, Global VP Innovation and New Business Models for the Utilities industry at SAP.

He discusses the gradual transition in the industry away from fossil fuels. The resulting intermittent energy is leading to new trading networks. The rise of the "prosumer" is also leading to more fragmentation and bi-directional business models. New entrants like auto makers are reshaping the industry. The industry is also learning to monetize data from its extensive asset base.

The utility industry has a reputation of being slow-moving. Markus will change your mind in this 25 minute conversation.

Analyst Cam: Altec - Connect right people at the right time with the right document

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 Don Howren, President & COO at Altec, Inc.

Most ERP, CRM and other enterprise vendors like to call themselves "books of record". More often than not, they just have the meta data. The record itself is in some document system - often messy paper files, or in an unlinked digital archive.

Don presents on his DocLink product aimed at the SME market. It could used as a standalone document management system with multiple tags, rules engine and configurable forms. However, the solution becomes much more powerful with its integration with Acumatica, Epicor, Microsoft Dynamics, Sage and SAP Business One. It is designed to support cloud and on-prem integration to give customers deployment flexibility. There is a lot of rich data which is available independently without cluttering the ERP or other enterprise system.

I particularly like the wide range of use cases he discusses including Payables, T&E, Receivables, Seasonal recruiting, Disaster recovery,  Regulatory compliance and Annual audit prep. Of course, over the pandemic, it has facilitated all kinds of remote access to documents, with appropriate security, as everyone has moved to WFH.

Connect right people at the right time with the right document. The value proposition is simple and compelling, especially for paper-intensive processes.

Analyst Cam: Workday Skills Cloud update

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 Cristina Goldt, GM Talent products at Workday who provides an update on how nicely the Workday Skills Cloud has grown.

You would think the demand and supply of talent is largely driven by the skills enterprises need, and those that employees and contractors can provide. In reality, this matching is chaotic, not the least because building a decent taxonomy of skills is daunting. The Bureau of Labor Statistics catalogs over 850 occupations and has a paragraph describing each one of them, but nowhere near the detailed skills each requires. Of course, across industries the same occupation calls for slightly different skills, and each employer in turn adds their own unique nuances. So, many enterprises fall back on traditional talent filters - educational credentials, referrals, cultural fit etc.

Workday has been on a mission to respond to what Cristina calls the "Skills Imperative" and training their machines using data from their customer community with over 55 million employees.  She does a really nice job describing their journey over the last several years, their skills "foundation" including their ontology and inference algorithms, how the Skills Cloud is being used by over 1,000 organizations over the "lifecycle" - hiring, up-skilling, retaining etc. their workforce, and the growing number of Workday products including Talent Marketplace, Career Hub, and Learning which leverage the skills infrastructure.

She mentions a press release during her comments. It is available here with a lot more detail about Workday's response to the Skills Imperative. 

Really invigorating half an hour.

Analyst Cam: SAP Industries - Servitization/XaaS

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

I have invited SAP to present updates on various verticals as I discussed here 

This time it is Torsten Welte, Global VP and Head of the Aerospace & Defense IBU. He presents here on his other role at SAP - championing the exciting trend of Servitization (see an earlier discussion on the concept here with IFS executives) and the move to as-a-service models across SAP's 25 vertical focus areas

We cover wide ground:

• what he is seeing in A&D, Industrials, Chemicals, Consumer Products
• types of outcomes being measured,
• technology needed - digital twins (he distinguishes between those needed during design v that needed during operations), contract management, mixed reality to support maintenance in the field
• organizational impacts of outcome based models.

He also covers SAP's Asset Information Network (AIN) which is increasingly playing a large role in such contracts.

It is impressive how he covers so many complex topics across complex sectors in half an hour.

Analyst Cam: SAP Industries - Automotive Trends

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

I have invited SAP to present updates on various verticals as I discussed here 

This time it is Hagen Heubach, Global Vice President, Automotive Industry Business Unit.

He does a nice job presenting the massive changes in the mobility sector - the emergence of EVs and autonomous vehicles, the effect of the pandemic on supply chains, direct digital sales, transformation of engineering into software cultures, the increase in services and changes in how they are delivered and how all those changes are re-shaping SAP's vertical offerings.

He also presents on the Catena-X Automotive Network (Catena-X) which focuses on creation, operation and collaborative use of end-to-end data chains along the entire automotive value chain. SAP is a founding member. It was launched in May and already has 60 participants including major German OEMs, Tier suppliers (and growing to include non-German ones as well) and a few other tech vendors.

This is SAP at its strongest - global brand names combined with vertical depth. Hagen presents the capabilities crisply in about 18 minutes.

Analyst Cam: SAP Industries - Circular Economy Trends

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

I have invited SAP to present updates on various verticals as I discussed here 

This time it is Natasha Pergl, Director - Global Circular Economy Lead at SAP.

Under CEO Christian Klein, SAP is re-emphasizing sustainability and has a broad agenda focused on "zero emissions, zero waste and zero inequality". The first is going to be difficult in a world where emissions are closely tied to energy usage and are being opportunistically defined as I wrote here recently. The third is noble but SAP risks being accused of "virtue signaling". I think their best opportunity is around reducing waste in what the WEF calls our “take-make-dispose” approach.

So, it is encouraging to see Natasha focus on the second and discuss how SAP is starting to help customers reduce waste in plastics, textiles, batteries and food. As I point out during the conversation, it is a good start, and should continue to improve as SAP focuses more on operational expertise and process support - more of an OT, not just an IT, emphasis.

I commented last year "SAP tried its sustainability message a decade ago under Peter Graf. Back then, it mostly focused on SAP's internal efforts not much about how SAP was helping customers reduce their carbon footprint. Hopefully, this time it will focus on operational systems and helping customers monitor as an example, methane leaks or wind turbine performance not just on broad carbon reporting."