Three Days in Berlin – Sapphire 2008

Compared with Sapphire Orlando, the European SAP customer event 2008 in Berlin started off with even less fanfare, especially given that the US event had Harley Davidson coming on the stage with its beautiful bikes! Of course, SAP has been successful on the market for years, and yes, we cannot expect groundbreaking solutions from each conference, nonetheless I can’t remember seeing fewer press releases floating around a SAP conference in so many years!

The overall message was the business world is becoming ever faster and more complex, whose boundaries change permanently and SAP is the solution. However, for me, just a little more vision and inspiration in the keynotes would have rounded out the whole event better.

Both co-CEOs, Henning Kagermann and Leo Apotheker, told us about business reality in their respective keynotes. Kagermann opened the event under the motto “Business Beyond Boundaries” and surprised us with his speech announcing that SAP wanted to dispose of the 3-letter acronym. Or was it perhaps no surprise in the end? To me, the business world, above all the specialist departments, was never so excited about these terms, and without a doubt, this is also evidence of the fact that IT departments are the primary customer contacts for SAP, with a smaller presence of C-level executives, something that must change as SAP continues to focus on industry specific business processes. So the question arises whether the omission of the respective 3 letters would help SAP here?

Besides Henning Kagermann and John Schwartz; Leo Apotheker, Co-CEO and designated successor of Henning Kagermann, also addressed the audience. In contrast to the keynotes of Kagermann and Schwartz, Apotheker gave a presentation full of demonstrations and light on vision and strategy. So my question is, do we now have to wait until 2009, when Apotheker is sole CEO and then presents us his outlook into the future of SAP in a corresponding keynote?

I’m quite curious and am looking forward to the event in 2009!