Welcome to Episode 23 of the Cloud Wars Horizon Minute — featuring news and commentary hosted by Acceleration Economy analyst Tom Smith. Each episode provides insights into one or more Innovation Accelerators on the Cloud Wars Horizon.
This episode focuses on startup accelerator SAP.iO, which had 11 of its companies appear at the Innovation Path at Cloud Wars Expo, including the winner, Wisy, which I profiled previously along with the other participants in the event.
Highlights
00:10 — I recently profiled 15 startups participating in the Cloud Wars Expo, and several are participants in the SAP.iO program.
00:30 — The program delivers unique benefits to the startups and SAP customers.
0:50 — The program operates in 11 cities globally and has worked with 450 startups since launching in 2017.
1:10 — Startups are vetted for the program based on their fit against criteria including industry focus, solution area (think supply chain or human resources), or geography.
1:18 — Factors that help startups make the final cut include maturity of the company, quality of founders, relevance to the SAP solution and ecosystem, and uniqueness of their solution.
1:30 — Startups get mentorship from SAP leaders as well as access to SAP account teams and customers so innovators and prospective customers can interact. And finally, the startups have the ability to associate their nascent brand with SAP’s brand
1:50 — Customers get “curated” access to innovators with the knowledge that their products align well with SAP environments, rather than starting open-ended long-term searches
2:08 — Program director Max Kahn wasn’t surprised by the Innovation Path winner, Wisy, because the company and its leadership excel at showing, not telling, how their retail execution software helps customers.
To see Wisy and the rest of the Innovation Path startup presentations, make sure to check out Cloud Wars Expo‘s on-demand offerings, which are accessible for free to all Acceleration Economy subscribers with an on-demand pass. The overall lineup of video sessions is starting to roll out now, and eventually, more than 40 hours of educational content from 100-plus speakers will be available.
