In this Cloud Wars Minute, Bob Evans continues his series on Partner Innovations and offers highlights from his interview with Chief Partner Officer of SAP, Karl Fahrbach.
Highlights
00:46 — An intriguing sentiment that Fahrbach relayed to Bob was that SAP has always been a customer-centric company, but is now aspiring to be a partner-led company. In order to achieve what SAP needs to achieve, “it’s going to have to get its [partners] ecosystem out there on the front end and actually be partner-led.”
01:23 — Fahrbach is the Chief Partner Officer of SAP and a member of the senior executive team. He explained to Bob that the company needs partners across the entire lifecycle of the customer and particularly “up at the front end of the conversation.”
02:15 — DataSphere, a new product of SAP, has recently launched and had an “enormous undertaking in the field of the data cloud.” As it launched the product, SAP signed partnership agreements with four major technology vendors: Collibra, Confluence, DataBricks, and DataRobot. These new partnerships demonstrate the breadth and range of what SAP is doing, says Bob.
02:52 — Fahrbach also noted how there is a huge opportunity for SAP’s partners ecosystem around sustainability, especially as it relates to partners applying their industry expertise.
03:17 — Throughout his conversation with Bob, Fahrback shed light on the change in the DNA of SAP regarding the significance that partners play in overall business operations. SAP, the second fastest-growing major cloud provider, cannot do that on its own — it needs its global partners ecosystem. “There’s just too many customer opportunities, too many requirements for deep, specific types of expertise, for SAP to meet them all.”
