June’s live Cloud Wars Expo event featured dozens of industry leaders allowing the Acceleration Economy team access to the inner workings of the greatest growth market the world has ever known.
In this News Desk interview, Acceleration Economy VP and Principal Analyst Aaron Back welcomes Kai Finck from SAP to discuss the company’s approach to supply chains, sustainability, data privacy, the partner ecosystem, and more.
Highlights
00:15 — Aaron introduces SAP SVP and Head of Industry Cloud Program Kai Finck. Kai outlines his long experience in the industry space starting as an application developer and then moving into solution management.
01:08 – Kai shares why SAP launched its Industry Cloud Strategy to address two things that successful companies had to do:
- Optimize the way they’re doing business.
- Transform and embrace next practices.
03:02 – Conversations have shifted with customers that are adopting, or looking to adopt, industry-specific solutions. This has surfaced the need to rethink supply chains, and, as Kai put it, “not talking about ‘demand-driven supply chain’, but ‘supply-driven supply chain’.”
05:31 – For Kai, insights are what will help organizations strike the balance between sustainability and profitability. As a real-world use case, SAP collaborated with the band Coldplay to build an app that can show the carbon footprint a concert-goer would create depending on the chosen transportation type to get to the concert.
08:39 – SAP just celebrated 50 years in the business technology space and is supporting 25 industries across many different geographies. In talking about data privacy and security throughout the world and various industries, Kai shared, “We’ve [SAP] got the advantage that we already know how this [works].” – and expounded on different ways SAP is equipped to tackle the data challenges.
10:55 – “It has been there from day one,” is something Kai emphasized when talking about the co-creation and co-innovation with customers and partners. He summarized a couple of use cases where SAP is working collaborating in the life science and utility industries to set standards for release management.
Access more than 40 hours of cloud education content featuring 100-plus speakers at Cloud Wars Expo On-Demand. All content is free to Acceleration Economy subscribers with an on-demand pass.
