We had the opportunity to attend the SAP Capital Market event, held February 9th 2017 at the New York Stock Exchange. The event is for the analyst community, mainly for the financial colleagues, but with a good representation from the industry side, too Traditionally SAP unveils some product news at the event – as SAP did two years ago with the launch of S/4HANA (my blog of the event is here). 

 
 

So take a look at my musings on the event here: (if the video doesn’t show up, check here)
 
 
No time to watch – here is the 1-2 slide condensation (if the slide doesn’t show up, check here):

 
Want to read on? Here you go: Always tough to pick the takeaways – but here are my Top takeaways:

S/4HANA setup for success – now needs execution – When SAP launched S/4 HANA two years ago, there were substantial expectations that S/4 HANA would be widely adopted in its public cloud deployment option. Reality panned out differently, with almost all adoption happening with the on premises version of S/4HANA. We are beyond the reasons of why this happened, for this blog let’s look why this will work now, which we asked the new S/4 HANA leader, Darren Roos. In his view, public cloud adoption is more mature in the enterprise, at the same time enterprises face disruption and know they need to become more agile. Consumerization of IT helps, too – as cloud based products are more easily consumed. But what will really change the fate of the S4/HANA public cloud business is the establishment of a S/4 HANA public cloud salesforce. Focus always helps and sales professionals who have one product, will work hard to earn their commissions – and sell that very one product. On the value proposition side, SAP has stronger arguments – with contextual analytics, a digital assistant, Machine Learning capabilities and a Fiori user experience. Moreover, SAP talked about IoT and blockchain plans, but I somehow missed the briefing on this Certainly even without the latter, enough value proposition to make customers and prospects consider S/4 HANA. And no surprise – both McDermott and Roos share that most S/4HANA cloud customers, are net new customers. 
 
SAP Capital Markets S/4HANA Constellation Research Holger Mueller
Bartiromo and McDemott

SAP unveils SAP Clea, the Machine Learning Sister of HANA and Leonardo – During Bernd Leukert’s presentation he unveiled SAP Clea, SAP’s new offering to bring Machine Learning to enterprise applications, an overdue move. We just came out of the ‘Fall of AI’ in 2016, so it’s key for all enterprise system vendors to make sense of the technology for better usage of enterprise software. Not many more details were shared, this will be a key area to watch, not only for S/4 HANA – but the SAP product portfolio overall.
 
SAP Capital Markets S/4HANA Constellation Research Holger Mueller
Leukert announces SAP Clea

SAP talks more PaaS – SAP Hana Cloud Platform (HCP) is now rebranded to SAP Cloud Platform – It seems more and more that SAP has understood the importance of PaaS, the insurance policy for all enterprise software vendors in the era of business best practices innovation and related uncertainty. As enterprises experiment with new digital technologies, seek opportunities for digital disruption, they need to build software in house again. It’s too early to know what the business best practices of the 21st century is, so it is key to have a competitive and agile PaaS product, which SAP Cloud Platform is. A name change is only a name change, but it is interesting for SAP to drop the coveted HANA brand name. On the positive side, SAP, has created enough confusion with branding too many things with HANA – so this maybe a start of reducing the confusion created. 
 
SAP Capital Markets S/4HANA Constellation Research Holger Mueller
Roos and Pedersen (rtl)


SAP hints to BigData / Hadoop / OpenSource and SWIFT – One of the long-term issue SAP has had is its lack of support for the most important technology of the 21st century so far – the enablement of cheap, massive storage of any electronic information, with almost total ignorance at storage time, how it could be analyzed, in other words Hadoop / HDFS based solutions. And while SAP has added Vora, a Spark based BigData capability, it still remains memory based, but today we know that business relevant data grows faster than memory prices fall, putting all in memory only solutions on a losing path when it comes to deployment decisions of next generation Applications, e.g. in IoT, Machine Learning, etc. So, when Leukert has Hadoop on slides and hints to Hadoop support, it is an encouraging sign that SAP will address this challenge, hopefully soon. More support for OpenSource is always a good strategy, and key partners Apple gets support and a shout out with SWIFT. With Apple CEO Tim Cook calling out SAP (then still HANA) Cloud Platform on the Apple earnings call last week, the ‘love’ between these two players appears to be strong.

MyPOV

A good event for SAP, that looks like having addressed the challenges it faced initially with S/4 HANA for cloud, most prominently a small functional footprint, lack of complete self-service setup, a sales force with the choice of selling easier products to sell etc. SAP has now addressed these issues and added new capabilities with e.g. Machine Learning that create a better value proposition for enterprises to consider S/4 HANA implementations and migrations. But the most important one is the establishment of a dedicated salesforce. Also, good to see SAP working on Machine Learning with SAP Clea, talking more about BigData in general and Open Source in more specifics

On the concern side, talk is cheap and slides are patient. SAP must deliver and execute in 2017 to get S/4 HANA cloud out of a sleeping beauty style deep sleep. Bigdata capabilities, PaaS functionality and Machine Learning are quickly becoming table stakes for enterprises, so speed is of the essence.

We will be watching, stay tuned.


Want to learn more? Checkout the Storify collection below (if it doesn’t show up – check here).


 
More on SAP:
  •  News Analysis -SAP Introduces Jump-Start Enablement Program for SAP Leonardo IoT Portfolio >> Bundling and Simplification matter for IoT - read here
  • Event Report - Event Report - SAP TechEd Barcelona - Analytics, ML, PaaS and HANA 2  - read here
  • News Analysis - SAP to unveil HANA 2 - New platform vs a fork's tine - read here
  • News Analysis - Microsoft announces SAP's choice of Azure to help enterprises transform HR - The SaaS land grab is on - read here
  • Event Report - SAP / Trenitalia Digital Summit - SAP is serious about IoT - read here
  • First Take - SAP BW/4HANA - Data Gravity and Cloud win - read here
  • Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors SConnect - Push on all fronts - read here
  • Event Report - SAP Insider Vienna - HCP, BI and SuccessFactors are the takeaways - read here
  • Event Report - SAP Sapphire 2016 - Top 3 Positives & Concerns: SAP changes - probably for the better - read here
  • First Take - SAP Sapphire Day #2 Keynote - read here
  • News Analysis - SAP and Microsoft usher in new era of partnership to accelerate digital transformation in the cloud - read here
  • First Take -  SAP Sapphire Bill McDermott Day #1 Keynote - read here
  • Event Preview - SAP Sapphire 2016 - What to expect and look for - read here
  • News Analysis - Apple & SAP Partner to Revolutionize Work on iPhone & iPad - read here
  • Progress Report - SAP SuccessFactors makes good progress - now needs appeal beyond SAP - read here
  • News Analysis - SAP HANA Vora now available... - A key milestone for SAP - read here
  • Event Report - SAP Ariba Live - Make Procurement Cool Again - read here
  • News Analysis - SAP SuccessFactors innovates in Performance Management with continuous feedback powered by 1 to 1s  - read here
  • Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Good Progress sprinkled with innovative ideas and challenging the status quo - read here
  • News Analysis - WorkForce Software Announces Global Reseller Agreement with SAP - read here
  • First Take - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Day #1 Keynote Top 3 Takeaways - read here
  • News Analysis - SAP SuccessFactors introduces Next Generation of HCM software - read here
  • News Analysis - SAP delivers next release of SAP HANA - SPS 10 - Ready for BigData and IoT - read here
  • Event Report - SAP Sapphire - Top 3 Positives and Concerns - read here
  • First Take - Bernd Leukert and Steve Singh Day #2 Keynote - read here
  • News Analysis - SAP and IBM join forces ... read here
  • First Take - SAP Sapphire Bill McDermott Day #1 Keynote - read here
  • In Depth - S/4HANA qualities as presented by Plattner - play for play - read here
  • First Take - SAP Cloud for Planning - the next spreadsheet killer is off to a good start - read here
  • Progress Report - SAP HCM makes progress and consolidates - a lot of moving parts - read here
  • First Take - SAP launches S/4HANA - The good, the challenge and the concern - read here
  • First Take - SAP's IoT strategy becomes clearer - read here
  • SAP appoints a CTO - some musings - read here
  • Event Report - SAP's SAPtd - (Finally) more talk on PaaS, good progress and aligning with IBM and Oracle - read here
  • News Analysis - SAP and IBM partner for cloud success - good news - read here
  • Market Move - SAP strikes again - this time it is Concur and the spend into spend management - read here
  • Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors picks up speed - but there remains work to be done - read here
  • First Take - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Top 3 Takeaways Day 1 Keynote - read here.
  • Event Report - Sapphire - SAP finds its (unique) path to cloud - read here
  • What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire - read here
  • News Analysis - SAP becomes more about applications - again - read here
  • Market Move - SAP acquires Fieldglass - off to the contingent workforce - early move or reaction? Read here.
  • SAP's startup program keep rolling – read here.
  • Why SAP acquired KXEN? Getting serious about Analytics – read here.
  • SAP steamlines organization further – the Danes are leaving – read here.
  • Reading between the lines… SAP Q2 Earnings – cloudy with potential structural changes – read here.
  • SAP wants to be a technology company, really – read here
  • Why SAP acquired hybris software – read here.
  • SAP gets serious about the cloud – organizationally – read here.
  • Taking stock – what SAP answered and it didn’t answer this Sapphire [2013] – read here.
  • Act III & Final Day – A tale of two conference – Sapphire & SuiteWorld13 – read here.
  • The middle day – 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
  • A tale of 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
  • What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire – read here.
  • Why 3rd party maintenance is key to SAP’s and Oracle’s success – read here.
  • Why SAP acquired Camillion – read here.
  • Why SAP acquired SmartOps – read here.
  • Next in your mall – SAP and Oracle? Read here
 
And more about SAP technology:
  • Event Prieview - SAP TechEd 2015 - read here
  • News Analysis - SAP Unveils New Cloud Platform Services and In-Memory Innovation on Hadoop to Accelerate Digital Transformation – A key milestone for SAP read here
  • HANA Cloud Platform - Revisited - Improvements ahead and turning into a real PaaS - read here
  • News Analysis - SAP commits to CloudFoundry and OpenSource - key steps - but what is the direction? - Read here.
  • News Analysis - SAP moves Ariba Spend Visibility to HANA - Interesting first step in a long journey - read here
  • Launch Report - When BW 7.4 meets HANA it is like 2 + 2 = 5 - but is 5 enough - read here
  • Event Report - BI 2014 and HANA 2014 takeaways - it is all about HANA and Lumira - but is that enough? Read here.
  • News Analysis – SAP slices and dices into more Cloud, and of course more HANA – read here.
  • SAP gets serious about open source and courts developers – about time – read here.
  • My top 3 takeaways from the SAP TechEd keynote – read here.
  • SAP discovers elasticity for HANA – kind of – read here.
  • Can HANA Cloud be elastic? Tough – read here.
  • SAP’s Cloud plans get more cloudy – read here.
  • HANA Enterprise Cloud helps SAP discover the cloud (benefits) – read here

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here.