Dig­i­tal Skills: Learn­ing the Skills for Dig­i­tal Transformation

Dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies are the key dri­vers for inno­va­tion in all indus­tries. Entire val­ue chains and busi­ness mod­els are being rede­fined. In this web­cast, you will learn what the impli­ca­tions are for the work­force when you go dig­i­tal. While Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion offers plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to achieve a com­pet­i­tive advan­tage, future suc­cess large­ly depends on ade­quate skills to explore and seize these oppor­tu­ni­ties. Recent research shows that a broad skill base is required for a suc­cess­ful Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion and that lack­ing dig­i­tal skills are among the top bar­ri­ers to Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion. To over­come the skill gap, dig­i­tal lead­ers invest heav­i­ly in learning.

This ses­sion will help you to under­stand the neces­si­ty to have a dig­i­tal skill plan in place to close your company’s skills gap. Learn­ing must start at the begin­ning of the Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion jour­ney. To define and imple­ment a dig­i­tal strat­e­gy, busi­ness lead­ers must become tech­no­log­i­cal­ly lit­er­ate and a com­pre­hen­sive skill trans­for­ma­tion plan must accom­pa­ny the dig­i­tal jour­ney. It is impor­tant that the work­force can gain dig­i­tal skills to be able to exe­cute on the strat­e­gy. As the dig­i­tal strat­e­gy unfolds and evolves over time, the learn­ing needs should be ana­lyzed con­tin­u­ous­ly and the learn­ing plan is extend­ed and adjust­ed accordingly.

With tech­nol­o­gy evolv­ing, the abil­i­ty to gain and share knowl­edge is itself being trans­formed. With the wide­spread avail­abil­i­ty of the inter­net and social media, knowl­edge and expe­ri­ences can be shared at a faster, almost instant speed. With the rapid­ly grow­ing adop­tion of new tech­nolo­gies and more dig­i­tal natives enter­ing the work­force each year, many com­pa­nies are turn­ing to online learn­ing to help employ­ees stay current.

In this pre­sen­ta­tion, you will gain the infor­ma­tion and tac­tics to be pre­pared for the Dig­i­tal Transformation.

Speak­er: Bernd Welz, EVP and Glob­al Head of Scale, Enable­ment & Trans­for­ma­tion, SAP

Speak­er Bio: 

Bernd Welz is exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent and glob­al head of Scale, Enable­ment & Trans­for­ma­tion (SET) in SAP SE. In his role, he is respon­si­ble for pro­vid­ing high-qual­i­ty prod­uct learn­ing offer­ings, includ­ing the lead­ing cloud learn­ing ser­vices open­SAP and SAP Learn­ing Hub for SAP pro­fes­sion­als and end-users at cus­tomer and part­ner orga­ni­za­tions and oth­er exter­nal com­mu­ni­ties. Fur­ther­more, he is respon­si­ble for the SAP Uni­ver­si­ty Alliances and Next-Gen Pro­gram, which aims at mak­ing an impact on the next-gen­er­a­tion work­force by con­nect­ing stu­dents and acad­e­mia with cus­tomers, part­ners, start-ups, and SAP in an inno­va­tion network.

Bernd reports to Bernd Leuk­ert, mem­ber of the SAP Exec­u­tive Board, lead­ing the Prod­ucts & Inno­va­tion Board area. Bernd Welz is a rec­og­nized thought leader in knowl­edge man­age­ment, dig­i­tal learn­ing, and skills for Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion. In addi­tion, he acts as a men­tor for stu­dents focus­ing on inno­va­tion, tech­nol­o­gy, and social entre­pre­neur­ship. Bernd start­ed his career with SAP in 1997 and has had sev­er­al trans­for­ma­tion­al lead­er­ship roles, such as the foun­da­tion of the SAP Cloud ser­vices. Most recent­ly, he led the trans­for­ma­tion of SAP’s pro­fes­sion­al ser­vice and sup­port orga­ni­za­tions into the new Dig­i­tal Busi­ness Ser­vices unit, in order to best sup­port SAP’s clients on their Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion journey.

Before join­ing SAP, Bernd was a strat­e­gy con­sul­tant at Roland Berg­er Strat­e­gy Con­sul­tants, locat­ed in Düs­sel­dorf and Lon­don. Bernd holds a Mas­ter of Sci­ence degree in Com­put­er Sci­ence and Machine Learn­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mass­a­chu­setts, Amherst USA, and a Doc­tor­al Degree in Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence from the Karl­sruhe Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy. He has com­plet­ed sev­er­al Ser­vice Lead­er­ship Pro­grams at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty and INSEAD.