As we kicked off 2023, ASUG Tech Con­nect was not on our agenda. 

Indeed, ASUG had not planned on host­ing this con­fer­ence until late May, and it wasn’t until June — five short months ago — that we had offi­cial­ly decid­ed to move for­ward with bring­ing it to New Orleans. But hav­ing recent­ly returned from the Big Easy after three packed days of learn­ing, con­nec­tion, and growth for our SAP user com­mu­ni­ty, I’m delight­ed to report that the end result was a phe­nom­e­nal success. 

Like all of our organization’s ini­tia­tives, ASUG Tech Con­nect was a team effort. ASUG staff, our amaz­ing vol­un­teers, our sup­port­ive and ener­gized part­ners, and key play­ers from SAP all con­tributed to the event. Every­one under­stood what was required to make it suc­cess­ful and how much val­ue we had the poten­tial to unlock for our com­mu­ni­ty. On the ground in New Orleans, and in the months that led up to our time there, we were sur­round­ed by SAP superheroes. 

To those who joined us for ASUG Tech Con­nect, thank you for all your ener­gy and insights. This was the per­fect event to wrap up 2023 and look ahead into next year. And to those who couldn’t make it, I have good news — we’re com­ing back in 2024. On behalf of all of us here at ASUG, I can­not wait to show you what we have in store for the next edi­tion of ASUG Tech Con­nect. Get ready, because this con­fer­ence will be the best place for you to hone your SAP skills, expand your user com­mu­ni­ty, and take your SAP tech­nol­o­gy stack to the next level.

From ASUG’s research, sur­vey­ing our mem­bers, we know that skills are in demand. You tell us, time and time again, that every­one needs to know more about how to best lever­age their invest­ments in SAP tech­nol­o­gy. You can get some of the skills you need online, but to tru­ly learn, con­nect, and grow we know there is no sub­sti­tute for work­ing direct­ly with your peers, hear­ing their sto­ries, and tak­ing what you’ve learned back to your orga­ni­za­tions. If you feel like you or your team mem­bers have not yet mas­tered all the nec­es­sary SAP skillsets — or wish, as we all do, to expand your knowl­edge — ASUG Tech Con­nect is where you can get up to speed.

At this year’s event, we expe­ri­enced a con­flu­ence of tech­nol­o­gy, with cloud migra­tion and dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion com­ing togeth­er with gen­er­a­tive AI, the ​“clean core” approach, and the SAP Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Plat­form, to name just a few of the top­ics that were top of mind for our mem­ber com­mu­ni­ty. On stage for the event’s open­ing keynote with Juer­gen Mueller, Chief Tech­nol­o­gy Offi­cer at SAP, and Scott Guthrie, Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent of Cloud + AI Group at Microsoft, I addressed these top­ics and more — but the learn­ing only accel­er­at­ed from there, with over 130 learn­ing ses­sions, includ­ing SAP licensee case stud­ies, that pro­vid­ed in-demand skills and exper­tise for attendees.

It’s dif­fi­cult to fath­om that Chat­G­PT was ini­tial­ly released only one year ago; already, we live in stark­ly dif­fer­ent times. One new chal­lenge we’re hear­ing about from our mem­bers is that some busi­ness lead­ers are start­ing to think, ​“If Chat­G­PT can do it, why can’t you?” Giv­ing SAP users the abil­i­ty to ful­ly uti­lize all the tech­nol­o­gy at their dis­pos­al, to stay ahead of the curve and keep their busi­ness­es at the fore­front of inno­va­tion, is more impor­tant than ever. Tech­nol­o­gy lead­ers have a choice to make: lead the charge or wait for some­body else to take the lead.

Through my many con­ver­sa­tions with SAP users and part­ners, I under­stand what a remark­able and chal­leng­ing time this is for tech­nol­o­gists. It’s amaz­ing how much inno­va­tion is avail­able at your fin­ger­tips. This is one of the most intense peri­ods of tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment we’ve expe­ri­enced in our careers, and keep­ing pace with the rate of change will only become more dif­fi­cult as inno­va­tion accelerates. 

How can you stay knowl­edge­able and con­tin­ue to build your skills around new and emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies? Fun­ny you should ask — this was the focus of my keynote ses­sion with Matt Schwartz, Glob­al Head of AWS SAP Alliance and Part­ner Net­work at Ama­zon Web Ser­vices, and Max Wes­sel, Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent & Chief Learn­ing Offi­cer of SAP Learn­ing, as we dove into the tech­nol­o­gy skills gap and what resources are avail­able for those look­ing to upskill today. Here at ASUG, we’re inno­vat­ing as well — we record­ed this ses­sion as our first-ever live episode of the ASUG Talks pod­cast. Stay tuned to our week­ly First Five newslet­ter for that, com­ing soon.

As we set­tle back into our week­ly rhythms and rou­tines after ASUG Tech Con­nect, and with Thanks­giv­ing just around the cor­ner, I must again express my heart­felt thanks to our team: to all of our val­ued ASUG mem­bers, our excep­tion­al ASUG vol­un­teers, hard-work­ing SAP part­ners, and essen­tial SAP com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, to all of those at SAP and to all of our pas­sion­ate and ener­getic staff at ASUG. I must thank you all not only for a dra­mat­i­cal­ly suc­cess­ful ASUG Tech Con­nect but for a stand­out year of con­tin­u­ous learn­ing and com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment overall.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! 

Geoff Scott is CEO & Chief Com­mu­ni­ty Cham­pi­on at ASUG.