Hel­lo, SAP util­i­ties community, 

Hap­py New Year! In reflect­ing on 2023, I have found myself think­ing increas­ing­ly about the year ahead and the oppor­tu­ni­ties — and chal­lenges — that 2024 presents for our com­mu­ni­ty. Among oth­er areas of focus, mem­bers of our com­mu­ni­ty are con­tin­u­ing to for­mal­ize their cloud migra­tion plans, learn­ing more about how AI-embed­ded solu­tions can improve busi­ness oper­a­tions and con­sid­er­ing how best to close the SAP skills gap. For­tu­nate­ly, we are plan­ning a vari­ety of events and con­tent offer­ings to make sense of these top­ics and more. 

First, I’m hit­ting the ground run­ning with a web­cast host­ed by Khoushik TT Thirup­pathi, Pro­gram Man­ag­er, IT Solu­tion Plan­ning & Deliv­ery for Cus­tomer Ser­vice at South­ern Cal­i­for­nia Edi­son. Fol­low­ing his pre­sen­ta­tion at the SAP for Util­i­ties, Pre­sent­ed by ASUG con­fer­ence last Octo­ber, Thirup­pathi will dis­cuss SoCalEd’s imple­men­ta­tion of SAP Cus­tomer Ser­vice Cloud, div­ing into chal­lenges, suc­cess­es, and lessons learned along the way. Click here for the Microsoft Teams link to join us on Jan­u­ary 19 at 10:00 am CDT for a great dis­cus­sion and pre­sen­ta­tion. (Meet­ing ID: 357 776 937 604 / Pass­code: cF8wrs) And you can read more about SoCalEd’s busi­ness trans­for­ma­tion jour­ney over at ASUG. 

Anoth­er excel­lent event in the near future, ​“Next Gen­er­a­tion SAP Enter­prise Archi­tect Forum — Mind­sets, Skills and Tools,” is sched­uled for Feb­ru­ary 27 at the SAP North Amer­i­can head­quar­ters in New­town Square, Penn­syl­va­nia. The three-day forum will cov­er top­ics vital for enter­prise archi­tects includ­ing AI, SAP S/4HANA imple­men­ta­tions, and the SAP Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Plat­form. Reg­is­ter here.

Cur­rent­ly, we are work­ing on sev­er­al oth­er web­casts in which util­i­ty orga­ni­za­tions will dis­cuss their imple­men­ta­tions of SAP Cus­tomer Expe­ri­ence and oth­er SAP solu­tions. Miquel Car­bo, Direc­tor – Water & Waste Water Ser­vices at the Util­i­ties Indus­try Busi­ness Unit of SAP, will lead a dis­cus­sion with water util­i­ties lead­ers on March 6; save the date. Tina Kua, Senior Direc­tor of Cus­tomer Ser­vice for Ser­vice Cloud at SAP, will be pre­sent­ing on Ser­vice Cloud 2.0 on April 24. 

In oth­er news, ASUG will lat­er this month host an ASUG 101 web­cast focused on help­ing mem­bers make the most of their ASUG invest­ment (Jan­u­ary 25; reg­is­ter here). Fur­ther ahead, the ASUG IT Oper­a­tions Com­mu­ni­ty Alliance is host­ing a vir­tu­al task force on March 12 focused on using SAP Fiori to extend the val­ue of SAP ERP Cen­tral Com­po­nent (ECC) investments. 

ASUG is in the midst of plan­ning robust line­ups for both ASUG Annu­al Con­fer­ence and this year’s edi­tion of SAP for Util­i­ties, to take place in Mia­mi on Sep­tem­ber 9 – 11. ASUG is cur­rent­ly accept­ing SAP for Util­i­ties speak­er pro­pos­als. Click here to sub­mit your pro­pos­al. I am work­ing with ASUG’s con­tent pro­duc­tion teams to help devel­op pan­els for those events and help ensure they rep­re­sent our community’s most press­ing pri­or­i­ties and evolv­ing interests. 

Addi­tion­al­ly, we are excit­ed about the impend­ing return of ASUG Talks, a bi-week­ly pod­cast series that will pre­mière its next sea­son lat­er this spring. This year, the ASUG edi­to­r­i­al team will focus the pod­cast on impor­tant top­ics in the SAP ecosys­tem, along with SAP cus­tomer suc­cess sto­ries. More infor­ma­tion on this in the com­ing weeks. 

A few weeks ago, I wrote about this community’s excel­lent 2023, which was defined by com­mu­ni­ty, col­lab­o­ra­tion, and con­tin­u­ous learn­ing. Look­ing ahead, I am thrilled about all that 2024 has in store for util­i­ties. As always, thank you all for your sup­port and col­lab­o­ra­tion. I look for­ward to improv­ing our orga­ni­za­tions and mov­ing for­ward together. 

Again, Hap­py New Year! 

Marc 

Marc Rosson is Enter­prise Archi­tect for Sno­homish Coun­ty PUD.