What You Real­ly Need to Know Before You Go

SAP­PHIRE NOW and ASUG Annu­al Con­fer­ence final­ly kicks off on June 4 in Orlan­do. The con­fer­ence tends to be over­whelm­ing, even for vet­er­an atten­dees who have learned to expect the cacoph­o­ny of the exhib­it hall, the seem­ing­ly end­less selec­tion of ses­sions, and the parade of prod­uct announcements. 

This year will be no dif­fer­ent: SAP has sev­er­al points it wants to ham­mer home. Expect a few major themes to pop up in keynotes and through­out the show. 

SAP Theme: Cus­tomer Expe­ri­ence. After its recent acqui­si­tion of Cal­lidus Soft­ware, SAP is mak­ing no secret of its desire to take on Sales­force and Ora­cle in the cus­tomer rela­tion­ship man­age­ment (CRM) mar­ket. SAP tends to pur­chase com­pa­nies to add to its port­fo­lio (Con­cur, Hybris, etc.). Its Cal­lidus pur­chase is anoth­er way to strength­en its own offer­ings while grab­bing a foothold in what Gart­ner is refer­ring to as the largest soft­ware mar­ket in 2018. 

SAP Theme: The Intel­li­gent Enter­prise. Last year’s SAP Leonar­do announce­ment was met with a healthy dose of skep­ti­cism by atten­dees and ana­lysts, although that didn’t stop them from lin­ing up for the SAP Leonar­do Expe­ri­ence kiosk. This year, SAP plans to expand on ana­lyt­ics and inno­va­tion, as well as its suite of cloud prod­ucts and cloud plat­forms. This focus may or may not bring clar­i­ty to the SAP Leonar­do offer­ing, but it does seem like a less-ambigu­ous way of help­ing cus­tomers with their dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tions. So far, SAP has hint­ed at solu­tions for intel­li­gent ERP, includ­ing a Rin­speed con­cept car and demon­stra­tions of machine learn­ing for Pro­cure to Pay and Order to Cash. 

SAP Theme: Indi­rect Access and SAP Licens­ing. Since last year’s con­fer­ence, indi­rect access and poten­tial­ly non­com­pli­ant use of SAP sys­tems have been rais­ing plen­ty of cus­tomer eye­brows – and anx­i­eties. In the wake of the April intro­duc­tion of its new doc­u­ments-based licens­ing mod­el, SAP may offer more clar­i­fi­ca­tion on this murky top­ic. Expect to hear bet­ter def­i­n­i­tions of indi­rect and direct use, and to learn about SAP’s solu­tion to indi­rect use in the form of its new licens­ing mod­el. If this is an issue keep­ing you and your team up at night, head to the ASUG Edu­ca­tion Zone on the sec­ond floor for an ASUG Licens­ing Update with SAP (ASUG12174) on Wednes­day, June 6 from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., fol­lowed by an exec­u­tive round­table for those who are attend­ing ASUG’s Exec­u­tive Exchange.

How to Get the Most from Your Time 

To avoid get­ting dis­tract­ed by prod­ucts and ses­sions that hold lit­tle val­ue for you back at work, you’ll be best off to start plan­ning your time now. Don’t wait until you arrive in Orlando. 

Tip 1: Down­load the Mobile App Today. Once you down­load the mobile app, you can search for ses­sions you want to attend and cre­ate your own cus­tom sched­ule using the search and fil­ter func­tions. All ASUG Annu­al Con­fer­ence ses­sions include ASUG in the title. This year, the app will also rec­om­mend ses­sions based on your inter­ests. Keep in mind that rooms some­times change at the last minute, but the app will always have the lat­est, most up-to-date information. 

Tip 2: Know What You Want Before You Land. Spend some time iden­ti­fy­ing your objec­tives for the show. For exam­ple, if you’re plan­ning a migra­tion to SAP S/4HANA, look for ses­sions that can help you learn how to do this as pain­less­ly as pos­si­ble, as well as exhibitors you might want to engage for your project. Add these to your sched­ule in the app and famil­iar­ize your­self with the floor plan. Then you’ll be more like­ly to get the knowl­edge you need to take back home with you. 

Tip 3: Head Off the Main Floor to the ASUG Edu­ca­tion Zone. ASUG’s Edu­ca­tion Zone is on the sec­ond and third floors of the Orange Coun­ty Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. We have 25 tracks and over 500 ses­sions, from migrat­ing to SAP S/4 HANA to mas­ter­ing meta­da­ta. These ses­sions are curat­ed and select­ed by the ASUG com­mu­ni­ty, pared down from 1,200 to the most-demand­ed 500. If you want to head home with a bet­ter under­stand­ing of your exist­ing sys­tems or prac­ti­cal tips for new sys­tems you may be con­sid­er­ing, leave the chaos of the show floor to catch some ASUG tracks, where every­thing is a how-to, not a buy-me. And while you’re on the show floor, stop by the ASUG Hub to grab a cof­fee and net­work with peers. There will be plen­ty of pre­sen­ta­tions and mee­tups going on through­out the day there, too. 

For First-Timers: SAP­PHIRE NOW and ASUG Annu­al Con­fer­ence Survival

Is this your first time head­ing to SAP­PHIRE NOW? To avoid col­laps­ing in exhaus­tion well before the Justin Tim­ber­lake con­cert, keep these tips in mind. 

Tip 4: Wear Com­fort­able Shoes. The Orange Coun­ty Con­ven­tion Cen­ter is huge (and we mean huge: it’s 7 mil­lion square feet). You will be walk­ing a lot to get where you need to go: the keynote stage, ASUG ses­sions on the sec­ond and third floors, the exhibitor areas, and of course, places to grab food. Dressy-look­ing com­fort­able shoes (ladies, think flats) are more than accept­able and just might save you some time as you’re truck­ing from one place to the next. 

Tip 5: Bring Lay­ers. The tem­per­a­ture out­side the Orange Coun­ty Con­ven­tion Cen­ter will be hot enough to fry an egg on the side­walk. But inside, the air con­di­tion­ing is set to the tem­per­a­ture of a meat lock­er. This is one of those times when busi­ness pro­fes­sion­al dress comes in handy. Bring the suit jack­et with you to wear when you’re in a par­tic­u­lar­ly chilly room. 

Tip 6: Expect Food, Lots of Food. One thing SAP does real­ly well is food: There will be snacks through­out the show floor, includ­ing ice cream in the after­noon. The lunch area will include almost every type of cui­sine imag­in­able: Indi­an, Ital­ian, and basic Amer­i­can, with veg­e­tar­i­an, gluten-free, and dairy-free options. You will not have to wor­ry about going hun­gry. It’s a good idea to bring a refill­able water bot­tle with you so you can stay hydrat­ed as you make your way around the con­ven­tion center. 

We’ll See You There

In short, expect some major themes to emerge from SAP­PHIRE NOW and ASUG Annu­al Con­fer­ence to give you an idea of what’s next on SAP’s road map. Don’t for­get to join us for ASUG’s many edu­ca­tion­al ses­sions off the main floor. We look for­ward to see­ing you and hope that you’ll return home recharged with new ideas and ready to tack­le your next few projects. 

If you haven’t signed up yet for ASUG Annu­al Con­fer­ence, we still have a place for you. Reg­is­ter today.