SAP Spend Connect Live – What Happens in Vegas...well, it's Not Going to Stay There!

SAP Spend Connect Live – What Happens in Vegas...well, it's Not Going to Stay There!

Tuesday 22nd October, 2024

You’ve got to be in the room where it happens. At least that’s what Hamilton original cast member, Leslie Odom Jr sang out in the closing moments of SAP Spend Connect Live last week. And what a room! With larger-than-life statues, flowing canals with the limestone walls ringing to the tunes of gondoliers, it can only be one place…no not Italy, but the flashing lights and sensory overload that is The Venetian, Las Vegas!

Collaborate with Relish

And in that room where it was happening, the dynamic Etosha Thurman , CMO Intelligent Spend & Business Network at SAP, took to the stage to encourage us to sit back, think big, and bet big on ourselves. In fact, betting big on themselves was something the team at SAP were eager to tell us all about. And collaboration seems to be the idea that the strategy pivots around – from encouraging professionals to connect across silos, to leveraging supplier innovation and embedding configurability into the software. And it was nice to see this attitude to collaboration extending out to the SAP partners in the exhibitor hall, with a variety of niche and agile partners, like the interesting, 3 year old, RELISH , adding value to the whole. As Valerie Blatt , a Global Head and CRO at SAP pointed out; “we can’t do it alone. There’s enough white space in the tech for partners if they’re right.”

Joule in the Crown

As Manoj Swaminathan , CPO and President, Intelligent Spend & Business Network said, we’ve moved on from an era where procurement or finance professionals would say; “IT has forced us to do this” to “How can this make me more productive?” And while some departments might still feel change has been thrust upon them, with new innovative tools like Joule, SAP’s natural language “co-pilot” (think of a v intelligent chat bot), that change should generate relevant and reliable insights. For example, even if the required information has not appeared on a regular report, with Joule, the idea is that you could ask for that data from any document. And the beauty of being able to offer a suite of solutions means that it has the potential to deliver harmonised data, end-to-end.

If Carlsberg Made Product Announcements…

Tony Harris , SVP and Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer at SAP, added that much work has been done to remove bumps in integration to provide a more seamless user experience. At Purchase to Pay Network , we often talk about the difficulties of end-to-end processing when there may be a variety of legacy solutions, different instances of ERP and transactions across many jurisdictions and compliance frameworks. What SAP has developed for 2025 might well be a game changer. Announced from the main stage, Manoj introduced SAP Ariba Intake Management, a tool to harmonise multiple siloed environments into a single entry point. A solution that’s integrated out of the box – the aim being to streamline the whole Source to Pay environment. But as Babor Farooq, SVP Procurement Solutions at SAP said, data is only powerful if we are able to process it and make sense of it – something that Daniel Chapman of Warner Music Group knows only too well. Talking about SAP Spend Control Tower, he said he was looking forward to the solution providing key insights to give him the information needed to drive action. As he quipped; “if you like spending hours looking at data – great – but if not, go for this!”

Making Procurement Shiny for Youngsters

And it’s innovations like this and the ability to move beyond what might be considered more transactional elements of procurement and finance that might well make the difference between new, young talent choosing procurement as a profession, rather than some of its more shiny cousins. At the Workforce of Tomorrow lunch, both Andrew Daley and Bill Wiseman agreed that the remit of procurement is changing; from responsibilities around carbon reporting to becoming increasingly data literate, the skillsets needed within the industry are shifting accordingly. And as Andrew said, it’s up to those already in the role to sell the function – talk about the importance of sustainability, social conscious, data science and risk management to those thinking of entering the profession. Not to say that those longer in the tooth can’t be equally fired up about these things! But in the world of automation, it’s important to take time to hone those skills that can’t be automated – such as relationship building, business partnering and intelligent analysis of data.

Taking Your Homework Home

In fact, for all the talk of digitisation and AI, Baber Farooq summed it up nicely when he said; “AI only makes humans more important. It leaves us to do what we do best – it allows discussions to take place.” With the emphasis on collaboration, the power of networked business functions and the suite of solutions, SAP will be betting big that what happened in Vegas, will very much NOT stay in Vegas!

#SAPSpendConnectLive #Procurement #AI #DigitalTransformation SAP Kelly Sheldon Murray Patrick Shea


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Laura Elizabeth Quelch

❕ Hypnotherapist in Training ❕ - qualify in July 2025. Message me for a FREE session, and to join the waitlist ✨ Mentor & Multifaceted Magical Marketer - Marketing Mage, lqd ✨

2mo

Exciting to hear how procurement is changing to be more appealing to the younger generations 😊

Andrew Daley

I solve recruitment problems in the Digital Procurement & Supply Chain Tech ecosystem using my unrivalled global network and sector expertise. I also speak at events on related subjects. Please message me on LI chat.

2mo

An great summary of an excellent event Ellen Leith. Wasn't it a fantastic experience to attend an SAP event of that scale in America? I think there was a strong reminder of the power, resources and talent in the organisation that is driving innovation and lovely to see so many friendly faces playing a part in it.

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