The final day of Mastering SAP OnAir 2020 was the shortest, but it packed a lot of invaluable expert insights and learnings from another great lineup of speakers and workshop presenters.
Most of the day’s agenda was centered on workshops, in-focus sessions, and live interactive meet-ups designed to enable delegates to dive deeper into the day’s contents and virtually connect with speakers, partners, and peers.
Workshops covered topics on mining, mobility, security and defence, and data management. Speakers and presenters included experts from C5MI, Think180, Prospecta, IACCM, Prometheus Group, T&G Global, and many more.
At the end of the event, winners of “The Clash”—a competition where delegates earned points over the course of the 3-day event—were announced.
Highlights
For us here at InsideSAP, we were lucky enough to listen in on the fascinating conversation between Think180’s CEO, John Schultz, and Marty Groover—a highly regarded thought leader in operational intelligence. The two experts talked about predictive maintenance technologies and what organisations need to do to drive lean processes for manufacturing and supply chain operations.
Groover shared some riveting insights for the manufacturing industry. He explained,
“We’re going to need to drive the supply chains differently and I see that we’re going to have to have everything censorized [sic]. Distributive manufacturing is really going to change, we’re going to have a lot of smaller factories near distribution centers and it’s going to require censorization [sic] and automation—not to get rid of people—but to make things more productive and be able to feed those supply chains.”
Another fascinating session we had the privilege to attend was that of General Motors’ former global executive director, Daniel Mahlebashian, who shared his views on commercial management, sourcing, and procurement transformation and how that’s being driven by an evolution of the CIO’s role—a topic he says he feels very strongly about. He said,
“The CIO’s message is [now] centered around selling the business problems they solve versus selling a technology product.”
Final Thoughts
Overall, attending Mastering SAP OnAir 2020 has been a great experience for us here at InsideSAP. The last 3 days have been fascinating and thought-provoking. A lot of the views and messages from speakers revolved around adapting and focusing on, not just technologies, bust MOST IMPORTANTLY on PEOPLE.
Schultz emphasized this in the session, “The Live Factory – Challenge the Present to Change the Future.” Addressing delegates in attendance, he said:
“A lot of our work is more on taking people on a journey. The whole aim is to be able to get people to embark upon this journey, not necessarily to get the answer [immediately]. It’s [equally] important that people understand how these technologies—AI, IIoT, ML, predictive analytics—work.”
We also got to chat with other delegates to learn about their thoughts on the newly digitalised Mastering SAP event. Most of them were in agreement that the event—despite being held online for the very first time—was excellent as always. A lot of them expressed how much they appreciate the online platform and how it has allowed them to get the most out of the keynote sessions and workshops.
The Eventful Group and Mastering SAP team really outdid themselves this year with having to pivot and adapt to the new normal. On behalf of InsideSAP, THANK YOU for organising such an incredible digital experience. We look forward to hopefully joining and meeting everyone in person next year.
Read about the rest of InsideSAP’s experience at Mastering SAP OnAir 2020 here: Day 1, Day 2.
