This year, Mastering SAP goes full-on digital!
With COVID-19 causing major disruptions globally, the team at Mastering SAP had to find a way to virtually deliver an experience that packs a ton of valuable insights, networking opportunities, and quality content for the Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and Supply Chain and Procurement (SCP) communities.
The team conducted extensive research on the delivery of content and the engagement of audiences online. The result? Mastering SAP OnAir—3 days of inspirational keynote sessions, in-depth interviews, expert-led workshops, and a treasure trove of noteworthy tips & tricks and partner solutions right at your fingertips.
This year’s digitally transformed Mastering SAP event felt fresh and remarkably well-thought-of, in terms of ensuring participants maximize networking opportunities and in enabling them to find the right solutions for their organisations.
With help from the charming MC, actor and celebrity host Andrew Daddo, Mastering SAP attendees are provided with precise guidelines in navigating the event platform and making the most of the digital experience. It’s a breeze to go through the day’s agenda. It’s highly well-equipped for convenience and no-fuss accessibility.
The platform offers 5 channels for each timeline—attendees can personalise their experience and jump from one channel to the next with ease. Meeting and connecting with speakers and others happen via live video-calls where participants can get into more in-depth discussions.
Day 1 of Mastering SAP OnAir
With so many agendas in place, as with other traditional conferences of this scope, there are more sessions and people to meet than is humanly possible to do within a limited amount of time.
Fortunately, the event kicked off with an inspirational session with “time investment” expert Kate Christie whose work in enabling successful but time-poor professionals in managing their time smarter is highly regarded in various industries (her clients include Deloitte, PwC, ANZ, and Westpac Bank). Christie shared invaluable productivity strategies that I’m sure a lot of the participants will be able to put into practice in attending this year’s event.
For our part, Inside SAP attended the sessions “Delivering Picking Efficiency Using SAP EWM with Voice” presented by Eric Dyason of Bridgestone New Zealand and Brent Fiecken of Fonterra Brands NZ, and “Improving Lives Through Effective Procurement” presented by Richard Austin, General Manager and Global Commercial Manager of Mutual Marketplace.
All three organisations implemented SAP projects aimed at improving business operating efficiencies and replacing legacy systems with modern, innovative solutions. The sessions were mainly geared towards ensuring user readiness and adoption when delivering change. Once again, it’s all about the people—assuring that teams are equipped and are suitable to adopt the new processes and technologies and that they fully understand the goal of the change.
For Fonterra, it was a lesson that cost them significant momentum in the implementation of their SAP EWM with Voice solution. Bridgestone and Mutual Markets, on the other hand, were able to go through the change management process with relevant ease by implementing consistent communication and training enhancements.
Austin said,
“We leaned on over-communication, constant communication all the way through the project which ran for 4 months end-to-end, [with] no delays. We had achieved everything we set out to do.”
He notes that their team implemented a constant feedback loop to allow people to identify specific challenges and enhanced training programs/materials based on these feedbacks.
A Futurist’s View
The last session of the day was the very interesting and quite riveting interview by SAP Australia’s Jonathan Fogarty with SAP Global VP, Futurist, and Innovation Evangelist (and prolific blogger) Tom Raftery.
Raftery discussed his views on the future of transportation, seismic shifts in energy, and the implications for asset management and supply chains.
He highlighted the following future trends:
- the shift to product-as-a-service
- the shift from coal to solar and wind energy
- financial institutions reporting on climate risks opportunities impacting businesses today and in the future
Finally, he points out the importance of becoming enablers for customers in meeting global carbon emission targets.
Read about Day 2 of Mastering SAP OnAir 2020 here.
