SAP NOW, indeed, can never be past. The event is not just SAP India’s most awaited and coveted annual showcase, but also one that remains in our fond memories always.
A house full of over 3000 delegates, over 200 speakers, breakout theatres, hundreds of demo experiences and an extravagant musical finale. Conversations around India’s next decade of digital transformation at the forum of connections and innovation.
This does not sum up; it is in fact, just the beginning of what SAP NOW had in store!
SAP NOW India 2024: Vision to Victory
As India pursues becoming a developed nation by 2047, rapid digital growth is the pathway to becoming the world’s third-largest economy by 2027.
In line with India’s ambitions and PM Modi’s Digital Bharat mission, SAP NOW 2024 was themed ‘India: Incredible to Inevitable.’ As SAP NOW concluded, we witnessed the AI-led tech transformation revolution on 20th April at the iconic Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai. The buzz and energy on the show floor were experiential. Partner showcases of SAP solutioning, and AI based tech breakthroughs were all geared towards shaping the future of Indian businesses.
What culminated was a jam-packed hub of industry leaders, technology experts, and innovative thinkers come under one roof to unlock opportunities, streamline processes, and enhance customer experiences.
SAP NOW 2024: Key Thought Leadership Takeaways
Introduced ‘Grow with SAP for Scaleups’ Cloud Offering
Last year, SAP launched ‘Grow with SAP’ as a bundled cloud-native service for midsize companies. The latest offering will be available free for up to six months. Aimed at growth-oriented startups, this offering supports scaling challenges and operational efficiency, enhances market valuation, provides faster time to value, facilitates business expansion, and streamlines the ‘Hire-to-Retire’ cycle for scaleups.
Ganesh P, CFO of Nykaa, expressed, “By integrating advanced technologies into our operations, we’ve transformed several industry facets, including streamlined inventory management, supply chains, and the deployment of sophisticated analytics for informed decision-making. SAP’s cloud solutions will play a vital role in this journey as we strive for a seamless, tailored CX.” Source: SAP
‘Grow with SAP’ provides instant access to financial data and profitability analysis, enhancing the bottom line and boosting market valuation. Its unique selling proposition lies in optimizing the ‘hire-to-retire’ cycle through automated onboarding, enriching the ‘people experience’ to align with business growth.
| Study Reveals 86% of Indian businesses have observed a positive correlation between sustainability and business profitability, benefiting from increased revenue and efficiency, as indicated by sustainability studies. |
Positive Relationship Between Sustainability and Business Profitability
SAP unveiled a sustainability study showing that 86% of Indian organizations recognize a strong link between sustainability and profitability. Businesses prioritizing sustainability witness growth in revenue and efficiency, making sustainability a business necessity rather than just a moral duty.
Abhishek Kapoor, CFO of Sula Wines, highlighted their commitment to sustainability through the Green Sula initiative. SAP has enabled them to advance their sustainability goals and drive operational efficiency, leading the way towards a carbon-neutral future by 2050. Sustainability aligns with SAP’s purpose of helping the world run better and improving people’s lives. SAP focuses on creating a sustainable future for the world, customers, and society by integrating social, environmental, and economic performance. Source: SAP
| Study Reveals 86% of Indian businesses have observed a positive correlation between sustainability and business profitability, benefiting from increased revenue and efficiency. |
What is the Secret Sauce for SAP S/4HANA Implementation?
The key value drivers of S/4HANA public cloud are business agility, transparency and innovation. As good as this sounds, implementation requires quick adaptation to changing market conditions and customer needs. A few glimpses of our takeaways for smooth SAP S/4HANA implementation:
- Clean core approach: Emphasizes a streamlined approach to implementation, focusing on essential functionalities to avoid complexity and ensure efficiency.
- “Fit2Standard” approach: Focuses on adopting industry best practices as the central theme, ensuring alignment with standard processes and minimizing customization. It helps accelerate project timelines and avoid cost overruns by reducing the need for multiple change requests.
- Cloud mindset: Customers should adopt a mindset that embraces cloud solutions and their benefits, including flexibility, scalability, and innovation. This mindset allows customers to implement S/4HANA Public Cloud premium edition, providing innovations around the office of the CFO, including group reporting and working capital management.
- Agile implementation methodologies: Focuses on faster go-lives and reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) through automation approaches. Leverages the ACTIVATE methodology and automation tools like SAP4ME, CALM, and automated test scripts to accelerate projects.
- Baseline activation services: Introduced to drive rapid start into implementations with a limited number of pre-configured scope items, enabling faster project kick-offs.
- Data Driven Architecture (DDA): SAP introduces DDA as the starting point for all Public Cloud projects, offering 850+ scope items across all Lines of Business (LoBs) and updated with preselection packages based on Industry clusters.
These highlights showcase the importance of adopting a standardized approach, leveraging best practices, and embracing cloud technologies to drive successful SAP S/4HANA implementations.
Recapping SAP NOW India 2024 – A Quick Walkthrough
The day kicked off with leadership address from Paul Marriott and Manish Prasad, setting the stage for a day of collaboration and learning.
Paul Marriott (President, SAP APJ) spoke about India’s unique role in leading climate change and driving ESG initiatives for Asia Pacific. He focused strong leadership, young talent, sprawling AI and start-up landscape across businesses would aid India reach its $30 trillion GDP goal by 2047. “It is a staggering 10 times from today, but it is possible with the kind of innovations we are seeing in businesses across all segments,” he said affirmatively. Source: SAP
Building a Future Ready Culture
Richard Taylor and Milind Korgaonkar shared insights on fostering innovation and building a culture that embraces change.
Women in Leadership – Breaking the Glass Ceiling
Award-winning film director Zoya Akhtar and Rahul Singh engaged in a dynamic conversation about breaking barriers and paving the way for women in leadership roles. Zoya’s take on AI in literature and filmmaking left us with takeaway thoughts of AI bringing innovative applications across the industry, but that the ingenuity of emotion can be evoked by human laureates.
Breakout Theatres
SAP NOW saw a showcase of the best-in-class technologies and engaging demos covering everything from Cloud ERP, Digital Supply Chain, SAP BTP, Spend Management, CX, Sustainability. Featuring expert beak out sessions:
- Enterprise Resource Planning
- Business Technology Platform
- Digital Supply Chain
- Customer Experience
- Human Capital Management
- Industries
- Intelligent Spend and Business Network
- Scaleups and Digital Natives
- Education
- Services and Support
Diamond partner Uneecops sparked India’s tech triumph with business leaders at SAP Now India 2024
Uneecops’ SAP leadership members participated in SAP NOW India 2024 as a Diamond Partner. In meet and greet sessions with attendees, we helped them carve a clear automation vision and the right SAP tools to achieve it. It was a full house as we showcased client success stories and piqued the curiosity of business leaders with our copilot theme.
Replay Uneecops at SAP NOW 2024
Wrapping up the Evening Going ‘Deewana Tera’ with Padma Shri Sonu Nigam’s Tunes over cocktails and dinner:
Swaying to the tunes of legendary Bollywood singer Sonu Nigam, SAP NOW ended with a musical bang. The night brought together attendees, customers, and partners enjoying the great performance together as they get ready to script the next chapter of Digital Bharat success story.
Truly, SAP NOW, but MEMORIES FOREVER!
