With the exhibitors hall now closed, today has been a day of attending the final sessions we wanted to catch, booking SAP Labs demos, and finalising discussion and agreements with the key contacts we have made. As the sessions wind down after lunch, we keep going, as we have a committed objective before we go home to get all the briefing sessions and slide packs completed for the full su53 team, and to email all of the people who visited us on stand with appropriate proposals, service definitions and action plans – which all makes for a late night, but a strong feel-good feeling!

Overnight and en route back to the UK gives us time to reflect on the key learnings about the GRC market and SAP positioning, and also on how we are perceived:

SAP talked about this GRC “maturity” model and how in general the market is between 2-3 with relatively few heading towards 4.

SAP’s communication about risk has developed and to us, really hits the nail on the head now – the message is not to consider just risk, but to consider risk & reward together.

It’s clear to us all that in business you have to take risk to compete and succeed – we take risk every day – we spend on sales & marketing, on recruiting and training, on developing new products & services – all of which represents risk. Avoiding risk would mean we do nothing – which leads to failure. Understanding and managing risk means knowing where to invest, how to accept risk, and thus how to compete & succeed.

SAP also made clear the message that its software is seeking to help clients develop their strategy and then execute it, working in a closed loop with feedback refining strategy, improving insight and collaboration. This theme came out many times throughout the week.

We were pleased at our profile and reputation – amongst SAP, amongst other service providers, and most of all amongst organisations around the world using SAP. It amazed us how many knew of su53 Solutions – we haven’t actively marketed in the US or outside Europe, but many people came up and said they’d heard of us and what we are doing, or seen the web site!

So where next? Well the European event is expected in November, following SAP’s view of the success of last year’s event in Amsterdam, and GRC2010 is expected to be in Miami – thankfully somewhat closer and less costly to get to than here in Las Vegas.