The exhibition hall opened at 7am and has been very busy as expected. As suggested by WIS, the organisers, we have been seeing more senior people this year and most seem highly focused on specific issues and are here looking for answers, rather than broad updates. So far the top areas of interest have been:

• advice on Access Control projects and how to achieve better results or enhance usage
  
  
• lower cost solutions – our Risk Minimiser quarterly remote SoD assessment service has created a lot of interest and we have several companies all over the world to talk to next week about this
• independent help in security – there seems a much greater focus on avoiding conflicts of interest with people wanting someone other than their outsourcer or auditor involved

SAP has an excellent stand right next to us (to be fair that should probably read we are next to them...) with some very knowledgeable people, and we’re hearing that Access Controls is still way out in front as their most successful product in the Performance Optimisation Applications (POA) area that includes GRC and EPM (Enterprise Performance Management). Too many TLA’s! Interestingly Global Trade Services (GTS) sales seem to have accelerated hard since the GRC event at Amsterdam in November – there are now 600+ clients and we’re hearing more and more interest in this – for SAP and non SAP users, and for intangible exports (IPR, media, etc.).

As usual we met up with many friends, colleagues, partners, and industry experts – and here you can see SAP’s GRC Support Services Team joining us on the stand for catch up. (Left to right) Gavin Campbell, Jayne Gibbon, Pete Fitzsimmons, Ramelyn Paredes and Vice President Ruby Deol. A great team that are always there when we need!

Headlines from today’s key sessions

The conference kicked off in earnest with a session by John Schwartz and Richard Campione. John introduced us to SAP view of the “New market reality” which is characterised by globality, information explosion, business networks, collaboration, cash management, agility, ROI and search for value. The anecdote about the explosion of data really hit home - there’s 60% more data created now than last year, but without better analytics the data is useless. This will strike a chord with those people who have a RAR report with 1,000,000 lines. Data in itself isn’t the answer, it can often be the problem (and if you need help with large outputs from Access Control check out the su53 Consolidator).

John also made a great point; we need to think transformationally to adapt to the “New market”. The market has changed significantly, incremental steps may not be enough to keep up.

SAP’s response to the challenges in the New market are categorised as below:
Innovate in products, services and delivery model (even faster than before)

• Deliver a flexible architecture
• Expand industry and application coverage
• Empower business users
• Deliver best TCO by innovation and un-matched support
• Enhance the best run ecosystem

John also provided 2 case studies. He identified how Colgate Palmolive is leading the way with a single global instance for ERP and how they use this to their strategic advantage.

We also watched a great case study of the McLaren Formula 1 team. The video Interview with Ron Dennis explained their approach to be calm, focussed, committed and reflect that, whatever the outcome, they have done their best.  The data to the driver through engines uses SAP “ALL-in-one” for automotive. They know the engine life cycle and can decide what to re-use, replace or scrap. Real-time ordering of parts keeps their stocks at the right levels. There is even Real time data from the car back to the factory so they can help tweak performance. Time previously spent processing data is now spent deciding on race strategy. Ron stated “SAP software is at the heart of F1 world championship”

Next up was Richard Campione who took another look at the New Market and the current post Credit Crunch era. He focussed on 2 recent reports from McKinsey and Harvard Business School. The McKinsey report explains that even in times of crisis targeted IT investments can reap great benefits. HBS introduces the concept of digitising your best performer’s process and standards. In this sense it’s all about automating what your best people do manually and use IT as a competitive advantage.

Richard identified the 5 ways that SAP can help organisations through this period:

• Manage your costs – use SAP Spend analytics to help understand how you are spending your money and quickly identify cost savings
• Manage your capital – use SAP to manage your receivables better.  A recent Accenture study shows that 25% of debts between companies are disputed. Dow Corning achieved great benefits by a targeted investment:
  
  
  • Improve dispute level by 29%
  • Enhanced liquidity by 25%
  • Reduced dispute resolution costs by 50%
• Maximise your skills and talent:
  
• 60% have no success plan in place
• 80% believe it will be harder to get talent in 3 years time
• Low performance companies find it 31% harder to attract
• Manage Enterprise Risk - change thinking away from dedicated risk managers having all responsibility, towards embedding in the business
• Adaptive planning and reporting – better financial information quicker than your competitors allows planning and budgeting to be done in real time with confidence. Beckman Coulter now plan and budget monthly with live data instead of annual process with disputed figures.

The message is clear, seize the opportunity to leapfrog your competitors or risk being overtaken.