Guest: Andre Bechtold (LinkedIn)
Company: SAP (Twitter)
Show: Let’s Talk @ SAP Sapphire Orlando 2023

The 2023 SAP Sapphire Conference in Orlando created real-world scenarios where customers can experience SAP software, see business opportunities, and connect with different industries and partner solutions. In this episode of TFiR: Let’s Talk, Swapnil Bhartiya catches up with Andre Bechtold, SVP and Head of Solution & Innovation Experience at SAP, to talk about insights and takeaways from this year’s event.

Highlights of this video interview:

• The goal of the SAP Sapphire Conference was to set up real-world scenarios where customers can experience the SAP software, see business opportunities, and connect with different industries and partner solutions.
• The main showcase was an example of an end-to-end supply chain of ice cream production, which highlighted the power and importance of SAP in connecting different industries and business processes.
• Companies can gather impact from innovative technologies, but it’s important that they have the back-end software and processes in place to make it tangible.
• SAP works with companies across many verticals, with the goal of helping them create an experience for their customers. For example, retailers with huge parking spaces can add charging stations connected to their loyalty apps and do promotional pricing in the store. It is about applying standard processes in one industry to another.
• Metaverse was a big topic at the conference and Bechtold sees huge opportunities for a lot of customers. The tricky thing is finding the right use cases to make this technology relevant.
• Artificial intelligence (AI), which was already widely used before ChatGPT came along, is now really accelerating. There is still a need to make companies understand how they can use AI with their business software to create new opportunities or be more efficient or more sustainable in their business processes.
• Web3 is another game-changer like Blockchain technology, with opportunities in financial management and insurance management across the supply chain networks.
• SAP already has the knowledge and the bandwidth to work with multiple customers across multiple industries. This makes it uniquely positioned to help to create transparency in supply chains and data exchange.

This summary was written by Camille Gregory.