This year, the SAPinsider Conference was held in the RAI in Amsterdam. From 14 until 16 of June, people from 30 countries came together to learn about the latest SAP technologies and product releases and share experiences with each other. Upon arrival at the RAI, we were welcomed by the enthusiastic organization in striking blue shirts. After check-in, we were directed to the conference hall for the keynote where Ivo Bauermann, Global Vice President of SAP Analytics, spoke about empowering companies to digitally transform at scale. During the keynote we also got a first sneak preview of SAP Leonardo and BPC 11.0 version for SAP BW/4HANA.
After the energetic keynote, we checked out our SAPinsider mobile app to see which break-out sessions we wanted to attend. We learned about the different capabilities of Analytics for Office and we were introduced to SAP BPC 11.0 version for SAP BW/4HANA. During a demo we experienced the new modern user interface and the seamless integration with SAP Analytics Cloud (for BPC standard model). Leveraging the power of the SAP HANA platform, complex calculations and high levels of data granularity seem a piece of cake in the latest version of SAP BPC.
After a great lunch and catching up with our peers/competitors, we joined sessions about S/4HANA Finance and SAP Analytics Cloud. During the technical S/4HANA sessions we got a deeper understanding of how S/4HANA will change the day-to-day financial accounting. For example, this new ERP enables companies to real-time reconcile FI and CO, which is a challenge that many companies face today. We were also introduced to the new modern SAP Fiori user experience, which is more role-based and streamlined. With SAP Fiori transactional tasks are simplified and processes and analytics are further improved.
We started off the second day with a session about SAP Analytics Cloud. It was a good session where we saw a real live demo. Next, we attended sessions about how the universal ledger in S/4HANA contributes to a single source of truth and what the added value is of SAP BW when you already have S/4HANA Finance (which already includes a BW layer). Right after lunch, we scheduled an expert sessions in the SAP solution center. This session, which almost lasted one hour, gave us the opportunity to ask all of our burning SAP BPC and S/4HANA questions to two experts.
At the start of the third and final day of the SAPinsider Conference, we attended a session focusing on the real-time planning capabilities in SAP BPC 10.1 optimized for S/4HANA. The session focused on how the combination of S/4HANA Finance and SAP BPC contributes to real-time access to the data, unrestricted data granularity, shared master data and integrated planning.
During the rest of the day we attended several sessions focused on client success stories and additional in-depth sessions about S/4HANA, BW4/HANA, Analytics Cloud and SAP BPC. It was nice to hear customers sharing their success stories and the challenges they face when digitally transforming their organization.
The SAPinsider 2017 Conference was a great success. We learned a lot and met a lot of great people during those 3 days. You will see us again next year!
