I’m heading down to South Africa for the Gartner on SAP event, at Sun City 1 and 2 of June. This is the third time I’ve been to the event. We have 4 analysts attending, and I’m really looking forward to it. We will be going through what we think of SAP’s strategy and we will be also be providing some practical guidance about running what clients have today better.
The agenda is looking good, even if I say so myself. Pat Phelan is doing a lot of great research on competency centres, training and really driving down costs in operating ERP, Johan Jocabs brings strong local knowledge and some of the leading thinking on CRM, and Dan Sholler has the measure of NetWeaver and related technologies. As chairperson I get to do the raffle , talk about user experience options and give an overall positioning presentation. It will be a busy few days.
It will also be interesting as the event is a couple of days after SAP Sapphire in Orlando, so it will be an opportunity to see how (or if) SAP’s messages have resonated with the local customer base. Some of SAP’s most innovative customers are in South Africa, and it is always good to see ingenuity of those organizations. South Africans aren’t afraid to say it as it is, so it will be lively.
I have been involved with the South African ERP and HR community for most of my working career, so it will also be good to see familiar faces and old friends.
As usual Lisa and her team do a fabulous job in organizing it. If you’d like to attend, drop Lisa a note via the website.
It will be great to catch up with family too. While I’m there I’d also like to hook up with any South African startups in the HR /ERP space, I’ve been impressed with what I have seen so far, but I’m keen to see more. I will have a few days in Jo’burg meeting clients and I’ll be popping down to Pietermaritzburg to watch my brother run Comrades (a rather long jog of 89 kms).
