Conference just 2 weeks away!

As expected the number of delegates continues to swell – we’ve beaten 2006 already, look set to beat 2008 early this week, and are still ahead at this stage of our best ever in 2007.  With over 90 speakers and over 70 exhibitors it really does look set to be the biggest conference we have ever run. If you are going to go and haven’t booked your place yet then get in quick as there really is limited seating in the auditorium.  Book on the website.

 

Breaking News……..

We hope to be able to confirm in the next week, another UK World Championship medal winner in attendance at the conference thanks to one of the exhibitors. The plan is that he will be around and work with Kriss Akabusi during the networking evening. Keep watching for details.

So you want to use Windows 7 with SAP Business One and Crystal reports……

Well guess what – it’s not a problem! Orchestra a company from the US reports that it worked and works well – in fact better than XP.  Check out the story on their website.

New article posted in Computer Weekly

I got another article published in Computer Weekly this week, both online and in print.

It also sparked some interest from a CW blogger. To get more information aroundthe benefts of SAP upgrades get to our conference in Manchester.

Conference still sits ahead of best ever…….

With just 6 weeks to go we currently are at the highest level we have been, in terms of attendees for our conference. The numbers booked pitch us at a number that puts us 3 weeks ahead of the best position we have achieved in the past. Because we have booked a custom conference centre we can’t expand to cope with numbers so if you are hovering about whether to attend make the call as last minute may be too late.

Click here to go the conference site.

Cloudy concerns……..

There’s an article that refers to the recent outage problems with GMail on ITKnowledge Exchange. In a previous post a few months back I referred to an example of SAP rescuing people from a failing cloud company, and also the implications of this with previous clients.  Some of the concerns are raised in the comments that appear around that article. For me the biggest issue still remains the due diligence process required to ensure things like outages, data security and exit processes and clauses are clearly defined and understood.

A round up of SAP related stories…….

SAP spectrum carries an interview with Mike Stoko on behalf of SUGEN about the debates around Enterprise Support

SAUG (SAP Australian User Group) annual conference held in Sydney is reported.

An interesting article listing the biggest ever donors which shows SAP’s founder Hans Plattner donating $980 million.

Hasso Platner features in an article showing his continued enthusiasm with sailing.

SAP involved in another legal battle and judge rules against them awarding complainant $138 million. At the same time the SAP vs Oracle legal battle continues with Oracle trying to drag Rimini Street into the debate.

CIO magazines top 50 most read articles for CIO’s includes one about the problems of Nestle’s US implementation of SAP - interesting it still sits there given the date of the article.

Whilst SAP continues to develop and promote its cloud solution “Business by Design” ,Terremark now offers SAP in the cloud from its own VMWare solution.

An article in Computer Weekly reflect s on BP’s multi-sourcing activity including SAP.

Survey reveals IT directors’ frustrations with IT vendors

UK organisations remain frustrated by the level of support and interaction they receive from their IT vendors, according to research released today by the SAP UK & Ireland User Group.  85% of the IT directors surveyed said that they would like greater access to senior management and product development staff in order to influence them or raise concerns.  This comes at a time when there are growing concerns that IT vendors are becoming selling rather than user-orientated organisations.  

Just under half of those surveyed (48%) felt that IT vendors weren’t taking customer feedback onboard when it came to product development.  In addition, 85% felt frustrated by IT vendors bringing out new products and subsequently withdrawing or reducing support for products that still worked perfectly well. 

“It is clear that many organisations want more senior-level engagement with their IT vendors, rather than simply dealing with sales staff,” said Alan Bowling, chairman SAP UK & Ireland User Group.  “It is here where strong user groups can play an important role as they can provide organisations with a channel to influence IT vendors at a high level.  To give an example, we have been successful working with SAP to help extend the life of some of its older products, making the eventual transition to newer products much smoother for users.” 

The research also revealed that many organisations still don’t feel that they receive adequate levels of customer support.  83% of IT directors felt that they had greater knowledge than their IT vendors’ support teams when it comes to particular products and processes.  This lack of ‘real-life’ user experience is cited as one of the primary reasons why vendors often take longer than anticipated to resolve problems. “A lot of organisations are facing the same business and IT challenges.  Many are now finding value in being able to collaborate with each other in a user group environment,” added Alan Bowling. The research showed that 82% of those surveyed said that they would like to be able to collaborate with their peers more openly in order to discuss and overcome their IT challenges. 

A lack of time and resource for staff training was highlighted as another major source of frustration for IT directors.  78% were frustrated about staff being unable to learn as much from internal experts and their peers as they would like.  Against this backdrop over three-quarters of IT directors (76%) felt that sending staff to user events was a beneficial exercise.

“Staff training is an ongoing concern for a lot of organisations.  Many don’t have enough internal resource to deliver on the job training, whilst enrolling staff on formal training courses can be expensive.  Therefore, being able to network and collaborate though a user group can be the most cost-effective form of training organisations can get.  Through practical training and learning from peers, IT staff can develop new skills and best practice, which can be of great benefit to their employers,” said Alan Bowling.

The survey of 100 IT directors, working at organisations with 1,000+ employees, was commissioned by the SAP UK & Ireland User Group and conducted by independent research company Vanson Bourne.

Still ahead of target……..

Well – it seems the SAP world is alive and kicking still. Despite the difficult times demand for SAP knowledge and exchange continues apace – our conference is now running 14 weeks ahead of last year and that could present an issue for us. I say could because it’s still 21 weeks until our conference. Our dilemma this year is that we’ve chosen a true conference venue which means we are limited on the number of spaces in the main auditorium. It is an incredible achievement though for this stage and to put it in perspective, we’re 14 weeks ahead of 2008, 14 weeks ahead of 2007, and a staggering 18 weeks ahead of 2006. All I can say is thank you to our members and delegates who have already booked and make sure you don’t miss out to all those that haven’t!

Sign of the times?

Each year we hold an annual conference and you can see details of it on this blog.  We’re taking bookings now for the conference in November and such is its popularity this year that they are running 7 weeks ahead of last year. Given the state of the economy what might be driving this?

My personal thoughts are that the User Group is exceptional value both in financial terms and also in the business value it brings to participants.  Those that are close to the SAP applications recognise this and this year appear to be sending more staff. Success breeds success and there’s no surprise that the organisations that are ensuring that they get to the conference are doing OK in difficult times. So think very carefully if you are on the edge of deciding whether to secure your conference place – don’t miss out.