SAP’s Lori Rosano on the Future of Public Cloud

foreign speaks we're talking about how companies are using public Cloud platforms we're looking at Trends and challenges in public cloud and solutions to those challenges to discuss that I'm joined by Laurie Rosano head of public Cloud for sap North America Lori good to have you with us today wonderful thank you James so I I know we'll we'll talk later in depth about what exactly sap does for the cloud but give me a little background if you would uh you know what exactly is Sap's goal in the cloud and a little about yourself if you would yeah wonderful well I'm happy to be here again I appreciate the time and the space we get to share together so I've been at sap for about two years so I joined as the CEO for the West Market unit and prior to that assignment I held numerous leadership positions across IBM's transformational business units so my last assignment was I was responsible for cloud and cognitive software group for North America really focused on our distribution Market which included travel and transportation cpg um and also retail so with my new role here at sap I stepped into it a few months ago and I'm now the senior vice president and managing director for sap s4hana public Cloud Edition so in a nutshell that means that I'm focused on driving um essentially all our business across centered on sales and the deployment and consumption interesting okay so that's that's a big job and I I want to ask about Trends but the one thing I find interesting about intro is that uh companies are still getting on board with Cloud they're still increasing their usage of cloud which seems to be somewhat mystified here in the year 2023 Cloud's been around since oh before 2010. companies are still getting on board am I am I correctly thinking that yeah we've seen a huge inflection point and and I guess to sum it up is it's it's for me it's extremely electrifying because we're at a point where our clients have bold ideas big visions and all these ways that they're having a material impact on what they're doing uh whether they're serving their clients or even the material impact they're having on the environment and the companies but what's really interesting about it is their demands have changed as well so in order for them to get that speed to Market and accelerate those objectives or board mandates they are looking for different Technologies to be a part of that with them hmm well I guess and you've talked about this a bit so a big Trend that is that is driving Cloud usage I mean the one question I have is that I know a lot of startups got on board really early and some larger companies you know moved on board through the years if if a company hasn't fully embraced Cloud by 2023 what what has been holding them back yeah I mean here's the thing we've observed is public cloud is really truly growth cattle that's what we're hearing across the board from from our clients and over the past few years I mean we've certainly seen um an accelerated deployment of Technologies right so we've seen Cloud we've seen AI we've seen machine learning we've seen analytics and what is really inspiring is businesses are a very very deliberate now and saying they won't go backwards they're not driving looking in their rearview mirror it is pedal to the metal they're moving forward and they're accelerating at a rapid Pace but companies are doing it in a very different way so they're adapting to all the changing market conditions so what we're seeing in some of the trends is some of the clients are doing that through exploring new markets so they're they're working a little bit more creativity in terms of how they can build up these incubation um you know business units and these other ways to explore and to maybe expand their current line card the other ways is really truly how to reach their customers so we're seeing a deeper level of intimacy and vulnerability and and ways to really kind of be a part of that experience and and we know that right as consumers or frequent flower you know frequent um Travelers so you're starting to see them reach us in a lot of different ways one thing that's core obviously to sap for us is really truly how they're rethinking their supply chains and a lot of that can be rooted around how they lower costs so I would say for any reason you know any reason that a client is looking to public cloud or if there's a pause or a hesitation in terms of how they Embark the one thing that we are not seeing is a Slowdown in the technology spend so that that has not slowed down and in fact if we look at some of the activities post the pandemic we've actually seen an uptick so our customers are saying we're doubling down on these strategies and it's very clear right now that cloud you know the cloud technology and this arena is a place that they want to spend and invest interesting okay well you did mention AI in there which I think is a really interesting piece in this particular year it feels like we're kind of in a semi-frenzy about artificial intelligence and it seems that um I'm not sure everyone realizes this but it's like AI gets a lot of headlines but really cloud enables artificial intelligence I mean I think AI just doesn't go anywhere ultimately without you know cloud computing to support it yeah are you seeing that factory in the company's uh thoughts yeah I'm smiling because you know the inner geek in us love it right because we're starting to see all these Technologies continue to grow and evolve into really really impactful and material things but you're spot on I mean you look at you look at AI specifically is um you know the Technologies are always going to be centered and continue to improve around Automation and analytics and organizations like I mentioned are getting a little bit more bold in developing their Visions but they've got to figure out how to do it and in order to do that and to leverage all the benefits and the predictive nature of AI and all the benefits and the intimacy and the clarity around the data they need to do it on cloud technology so I think to your point James which has been really kind of fun for all of us is AI used to be intimidating so for all of us right that are that love this and we thrive in this industry ai ai has been like our Super Bowl we're like give us more help us understand more we want to touch and feel it and get really involved but we are seeing a lot more hype and excitement because of gen AI chat GPT so what that's done is it's made it more relatable and more Hands-On and attractive and available for people to kind of understand the complexities but the different usages so I think when you look at it from an sap perspective which is really neat is um and we've had the intelligent Enterprise so when you think about what we've done over the course of many years not just the recent you know focused around AI specifically but over many years have just infused that into the the foundation of our business technology platform and many other solutions that are that are 100 cloud-based all right well let's go to the part that's more difficult I mean I think there are still challenges with public Cloud I mean some companies grapple with this issue or that issue sometimes it's costs sometimes they might not have planned properly they they wanted to rush on board and they're not sure you know where is it all we have a multi-cloud and where are all our pieces what do you see as a common challenge with public Cloud clients and and any thoughts on addressing that challenge or challenges yeah I think there there's a there's maybe a few challenges that I would Spotlight I mean one is just the technology spend right so it takes an investment and you have to have the funding the sponsorship and the path to move forward when you start talking about you know maybe reconfiguring your infrastructure so I think that's one my my advice on that piece is it takes time right and on the other side of how we serve our clients and make sure that we're really addressing those needs is really truly if you're not in a position today to make that investment full-fledged into public Cloud there's so many other ways to stay on basically that learning path and that learning curve so you can still immerse yourself with strategic advisors like ourselves you can still be a part of some of the technology and The Innovation so you can get a little bit more comfortable about what that looks like for your organization one thing that I've noticed and even with the build out of our superstructure here in North America which I'm really proud of we've made a considerable amount of an investment just building out the North America team specifically but um when organizations start you know investing in public Cloud they also start attacking attracting really top talent you start bringing in those entrepreneurs that cloud mindset those folks that again want to thrive at 100 miles per hour they start bringing in and infusing their ideas and all that technology and inspiration into an organization so I'd say the funding might be one of them the other thing is is really um gosh we just hit it head-on but at times we need to change this Legacy perception that sap is basically too big and too expensive for organizations so we've done that even with the recent announcement and launch of our grow with sap and that really is a program that's focused on you know ready to run Cloud Erp for our mid-size companies so we can start to look through and say gosh grow with sap is really going to serve you know if for what it's worth as a catalyst to reintroduce sap into some of our most Innovative and startup and entrepreneurial or private Equity type of organizations that sit in that mid-size category you know on the cost piece I think it's really interesting in that um it seems like early days there was a sense that cloud was sold as maybe a way to save money because companies weren't going to have to invest in data centers they could let go of those aging expensive data centers and they could just do this on demand but it feels like that has shifted with the years and that cloud Custom Companies really do complain about the cost and the answer becomes well it is maybe it is more expensive but it's a better it's a more effective tool uh I get some more versatile and Powerful tool than than those you know old-fashioned Data Centers do you encounter that issue yeah we sure do and what that's coming from is we have a lot of clients right that have worked very hard and they know their business better than we do but we know Erp really really well right so we have the expertise and the knowledge in the communities over the course of many years so what it is is when they start looking at their legacy environment and they look at how that typically performs I think it's definitely an assessment in terms of is it going to get them to those bigger aspirations those those bigger strategies and ways that they're going to continue to grow and expand because we both know all of us know right growth and comfort don't co-exist so what I always say to an organization which is actually the fun part is um you've got to get real comfortable with that space in between which is called discomfort but that's where you start looking at different ways to say look we have to challenge ourselves to get out of our fixed mindset or even the ways that we're doing things so in terms of what we're doing with public Cloud specifically to serve our mid-market client base is really just around these adoption and acceleration services so you start thinking about the time to Market what can be accelerated anywhere from when we have some use cases that are that are up to like four to six weeks what also it does is help some expedite not only the implementation but they can start to understand how they manage the costs so and they start to operationalize the organization in a lot of different ways so I do think again it's it's not a knee-jerk discussion decision right it has a lot of um relevance and decisions in terms of how it's going to be infiltrated across the org but in terms of a cost or an entry point I think we've our clients have been really satisfied and we've started to help you know kind of ease some of that misunderstanding in terms of how they're going to start and embark on their digital transformation with public Cloud specifically well let's let's drill down to sap and and the sap offering uh let's talk about what it does for the public Cloud class you've talked a bit about that and really I think the key question which you know also addressed it a bit I've been thinking it's really interesting is sap best a large Enterprise clients there is a sense out there uh what is what is your take on that yeah I mean here's here's the beautiful thing is um sap and you know in our Cloud Erp offering uh say we're one big old family we we have two approaches so one is going to be with our private Cloud Edition most famously known as rise with sap so we've witnessed that success right they've worked very hard we know we've learned a lot through that but we have Private Edition which is really targeted towards our install base so that's where you're going to have a lot of our clients that we've been serving over the years that we continue to support from a private Edition perspective now when you start looking at you know anything that is Erp Finance transformation or driven product Centric service Centric and other forms of Industries that's where public cloud is really playing a big part so what I mean by that is we have public Cloud now with grow with sap again that's the ready to run RP solution TurnKey best practices embedded all these things that you can get and expect and require from a software as a service however when you look at this it doesn't have to be either or so it's actually a good segue to say we have a lot of experiences right now we have um really substantial and significant clients that are on Private Edition but they're starting to dabble and look into different ways whether it's a merger it's an acquisition or it's some sort of incubation that they're looking forward to moving into then you have a two-tier so you have your your private Edition rise with sap and then we're starting to see the public edition which is also the growth sap so we're seeing a lot more two-tier scenarios in those and those type of accounts that you just asked about okay well I think the the big question that the companies are are thinking about is the future of public Cloud where it goes obviously public cloud is not new but it's still changing remarkably fast given how long it's been around yeah uh what what are you what's your view what do you see when we talk about public Cloud say two three years from now what will the discussion be about yeah so with public cloud like I said I I know right it's not a thing I know that the technology is continue it's going to continue to be enhanced so we're already doing massive types of developments on a monthly basis and we're releasing that to our clients twice a year but I think you're going to see even at in more an accelerated enhancement around the AI optimization um we're going to see a lot more improvements around the overall Process Management uh we're going to start seeing a lot more insights and how to be more predictive so what I mean by that is even now more built-in tools that'll help provide you know real-time custom information that are tailored fit to our to our clients business to really help them be proactive and support you know going forward and I think for public Cloud um I do I do strongly believe that it's going to have a beautiful impact when I say that just on the world that we exist in when you think about what it's doing is is if I'm a frequent traveler or if I'm a patient so if I'm in health care if I'm a travel Transportation my experiences and what that looks like and feels like is getting improved because of the cloud technology so as we start seeing organizations choose to move into a public Cloud landscape or infrastructure that just propels all the activities and the and then the expertise that they're trying to do to launch at a more rapid pace so I think the good news is it's not you know everyone's being thoughtful their experts are taking their time but I think in the next few years from now we're going to start to see it a little bit more customized the experience is going to be enhanced and I think that it's not going to be um so much if you know if and when and why versus I think the decision is going to be really focused on choosing you know software as a service specifically around public Cloud what about the world of of multi-cloud going forward I'm not sure do you deal with that a lot in terms of companies thinking well we've got all these applications on various clouds we're not sure what to do it's hard to plan it's hard to hard to know where it all is yeah see like that's one of the things that really companies really grapple with it these days in terms of public Cloud yeah and I think that's natural and that's that's that's the way it should be right so lot of clients you know have different nuances to curate for their specific business needs so it's definitely not a one size fits all I think the beautiful thing here is how malleable it is and how we have so many ways to basically the extensibility of public cloud is is incredible so so you will you want to have and I mean this in a very passionate way you want to have a very diverse organization not only reflection what that means in terms of people but just even your technology you want that diversity because that's the way that you can couple it together and really again if if the name of the game and the pace we're doing is to out compete and to run faster and to look for more creative ways to stand out in the market I think diversity of an environment is amazing thing because there's so many different tools and resources and technologies that yet you can couple together so yeah well said and I think you think you said it I mean it's a lot of good stuff I learned a ton uh Lori thanks so much for sharing your expertise today and please come back and talk with us again sometime I appreciate you James I had fun thank you very much

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