Co-CEO of SAP: integrating strategy into cloud computing and on-demand customization

Beijing time January 15, according to foreign media reports, the Wall Street Journal's Science and Technology blog site AllThingsD writer Eric Sea Sdehar (Arik Hesseldahl) recently to SAP Joint CEO McDermott (Bill McDermott) an interview. McDermott said in an interview that SAP had finally completed a three-year strategy to transfer all of its business applications to the cloud computing platform and Hana Architecture, and evaluated its two rival Salesforce.com and workday in the cloud computing sector.

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In the last interview with AllThingsD, SAP CEO McDermott introduced the company's Hana product Strategy, which was about to be marketed. The idea is to move all of SAP's enterprise applications to an efficient platform that makes the database more responsive to user-requested feedback.

Flash 15 months later, and SAP has indeed been putting into action. SAP not only successfully implemented the Hana strategy, but Hana also accommodated all of the company's mainstream applications. SAP has moved away from the traditional on-demand service delivery model and has shifted to a combination of cloud computing and on-demand customization.

SAP also acquired the cloud computing human Capital Management (HCM) company SuccessFactors, which is now a very important business unit for SAP. SuccessFactors has all of its previous human capital management assets and is competing with workday, another big, fast-growing cloud maker in the industry.

Last week, SAP announced at a global conference in New York that it had finally completed a three-year strategy to transfer all of its commercial applications to the cloud computing platform and Hana architecture. It also gives me the opportunity to interview McDermott in New York.

AllThingsD: We talked about Hana in the last interview and you didn't transfer all of the company's major applications to the platform. Hana has not yet become a major SAP business, but we are still starting from this topic. How's Hana?

McDermott: We have 1,000 Hana customers now, so it's really going very fast. The last time we upgraded it, we thought that Hana would be a big business that would generate 500 million of dollars in revenue for the company, making Hana the fastest-growing software product in the history of the world. Therefore, the Hana business is indeed very large.

AllThingsD: After transferring all of the company's major applications to the Hana platform, SAP's Enterprise resource plan (Enterprise Resource calculates) withdrew from the market. Does today's press conference mean that the process has been completed?

McDermott: That's true. The first news release today is that all software packages on SAP have been moved to Hana. All of our corporate software packages are finally justified to run on enterprise platforms, such as how corporate users manage supply chains, produce products and market products, manage human resources, and manage customer relationships. We have launched enterprise software packages for 24 large, medium and small industries worldwide. All of SAP's enterprise software packages are now running on Hana.

AllThingsD: Some people are not familiar with SAP's enterprise software features, can you give an example of what kind of people these software is suitable for and how to use it?

McDermott: For example, we work with the European TV shopping channel HSE24, which sells products through television. In the lower-right corner of the program's playback screen, a counter displays the remaining quantity of the product, and the counter uses SAP software. When the consumer calls the HSE24, the salesperson is informed of the consumer's propensity to buy from the social network sensor that Hana has access to. The salesperson can then also make additional sales and Cross-sell. At present, one of our potential major customers is the global agricultural machinery giant American John Deere Company (John Deere). We will discuss how the company can provide preventative maintenance services to users based on the use of records and types of usage.

AllThingsD: Does Hana mean more than faster, more cost-effective, and more efficient running of existing program surprises?

McDermott: For example, after Walt Disney painted the first mouse image, no one thought Disney would grow to its present size. People have unlimited potential. CEOs always rethink business models, business operations and industry adjustments based on the simplicity of development, foresight and change. For example, you and I often fly, and sometimes flights will be canceled, which is often the case. If I had to return to New York from Moscow, the airline could charge me more. So, if the flight I booked was canceled, I'd have to pay more. Therefore, the real-time dynamic price system can change the pattern of the aviation industry.

AllThingsD: Is this the result of the intelligent concept you bring to your application? Is this one of the great benefits of using internal storage (AS) technology on Hana?

McDermott: It has to be seen in two ways. The internal storage architecture does enable Hana to run faster and simpler. Applications also make Hana smarter. Enterprise users can integrate the transaction and analysis, also can carry out what we call "extreme application". For example, a large consumer product provider will be in different parts of the world to carry out the promotion of product stores. Once asked about the sale of a store in Brazil, it would be difficult to answer the question if the company did not use our Hana platform. Because, Hana can track all the transaction data. In this way, the company can accurately grasp the local consumer groups and the use of promotional tools.

AllThingsD: Let's talk about the competitive market situation. Larry Ellison, Oracle's chief executive, likes to attack sap from time to time. Have you thought about fighting back?

McDermott: If in the past, my answer must be yes. Now, however, we see it as a compliment when competitors are trying to spread fear, uncertainty and scepticism about SAP. This just shows that they are afraid of SAP. However, they have absolutely no need to do so, because SAP is very open, our most important mission is to make customers satisfied and realize their dreams. We maintain good relations of cooperation with Oracle, IBM and Microsoft. Therefore, we are very supportive if customers have chosen to use their services and will continue to use them.

AllThingsD: It is clear that currently SAP applications can be selectively run on cloud computing platforms or integrated environments. However, professional cloud companies such as Salesforce.com and Workday also show strong. What kind of competitive threat will they bring to SAP?

McDermott: I think SAP has reacted to cloud computing. The SAP cloud computing business will serve both internal deployments (premise) and two major clients on demand. SAP has announced the launch of a new SAP? 360 Customer Solutions (SAP customer 360). The solution is HANA by SAP? Platform to support the powerful functions of memory computing, cloud computing, enterprise mobile applications and collaboration to help companies transcend traditional SAP customer Relationship management (CRM) and innovate how they interact with their customers. If customers want to purchase SAP customer 360 on a public cloud platform based on their subscriptions, we are offering this service now. Once the customer realizes that SAP Customer 360 is running on the Hana platform, we will have a competitive advantage. Salesforce has done a great job building large cloud computing companies, but they are built on a traditional architecture. Customers cannot perform real-time analysis on the Salesforce.com platform. This is a fatal flaw.

Workday is very professional in talent management, and they have developed a very good human capital management solutions. We acquired SuccessFactors and then managed all of SAP's human capital management application assets into the SuccessFactors department. So let's see how many companies will choose to use SuccessFactors this June. There will be a competitive rivalry between us and workday.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)