SAP and Enterprise Trends Podcasts from Jon Reed (@jonerp) of diginomica.com

For this pre-Sapphire return of our semi-regular SAP BI podcast series, fellow SAP Mentor and co-host Vijay Vijayasankar and I talked with special guest James Taylor of Decision Management Solutions about some of the tougher BI questions SAP - or any other vendor for that matter - must tackle. During the 50 minute podcast, we move from a look at 4.0 to a discussion of the importance of business rules and the issues SAP needs to address with separate rules engines for operations and analytics (including two for operations, BRF Plus and NetWeaver BRM). We talk about why predictive analytics matter to companies, and why vendors struggle to deliver meaningful predictive analytics solutions. A lively discussion of the importance of unstructured data catches the three of us jousting a bit on the relative importance of text analytics versus other BI priorities. We veer into a HANA discussion before wisely saving most of that one for a different podcast down the road.

To get a better handle on the issues with breaking into SAP in today's market, I had the chance to tape a unique podcast with Tom Michael of Michael Management. The podcast includes two "students" from Michael Management's Pay it Forward SAP Training Program (PDF), which sponsored SAP training for five job seekers to help them move into SAP during a challenging SAP job market. We begin the podcast with Tom posing some questions to me about breaking into SAP in today's market. Then we enter into a free flowing discussion, with Tom and I taking any and all questions from the two aspiring SAP professionals who joined us on the call and shared their stories with us.

Since I had SAP Mentor Leonardo De Araujo of Beyond Technologies on the line, I figured we should go ahead and tape a spontaneous podcast on some topics of interest. The end result is a very informal chat that covers a series of topics, most of them SAP SME related. During the 20 minute podcast, Leo and I discuss his pending attendance as a Mentor at SAP DKOM, what he's learning about Business ByDesign as a potential future Canadian partner, and his take on the SME market and SAP All-in-One.

For several years, SAP professionals have looked forward to SAP Mentor Vijay Vijayasankar's annual blog post, "The Road Ahead for SAP Consultants." In honor of this always-provocative blog post, Jon pulled together fellow SAP Mentors Vijayasankar and Leonardo De Araujo for an in-depth discussion/debate about Vijay's skills rankings for 2011 and beyond. The result? An hour long talk that goes into detail on emerging skills in BusinessObjects, HANA and Business ByDesign, as well as how core skills like ABAP development are evolving.

Few events in the SAP space take me by total surprise. The launch of ASUGNews.com, with Thomas Wailgum and Courtney Bjorlin at the helm, was one of those rare exceptions, forcing me to set aside those "industry assumptions" and take a fresh look at a new player in the ecosystem. To get at the editorial motivations behind ASUGNews.com, I got on the phone with Tom and Courtney for this 24 minute podcast. My goals? To ask them a few questions that had been bugging me, to get a better handle on what they have in mind for the site, and to get their takes on SAP in 2011

Podcast Structure: I. Intro chatter, II. (2:40) SolBros reader questions, III. (21:55) SolMan - "A mile wide and an inch deep?" - discuss! IV. (36:05) Individual updates: Jim Spath - SolMan and ASUG, Phil Avelar - CHARM lessons learned, Tony D - SolMan consulting, customer value and learning tools.

What is SAP's hottest, sexiest new technology? No, it's not HANA, it's not ByDesign. In this humorous-turned-serious podcast, Jon Reed and special guest and SAP Mentor Thorsten Franz talk about a hype-worthy technology known to insiders as "SAP Business Workflow." After 11 minutes of satirical riffing, Jon and Thorsten turn their attention to more serious matters as Thorsten talks about the overlooked power of SAP Business Workflow and what the Workflow Influence Team is doing to impact SAP Workflow's production direction

What did we learn from the SAP Influencer Summit that we can apply to SAP in 2011? Why is the meaning of "Influencer" changing and what was the controversy around that definition? How are Mentors impacting the definition of Influencer and the blurring of lines between bloggers, analysts, and SAP experts? What did we make of SAP's on-demand, mobility, and StreamWork strategies? To get at these questions and more, I pulled together fellow SAP Mentors John Appleby of Bluefin Solutions and Dick Hirsch of Siemens IT Solutions and Services. We taped an end-of-year/new year kickoff podcast that spanned 60 minutes. We balanced some funny conference anecdotes with more serious talk on how SAP is banking its future on these new initiatives. Since Skype was down, we reverted to a backup taping option that impacted sound quality. If you missed any comments on the audio, check the detailed podcast highlights on JonERP.com.

It all started with a blog post. After TechEd 2010, SAP Mentor John Appleby of Bluefin Solutions posted a blog on his take on SAP mobility. Natascha Thomson of SAP read the blog and some of it didn't make sense to her. It was a clear case of buzzword alert! Seeking clear answers, Natascha and John asked me to referee a discussion between them on "FAQs on SAP Enterprise Mobility." During this thirty minute podcast, Natascha grills John on SAP Enterprise Mobility. Buzzwords are defined as we dig into everything from the impact of consumer technology to Project Gateway to the implications of HTML 5. Those listeners who make it towards the end of the podcast will be treated to some comic relief as once again a cellular caller (John) drops off a podcast on Enterprise Mobility, proving once and for all that "Always Connected" is a modern myth.

Why did SAP mobility experts leave SAP TechEd (Vegas and Berlin) with more questions than answers? How has the enterprise mobility space evolved since Sapphire 2010? And what does SAP need to accomplish in mobility to win the confidence of customers and partners? To get at these questions and more, I was approached by fellow SAP Mentors John Appleby of Bluefin Solutions and Kevin Benedict of Netcentric Strategies, who asked me to DJ an open discussion on SAP moblity. The result was a forty minute podcast, which I felt was of the caliber and depth I look for in ERP Lounge podcasts, so I've added this to the series.

What went down with SAP BusinessObjects and BI at TechEd? What questions were answered from our last podcast? What is coming with BusinessObjects 4.0 - will it live up to the hype? What the heck is the new Semantic Layer anyway? And how did Vijay end up with 200 people at a BusinessObjects session? What feedback has SAP taken into account, and what burning questions still remain?

What are the burning questions about SAP BI as we head into SAP Teched season? Will the keynotes answer questions about in-memory and accelerated data access? And how do you get the most out of the show and justify your attendance when budgets are tight? As we continue our "sporadic SAP BI podcast series," which is part of the ERP Lounge podcast editions, I dig into these questions with two fellow SAP Mentors: Vijay Vijayasankar of IBM and newly-named SAP Mentor Greg Myers, who is a Senior Business Intelligence Engineer at SEI Investments in Oaks, Pennsylvania, and who is also the Chair of the ASUG BusinessObjects Security & Administration SIG.

There are many unanswered questions about SAP Business ByDesign. Some of them can be answered by documenting the experience of the 100 or so pilot customers who have been through a ByD install and come out the other side. In my second podcast with an SAP Business ByDesign pilot customer, I talk with Judson Wickham of Pinkberry Frozen Yogurt about their ByDesign implementation process. During this 22 minute podcast, Judson explains why Pinkberry chose ByDesign and what issues they overcame along the way. Judson is an ideal interviewee for my JonERP podcast series because of his background in on-premis ERP, in his case, PeopleSoft. During the podcast, Judson speaks to the skills transitions he needed to make and what SAP professionals interested in ByDesign work are up against in terms of skills evolution. Judson also shares his views on how SAP can improve ByDesign from here, and why the upcoming Software Development Kit (SDK) interests him from a customer's perspective.

What it the future of SAP BI consulting? Why is there still lingering confusion over the SAP BusinessObjects tools amongst SAP users? And why is BI strategy an afterthought when it should really be incorporated into the core ERP implementation? To get a fresh take on these questions, I taped a podcast with Vijay Vijayasankar of IBM and Kevin McManus of McManus Consulting. Both these guys have deep SAP BI experience, and Kevin brings hands-on expertise in BusinessObjects tools into the conversation. During the 55 minute podcast, we take a close look at which SAP BI skills are in demand. I ask the guys what separates a mediocre SAP BI consultant from an outstanding one. We talk about whether there are functional BI roles emerging, and why BI is becoming a skill that all SAP professionals need to reckon with. Is BI the "holy grail" of value realization for ERP projects? And is in-memory for real? Vijay and Kevin have answers to all these questions.

The SAP consulting market is primed for change. Staffing layers with questionable value place obstacles between enterprise buyers and the best SAP consultants. While "big box" consulting models still have their place, SAP customers want to see alternatives that allow them to source subject matter experts directly, even sourcing them "on demand" for short term engagements. Internet technology and SaaS-influenced approaches create a fertile ground for SAP staffing innovation. To better understand the problems with the current SAP consulting model and the changes that are afoot, in this edition of The ERP Lounge, I invited three pioneers of new models to join me in a frank discussion. The result of our international teleconference was a 70 minute podcast that takes a hard look at the problems and offers up solutions that forge new ground for both consultants and SAP customers.

During this 20 minute podcast, Jim Link of Forest City gives me the project-tested scoop on many key BPX topics, including: how does a BPXer justify their value to the business, who do they report to, what role do process modeling tools play, and what SAP technical and functional skills do they need to succeed in the SAP Business Process Expert role. Obviously, there are no universal answers to these questions - they are still being sorted out on a company to company basis. But for those listeners who want to understand how the pure BPX role can fit into the existing SAP personnel structure, and interact with Enterprise Architects, I trust you'll find this conversation as interesting as I did.

Recently I taped a two-way discussion on careers in SAP sustainability with fellow SAP Mentor Jim Spath. Although Jim does not work in sustainability on a day to day basis, he's one of the most influential community voices in this area and has a 20 year background as an environmental engineer in his pre-SAP life. When we taped this thirty minute discussion, Jim and I were fresh off an SAP Mentor session on SAP's sustainabilty strategy with Jeremiah Stone of SAP. We wanted to react to that session - though some of it was "not bloggable" and we kept that content out. There were other SAP sustainability events to react to also, but mostly, we wanted to riff on SAP careers in sustainability and talk about the skills and the impact we can have by greening our SAP careers.

With the release of his book - one of the most important business books in recent years (see my review on Amazon) - and with the reverberations of SAPPHIRENOW/ASUG Orlando still lingering, the timing was right to have Vinnie Mirchandani in The ERP Lounge to talk about his blogs on enterprise software and innovation. I wanted to dig into his opinionated takes on SAP and his critique of what he has dubbed the SAP "egosystem." I was especially looking forward to asking Vinnie about how the "polymath" practices he describes in his book can be emulated by individuals in their own skills development. I wanted to ask Vinnie how you reconcile the need to have broad expertise with the problem of becoming a "jack of alll trades, master of none."

I reported on the PAC Feeding the Ecosystem blog that the SAP Business ByDesign (ByD) conversation has shifted from technology debates to product rollout. A key part of that shift is taking a closer look at the skills needed to support ByDesign implementations and the different economics of SaaS consulting. One emerging voice in that conversation is Ray Tetlow of Skyytek. Ray spoke as an early ByD partner at SAPPHIRENOW Orlando. During this forty-seven minute podcast, Ray hits me with some rapid-fire answers to a slew of key ByD questions, such as how he intends to train ByD professionals, why SaaS consultants are easier to bring up to speed in ByD than "on-premise" SAP consultants, and the appeals and drawbacks of the SaaS consulting model.

In this thirty-five minute podcast, Jon Reed and Andy Klee have their second two-way conversation. Andy starts by putting Jon on the JonERP hot seat and getting his conference reactions to SaaS/Business ByDesign, Sybase, and certification, then Jon returns the favor with questions to Andy on his conference takeways. Jon also surprises Andy with a question about how Oracle/JDE and SAP consultants compare.

What's the latest on SAP certification? How did the Mentors fare on the SAPPHIRE floor and what did they learn in their conversations with SAP executives and ASUG members? And what are the keys to navigating a successful SAP career in the midst of technical change and skills commoditization? That's a meaty menu for a podcast! For this live SAPPHIRE NOW taping, four SAP Mentors, including three members of the "Certification Five" gathered in the Mentor meeting room to give you their best ideas (and a few off color comments) on SAP skills trends.

When you begin a podcast, you never know how it will turn out. I had high hopes that the combined voices of Jim Spath, Tony de Thomasis, and Phil Avelar would advance the Solution Manager conversation with new insights and a clash of perspectives, but you never know. The end result exceeded my own expectations. With good humor but a frank style that underscored their different perspectives, these guys nailed it. We taped this four way, fifty minute podcast on Skype, and while the sound quality is solid, there is the occasional piece of background noise. I think you'll find that any occasional sound blips are more than worth it for the caliber of the content.

How is the SAP consultant skill set changing? Do companies really want "SAP Business Process Expert" skills or is it a top-down invention? And why are "soft skills" becoming more important to SAP professionals? And what does "soft skills" mean anyway? To get to the bottom of these topics, Jon talks with Guy Couillard, President of OTA. During this 40 minute podcast, learn why Jon thinks OTA is one of the best kept secrets in the SAP consulting space. Hear Jon and Guy talk about what customers are looking for from SAP consultants, how they fall short, and find out what to do about it.

Podcast guest Jim Spath is a fan of the Bengies Drive-In Theatre. And just like the drive-in, we've got a podcast double feature for you. In part two (the part in this description), Jim and I talk about our shared interest in improving the public discussion on SAP Solution Manager and why we think this public airing is important. In part one of our double feature, we talked about getting the most out of ASUG 2010.

Podcast guest Jim Spath is a fan of the Bengies Drive-In Theatre. And just like the drive-in, we've got a podcast double feature for you. In part one (the part in this description), Jim and I talk about ASUG 2010 Orlando and why the ASUG part of the show matters (Jim is presenting at ASUG 2010 on compressing database objects).

In a milestone podcast for JonERP.com - the first about a small enterprise SAP solution - Jon Reed of JonERP.com interviews Eric Brown, CEO of Johnson Products, about his company's experiences as an early Business By Design (ByD) customer. During the thirty-five minute conversation, Eric gives the background on the Johnson Products story that captured the audience's attention at the SAP Influencer Summit in December 2009.

Establishing yourself as an independent SAP consultant is no easy project. Today's interview subject has pulled it off. Matthias Liebich, senior SAP Pricing consultant, has expertise in SAP Pricing that dates back to the R/2 days. During this special 16 minute podcast, which I recorded live with Matthias in his home office in Atlanta, Georgia, I ask Matthias about why SAP Pricing consultants are necessary and how he has managed to keep himself marketable over the years.

Join Jon Reed and special guest Craig Cmehil of SAP for this 70 minute seventh edition as they take on reader questions on whether SAP community involvement has a real career impact (or not), and the right approach SAP job change. Then the guys head into a market discussion on social media hype and whether the enterprise should be more like Facebook. The feature discussion looks closely at the topic of SAP community involvement, with Craig spicing up the podcast with an honest, personal take on his own career transitions.

Join Jon Reed and special guests Johannes and Vijayasankar for this 65 minute sixth edition as they tackle reader questions on the CRM-Solution Manager connection, and whether SD or CRM is a better career path. Then the guys head into a market discussion on the state of CRM in an on demand world, how SAP can improve its CRM strategy, and most importantly, the keys to success as an SAP CRM professional.

Welcome to the fifth edition of The ERP Lounge: Misadventures and Opportunities in SAP Consulting, the new podcast series from JonERP.com! The ERP Lounge is the new "long form" podcast series that features uncensored, in-depth discussions on the hard truths and real opportunities in the SAP skills marketplace. All ERP Lounge podcasts kick off with reader questions from listeners like yourself!

What business trend will SAP have to tackle in 2010 to stay relevant? And what is the future of ERP training amidst all the virtual training hype? How does SAP certification impact the SAP hiring process and, and how are new "social networking" sites like LinkedIn making their presence felt when consultants are evaluated? Oh, and how does Jon Reed make money anyway? What exactly is the JonERP.com business model?

What is the future of SAP consulting? Why do SAP customers struggle with SAP after go live? Where are the gaps in service that traditional Systems Integrators can't fill? To get to the bottom of these questions, I asked Greg Tomb, founder and CEO of Vivido Labs and former CEO of SAP North America, to join our podcast series and give us his take on how SAP consulting is changing.

Welcome to the fourth edition of The ERP Lounge: Misadventures and Opportunities in SAP Consulting, the new podcast series from JonERP.com! The ERP Lounge is the new "long form" podcast series that features uncensored, in-depth discussions on the hard truths and real opportunities in the SAP skills marketplace. All ERP Lounge podcasts kick off with reader questions from listeners like yourself!

At SAP TechEd, I was involved with numerous video shoots and podcast tapings. But my favorite from the conference stands out clearly: this live SAP tech skills chat with the Enterprise Geeks. What stood out about this taping? It was live, without a net, talking without any script or planning on the future of SAP technical careers - with a live audience asking us questions and watching to see if our material and views were credible.

Too often, realizing SAP career dreams is seen as a process of seniority: until you have paid your dues for many years, you won't see the payback. While hard work is never a bad thing, Brian Dennett of Colgate-Palmolive has a different story: just two years into his SAP career, he was a Demo Jam finalist at SAP TechEd Phoenix 2009 (link to full SAP DemoJam replay). This was a powerful reminder that SAP career success in today's market has as much to do with late night bursts of content creation as it does with cubicle-based dues paying. To find out more about Brian's great story and get a view into his own career path, I had the opportunity to tape a live podcast with him at SAP TechEd 2009.

Many still think of SAP BPM as futuristic stuff - images of "business users putting on propeller hats" might be one way to dismiss these trends. That's why I was excited to do a podcast with SAP's Greg Chase, who had approached me prior to SAP TechEd Phoenix to tell me about the customers SAP was hearing from who were looking for a type of SAP BPM skill set that was not readily available.

One of the most controversial issues in the SAP community today is the question of SAP Enterprise Support and whether the support justifies the cost. In the flurry of blog posts on this topic, an important viewpoint can get overlooked: the day-to-day experience of SAP customers. Recently, Panaya, an SAP third party solutions provider, released their 2009 SAP Support Costs Survey. This survey put some meat on the bone of the hot topics in SAP support, such as the cost of support per user, the attitudes towards Enterprise Support, and the key support challenges that SAP users face.

SAP is at a serious crossroads. The ERP market is in a state of significant disruption. The down economy has not only slowed sales; it's created a fertile ground for Software as a Service business models. As I say in the podcast, how SAP responds to these market challenges is going to have a lot to say about its future. Those of us who work in the SAP community have a lot at stake as well. On the consulting side, the commoditization of basic ERP skills is challenging consultants to find a "higher skills ground."

Welcome to the third edition of The ERP Lounge: Misadventures and Opportunities in SAP Consulting, the new podcast series from JonERP.com! The ERP Lounge is the new "long form" podcast series that features uncensored, in-depth discussions on the hard truths and real opportunities in the SAP skills marketplace. All ERP Lounge podcasts kick off with reader questions from listeners like yourself!

A handful of people in the SAP industry are distinguished by their truly outstanding contributions to the SAP community. Kevin Wilson, co-founder of ERPGenie.com and partner with Qdata USA, Inc, is one of those people. ERPGenie.com has supported the skills growth of thousands of SAP professionals. So what is the philosophy behind ERPGenie's success? And how has Kevin Wilson used those same principles to build his own SAP consulting career? What are his keys to finding a marketable niche in the SAP market and becoming a thought leader?

Welcome to the second edition of The ERP Lounge: Misadventures and Opportunities in SAP Consulting, the new podcast series from JonERP.com! The ERP Lounge is the new "long form" podcast series that features uncensored, in-depth discussions on the hard truths and real opportunities in the SAP skills marketplace. From this point forward, all ERP Lounge podcasts kick off with reader questions from listeners like yourself!

What are the keys to becoming a successful SAP developer? Why is SAP MII becoming such an important piece of functionality? And what do technical SAP folks need to learn from functional specialists and vice versa? In this podcast, Jon Reed of JonERP.com gets the answers to these questions with SAP Mentor Abesh Bhattacharjee of SAP Labs. In the debut of a podcast Jon and Abesh have been plotting since last December, Abesh shares the good news of the release of his new book on Implementing and Configuring SAP MII from SAP Press (co-authored by fellow SAP Mentor Dipankar Saha) and gives his insight on the importance of SAP MII and shop floor visibility to SAP users.

Thomas Wailgum, Senior Editor of CIO.com and the man behind the "Enterprise Software Unplugged" blog, is a self-described "wiseass." Those who follow his blog know that he isn't afraid to mix it up a little bit and poke a little fun at ERP heavyeights. What you might not know is that Thomas has been at CIO.com for 13 years - an amazingly long time given the ups and downs of dotcoms and online media. I wanted to get Thomas on a podcast and ask him how the ERP market has changed over his years at CIO.com, what he has learned from his interviews with CIOs, and get his take on the pros and cons of SAP in today's market. Thomas is also a fun ERP presence on Twitter, so you may want to follow him there.

What's the best way to overcome inaccurate perceptions? By gathering comprehensive data. And what's the best way to put a vendor in context? Study the broader market. Eric Kimberling, President of Panorama Consulting, does both of these things in the ERP space. To get a better handle on keys to SAP project success (and how to avoid failure), as well as the impact of SaaS and the key skills ERP users should be cultivating, I invited Eric to join me and to share Panorama's findings with JonERP listeners. I also put him on the JonERP hot seat and asked him to make his own recommendations for SAP's future direction.

Welcome to the first edition of The ERP Lounge: Misadventures and Opportunities in SAP Consulting, the new podcast series from JonERP.com! The ERP Lounge is the new "long form" podcast series that features freewheeling, in-depth discussions on the hard truths and real opportunities in the SAP skills marketplace. Join Jon and Brian for this 55 minute inaugural edition as they take you inside their vision of The ERP Lounge. Learn why they decided to create this new podcast series, what the structure of the series will be, and listen in on the regular features like "SAP Skills that are Hot/and "Not." This first edition also includes a tribute to the SAP independent consultant, and a hashing out of the differences between a "do as you're told" SAP contractor and a "tell the truth" consultant. And yes, this special series gets its own rockin' musical intro!

Michael Doane, the subject of my first JonERP.com podcast, joins me again for number 50 (though it's the 49th loaded in the system). We celebrate with a new JonERP musical intro(!) as well as an in-depth conversation with the inimitable Michael Doane, author of the classic New SAP Blue Book and the upcoming SAP Green Book: Thrive After Go-Live.

Usually I am the one doing the podcast interviews. But this time around, Muhammad Shaamel, podcaster, blogger, and SAP ERP consultant, turned the tables on me. During this twenty-six minute interview, Muhammad asks me for my take on what's hot and what's not from an SAP skills perspective. He had some excellent questions for me, including the value of certification and whether or not BPM skills can help an SAP consultant.

In this impromptu podcast, inspired by a Twitter conversation thread, Jon Reed interviews Marco ten Vaanholt, VP of the SAP Community Network and the Global Head of the SAP BPX and Business Objects Communities, on how individuals (and project teams) can make a "BPX business case" for SAP TechEd. (Follow Marco on Twitter, and follow SAP TechEd on Twitter.

Sometimes in the glitz of Sapphire announcements, the ASUG part of ASUG/Sapphire gets less attention. To learn more about why the ASUG part of the conference matters - not only to SAP users, but to industry analysts - I invited Gretchen Lindquist, SAP Mentor and stalwart ASUG volunteer, to share her views on ASUG/Sapphire 2009 and the pros and cons of co-location. I also had the opportunity to ask Gretchen about trends in SAP Security from the vantage point of her work as chair of the SAP Security Interest Group (SIG) for ASUG.

In the first installment of his "Sapphire in Review" podcast series, Jon Reed of JonERP.com welcomes special guest Michael Krigsman, President of Asuret and popular ZDNet blogger and Tweeter. Michael's focus is evaluating the keys to IT project success and failure, so during this twenty-eight minute podcast, Jon gets Michael's take on how project failure applies to ERP vendors and SAP specifically. Jon also gets the skinny on Michael's investigations of Business ByDesign at Sapphire, and why he sees SAP's focus on UI improvements and BI enhancements as important to ERP project success. In closing, Michael shares an inside view on what it's like to be part of SAP's Blogger Relations Program, mixing it up with SAP executives.