Saying Goodbye After Eight Amazing Years at SAP

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[SOURCE: Andrew Hurley © 2011, used according to Creative Commons License]
“It feels right. But it’s emotional. Saying goodbye to anything you’ve done that long is hard.” –Angela Ruggiero

 


There is no better music for a reminiscent mood to than RUSH “Time Stand Still”

With a mix of sadness and excitement, I say goodbye to my colleagues at SAP this week after more than eight amazing years. Its no easy task to write a succinct goodbye blog with so much to reflect upon. So I will just focus on saying thanks to the incredible teams, customers, and partners I’ve had the honor to work with. While I name many people in this blog, there’s no way I can name everyone that deserves a thank you. So please contact me later and I’m more than happy to reminisce with you and thank you privately.

SAP is a company like no other. Between the amazing breadth of applications and technologies it’s developed and acquired over the years and the close strategic relationships it’s fostered with many of the world’s most successful brands, SAP well deserves the success it’s earned.

My time at SAP coincides with its transformation from traditional ERP vendor into a cloud services company. During that time I had a chance to hone my marketing skills by working with the world class marketing teams under CMOs Marty Homlish and Jonathan Becher.

I think of my time at SAP in four distinct epochs:

1. Helping SAP get saas-y by bringing SAP Business ByDesign to market
2. Guerrilla marketing for SAP Business Process Management
3. Going back to the cloud
4. Being assimilated by SAP HANA

Helping SAP Get SaaS-y with SAP Business ByDesign

 

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[SOURCE: © 2014 Greg Chase]
I still have my original photo badge from when I first joined SAP eight years ago.

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Nine Ways The Human Resources Department Should Be Connected to a Cloud IT Strategy

Cross posted from my blog at SAP Community Network…

hr.jpgA brief twitter chat session with Jarret Pazahanick, an HCM consultant and SAP Mentor with an interest in better HR processes, had me pondering how an HR department’s business strategy would relate to a comprehensive IT cloud strategy.  Developing a cloud-centered IT strategy is the subject of an ASUG pre-conference event that I’m helping organize the day before the ASUG 2012 / SAPPHIRE NOW conference on May 13.  Seats are still available if you are interested in signing up.