In the Acceleration Economy Cloud Wars Top 10 CEO Outlook 2023 series, Bob Evans interviewed Christian Klein, CEO of SAP. The company ranks #5 on the Cloud Wars Top 10. In this CEO Outlook moment, Klein explains to Bob Evans how SAP is helping its partners in the automotive industry.
Highlights
00:09 — Klein explains how the CEO of BMW noted the fantastic partnership between SAP and BMW, adding that he wanted to take the partnership to the next level. That meeting was where the idea for Catena-X was born.
00:42 — The idea behind Catena-X is to create a global automotive network, in which many of the CEOs “are all wanting SAP.” Supply chains are important and “they need to become more resilient,” notes Klein.
00:55 — Additionally, this global network needed help automating the manufacturing space. Klein describes how SAP built a vertical integration for automating manufacturing shop floors and predictive maintenance for equipment. SAP can successfully “automate a lot of activities around logistics and warehousing.”
01:15 — As it relates to finance, SAP is able to “connect the financial planning with the HR planning, procurement planning, and supply chain planning because you cannot plan in isolation.” In the case of BMW, the company was looking for a way to standardize and build verticals “side-by-side” with the current ERP system.
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