Acceleration Economy
  • Home
  • Cloud Wars
  • Analyst Content
    • By Category
      • AI/AI Index
      • Cloud/Cloud Wars
      • Cybersecurity
      • Data
    • By Interest
      • Leadership
      • Generative AI
      • Partners Ecosystem
      • Process Mining
      • Sustainability
    • By Industry
      • Financial Services
      • Healthcare
      • Manufacturing
      • Retail
    • By Type
      • Guidebooks
      • Summits
      • Roundtables
      • Video Moments
    • By Vendors
      • All Vendors
      • AI/Hyperautomation
      • Cloud
      • Cybersecurity
      • Data
  • Courses
    • Cloud Wars Top 10
    • Selling AI, Cloud, Data & Cybersecurity
    • The Demise of Traditional Go-To-Market Strategies
  • What we do
    • Advisory Services
    • Marketing Services
    • Event Services
  • Who we are
    • About Us
    • Practitioner Analysts
  • Subscribe
Twitter Instagram
  • Courses
  • Summit NA
  • Dynamics Communities
Twitter LinkedIn
Acceleration Economy
  • Home
  • Cloud Wars
  • Analyst Content
        • By Category
          • AI/AI Index
          • Cloud/Cloud Wars
          • CybersecurityThe practice of defending computers, servers, mobile devices, electronic systems, networks, and data from malicious attacks.
          • Data
        • By Interest
          • Leadership
          • Generative AI
          • Partners Ecosystem
          • Process Mining
          • Sustainability
        • By Industry
          • Financial Services
          • Healthcare
          • Manufacturing
          • Retail
        • By Type
          • Guidebooks
          • Summits
          • Roundtables
          • Video Moments
        • By Vendors
          • All Vendors
          • AI/Hyperautomation
          • Cloud
          • Cybersecurity
          • Data
  • Courses
    • Cloud Wars Top 10
    • Selling AI, Cloud, Data & Cybersecurity
    • The Demise of Traditional Go-To-Market Strategies
  • What we do
    • Advisory Services
    • Marketing Services
    • Event Services
  • Who we are
    • About Us
    • Practitioner Analysts
  • Subscribe
    • Login / Register
Acceleration Economy
    • Login / Register
Home » SAP Raises Stakes on Salesforce, Google, Oracle with Huge Bet on Industry Networks
Cloud

SAP Raises Stakes on Salesforce, Google, Oracle with Huge Bet on Industry Networks

Bob EvansBy Bob EvansApril 19, 20215 Mins Read
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email
Share
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email

Nintex ad 5

Nintext ad about centers of excellence

Ten months after launching its Industry Cloud, SAP has dramatically ratcheted up its vertical-market vision by launching an “industry network” that will create open “data ecosystems” targeted at all stakeholders along the industry value chain.

The move comes as Salesforce is expected to disclose its own industry-wide approach, and it’s highly likely that Google Cloud, Oracle, Microsoft and other major players in the booming industry-cloud sector will soon follow suit.

On my weekly Cloud Wars Top 10 rankings, SAP is #5, Salesforce is #4, Google Cloud is #3, Oracle is #6, and Microsoft is #1. We will see where those companies line up on my new Industry Cloud Top 10 rankings when that list makes its debut next week.

In a recent conversation, SAP Industries president Peter Maier and global vice president of SAP automotive industry Hagen Heubach outlined the company’s industry-network plans and offered a significant detail on progress to date with two massive undertakings: the global vaccination initiative centered within the Life Sciences industry, and the automotive-industry network that Heubach is helping to create.

I’ll offer more detail in a future article, but wanted to share in this piece some highlights of SAP’s vision for industry networks, why SAP believes they will generate huge value for stakeholders in each industry and how this new effort blends with SAP’s ambitious Industry Cloud plans.

“I can tell you we are in full execution mode,” said the effusive Maier on a recent call. “I’m an absolute believer that industry networks will be the absolutely key differentiator moving forward for companies to improve their bottom line, their top line, and their new green [sustainability] line.”

Heubach also described the potential of these industry networks in ambitious terms. He said, “For the automotive industry, I can clearly say this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance” to completely reshape how one of the world’s largest and most-dynamic industries operates. 

The key to achieving that breakthrough, according to both executives, is the carefully orchestrated creation and orchestration of several key elements across all industry stakeholders:

  • a unified commitment to sharing data to create the desired “data ecoysystem”;
  • a willingness to adopt open technology platforms supported by multiple providers;
  • a sense of trust that sensitive inventory and pricing data will not be used simply to pound on suppliers for lower prices; and 
  • a commitment to evolving toward an entirely new set of optimized processes that put the customer at the center of the entire industrywide network.

In addition, Maier spelled out several key attributes that these “digital industry networks” can then offer to stakeholders:

  • making value chains more resilient by offering greater visibility in the supply chain and greater predictability in the demand chain; 
  • accelerating product innovation lifecycles via better collaboration and trust;
  • enabling and ensuring greater levels of enterprise compliance and sustainability; and
  • lowering costs, accelerating operations, and creating superior customer experiences.

As an example, Maier cited the extraordinary achievements within the life-sciences industry to create, test and distribute vaccines for COVID-19 in an astonishingly short period of time.

“The producers and manufacturers, at every step of the way, have had to be incredibly flexible for production, distribution, packaging, quality management, transportation, logistics, communication and more,” he said.

In turn, those rigors required a “super-agile infrastructure” that was in place from SAP due to the advocacy of pharmaceutical leader Roche, which helped drive an industry consortium supported by SAP.

Within the automotive sector, Heubach said, the various players up and down the value chain—from some of the world’s leading car companies to small and mid-sized OEMs and service providers—are realizing that they can achieve much more together than they can if they continue to operate in their data silos.

“About 18 months ago, we realized on concert with the big automotive OEMs and suppliers that the opportunity for significant cost savings and other improvements lies not only inside the company. For the last 10 years, digitalization and everything the industry’s been doing around Industry 4.0 was all focused inside a company: the shop floor, intra-logistics chains, etc.,” Heubach said.

“But now we are all agreed that if we’re going to survive, we must create a single data ecosystem” in which everyone shares data in a way that is “secure, neutral and interoperable,” Heubach said. 

That level of commitment in life sciences, automotive, and other industries has inspired SAP to include its Industry Cloud in much broader and aggressive efforts that span entire sectors, Maier said.

“I think industry networks are the next big thing,” Maier said in his concluding remarks to the conversation he, Heubach and I had.

“To play, you have to understand the end-to-end processes along the entire value chain and across industry boundaries. And SAP is a super-strong player that can combine the platform, the industry-cloud applications, and now the network.”

RECOMMENDED READING

Cloud Vendors Confront ‘Highest Risk’ Projects: Database Migration

Can Salesforce Fight Off Google, Microsoft, SAP for #1 in Industry Clouds?

Cloud Wars Top 10 2021 Revenue to Hit $241 Billion: Microsoft $75B, Amazon $60B, IBM $28B

Snowflake Bets Continued Hypergrowth on Explosive Trend in Cloud

Infor Leapfrogs Microsoft, Oracle, SAP: $1 Billion in Vertical Apps

Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian: “Where the Cloud Needs to Go”

10 Reasons Salesforce Expects to Rule Booming Industry-Cloud Market

Disclosure: at the time of this writing, SAP, Google Cloud and Oracle were among the many clients of Cloud Wars Media LLC and/or Evans Strategic Communications LLC.

 

New from Cloud Wars: Subscribe to the Industry Cloud Newsletter, a free biweekly news and commentary update on the booming demand from business leaders for industry-specific cloud applications. 

Cloud Wars Industry-Specific Solutions Latest Articles SAP
Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email
Co-Founderuser

Bob Evans

Founder, Cloud Wars
Co-Founder, Acceleration Economy

Areas of Expertise
  • Cloud
  • Digital Business
  • LinkedIn

Founder of Cloud Wars and Co-Founder of the Acceleration Economy, Bob leads the strategic direction of the global analyst network and actively covers the Cloud and Digital Business categories. Creator of Cloud Wars Top 10, a ranking and ongoing analysis world's most influential tech companies driving digital business and the digital economy. World-class strategic communicator focused on emerging business strategy, disruptive innovation, and forward-looking leadership.

  Contact Bob Evans ...

Related Posts

Workday Revs Up GenAI Innovation Via New Co-Creation Programs

October 2, 2023

Transforming Healthcare Workflow With Oracle’s Greg Pavlik

October 2, 2023

Workday Revs Up GenAI Co-Creation Innovation

October 2, 2023

The Business Impact and Opportunity of Generative AI

Underwritten ContentSeptember 29, 2023
Add A Comment

Comments are closed.

Recent Posts
  • Workday Revs Up GenAI Innovation Via New Co-Creation Programs
  • Transforming Healthcare Workflow With Oracle’s Greg Pavlik
  • Comparing Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft Supply Chain Innovations: Finding the Perfect Fit for Your Business
  • Workday Revs Up GenAI Co-Creation Innovation
  • The Business Impact and Opportunity of Generative AI

  • 2X a week
  • Analyst Videos & Articles
  • Exclusive Digital Business Content
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Most Popular Guidebooks

The Business Impact and Opportunity of Generative AI

September 29, 2023

The State of Process Mining 2023: Unlocking Efficiency and Driving Customer Satisfaction

July 31, 2023

How Workday Creates Agile Monetization Opportunities for CFOs

June 21, 2023

Why & How to Create a Zero-Trust Framework

June 12, 2023

Advertisement
Acceleration Economy
Twitter LinkedIn
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Get In Touch
  • Advertising Opportunities
  • Do not sell my information
© 2023 Acceleration Economy.

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

  • Login
Forgot Password?
Lost your password? Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.