Understanding 'Protect the Core': Modern Custom Development Techniques and SCP

The thought of a migration to S/4HANA can be intimidating and overwhelming. There is a wealth of information on the market and with no simple answer or solution. Each organisation is at a different state of S/4HANA readiness, but the question begs; how do we know if, and when we are ready? In this session we plan to demystify all the uncertainty and though one migration does not fit all organisations, there is a tremendous amount of value that is earned by each and every one. The following topics will be covered; How to assess your S/4HANA migration readiness; what tools are available to organisations; how to build a business case leveraging your readiness test; different types of migrations; Greenfield, Brownfield and Bluefield; how to determine which migration is right for you and; a demonstration of a sample project plan with actual costs. With any major technology transition organisations are not confident in their capacity in terms of expertise and resource availability to execute such a project. The risk is high, but the business must continue to operate without interruption, leveraging an organisation with keen SAP expertise is essential. This session will help to guide you in selecting the best possible approach to this exciting initiative and key recommendations in getting ready and ensuring success.

Key takeaways:

• Migrations can be as little as a lift and shift or as large as a complete business transformation but all of them require some level of impact
• Multiple iterations are key to reduce risk and optimise downtime
• Migrations mainly affect or deal with your data. Migration of a copy of production data is essential

The Business World Is Changing - Is your SAP Implementation Keeping Up?

The traditional borders between industries are blurring. Where there once were product-driven industries and service industries, we now find car companies selling mobility services and agri-nutrient companies selling fertilisers to individual farmers, changing the requirements for billing and controlling. Finance organisations are expected to deliver better quality information faster. Again, where once corridors were full of paper lists, now managers expect to find a smartphone app with a list of critical open items and key actions. Nobody is prepared to wait for the period close to see their margins or the consolidated view of their business. As business models change, Finance is expected to deliver better steering information and advise their business rather than simply checking the numbers are correct. These topics are covered in "SAP S/4HANA Finance - The Reference Guide to What's New" and this session will dive into some of the reasons why organisations have begun a transformation and what they have achieved.

Additionally, the session will explore:

1. How industry requirements are changing and how this is reflected in the software
2. How the requirements on a finance organisation are changing and how SAP S/4HANA Finance supports this
3. How reporting requirements are changing and organisations are looking to introduce new steering models

How to Bring Innovation to Your SAP Operations

This session will take you through my career, showing how I have innovated at various stages. What things have worked and what hasn't worked, why they haven't worked and what I learnt from them.

Key Takeaways:

• Ways to innovate
• How to stay ahead and keep pushing yourself
• Things to remember when innovating

Adopt SAP S/4HANA Finance Innovations with Central Finance

With Central Finance, you can transition to SAP S/4HANA without disruption to your current system landscape. The solution follows a side-car approach and replicates financial transactions in real-time from existing SAP and third-party systems onto a single Central Finance instance. This Master Class gives a comprehensive look into key value cases and use scenarios for Central Finance, as well as its unique ability to combine harmonisation, analysis, and reporting on one central platform, enabling many cutting-edge finance innovations along the way. Learn how, even in heterogeneous system landscapes, Central Finance can bring together its functions as value creator, transformation platform, and reporting hub to guide the finance organisation of any given enterprise into the digital future.

Join this session to learn:
- How Central Finance works and what it offers
- Why our customers chose to adopt the Central Finance approach
- Discover how Central Finance can become your stepping stone to Finance Transformation
- Which finance applications unearth synergies when combined with the Central Finance approach

Where Can Your People (Data) Take You?

SuccessFactors People Analytics based on SAP Cloud Analytics (SAC) is a milestone and a huge step forward for SuccessFactors reporting. Yet to take real advantage of this solution we need to think about and possibly re-imagine the data that we are capturing to allow us to start asking the hard questions of data. Analytics is a step beyond reporting, yet unless we can capture meaningful data points we will struggle to get full value out of this new functionality. Chris works through some common questions that business would like our people data to be able to answer and shows how we can ensure that we engineer our data processes to capture the necessary data points.

HR Digital Transformation in the Age of Experiences

The dynamics of how and why people work is changing, impacted by and in parallel with broader social, economic and technological shifts on a global scale. Skilled labour markets are more competitive than ever, and we must excel in attracting, retaining, growing and reskilling top talent to compete in this new environment. Employee expectations have changed dramatically in the last decade. They seek flexibility and autonomy. They expect consumer-grade experiences in the workplace and would also like to see menial and manual tasks disappear or automated.

How does one then set up the HR digital transformation in this experience age? What should be focus areas of such a vision? How should we set up experiences that will help engage employees and accelerate the propagation of the company’s culture thus attracting the talent that is looking for such meaningful interactions.

This masterclass will address the above in the context of how Microsoft is implementing SAP Success Factors HCM ERP and is leveraging this investment to create delightful and meaningful employee experiences for its’ workforce.

Key takeaways:

• How to set up the modern HR vision that focuses on Employee Experiences
• How to think about delightful experiences for employees in the modern world and compete with consumer experiences that they enjoy outside
• How to execute on such a vision to achieve results swiftly

Getting Outside the Bubble: How the Rest of the World Does DevOps and Patterns For Importing Those Approaches To the SAP Context

SAP solution teams are often segregated from other technology platforms in a company, but neither SAP nor the development and operations of SAP systems exists in a vacuum. There is a lot to learn from other technology areas, in terms of process, technology, and most importantly practice. Learn how distributed teams of JavaScript, R, Ruby, Python, Java, and C# developers work together efficiently to develop and run large applications. In other words, DevOps. Once we’ve covered some real-world examples, we’ll tackle harder questions. Why don’t the same approaches always work when we import them into the SAP development context? What can we do to adapt our ways of working and the approaches from the rest of the industry so that they can be effectively applied to SAP development, operations, and configuration? Fortunately, individuals and teams in the SAP space have already done a lot of the work to answer these questions. After we establish the conceptual understanding of how the rest of the world works and some of the advantages and disadvantages of these approaches, we’ll dive into patterns for applying DevOps to SAP and hybrid landscapes. Learn how to integrate practices, technology, and process from the rest of the industry into our SAP world, and how can we help to lead the technology process of our companies. In addition to strategies, we’ll cover patterns that you can adapt to your own business, and real-world examples.

Key takeaways:

• What is DevOps and how it is practised outside of the SAP world, including real examples
• Why applying DevOps to SAP can be challenging, and what we can do to adapt
• Patterns for implementing DevOps practices that you can apply to your own business

Creating the Ideal Employee Experience with an Agile Global People Platform

Preparing an organisation for the future people-centric business model is key. This means leveraging your people and their unique talent to create differentiation and advantage for your organisation and its mission. Furthermore, to become a magnet for talent means being a brand that people want to join. Preparing an organisation for the future people-centric business model is key. This means leveraging your people and their unique talent to create differentiation and advantage for your organisation and its mission. Furthermore, to become a magnet for talent means being a brand that people want to join. Creating the ideal employee experience requires delivering value to every person, every day. This means surfacing individualised and meaningful insights which propel careers and productivity forward. To be able to manage an agile workforce in these dynamic times the organisation must be able to respond to market conditions, shifting customer preferences, competitive pressures and governmental regulations by aligning their people, teams, and workforce. SAP delivers a global people platform and enables organisations to deliver solutions across the candidate experience, the employee experience and the HR experience. SAP provides a platform that can be at the centre of your HR infrastructure. SAP SuccessFactors brings you all three of these elements together, so you can deliver exceptional experiences that fundamentally improve the moments that matter.

Key Takeaways:

• SAP delivers a global people platform enables organisations to deliver solutions across the candidate experience, the employee experience and the HR experience
• How this platform can be at the centre of your HR infrastructure
• SAP SuccessFactors can bring you all three of these elements together in order for you to deliver exceptional experiences that fundamentally improve the moments that matter

A Journey to a Single Instance of SAP

A Journey to a Single Instance of SAP When Mosaic was formed in late 2004, there were 3 ERP systems that complicated financial close timing and fragmented reporting. The consolidation of critical information was labour-intensive and exceptionally time-consuming. In order to move forward, Mosaic had to determine the best road forward for a newly formed international company. A decision was made to commit to a vision of a single global instance of SAP. This was the beginning of a five-year journey to realise worldwide efficiencies in a multi-phase integration that would give the company "one source of the truth" and standardised process. The phased approach was determined to the most risk averse and provide insurance of quality results.

You will learn how Mosaic tackled each phase and learned from each completed step of the integration. You will also learn about how the global instance contributed to a SWIFT bank connectivity implementation. Attendees will come away with a roadmap to a single global instance and the value it brings to a large multinational. We will review the guiding principles that led to the successful installation and configuration of SAP. Lessons learned during the five-year path to "one source of the truth" will be shared. The overall efficiencies gained will be reviewed that created a common technical language in our multiple country environment. The single instance leaves Mosaic positioned to take advantage of new technologies on a global scale.

Key takeaways are:

1. Establishing and focusing on a clear vision of the SAP implementation
2. How success cascaded through the various implementations with the application of "lessons learned"
3. How the single instance positioned Mosaic for taking advantage of new technologies. advantage of new technologies on a global scale

Developing a Reporting Strategy That Maximises Value For Decision Making

A robust reporting & analytics strategy that empowers users in your enterprise to carry out speedy analysis and thus make faster and accurate decisions is imperative. In this ‘always connected’ world where you need to be constantly ahead of your competition and not to stumble or perish, you need to constantly slice and dice your data and in real time to not only understand what went wrong and what you could have done better but also plan intelligently for the future. In other words, combine the hindsight from your historical data with the insights of your analysis to provide foresights into the future. Alas, most enterprises, despite sitting on a treasure-trove of data, are hamstrung in their ability to maximise its value due to an inchoate reporting & analytics strategy. And if you have invested into BI tools (SAP or non-SAP) and are not realising the value out of them, it is time to develop a reporting strategy. In this session, I will lead you through a discussion on developing a reporting strategy that maximises value for decision-making based on my two decades of experience helping Fortune 500 companies leverage their SAP reporting & BI tools.

We will cover the key drivers, SAP reporting/BI applications, hybrid reporting/BI strategies, importance of data quality and governance, what are the key impediments your organisation faces in establishing a reporting strategy & lesson learned.

Key Takeaways:
1. Why organisations need a reporting strategy & key drivers
2. SAP’s overall reporting & analytics strategy & roadmap
3. SAP reporting & BI applications
4. Garbage In Garbage Out (aka importance of data quality & governance)
5. Key challenges/impediments your organisation faces in implementing a reporting strategy
6. Lessons learned/Best Practices discussion

Getting The Most Out of Your SAP Financials Applications

In this session attendees will be made aware of the power of the SAP system that they already possess. You don't always have to buy the latest and greatest tools to improve system functionality and performance! Understand the problem, and explore what might have been a better solution, review the tools available and make the most of your under-used functionality, a lot is hiding away in SAP, e.g. the CO module, which many Finance analysts shy away from.

Are system settings set in stone at go-live? What are the options to extend your system life? Are your end-users getting the most from your system? What can you do to help them? This informative session will explore answers to all these pressing questions!

Key takeaways:

1. Make the most of under-used functionality
2. Understand how to change system settings that appear set in stone at go-live
3. How to enable end-users to get the most from your system

The Future of ABAP Programming: All That You Know Is At An End

There are several seismic changes going on in the world of ABAP programming. Notable examples include abapGit for version control and the RESTful ABAP Programming Model. Having been involved with both initiatives I will share the utopian dream that is the future of ABAP development.

Key takeaways:

• The ABAP language is evolving faster than ever before
• A Test-Driven Development mindset is needed to compete in the modern world
• abapGit is the future of change control
• Version management in the SAP world

Improving Employee Experience: From Multiple Entry Points to a Central Entry Point with SAP Cloud Platform

End users are challenged these days with multiple entry points to multiple SAP and non-SAP systems. Join this session to learn how SAP evolves the SAP Fiori launchpad towards a central entry point on SAP Cloud Platform. You’ll learn how to integrate business apps from on-premise (e.g. S/4HANA) and cloud applications (e.g. SAP SuccessFactors) into a common experience following the SAP Fiori 3 design guidelines.

Key Takeaways:

• SAP Fiori Front End Server recommendations and best practices
• How to achieve a central entry point on SAP Cloud Platform across cloud and on-premise systems
• SAP Fiori 3 availability on SAP Cloud Platform

Innovation Lessons From Working In the SAP Ecosystem

Innovation is a word that somehow contains a lot of promise. But how do we unlock the potential of it? This fascinates us all, which is why people asked for a session on the topic of innovation. Let’s look at some lessons from working on innovation projects in various parts of the SAP ecosystem in Africa. We all have different roles and paths how we grow in this large ecosystem. Which innovation model will suit you best for where you are now? How do we make innovation happen? Perhaps some areas more likely to deliver value or create new business models than others. How do we find those areas? And how do we keep ourselves honest and keep it real?

There are plenty of things to watch out for with innovation projects – uncertainty, risks, costs, and ownership of IP can trip us up. Then let’s not forget about choosing an appropriate go-to-market strategy. A bad combination of these can easily kill our strongest ideas. SAP can help with your innovation journey. The problem is often to figure out how. We invite you to join us in examining the exciting topic of innovation, and on the rewarding journey of thinking differently.

Key Takeaways:

• How to make innovation happen
• Things to watch out for with innovation projects
• Benefits when you do innovation right

What Makes Change Management Work?

In this interactive discussion, representatives from Cipla, Mediclinic and Sanlam will share their experiences, challenges and successes in each of their organisations relating to change management. You will learn about the various practical steps taken by Sanlam when transforming the employee experience in the move to drive the digital employee experience and enablement journey. They will examine the interconnected nature of the relationship between HR, IT and Marketing in making efficient use of talent data for the future. Hear from Mediclinic about their agile approach and how they managed to customise their change approach to each division within the business. Learn how Cipla made change management work within their organisation, and leave with some tips and tricks around the successes and challenges that they faced.

Automating Accounts Payable is a Journey And Not a Destination – The Engen Story

Join Kavitha from Engen as she takes you through a journey on:

• How Engen transitioned from a decentralised manual financial operation to a centralised automated and highly efficient financial operation
• The implementation of AP automation
• Ongoing post go-live activity to analyse and incrementally improve automation rates to maximise benefits and cost savings

The presentation will explore the challenges faced, how challenges were overcome, the learnings as well as concrete evidence of the success of the journey

S/4HANA Customer Insights – Preparations, Implementations & Post-Implementation Stories

Join this S/4HANA Customer discussion to hear from Engen, Sappi and others about their experiences and perspectives thus far in their SAP Implementation Journey. Hear about S/4HANA preparations, the implementation, as well as post-implementation stories.

Our Journey Towards Predictive Analytics

Many companies are in a data driven transformation process and are facing challenges following the transformation roadmap. Traditional BI Managers are asking how they can elevate from a base of descriptive reporting to predictive analytics. We are applying a socio-technical framework in order to identify our critical success factors on this journey. We will share with you the experiences gained during our journey. Three years ago, we started with seven BI consultants and grew to more than 100 data professionals. This is our story about exporting South African BI and analytics skills to our global user base.

Key Takeaways:

• A true South African success story
• Real world examples
• Value in our people's diversity

Innovation Lessons From Working In the SAP Ecosystem

Innovation is a word that somehow contains a lot of promise. But how do we unlock the potential of it? This fascinates us all, which is why people asked for a session on the topic of innovation. Let’s look at some lessons from working on innovation projects in various parts of the SAP ecosystem in Africa. We all have different roles and paths how we grow in this large ecosystem. Which innovation model will suit you best for where you are now? How do we make innovation happen? Perhaps some areas more likely to deliver value or create new business models than others. How do we find those areas? And how do we keep ourselves honest and keep it real?

There are plenty of things to watch out for with innovation projects – uncertainty, risks, costs, and ownership of IP can trip us up. Then let’s not forget about choosing an appropriate go-to-market strategy. A bad combination of these can easily kill our strongest ideas. SAP can help with your innovation journey. The problem is often to figure out how. We invite you to join us in examining the exciting topic of innovation, and on the rewarding journey of thinking differently.

Key Takeaways:

• How to make innovation happen
• Things to watch out for with innovation projects
• Benefits when you do innovation right

Insights & Learnings into SAP BPC

Join this discussion to hear from Royal Swaziland Sugar Corporation, Northam Platinum Limited and more, about how an organisation can get the most out of their BPC investment. Insights will be shared about the different solutions to suit your business needs, and how to better utilise BPC to derive maximum value.

Our Journey Towards Predictive Analytics

Many companies are in a data driven transformation process and are facing challenges following the transformation roadmap. Traditional BI Managers are asking how they can elevate from a base of descriptive reporting to predictive analytics. We are applying a socio-technical framework in order to identify our critical success factors on this journey. We will share with you the experiences gained during our journey. Three years ago, we started with seven BI consultants and grew to more than 100 data professionals. This is our story about exporting South African BI and analytics skills to our global user base.

Key Takeaways:

• A true South African success story
• Real world examples
• Value in our people's diversity

Anglo American Electronic Manning Board: An Innovative Way to Provide Full Visibility of Your Labour to HR and Line Management

To address the challenges, Anglo embarked on a journey to develop an electronic manning board with “near real-time” SAP information. A user interface file was introduced to provide us with an accurate onscreen display of the entire organisation’s production and services teams, it also gave us full sight of the legal and mandatory training compliance for every employee and it enabled configuration of business rules to ensure error free transactions in SAP. The electronic manning board empowers line management to take full control of their own labour, to move required resources within teams and match to the production requirements of the day. EMB can be accessed from everywhere, anytime by any user with MDM (Mobile Device Management). The result? Swift real-time employee movements, full teams and correct labour at the workplace and ultimately improved production levels. I will demonstrate the Electronic Manning board, which will include the “manning board display” and illustration of its core functionalities.

After Go-Live - Realising the Value of Your IT investment

Success for most IT projects means delivering the project on time and within budget, however, the part that is most often neglected is the successful transition of the IT project into the business as usual operating mode and the successful anchoring of the project in the business. The true value of your company's IT investment is only ever realised if the system is properly used as described in the initial business case to deliver the benefits.

In this session, we will dive into how we ensured that the IT project is aligned to a business need and supports a business strategy, early engagement with the support team and support vendors & defining change management impact and strategy. You will also learn about how we set up the support environment and had business owning the solution.

Pramendh will walk you through how they measured the use of the system in business & how they measured the benefits delivered by the system - process efficiencies, cost saving, IT security, system replacement.

This session will leave you with insight on:
1. Measuring the IT investment
2. Successful change management
3. Post Go Live support for the IT project

Test Automation with Selenium and Sikuli for SAP

As a result of Agile/DevOps transformation and shift left approach more dynamic test solutions and tool are required to increase delivery agility on IT projects.

There is a wide variety of tools available to support whatever software products being delivered; each of these tools can fulfil particular demands. In the case of our business, there was a need for a test automation solution that integrated to our tool stack and enabled us to achieve faster test automation for SAP. Despite the wide availability of tools none, met our requirements.

Having learnt the benefits of web testing tools like Selenium, we then investigated a similar tool stack to carter for SAP. This led us to a discovery of SikuliX. Integrated with Selenium, Jenkins, Jira, confluence and supporting plug-ins, we were able to achieve what we were initially looking for with regards SAP Test Automation.

This approach showed remarkable results in terms of velocity and agility in comparison to available tools we have for SAP. Using one scenario within purchasing solution for example, the solution was 400% faster than other tools.

Although there is room for improvement for the solution, the tool has higher versatility than other test automation tool and it enables feature teams to automate SAP Tests within the agile delivery of our products.

Key Takeaways:
- Reduction in overhead for start-up and repetitive testing
- Simplifying end to end test after multiple sprints for testing
- Easily integrates with the latest agile delivery tools

Finance in a Federated Business Model – Bringing it all Together

Aspen Pharmacare, leading South African Pharmaceutical company recognised the value of standard and global Finance processes, even in a company with a strong federated business model. An interesting and challenging journey had to be undertaken to address the key areas in delivering on the Group objectives.

You will learn about the steps taken to reinvent the way that the Group Finance Projects teams approach Financial and supporting processes and the enablement thereof. Learn how Aspen mapped the journey by embracing fit-to-standard Pharma processes and by supporting the federated business units proactively. Some of the topics to be discussed include: Overview of current ERP and Finance system landscape; the positioning and value of the Group Finance Projects function; GSCP; localisation costs; Contract and Lease management; reporting requirements – Global and local; master data challenges – making sense of it all; today vs where we want to be – our roadmap.

Attendees will be taken through the journey on how Group Finance Projects are empowering the Aspen organisation to provide accurate, yet granular reporting and robust supporting processes. The support and standardisation drive and associated challenges faced in the Federated Business model and complex ERP landscape will be valuable lessons learnt to the audience.

This session will provide you with insights into:
1. Master-data processes are critical to understand and manage in a federated business model
2. Financial reporting is not only about getting the reports right, but also about ensuring sustainable supporting processes and configuration
3. Do not over-complicate basic requirements (e.g. Real-Estate management for Contracts and Lease management)

Insights & Learnings into SAP BPC

Join this discussion to hear from Royal Swaziland Sugar Corporation, Northam Platinum Limited and more, about how an organisation can get the most out of their BPC investment. Insights will be shared about the different solutions to suit your business needs, and how to better utilise BPC to derive maximum value.

S/4HANA Finance Customer Insights – Preparations, Implementations & Post-Implementation Stories

Join this S/4HANA Finance discussion to hear from Sappi, Royal Swaziland Sugar Corporation and The Spar Group about their experiences and perspectives thus far in their SAP Implementation Journey. Hear about S/4HANA Finance preparations, the implementation, as well as post-implementation stories.

Travel Claims in SAP ESS; Really!?!

An overview of how AfriSam South Africa simplified Employee travel and other expense claims using standard SAP functions available in ECC6 and Employee Self Service. There is an emphasis on simplicity; No bells and whistles, just simple easy to implement and easy to use functionality. The primary purpose of this session would be how to get more value from your existing SAP modules. ESS does not have to be on Fiori and not all SAP projects need to have long timelines and large budgets.

Key Takeaways:

• How to get more value from your existing SAP modules
• ESS does not have to be on Fiori
• Not all SAP projects need to have long timelines and large budgets

Sappi Southern Africa HR: Global HR Processes on EC and in the Cloud

There is an immense commercial value for businesses to increase efficiency for HR and IT by eliminating redundant tasks. Optimising the HR system landscape and enabling HR data leads to better operational and strategic decisions being made. There are also lessons to be learned by understanding instant and comparable insights in Sappi globally. There is also something to be said about implementing global processes benefitting from scale simplification, standardisation and harmonisation complying with local labour laws and legislation. Insights will be provided into integration points relating to EC to SSF Recruitment, AD to EC and Workflows to various stakeholders. The session with have a section devoted exclusively to Change Management including issues relating to adoption, acceptance, usage and change by reviewing some of the challenges and lessons learned.

Key Takeaways:
- Why did Sappi do it?
- How did Sappi do it?
- What did Sappi learn from doing it?

Ctrl_Alt_Delete: What, If Anything, Would We Have Done Differently in Our SuccessFactors Project?

This session brings together three HR executives to discuss various SuccessFactors Implementation roadmaps and experiences. The panel will review lessons learned when implementing Recruitment (Administration & Marketing), Onboarding/Offboarding, Performance/Goal Management, Employee Central and integration to payroll on SAP ECC. Other points of discussion include what to consider prior to starting your implementation, key decisions during and post implementation support. SAP may say “start anywhere, go anywhere” however, there are many considerations relating to time management, recruitment management, onboarding as well as Job Architecture. Understand the intricacies involved in having multiple disparate HR systems, a multi-national footprint with no centralisation of HR processes, reporting or governance. These are all items that required serious consideration prior to embarking on the journey.

Our panelists will discuss unique experiences of implementation in their organisations which could add great value in planning your own SAP roadmap.

The Future of Finance

The current rate of manual work in most businesses far exceeds an optimal level, not only in day-to-day processes but month-end closure too. This leads to a longer time to close, a higher rate of human error, and decrease in employee satisfaction and efficiency. SAP recognised this and developed applications using technology to optimise and streamline business processes, and support out customers in overcoming these challenges.

We will illustrate how by automating repetitive day to day tasks of accountants, you are able to increase data accuracy, encourage continuous closing, and free up time of your finance team to focus on higher value tasks. This ultimately provides you with insight into your business and processes, with which you can take action to make your business run better.

During this session, you will be introduced to the many applications that SAP has developed to support our customers in their journey to financial transformation. This could potentially result in an increase efficiency and reduce errors in the finance department which enables finance to focus on strategic tasks. Businesses are able to perform finance processes faster, reducing kPIs and improve customer service. Finally the use of seamlessly integrated intelligent technologies enables business to operate at an optimal level, providing a competitive edge to all businesses that run SAP.

Key Takeaways:
1. Increase efficiency and reduce errors in the finance department which enables finance to focus on strategic tasks.
2. Perform finance processes faster, reducing kPIs and improve customer service.
3. Intelligent technology such as machine learning, learns from accountant behaviour and starts working immediately while continually adapts without on-going maintenance.

Ctrl_Alt_Delete: What, If Anything, Would We Have Done Differently in Our SuccessFactors Project?

This session brings together three HR executives to discuss various SuccessFactors Implementation roadmaps and experiences. The panel will review lessons learned when implementing Recruitment (Administration & Marketing), Onboarding/Offboarding, Performance/Goal Management, Employee Central and integration to payroll on SAP ECC. Other points of discussion include what to consider prior to starting your implementation, key decisions during and post implementation support. SAP may say “start anywhere, go anywhere” however, there are many considerations relating to time management, recruitment management, onboarding as well as Job Architecture. Understand the intricacies involved in having multiple disparate HR systems, a multi-national footprint with no centralisation of HR processes, reporting or governance. These are all items that required serious consideration prior to embarking on the journey.

Our panelists will discuss unique experiences of implementation in their organisations which could add great value in planning your own SAP roadmap.

The Art of Success

Paddy Upton draws on his immense experience working with companies and teams from around the world to deliver a bespoke talk. Drawing on his knowledge and experience in the areas of high performance, leadership, team culture and modern-day coaching approaches, expect a thrilling and inspiring talk on “The Art of Success”.

Leave this session with insights on:

• The changes in performance/leadership landscape, from industrial to knowledge era
• Harnessing collective intelligence
• Creating thinking employees/athletes
• Personal mastery
• Building confidence, focusing the mind, positive psychology and much more

What Makes Change Management Work?

In this interactive discussion, representatives from Cipla, Mediclinic and Sanlam will share their experiences, challenges and successes in each of their organisations relating to change management. You will learn about the various practical steps taken by Sanlam when transforming the employee experience in the move to drive the digital employee experience and enablement journey. They will examine the interconnected nature of the relationship between HR, IT and Marketing in making efficient use of talent data for the future. Hear from Mediclinic about their agile approach and how they managed to customise their change approach to each division within the business. Learn how Cipla made change management work within their organisation, and leave with some tips and tricks around the successes and challenges that they faced.

Ctrl_Alt_Delete: What, If Anything, Would We Have Done Differently in Our SuccessFactors Project?

This session brings together three HR executives to discuss various SuccessFactors Implementation roadmaps and experiences. The panel will review lessons learned when implementing Recruitment (Administration & Marketing), Onboarding/Offboarding, Performance/Goal Management, Employee Central and integration to payroll on SAP ECC. Other points of discussion include what to consider prior to starting your implementation, key decisions during and post implementation support. SAP may say “start anywhere, go anywhere” however, there are many considerations relating to time management, recruitment management, onboarding as well as Job Architecture. Understand the intricacies involved in having multiple disparate HR systems, a multi-national footprint with no centralisation of HR processes, reporting or governance. These are all items that required serious consideration prior to embarking on the journey.

Our panelists will discuss unique experiences of implementation in their organisations which could add great value in planning your own SAP roadmap.

Game-Changing Innovation with SAP

Join this discussion to hear about some of the game-changing innovation projects that customers locally and abroad are engaging in with the help of SAP. Hear about SAP’s plans for future innovation and get insight into some of the exciting, innovative projects that City of Cape Town and Royal Swazi Sugar Corporation have undertaken.

Surviving & Thriving in the Exponential World

For each of us as individuals to survive and thrive in this rapidly-changing exponential world, we require ever-increasing levels of self-awareness, purposefulness, engagement and accomplishment.

In principle, all managers should be leaders (but sadly are not) and not all leaders need to be in a management position. The reality is that we have to explore who we are as a leader of self, before being a leader of others, teams, organisations or businesses. More than ever, it’s imperative for us to take accountability for actively developing our careers and journey through this time called Life.

Bryan Hattingh, Co-Founder of Cycan, delivers an inspirational address titled “Surviving and Thriving in the Exponential World”, taking the audience through a deeply reflective view of:

• The world, its challenges and opportunities
• The changing face of society and industry
• What the inhibitors are that we need to transcend
• Understanding how to activate of our personal brand and ultimately, internal shift of heart and mind with respect to agility, resilience and creative disruption and innovation are essential.

Ultimately, the keynote informs and inspires the audience, equipping them to take the necessary steps forward in leading a richer, fuller, more accomplished life.

Becoming a Corporate 'Athlete': The Neuroscience Perspective

Recent developments in the field of Neuroscience are giving the scientific world a better understanding of the biological bases of behaviour, how we learn and change.  These developments are already making an impact in the world of organisational development, change management, coaching, training and leadership development.

This session will aim to provide some insight into what are the basic neuroscience principles that drive human behaviour; what this means for a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous corporate environment and; What we can do to develop mental fitness in individuals, team and the organisation. Neuroscience provides a unique perspective to explain why change can be so challenging. As our brains are neuroplastic, we can use our understanding of these principles to enhance our capacity to adapt, collaborate and access our best thinking to find solutions. Developing this capability does not happen automatically. It can be compared to the level of work an athlete needs to put in to become fit and continue performing well.

Key Takeaways:

• Neuroscience provides a unique perspective to explain why change can be so challenging
• As our brains are neuroplastic, we can use our understanding of these principles to enhance our capacity to adapt, collaborate and access our best thinking to find solutions
• Developing this capability does not happen automatically - it can be compared to the level of work an athlete needs to put in to become fit and continue performing well

SAP’s Integration Strategy for the Intelligent Enterprise

Integration becomes the key enabler for intelligent enterprises. SAP pursues the goal of making integration in the cloud and hybrid landscapes easy and simple. SAP bases its integration strategy for the Intelligent Enterprise on four principles: out-of-the-box integration, open integration, holistic integration, and AI-driven integration.

Key Takeaways:

• SAP Cloud Platform Integration Suite and SAP HANA Data Management Suite
• SAP support of all types of integration use cases ranging from the process, data, user, and IoT to analytics-centric integration
• SAP Integration strategy

The HeartMath System

The HeartMath system empowers people to achieve coherence by self-regulating their emotions and behaviours to reduce stress, increase resilience, and unlock their natural intuitive guidance for making more effective choices. This enables people to break through to greater levels of personal balance, creativity, insight and health. HeartMath Publications include over 300 peer-reviewed independent studies utilizing HeartMath techniques and technologies to achieve beneficial outcomes. This presentation will showcase how HeartMath techniques can improve personal effectiveness and quality of life.

By sharing insights from a South African case study and by including an interactive demonstration, the presentation will include practical examples of this powerful tool in action. Delegates will leave with an understanding of each person’s inner journey, the link between emotions and outer results and a simple technique to achieve better outcomes.

Key Takeaways:

• An understanding of each person’s inner journey
•  Link between emotions and outer results
• A simple technique to achieve better outcomes

Can you Report on Data From SAP and SuccessFactors at the Same Time?

Of course you can! EPI-USE Labs will demonstrate how to draw on SAP and SuccessFactors data in the same report, using Query Manager. These days many companies are running a hybrid HCM landscape, with some data in SuccessFactors and the rest (often including payroll) still on-premise. This session will show you how to reduce complexity with HCM reporting, and how to provide professional business reports.

Fast, Ad Hoc Financial Operational Analysis, on Clean Master Data and Operational Data, Without Having to Bother IT... Wouldn't That be Something?

Ensuring correct reporting is mandatory for Finance. That would be easier when everybody involved books the operational and financial transactions properly and on time, and when all the involved master data parameters are clean and tidy. In practice, that is seldom the case, making it hard labour for controllers to figure out what went wrong and what to do about it, connecting the accounting documents in FICO and the operations transactions in the various modules. Is that easy? No, it isn’t. It’s complicated, as complicated as the complex data structure (tables, fields and relations) of SAP. That complexity doesn’t only hurt financial users, it also makes the life of the IT experts hard, as it prevents them to provide swift answers to these (most of the time ad hoc) analysis questions.

Without the proper tooling the financial people typically end up doing it themselves, based on SAP table downloads and loads of Excels. Work that is useless if the underlying data isn’t correct. That brings us to Master Data Quality and Operations Data Quality, two hugely important yet the least ‘sexy’ subjects in Management. The question asked in this session is “Analysis on complex and dirty data - can it be made easier?”

Jacques will explain the concept and background of the software solution. His main topics are that a “True Business User Self-Service” (TBUSS*) system can only work when it is based on:

• A thorough understanding of the complex underlying SAP data structures
• A thorough understanding of the way business users think and operate
• Simple, understandable and effective user interface

Playing with Things - IoT, Hybrid Integration and Process Orchestration Architectures Unpacked

Internet of Things, Machine Learning, Analytics, Big Data, Design Thinking, Blockchain and Data Intelligence are not terms that would be have been used in business circles a decade ago but today they have the ability to turn ordinary organisations into exponential organisations. We will be looking at SAP’s digital innovation technologies that will allow businesses to power digital transformation. This masterclass will give attendees a practical overview of the technologies and services as well as how they can be applied to real-world use cases. In this session, learn how to set up an end-to-end scenario by leveraging key services of a hybrid SAP Landscape.

We will first use the SAP Cloud Platform IoT service to publish IoT device data from a device into the message broker, which will be consumed by SAP Cloud Platform Integration and forwarded to the SAP Cloud Platform Workflow service for a decision step. Based on the workflow decision, it will trigger the creation of a service request in the on-premise SAP Backend System.

Key takeaways are; SAP Hybrid Integration, technologies available and how to apply these technologies.

Top HR Apps To Digitise HR

In today's experience economy, we extend our devices' core capabilities with a mix of free and paid-for apps that we leverage on a need basis. This empowers us to make decisions on the fly. Is your current HR system delivered with use-case-based Apps to extend core capabilities? What impact would this have on your users? How much effort and time would that save you? HR Apps built to extend the SuccessFactors Suite are available today. Come and experience the power of The SAP App Centre. A fully digital, online store where you can discover, try, buy, manage, and deploy trusted partner Apps that extend your existing SAP solutions. You will also see top Apps in action. This session will take you through the journey of seamlessly integrating your chosen Apps into your existing SAP landscapes thereby granting your end-users immediate access to the apps via single sign-on. For partners, there is a service for management and billing, payments, and customer communications directly in The App Centre. With a PO-based ordering system, SAP Ariba payments, support for multiple currencies, and application usage analytics, we’ve truly engineered procurement for the enterprise in the SAP App Centre.

Key Takeaways:

• The live demo of the SAP App Centre will empower customers with hands-on experience on how to find a mix of free and paid-for apps designed to help you digitise HR.
• Partners will be equipped to reach more customers with tools to market, deliver and support their Apps.

See How To Automate GL Reconciliations & Clearing – Directly In SAP

Traditionally SAP users have had no option but to reconcile balance sheets and other GL accounts outside of SAP. This meant downloads to Excel or interfaces to 3rd party systems. Now personnel time can be saved by automating GL reconciliations directly in SAP, using BEST’s SAP add-on module. No more need to replicate data outside of SAP, whilst using the existing SAP security and authorisations to ensure the highest level of audit controls.

Open item clearing in SAP is often time consuming with a high level of manual matching and multiple screens to be processed by users. BEST’s SAP add-on module enables automated clearing across company codes, GL accounts and different fields. Advanced matching algorithms mean high automated matching rates.

In this interactive demo, see how it can all be automated inside SAP, within the existing SAP controls & take home tips on:
1. How GL reconciliations can be automatically performed in SAP.
2. How open item clearing can be automated in SAP.
3. Optimisation of the existing SAP function to save personnel time, improve audit controls and financial reporting.

5 Global Trends That Will Put Tech Teams Back In Control

We live in a rapidly changing world. To remain relevant, companies around the world need to look to the future to see how consumer behaviour and consumer expectation will determine their need to drive innovation. The five global trends, which span distributed computing, climate change, augmented working, experience engineering, and the convergence of digital and physical, will drive substantial change across many industries to define the future of work and future of business. SAP has its role to play in preparing companies, and specifically their tech teams, for the mindset shift and workplace evolution necessary for them to survive as these trends unfold.

Key Takeaways:

• There is more to SAP than we know and SAP can engage as a strategic innovation partner
• The business applications we can build and implement with the SAP platform leverage intelligent technologies to accommodate future of work and future of business scenarios
• SAP provides the capability to extend business data and context to use cases that would have been considered atypical to traditional SAP customers

SuperFast SAP

Companies who are evolving and embracing speed and agility are growing at twice the rate of companies who are struggling to scale innovation. Dream Big – Start Small – Scale Fast. Join this session to learn more!

How the New & Old Worlds of SAP Analytics Combine to Provide CFOs Visibility of Their Organisations Future

As businesses move forward amid continued disruption, the evolution of financial planning processes is not only a natural progression — it’s a necessity for survival. Corporate finance needs to help guide their business through heightened volatility, uncertainty, and risk. As a result, planning processes are evolving; best practices are being adopted and modern, disruptive technology within SAP is being used to enable this transformation process.

What this means is that corporate finance needs to deliver on-demand continuous planning process where various business scenarios can be played almost in real-time. There are three main factors that help the CFO deliver some form of certainty of their future state:

• Relevant information with context
• Financial and operational driver-based planning
• Predictive analytics

The session will discuss these points and reveal, through practical example, how organisations can use their existing investments in SAP BPC together with the innovations in SAP Analytics Cloud to tick all three boxes and provide the CFO with flexible dynamic and relevant plans.

Key takeaways:

• Understand the factors that drive visibility of the future for the CFO
• How to utilise and structure the SAP Planning and Analytics world to maximise on-demand continuous planning process
• Practical example and roadmap of how to structure a planning solution of the future utilising core SAP planning functionality

Preparing to Embrace the New UX in SAP SuccessFactors

SuccessFactors has new functionality called Digital Assistant and Career Explorer which uses limited AI to provide employees with an internal Career search based on their current skills and competencies. The Digital Assistant also provides for a variety of basic question and answer capabilities based on the talent modules within the system.

I will explore how our clients can leverage the new functionality and the brave new world of AI within SuccessFactors and what they need to ensure for it to work in their environments.

The Key Steps to Implementing Effective GRC

Effective GRC is measured by how well business users carry out their access risk management activities. In this session we will discuss how Oceana achieved SAP Security utopia by understanding the importance and interrelationship between the various components of effective GRC, namely the SAP role design, rule set and the access control solution.

Exponential HR Professionals: Reimagining the Work of HR to Enable Dynamic and Digital Ways of Working

The future of work is changing. As traditional jobs are redesigned, there is an increasing need for companies to provide resources and opportunities for lifelong learning. Companies need to be radically open to attract more people who are high-IQ risk-takers in order to generate flows and be plugged into discussions about the future of the workforce.

Driving Employee Engagement Through Mobile Platforms

According to statistics, there are roughly 5 billion unique mobile users in the world with more than half being smartphone users. Most of these users will at some point log in to a site or system to either execute an activity, search for information or just browse around. Employees and users are driven to deliver in shorter timelines and with fewer distractions that influence their interaction needs. The way they experience this engagement lies in our hands and we should make it as simple and user-friendly as possible while delivering the intended message or service.

In this session, Elize will discuss the benefits of mobile user engagement and take you through the SuccessFactors end-user experience to demonstrate how information can be delivered.

The main focus will be on how the entire HR experience can be delivered through a mobile-only approach, negating the need for desktop-based interaction. She will also look at how the existing employee experience can be enhanced for desktop users through the use of the mobile application. Finally, she will share the link between what the mobile capability offers and where these offerings fit into the employee lifecycle and how EPI-USE can accelerate the implementation of these features.

Create an HR Technology Vision and Roadmap Outline

The dynamics of how and why people work is changing, impacted by and in parallel with broader social, economic and technological shifts on a global scale. Employee expectations have changed dramatically in the last decade. While equitable compensation is important, employees want to feel a deep sense of belonging and connection. They would like to work for an organisation with a clear vision and a sense of purpose, one that fosters a culture that is diverse, inclusive, and respectful. They expect consumer-grade experiences at the workplace where they would also like to see menial and manual tasks disappear or automated.

Is it about process simplification, and/or process automation, creating delightful and engaging employee experiences, shrinking budgets or all of the above? These and many more real challenges haunt HR and technology leaders as they try to come up with a roadmap for the digitisation of HR and employee experiences in their companies.

This workshop will be an interactive session where we will use design thinking principles to derive the framework for the creation of HR technology vision and a roadmap. We will also share and exchange ideas on the many pillars of that vision. Each of the companies represented by their HR and/or technology leaders can gain clarity in creating these HR digital roadmaps that are both strategic and tactical and walk away with a strawman of their own vision for HR digital transformation for their company.

Thinking Beyond Budgeting

We need to think beyond budgeting in this age of technological advancements like Artificial Intelligence and robotic process automation or other digital technologies which may involve process redesign, however, these are not threads to finance teams. Budgeting and planning is and should always be an enabler to executing business strategy and objectives.

SAP tools are designed to assist the office of finance to transform their manual processes into the digital age through technology.

Key takeaways:

• Enable business to work directly on existing Master Data and transactional data from any functional domain
• Harness the power of in-memory processing by effectively leveraging the SAP Hana database
• Detailed planning at the most basic data form to overcome the limitation of subledger reporting with real-time capabilities
• The business team is enabled through control of Master data and managed by IT

Preparing for the Future of Finance - Now

Digital is not just another technological advancement – it is an exponential transformation of culture, behaviour and process as well. Specific digital solutions already exist – bringing them together is Transformational. Finance needs to be at the centre of this transformation to maintain its license to operate as a digital Finance business partner. It is not optional – and there are advantages for the first movers. This digital world is here. The question is, how will your finance function respond?

How can digital finance “game-changers” enable you to: How can digital finance “game-changers” enable you to:

• Prepare for the reality of finance’s role in a digital world, and to stay relevant and competitive?
• Be a better business partner and respond to the organisation’s needs in a more strategic way?
• Explore new technologies that are available to help drive down costs and free up time for strategic activities?
• Identify opportunities to automate your finance ecosystem and make your processes more efficient?
• Manage, analyse, and forecast data and implement tools for more accuracy today and in the future?
• Reimagine Finance to think big and start matching disruptive technology against your biggest problems and challenges?

Clarity and direction for transformation come from exposure to the latest innovations across industries. Organisations need to immerse themselves so that the vision for finance is crystallized. Finance will then craft a robust roadmap for a total digital transformation of the finance function and be ready to take the next step on their digital journey.

Reimagine Everything

Deloitte, as the Innovation Partner, will help our clients reimagine their enterprise and make SAP solutions work together, with a ‘business first’ approach and an integration strategy that supports their vision for the enterprise. Deloitte has been working with SAP, the market leader in enterprise application software, for three decades and our team has extensive, industry-specific experience with SAP’s entire portfolio of offerings, both on-premise, hybrid and in the cloud. Additionally, Deloitte has been a recipient of numerous local and international SAP accolades, and these awards are proof of the quality and value we offer our clients.

Deloitte Consulting Africa strives to help its clients from strategy to execution with offerings and solutions that span ‘Imagine, Deliver and Run’ with a focus on the digital transformation of their operating model, business model and IT systems. Our differentiation is our ability to work with our clients from developing strategy right through to the execution – what we call our ‘issue to impact’ philosophy.

For 30 years, Deloitte’s Global SAP practice has delivered award-winning levels of service to help global organisations transform their businesses and achieve results that matter. With an extensive network of business and technology practitioners dedicated to SAP solutions in our global network, we have served our clients in assisting them in their journey to implement SAP solutions effectively and to realise potential business value from those investments. We offer a complete range of implementation, integration, and alignment services—from business case and strategy development to systems design to configuration, testing, deployment, and post-implementation support. Each day across the globe and across all industries, we are busy deploying the latest SAP offerings, including SAP S/4HANA, to support real-time data access and analytics, enabling organisations to evolve their existing business processes and adopt new processes that can support the future of business.

SAP Data Sorted! Top Tips and Options for Migrating and Managing Data in SAP S/4 HANA

Data is often left for last when it comes to preparing for the digital business transformation and customers are faced with having to sacrifice quality over timelines saying things like: "We underestimated the complexity, duration and associated costs in our data stream” and "We will focus on getting the data right post-migration". Learn how to avoid the pain by applying the easy, practical steps as well as implementing the right toolset to support master data management.

Key takeaways:

• Data as a key asset
• Migration to S/4 HANA – what to look out for in preparation for data migration to S/4
• Which options exist for ongoing master data management

Your Journey To the Cloud: Secure Data Migration From SAP HCM to SAP SuccessFactors

With low investment and operating costs, unlimited scalability, and permanently up-to-date applications, cloud computing offers many advantages for both managers and IT specialists in the field of Human Resources (HR). But one important step lies between the concept of cloud solutions and the reality of their productive use: data migration.

While transporting data from an old system to a new one is not rocket science, HR information is added and updated—and required—each and every day, so it must be accurate and available. Carrying out a migration with greater speed and control enables organisations to start reaping the
benefits of a new system quickly and easily. You may have found yourself wondering how you can continue to run all of your HR processes smoothly in SAP SuccessFactors following your migration. How can you make sure that the transition is seamless, that payroll is accurate, and that, ultimately, you will be able to take your old system offline?

Exponential HR Professionals: Reimagining the Work of HR to Enable Dynamic and Digital Ways of Working

The future of work is changing. As traditional jobs are redesigned, there is an increasing need for companies to provide resources and opportunities for lifelong learning. Companies need to be radically open to attract more people who are high-IQ risk-takers in order to generate flows and be plugged into discussions about the future of the workforce.

Seamless SAP HR Implementations: Tips, Tricks & Learnings - An Interactive Discussion

Join this interactive discussion to gain tips, tricks and learnings for a seamless SAP HR implementation and hear from the experts at Accenture about how best to migrate from On-Premise SAP HCM and Payroll to SAP SuccessFactors and the cloud.

Break the Shackles of Your Current Reporting Process

As finance professionals, we are required to accurately report on the financial and operational health of our organisations in a timely manner. However, access to this data is often difficult and can be dependent on other people and functions such as IT to provide what is needed complete this task. Not only can this result in unachievable deadlines, but also an environment where decisions are being made on information that is already out-of-date, and which can be two, three or even four weeks old.

Organisations should have real-time access to their data in order to increase productivity, visibility, accuracy, compliance, and most importantly to allow the correct business decisions to be made in order to improve the business’s overall performance. Through a combination of a live demonstration and customer use cases, Nicholas will show how it is possible to empower the business end-user, by providing this real-time connection directly to both your underlying ERP (SAP ECC6 or S/4 Hana) and EPM (BPC/HFM) databases. Supporting the automation and digitalisation of your daily, weekly, monthly and yearly reporting tasks and forever changing how you consume your data.

Key takeaways:
• Leverage and enhance the systems you already have while positioning yourself for the future.
• Achieving this change doesn’t have to be a complicated, timely, or a resource-intensive activity.
• Make sure that the right people are driving systems change within your organisation

The Art of Strategic Sourcing – The Future of Recruitment in 2020

Vanessa Raath is a dynamic, international keynote Speaker who promises to keep you perched on the edge of your seat. Her speciality lies in presenting about Sourcing and Diversity in Recruitment – both topics that she is passionate about.

Vanessa runs her own business where she trains internal and agency Recruiters, globally, to source for Top Talent more efficiently and effectively than their competitors. She loves sharing the knowledge that she has built up over several years in the Recruitment Industry. She has been described as a ‘Guru’ in the Tech Sourcing space and is definitely the ‘go-to’ person for Sourcing in Africa.

Enterprise Performance Management: Modern Outlook

SAP Profitability and Performance Management (PaPM) is a next generation digital performance management solution that provides breakthrough real-time business data aggregation capabilities for SAP and non-SAP systems, a high-speed finance and risk calculation engine and comprehensive simulation and scenario management. It is designed to run simply and comfortably for business users. The calculation model is fully transparent and auditable which gives instant insight into margin contribution schema and makes your data analysis process more sophisticated and intelligent. Seamlessly integrated into system landscape PaPM improves overall service level and supports various business applications by supplying accurate and well-structured key figures. It refines operational and strategic decision making and facilitates the company's growth in challenging market conditions.

Enterprise Performance Management: Modern Outlook

SAP Profitability and Performance Management (PaPM) is a next generation digital performance management solution that provides breakthrough real-time business data aggregation capabilities for SAP and non-SAP systems, a high-speed finance and risk calculation engine and comprehensive simulation and scenario management. It is designed to run simply and comfortably for business users. The calculation model is fully transparent and auditable which gives instant insight into margin contribution schema and makes your data analysis process more sophisticated and intelligent. Seamlessly integrated into system landscape PaPM improves overall service level and supports various business applications by supplying accurate and well-structured key figures. It refines operational and strategic decision making and facilitates the company's growth in challenging market conditions.

Exponential HR Professionals: Reimagining the Work of HR to Enable Dynamic and Digital Ways of Working

The future of work is changing. As traditional jobs are redesigned, there is an increasing need for companies to provide resources and opportunities for lifelong learning. Companies need to be radically open to attract more people who are high-IQ risk-takers in order to generate flows and be plugged into discussions about the future of the workforce.

Seamless SAP HR Implementations: Tips, Tricks & Learnings - An Interactive Discussion

Join this interactive discussion to gain tips, tricks and learnings for a seamless SAP HR implementation and hear from the experts at Accenture about how best to migrate from On-Premise SAP HCM and Payroll to SAP SuccessFactors and the cloud.

Preparing Finance For S/4

The move to S/4 can be drastically simplified with careful preparation in the ECC environment and the use of Activate Methodology. The conversion from Classic Finance to FlexG/L is possible in the ECC environment with the right tools and approach. This conversion readies itself for automatic conversion into the S/4 Universal Ledger. The key to success is to model FlexGL correctly to determine the future strategy for the business and its financial structures.

We have the right tools to facilitate this conversion which includes dashboards from which the configuration is implemented, historic financial data is converted, problems are analysed and audit requirements are met. These tools empower your project team to establish the correct Financial Model and deliver the conversion from POC to the final Production conversion.

Maintenance Budgeting and Asset Lifecycle Management – Necessary Evils or a Vault of Untapped Value?

Various inefficiencies negatively impacted the Budget and Planning Process. Budget and Planning weren’t outcome-driven and largely dependent on manual interaction. Low data integrity, master data inconsistencies and inconsistent data granularity added to the problem. Data was maintained in spreadsheets that weren’t integrated with the ERP and Mine Technical Systems, limiting cost controls and overall planning capability, resulting in conflicting views. We introduced a planning, forecasting and analysis tool which will enable a business to address process inefficiencies and improve data integrity.

To overcome the key business challenges, we:
- Simplified and standardised processes through establishing process ownership
- Introduced processes to measure, manage, and drive forecast accuracy
- Improved business flexibility and responsiveness by putting forecasting at the heart of performance management
- Established a capability to quickly test scenarios and sensitivities
- Focused on volatility and materiality – minimised detail to reduce cycle time and improve relevance
- Enabled capital prioritisation aligned to portfolio objectives and risk appetite
- Implemented a planning, forecasting and analysis tool which will address process inefficiencies, improve data integrity, improve cost controls and improve planning capability.

The Collaborit Asset Cost and Lifecycle Manager enabled us to:
- use a single source of data for Budget/Forecast determination and tracking of actual expenditure.
- reduce complexity and effort to compile the Maintenance Budget
- create collaboration between all budget owners/approvers on one platform
- improve data integrity and accuracy
- institutionalise the budget determination logic and methodology
- underpin budget/forecast results with line item detail to explain/justify cost inclusions
- timeously respond to budget variance exceptions
- improve the credibility of the budget process and output

Process improvements and system enablement for the Planning and Budgeting functions is a fundamental building block in moving towards a proactive performance and cost management culture. Select a planning, budgeting, forecasting and analysis tool that support and institutionalise the budget and planning process across the organisation. Invest in a solution that provides sufficient flexibility through configuration and parameterisation to support specific business requirements.

Integrations of Cybersecurity Within SAP Projects: How to Ensure Cybersecurity Is An Engagement Prerequisite For SAP Projects

The implication of continued digital adoption by organisations that run SAP technologies will lead to increased Cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Integrating Cybersecurity into SAP projects has become a critical risk that calls for consideration of the Cybersecurity risks inherent in SAP projects as early as possible to ensure a project's outcome whose level of Cybersecurity is aligned with your organisation's business needs.

You will learn about Cybersecurity principles in a project lifecycle, understanding the risk concept and incorporating it in the project life cycle and the process of discovering security requirements very early on in SAP projects. Associate Cybersecurity risks with the SAP project's requirements to adequately cover, monitor and justify the risk over time. Adopting frameworks and standards for integrating Cybersecurity into your SAP projects can help you manage Cybersecurity risks inherent within SAP projects very early on.

Key takeaways:

• Continuously promote awareness and education of Cybersecurity basic concepts and best practices amongst all project team members at project inception
• By integrating Cybersecurity risk assessment into your SAP projects early on, this can boost your organisation’s value ongoing assurance to conduct business

6 Steps to Simplify Your SAP HANA Migration

You know you want to deploy SAP HANA to streamline your SAP landscape, simplify operations and empower your business to compete and win in the digital economy. But you also know that big transformation projects like this are extremely complex. In fact, the majority of transformation initiatives never deliver on expected business benefits. Why is that?

The disruptive nature of digital technology and its ability to drive hyper-agile, competitive new business models, has enterprises in every industry embracing their own digital journeys. IT leaders fully expect in-memory computing architecture to help them lower IT costs and improve asset and resource utilisation. They also believe it will enable their organisations to rapidly respond to opportunities based on real-time, proactive analytics — two critical enablers of digital transformation. However, in-memory computing is one in a long line of disruptive new technologies — including cloud, datacentre and mobility, among others — that is competing for IT budget, resources and executive mindshare. Migration to SAP HANA is also perceived as highly complex. But as we’ll see, technical complexity, while real, is not the real roadblock to transformation success.

Key takeaways:
This talk is designed to share insights into where and why SAP HANA migration projects may go off track, show you the speed bumps and roadblocks that may slow you down, and offer a few travel tips to help you along your journey.

Exponential HR Professionals: Reimagining the Work of HR to Enable Dynamic and Digital Ways of Working

The future of work is changing. As traditional jobs are redesigned, there is an increasing need for companies to provide resources and opportunities for lifelong learning. Companies need to be radically open to attract more people who are high-IQ risk-takers in order to generate flows and be plugged into discussions about the future of the workforce.

SAP Licensing Insights and Q&A

Join this interactive session to hear some insights from SAP around all things licensing related and get the opportunity to have your most pressing questions about SAP licensing answered by the experts.

Time and Attendance: What Are Your Options?

With a multitude of organisations moving their HCM environments into SAP SuccessFactors, significant consideration needs to be given with regards to Time and Attendance requirements. Adding further complexity is the fact that the current Time and Attendance functionality will also cease to be supported when SAP ECC 6.0 reaches the end of its maintenance. What options are available to organisations? What considerations need to be taken into account? And, why has SAP SuccessFactors decided to partner with Kronos for Workforce Management?

Come and join us for an interactive discussion that will explain SAP’s strategy with regards to time and attendance. We will delve into the options that organisations have for their time and attendance requirements. This includes current on-premise considerations, as well as the cloud offerings that SAP has brought to the market. What should inform an organisation’s decision on which option to take? How does this affect integration and the implementation thereof? We will compare functionality between the different options so that you can make the right choice for your organisation when the need arises. Attendees will be apprised of the pros and cons of each of the various options with regards to time and attendance. We will (time) travel in to the future and attempt to model the different scenarios that organisations will encounter when it is time for them to move off SAP ERP ECC 6.0.

Key takeaways:

• An understanding of SAP’s direction with regards to time and attendance
• What to consider in choosing the right time and attendance options for your organisation
• Migrating to the cloud does not mean your complex requirements cannot be taken care of