 Pleased to be here, we're here with Stephanie Buscemi. Stephanie, hello, nice to see you. Hi, thank you. Stephanie is the group vice president of business analytics at SAP. And we're also joined by James Fisher. James, welcome. James is in the finance area. We're going to talk about EPM today. And as the vice president of that finance analytics, EPM, SAP had a big announcement today. So welcome to both of you. Thank you, thanks for having us. So we heard some real visionary comments this morning in the keynotes, what business is going to look like in the future? Five years out, 10 years out, maybe even 30 years out. And an underpinning of that, Stephanie, is going to be analytics, isn't it? Absolutely. Now, analytics has been around for a long time. It's nothing really new about analytics, but a lot has changed. So can you talk a little bit about what has changed in analytics from SAP's perspective? Absolutely. So analytics is a huge focus area of ours. And when we think about it, history over time, people have historically thought about analytics either from one end or another end. And one end is being a basic level reporting. People have said, oh, analytics equals business intelligence, or previously called decision support. It's about basic reporting. The other end of the spectrum that here's analytics thinks predictive analytics. They take it and think of it more in terms of statistical modeling about algorithms. And so what we're really focused on is recognizing that it's not one or the other, that there's a full spectrum of analytics. In fact, we actually would argue that we need to extend the definition of analytics, the most recognizable definitions of analytics out in market. So what we are doing is bringing together the solution assets that we have today, as well as building new assets, as well as aggressively acquiring assets, to address the full spectrum of analytics. So recognizing that at a basic level, somebody may need to report. But beyond that, there is modeling they need to do for optimization in their business. They need that predictive capability. They need to be able to have solutions that allow them to not only look at a report in a rear view mirror fashion, but actually take that and use it in a prescriptive fashion. So then how do they then take that information and have a solution that allows them to build their strategy around that, build a plan around that, and do that dynamically. Recognizing that strategy development and execution and planning are dynamic. The moment you think you have a plan, it's obsolete. And that spectrum that you talked about, starting with the reporting, that was kind of a vision put forth maybe 10 years, or even pre-911, as you recall. And then the whole Sarbanes-Oxley thing and the like really created a boon for reporting, didn't it, James? And so that must have been good for your business. But really when we talk about the predictive analytics and I want you to talk about EPM 10 and what's changed there, we're really going beyond the financial aspects of reporting. Is that right? Absolutely. We've seen customers that have built robust performance management frameworks that are focused on finance. That's ultimately where this whole process started, owned by the finance department, doing strategic plans, doing the financial reporting pieces, fueled by regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley, as you said. But more and more, we're seeing customers come to us, want to have people engaged in a collaborative process, really getting people outside of core finance, but real business users that know what's happening in the business engaged, really trying to understand what's happening and getting those people involved, getting them engaged, drive success into those processes. And that's one of the issues we've tried to address with EPM 10, really moving performance management much further across the organization. We're kind of using the phrase EPM for the company. So, what does that do in terms of, you know, the big thing in analytics used to be a single version of the truth, right? I think about the stories of Smith at FedEx talking about why logistics are so poor and everybody has a reason why it's not their fault. And he said we've got to have a single version of the truth. But now, as we enable these business users, are we running the risk of now having multiple versions of the truth again? And how are we going to reconcile all that? What are your thoughts? I don't think the vision is really trying to create multiple versions of the truth. In fact, one of the whole goals of the broad SAP strategy around business analytics is to bring everything together in the sense that you can have people looking at common data. But the point is giving them context. It's about enabling the business users to look at that information in the way that's right for them. We're not just talking about blindly spreading information or publishing reports to people no matter what they are. We're about, it's about making it specific to their role in the context that they need to make a decision or take an action. Stephanie, you've used the metaphor in the past of the GPS system for business. What do you mean by that? So metaphors work for me. Hopefully they'll work for you. But in terms of GPS, I think about business analytics holistically as a GPS system. So you are trying to go somewhere. You're trying to go from point A to point B. And when you go out and look to do that with a map, you, one, get a guided experience through a GPS system. It tells you where you are. What does a report do right now? You look to kind of say, where am I at with my sales? Where am I at with my hiring in HR? So the GPS system tells you, you are here now. We do that at the most basic level with BI reporting. But beyond that, the GPS navigates you to you say where you want to go next and it tells you and helps guide you to get there. It also, my analogy is incorporates governance, risk and compliance, which we argue is part of business analytics because along the way, what does a GPS system do or any sort of car dashboard? It starts to tell you if you're low on gas or it starts to tell you if there's traffic conditions that are going to slow you down from point A to point B. Those, we translate those into the business as those are just risks that you have and that are indicators of the likelihood of how successful you're gonna be on making it to your next destination or whatever your next objective is in your business. So we see the GPS system as a good metaphor for that because same thing, whether it's a pothole in the road or an outage in inventory on a product, you need to know those things. Yeah, so from a customer standpoint, how does the customer, because the GPS metaphor, I like a lot, which is, so that resonates with me. From a customer standpoint though, you've got to set up that sort of view of the world, don't you? You talk a little bit about the process that a customer has to go through to be able to say, okay, we have this view of our world, it's our map, it's customized for us. How hard is that, how long does it take? I presume it's a journey. Talk a little bit about that journey. Sure, frankly there isn't one way to go about it. I think it really depends, you're not working with a white piece of paper where an organization has come from. But one of the things that we feel like we're uniquely poised to do is because we've spent so much time, particularly SAP over the last 35 years working with organizations on the transactional systems. So really understanding the core end-to-end processes within an organization. So understanding what are the KPIs of head of HR versus what are the KPIs of a head of sale and what are the end-to-end processes they go through, that's enabled us to now go back and take analytics and overlay analytics on top of those end-to-end processes. Because the reality is everyone's always thought of analytics as separate from it, but the reality is you're trying to get real-time insights while you're in those process steps. So we've looked and said, okay, what are they taking that at rich experience on end-to-end processes across organization, map where the analytic insights are typically needed within there, or even allow for you to do ad hoc analysis or exploration throughout that, as well as throughout that mapping, what are all the potential risks, what are the controls that you want to put in as an organization as well. So throughout that, again, another example is something like GRC has been courted off to the side, an audit manager, a risk manager, and most people who wanted to run for the hills when they see that person coming down the hall. The reality is they've been taught that it was a stick, not a carrot, and the reality is GRC is a carrot if you actually embed it and you look at risk analytics and embed it into those end-to-end processes. In business analytics, as you say, embedded into the system. So Jeff, when I think of EPM and technologies like EPM, I think of the traditional analytics, a lot of financial reporting and so forth. So talk about what you've done that's different and how you've extended that. I mean, are you including things that are more collaborative in nature, more social? Talk about that a little bit. Yeah, really EPM 10 for us has been a journey that we've been on for a number of years. We announced our roadmap in this space in 2008. We've delivered a number of releases and we've worked incredibly closely with customers throughout that journey, not just in terms of the design of the applications but also validating what we've done across the release at every step of the way, right the way through to where we are today, which is announcing the release and we're very excited by the customer adoption that we're seeing. But really EPM 10 for me is kind of about three buckets. There's an element of unification, which is about bringing together the user experience. So if we're building on Stephanie's points around business analytics and putting solutions into the hands of key users, we can't just deliver a performance management suite that's just focused on a specific silo managing strategy or building a plan or a budget or doing some financial reporting. We need to deliver a common user experience. And I think what that really enables is getting more people involved, not just increasing the way that you can use an application and making them easier to use but ultimately increasing user adoption and by involving more people into the suites in this way, we're able to deliver a greater value for them. So does that infer from that that things like mobile play in a big way and I mean iPad and app stores and can you talk a little bit about where you guys are with regard to that model? Absolutely, I've spoken to a number of people today and the first thing they've commented on is where you're carrying a Playbook and you're carrying a BlackBerry, you're carrying an iPhone and you're carrying an iPad. We've been very clear in our approach to performance management that we've got some very strong, rich on-premise applications but we need to extend those out now. There's no good if you can let someone look at a situation and they can analyze where they are but if you don't enable them to take action that's a real issue. So we've announced with EPM 10 it's availability on a number of mobile devices. We've delivered specific point solutions like a strategy management solution for the iPad but in tomorrow's session we'll be actually announcing EPM 10. My colleague Brian Cadis will be doing a full end-to-end performance management process enabled entirely on a Playbook using our new web user experience. So these are all ways in which we're driving into mobile devices and it's really about allowing people not just to look at an issue, discover an issue but it's about then giving them the power to take action. In building on what James was saying we are extending that across the entire business analytics portfolio area so we think of business analytics as a system of engagement for everyone across the organization and he's absolutely right within EPM 10 but we extend that across all the solutions that were within there and the way that we're doing that is fundamental to why we acquired Sybase because they have the Sybase Unwired platform and it is that platform that says look we'll be device agnostic so we recognize some organizations and B2B will try to standardize around one or two devices but the reality is there's always going to be a proliferation I think I heard quoted 160 some odd new devices coming out over the next 24 months and so in looking at that we've got the device agnostic platform and we have the ability then to build mobile applications within that integrated with our business analytics solutions and basically take it from the time you're building the app to the time you're provisioning it to the user the entire life cycle management of that to the security in there to the decommissioning of a user so I remember last year at Platinum I gave a nice demo had the mobile demo up on stage so that was sort of last year I think you laid out the vision talked about the Sybase acquisition now this year I presume can I buy this stuff today absolutely so what you will see right now for example is we had the most within the business analytics offering we had the 4.0 launch earlier this year in February for business intelligence and information management and you can now purchase mobile BI so you have mobile BI you have it available to you on your handheld device and that you can do a license of that so that if somebody wants it it's based by the number of users that you have so per user pardon me fee around that so yes it is available today and then the number of applications that we have that are available mobily that continues to grow so we're leveraging that platform so one there's the leverage factor in the reuse you get of leveraging that mobile platform and two we are going to continue to extend that across all the solutions within the business analytics family talk a little bit about the user experience because I mean one of the things that BI traditional BI is criticized about is the complexity right I mean as a business user you say alright just run the report because I can't get near this stuff how much emphasis I presume it's a lot but talk about that a little bit is from a design standpoint is on the simplicity to enable the business user to actually interact I think it's twofold and James touched on some of it already but just building on that is one we acquired business objects almost four years ago and we did through through buy through build and through partner we've enriched the assets that we have within business analytics but one of the things we needed to do was clean up that user experience and these releases here 2011 is a very big year for us in terms of user experience and so to James's point it's not just to user experience but it's to user adoption so if you look at the 4.0 launch and you look at the 10.0 launch here today we've created a unified suite so that think of it liken it to Microsoft Office if you can go in and know how to use basic functionality within that that experience so look and feel we've put more modern styling in there as you traverse depending what type of need you have as a user you may have a very simple need around a report or you might want to do deep dive exploration or you may just be a CXO and want some interesting executive dashboards the look and feel and the way you interact and use it has completely been revolutionized over this release it was three years in the making and we used the time well spent so is on demand another aspect of the adoption I mean you're getting a lot of a lot of push for that so it's interesting I think not to on demand is critical and what I was going to say was make a comment about a hype cycle and that I don't want it to come across in a negative way we fundamentally believe that we need to optimize for both on demand and on device we have BI on demand today we have a couple hundred thousand users there it continues to grow it's very use case specific so we believe that there are certain things in an organization that probably should and will remain on premise and we're trying to create the flexibility there so create greater flexibility and how companies can purchase and consume as well as deploy so the answer is we have BI on demand we continue to grow BI on demand the nice thing about that is it's not the release cycles around that I mean it gets updated monthly as opposed to wait till your next release it's kind of exciting in terms of how quickly we can deliver enhancements to the market around that but to be very clear you're not going to hear we're becoming an all on demand company but we're also not just on premise we're trying to give that flexibility to our customers on premise on demand on device is kind of the messaging that we're hearing here at the event so it makes a lot of sense I mean you've got a big base do you think as we exit this decade we'll start to see that portion of the business the whole simplicity piece the end user piece driving this the on demand piece is that going to be the majority of business or not necessarily I mean if you put on your telescope and look out there do you see like huge demand surging for that or do you see IT organizations essentially becoming that service provider like organization and doing their own let's say app store is another metaphor I'm not sure I can exactly prescribe how the end state will be but I do believe the fundamental design principles and the way the way the software needs to be designed and the way people are going to buy is central what's central to that is the collaboration aspect and the ability to create better interaction so you know everything used to be very sort of purist of we have to wait till we get all the data together and then we have to you know let X number of users at a time and I think that there's just such a pent up demand to create greater collaboration and get the information out to people almost a good enough mentality to James point to enable them to take action in their business so I think there's going to be a big push on that I think it's going to come probably in a lot of different flavors if I might say and then over time we'll stabilize and we'll see one one area become dominant I think that the main point that I'm seeing in a lot of the conversations with customers and the work we're doing is that you know we and the market as a whole needs to understand how business users people that are working with information that are taking decisions they need to understand how their roles are evolving how those are changing as long as we stay in tune with that then really whatever the outcome is in 10 years we can let that evolve and we'll be there just as we are today with the developing suite we have that can respond to those changes it's interesting shift Stephanie too that you and James are talking about because I mean James in your traditional business it's you know as I was saying the one version of the truth you've got to have very precise metrics a lot of financial and quantitative information but I mean I'm sure you guys have followed the Hadoop movement it's like the wild wild west of open source and there's just data everywhere people are making and drawing inferences and Stephanie as you said it's good enough is really what people are looking for and they're actually beginning to monetize good enough in a big way do you see that whole open source movement that that what I'm calling the wild west as sort of a near term or midterm opportunity for you guys or is it just too crazy right now I wouldn't call it a near term opportunity for us I mean I don't think midterm I don't think anything's out of the question there I think SAUP has made significant investment in the area of SME and other areas but when I look at our current installed base of customers large portion large enterprise organizations and the way they're looking to go about solving the problems that probably we're not seeing that that's that that's the biggest pull from them at this point so we we tend to prioritize around the needs of the market and the needs of the customer I think it has a role it has a place if you watch I think it'll be use case specific so we're talking to Stephanie Buscemi and James Fisher about SAP's analytics thrust of big transformation actually in SAP we're seeing a drive towards simplicity enabling end users and business users and we've been talking about mobility Stephanie and James thanks very much for coming inside the cube we appreciate you sharing your knowledge and the specifics about SAP's vision and good luck at the rest of the event good seeing you guys thank you