Achim Voermanek Global Vice President SAP Intelligent Spend Community Strategy at SAPWhere does the business network come in? It’s an operational extension of your company, so this can make it happen. Think about this example of when many, many moons ago we all joined LinkedIn. What was the first thing that LinkedIn did? They said, Give me your Outlook address book and I’ll tell you how many of your address book are already members. That’s the same concept we do with the business network. So if you’re not a member, you have your supplier, vendor master data, and then we’ll load that into our network, and say 40 to 50% of that population is already a network member because of the work of the others. So you’re basically coming into, say, the next year and you’re not a member of a network, but then you can say, Oh, I can actually pull that off because I don’t have to invite all these thousands of companies to connect with me. I just put my hand up… and say, I want to be connected to this already existing network member.
Episode Summary
A vision of a network of different departments and suppliers sharing a combined data backbone sounds brilliant, right? That is exactly what SAP is pioneering.
Achim Voermanek sat down with Stephany Lapierre at SIG and explained how the acquisition of Ariba, Fieldglass, Concur, and most recently Taulia, into the SAP fold works to create an intelligent spend community network that benefits every member. Do Ariba, Fieldglass, and Concur cease to exist? Not at all, they are simply now unified under SAP into the visionary network.
Achim tackles the challenges of bringing this vision forward in real talk. It isn’t just technology that needs to be addressed, it’s psychology. There is an overwhelm mindset to be overcome which he is keenly aware of.
Show host Stephany Lapierre and Achim Voermanek talk frankly about the data privacy aspects of the network, the incentives required to coax people into supporting the bold venture, and the vital part that data plays in all of it. With Tealbook set to join the SAP App Exchange, it’s a timely and insightful discussion.
Additionally, in this episode, Achim Voermanek shares the following:
- Things coming through now on the SAP business technology platform, BTP.
- How the Spend Connect event will be a unifying event for all the ecosystem companies and players.
- How he views the notion of data unleashed as a “visual free flow or a free dynamic movement” towards a highly desired outcome.
Achim Voermanek is a Global Vice President for Intelligent Spend Community Strategy at SAP. He is responsible for regional and global aspects of that strategy, and for customer engagements during the innovation lifecycle. Achim has over twenty years of cloud product owner, portfolio management, and significant startup experience in the digital media production space. He has worked in various leadership roles in Germany and the USA at SAP, Ariba and other companies in the B2B market, and lives in San Francisco with his family.
Resources in this episode:
Links:
Stephany Lapierre – TealBook: website | twitter | linkedin | youtube | instagram
Achim Voermanek – Global Vice President for Intelligent Spend Community Strategy at SAP: website | linkedin
