SAPinsider 2022 – A Conference Recap

29.07.2022

Topic: SAP | xSuite Group

From July 19 to 21, we participated once again in the yearly SAPinsider conference that took place at the Grand Ballroom of the Bellagio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. The event started with a premiere for everyone involved in its organization. For the first time in the conference’s history, an AirStream trailer had to be pulled into the exhibition hall. Really? A trailer in a conference hall? Well, look for yourself and keep on reading to discover all the highlights of this year’s SAPinsider conference.

Opening Keynote by Julia White and Jonathan Becher

Julia White, Chief Marketing & Solutions Officer and member of the Executive Board at SAP, opened the conference together with Jonathan Becher, President of the San Jose Sharks. In a fascinating keynote, they shared their own stories of how their organizations have developed a culture of innovation by taking full advantage of the latest technologies.

Jonathan Becher helped the audience understand how the Sharks navigated the past years of "pandemic-impacted" sports experiences but came out the other side with stronger experiences and engagement, using SAP technologies.

Julia White elaborated on the value of SAP S/4HANA Cloud and how this next-generation ERP solution enables businesses to reduce complexities and make efficient and intelligent decisions in real time based on predictive insights.

Interactive Sessions with xSuite Customers

On day 1, we shared the stage with our customer Dole Packaged Foods for an inspiring expert session. Bill Farrell, Director SAP Technology and Governance at Dole Packaged Foods, shared the story of how we have enabled Dole to reach the next level of finance automation and provided his top tips on how to achieve the highest level of accounts payable (AP) automation success at an international level. In addition, we offered a quick live demo of our digital AP solution for SAP to demonstrate its most innovative features.

"With xSuite's solution, we have achieved all the goals we set for ourselves in AP automation." — Bill Farrell

On day 2, Kate Davies, Senior Vice President Finance and Accounting at Lionsgate, joined us on the big stage to walk the audience through Lionsgate’s fascinating journey of moving from manual invoice processing all the way to fully digital AP workflows. In fact, the entertainment company managed to reduce its average throughput time of incoming invoices by over 90% from previously 30 to now only 3 days with our solutions.

“A company that is growing as fast as we are requires a solution that can map growth in a scalable way. We need fast access to digital invoices and other documents to ensure transparency even in large company structures. We got that from xSuite.” — Kate Davies

The third customer joining us for an interactive session was Radiant Global Logistics. Their Senior Vice President for Technology, Mark Rowe, discussed the unique challenges of invoice processing in the logistics industry and showcased how our digital end-to-end solutions have managed to take Radiant’s accounts payable department to the next level of automation.

“By implementing xSuite’s solution, we have transformed into a scalable company from an AP perspective.” — Mark Rowe

Practical Product Demos

Throughout the conference, we held different practical sessions, each offering 20 minutes of live insights into our products.

Our booth visitors were delighted to see our Business Partner Portal Sphere. The online platform, which is hosted on the SAP Business Technology Platform allows for both customers and suppliers to upload information, exchange documents, track orders, and manage their business relationship, while integrated self-service options enable suppliers to access information at any time. It streamlines processes, increases transparency, and improves customer-supplier relationships in the long run.

We also shared insights on how to make use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to boost efficiency in accounts payable and demonstrated which forms of AI are currently being used in our solutions. The audience discovered innovative technologies, such as our self-learning data capture, intelligent account assignment proposals, predictive analytics, and smart anomaly detection.

Finally, the greatest highlight of the conference was all the participants coming together again in person. Meeting face-to-face, shaking hands, and connecting on a human level. It was a much-needed networking opportunity after such a long period of online meetings and remote conferences and enabled us to connect on a deeper level with clients, partners, and other peers, but also internally as a team. With colleagues flying in from Europe, Canada, the East, and West Coast, some of us met for the first time in person. SAPinsider has brought us together and we have left the conference more united than ever.