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“My experience with Savantis Group was extremely positive. They not only showed me great opportunities, but they also supported me throughout the interview process, giving me detailed information about the company and its individual IT environment. When one interview didn’t work out, Savantis kept giving me the same care and attention as before. The Savantis Group team was encouraging and responsive.”

—Riva - Associate, SAP IT Advisory Services

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SAP Retail Forum feedback – October 2008 Las Vegas

 

By Roel Deuss – CEO, Savantis Group

Last month marked the second anniversary of the SAP Retail Forum, a yearly event organized by SAP specifically for their fast-growing Retail customers. Having been to the first event in 2007 one can tell that SAP is doing a phenomenal job in the Retail technology space, as the number of attendees almost doubled from last year. Savantis Group had the privilege of being one of the event’s sponsors, and as a new-comer in the SAP eco-system it gave our organization high-visibility with existing SAP Retail customers as well as prospects.

The event was broken down in three main sections – general sessions by SAP executives and outside speakers (Michael Treacy’s speech is still resonating with me, as I’m sure it is with Retailers that want to sustain high performance and avoid a ‘mid-life’ crisis), and smaller, more focused break-out sessions with a good mixture of real-life customer stories and insights into SAP Retail’s product suite. Thirdly there was plenty of opportunity for networking, either on the golf course, at the women for retail luncheon, during the Store Tours and all the lunches, happy hours and the Retail Innovation Awards Banquet (SAP...where was Cirque du Soleil this year?). I particularly enjoyed SAP Retail’s new uniform, as showcased by Verlin Youd (SVP Global Trading Industries) and Brian Kilcourse (MP, RSR Research).

The highlight of the event for me (…of course I’m biased) was a well-attended case study session on how Red Door Spas implemented SAP for Retail, by its CIO Paul Kaczmarek and Savantis Group’s VP of Operations, Deniz Mater. If you thought it’s impossible for a $200M Retailer to implement the full suite of SAP Retail in under just 5 months at an affordable price, well then, you were wrong, so try to catch our next joint presentation with Red Door Spas at Sapphire 2009.

Overall, the Retail Forum is a must-go-to event for Retailers either running SAP or considering SAP as they move to a single, ERP-based platform. The event has a healthy mix of end-users, SAP Retail employees and a limited amount of vendors and with an average size of about 250 attendees, it does truly offer an intimate networking opportunity.

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