The DSAG Investment Report 2019 published in advance shows that many SAP users are disillusioned with digitization – certainly one of the reasons why some doubts arise about SAP's strategy and roadmap. "We must work to rebuild confidence in the SAP product strategy," said DSAG Chairman Dr. Marco Lenck, who made SAP and his own association responsible for the project. This year's annual congress was intended to motivate and provide examples so that DSAG members can think about their business models and shape them.
The most important announcement of the first day of the congress was undisputedly the announcement by SAP that HCM (Human Capital Management) will be integrated into S/4HANA from 2022 and will therefore also be available on premise. This dispelled the concern of many customers to be without HCM support by SAP from 2025. The previously feared forced transition to the SaaS application SuccessFactors can thus be made much softer. It became clear in various keynotes that digitization can only work if it is taken very seriously and driven from above. In this context, many SAP customers would like to see, among other things, rational arguments for S/4HANA in order to be able to create powerful business cases.
For us at the VANTAiO booth, the renaissance of the Digital Workplace was one of the much discussed topics. When properly implemented, it can be a key building block in digital transformation, changing the way employees do their jobs and collaborate with others, resulting in significantly greater productivity and efficiency. The UX and design philosophy SAP Fiori 3 also attracted a great deal of interest. In a live demo on our trade fair TV we presented the latest version with the SAP Fiori 3 Card concept, which, among other things, finally makes it possible to integrate content into the SAP Fiori Launchpad. The question "What's next for the SAP portal world" also drove many of our visitors around. Against the background of the expiration of maintenance for the SAP NetWeaver platform on December 31, 2024, several discussions revolved around the recommended strategy for the future, SAP Central Fiori Launchpad and the SAP Cloud Platform Portal.
The anecdote of the last day of the event was Gregor Gysi's highly anticipated final keynote, which he was only able to hold as a telephone session from the ICE due to a railway signal interference – including radio holes. According to the motto "And Action!" consequent improvisation was the trump card.
Recordings of all keynotes and the presentations released for publication can be found on the event website of the DSAG >
