Future of Business with Game Changers, Presented by SAP

The buzz: “Products don’t define a brand, experiences do. Such is the reality of modern business, where people are connected to a constant flow of information and are defining brands based on what they experience and share.” (Judith Aquino, www.ttec.com). Big news: Experience matters! Your company needs to survive in today’s competitive marketplace in order to exist and thrive in tomorrow’s. How? Convert your customers into fans. Transform your products into obsessions and your brands into icons. Empower your employees to become your ambassadors. Any questions? The experts speak. Dr. Stefan Winkler, Opsis: “If we use words, there is a very grave danger they will be misinterpreted” (H.R. Haldeman). JJ Delgado, Estrella de Galicia: “It is still Day 1” (Jeff Bezos, Amazon). Erica Lailhacar, SAP: “The answer is out there, Neo. It's looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to” (Trinity to Neo, The Matrix). Join us for The New Face of Your Brand: Customer Experience!

The buzz: “Collaborations work best this way; when there's a mutual desire to see what the other side adds. You know that what you're making on your own has value but the sum is more than the parts and every part knows it” (Questlove). 17th century English poet John Donne wrote: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” Donne’s wisdom applies to people, countries, and your company. Collaborating with other businesses can help deliver unique innovations, define new markets, differentiate from the pack, bring new products to market. The experts speak. Marc Haberland, Clariba: “No pressure, no diamonds” (Thomas Carlyle). Camilla Dahlen, SAP: “Travel sparks our imagination, feeds our curiosity, and reminds us how much we all have in common” (Deborah Lloyd). Surendra Reddy, Quantiply: “Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things” (Theodore Levitt). Join us for Future of Business: Collaborative Innovation.

Buzz of the day: “Just like your favorite video conferencing and collaboration tools, VR will save you time on travel, connect your regional offices and change the workplace as we know it—but with the experience of meeting in person still intact (www.pgi.com). We predict your company will conduct business primarily via virtual collaboration instead of face-to-face meetings. Electronic file shares instead of hard-copy documents. Virtual instead of physical currency. The bottom line: VR and AR technologies are scaling to speed companies like yours into this future business world! The experts speak. Steven Krause, DocuSign: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it” (Alan Kay). Stefan Aubele, IT-Kompass GmbH: “Things are only impossible until they're not” (Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek). Ed Canney, IGerencia: “In God we trust. All others must bring data” (W. Edwards Deming). Join us for The Future of Business Is…Virtual!

The buzz: One big happy family. Today’s workforce has four generations side-by-side for the first time ever. While the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers are still mostly in control, Gen X’ers and Millennials influence the day-to-day. But when you add the status-quo-disrupting Internet of Things, does it create an IoT Generation workforce gap separating these cohorts from the fifth wave of newbies expecting a fully-connected work day? The experts speak. Sherryanne Meyer, ASUG: “Dorothy: We’re not in Kansas anymore!” [Wizard of Oz). Mal Poulin, ANCILE: “The wisest are the most annoyed at the loss of time” (Dante). Sharon Cook, hyperCision: “I grew up in a physical world, and I speak English. The next generation is growing up in a digital world, and they speak social” (Angela Ahrendts). David Dreyer, SAP: “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” (Ralph Waldo Emerson). Join us for Future of Business: IoT & The Next Generation Workforce.

The buzz: “3D printing is already shaking our age-old notions of what can and can’t be made.” (Hod Lipson) It may not be far in the future when a significant amount of the products manufactured today in the four walls of a factory are actually manufactured in a store, repair shop or even a home. How? Distributed Manufacturing leveraging 3D printing is pushing the bounds of the possible. Technology has already moved beyond 3D printed sugar cubes and pasta to building 3D printed cars and even prosthetic limb replacement. What is the timeline of scaling from toys to a real, productive business approach? And how do IoT and security figure into the mix? The experts speak. Alan Amling, UPS: “Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be” (John Wooden). Rick Smith, Fast Radius: “The future ain’t what it used to be” (Yogi Berra). Gil Perez, SAP: “I failed my way to success” (Thomas Edison). Join us for The Future of Distributed Manufacturing and 3D Printing.

The buzz: “You tell me that it’s evolution.” It’s the future of global business on steroids, a revolution right now that knows no borders. What is it? The Digital Transformation (DT) revolution. DT was set in motion with the first computer and has the same exponential growth curve as the Internet. As more people and devices join, DT gets stronger. Every industry, organization and structure will change and the transactional business world as we know it today will be fundamentally transformed. If you think DT doesn’t apply to you and your business, you’re in for a shock. The experts speak. Prof. Aaron Striegel, University of Notre Dame: “The Internet of Things will be bigger than the Internet” (John Chambers). Geoff Scott, ASUG: “Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window” (Steve Wozniak). Teri Kurtz, SAP: “If I had asked people what they had wanted, they would have said faster horses” (Henry Ford). Join us for Global Business on Steroids: The DT Revolution Is Real.

The buzz: Crystal ball. Yes, change is inevitable. But our unprecedented 'templosion' pace and scale -Edie Weiner- presents unique challenges for the future. What is the potential worldwide business impact of new and emerging paradigms, energy innovations, physical-digital boundary blurring, business decentralization? We’ve invited three futurists to our Game-Changers roundtable. Take notes! The experts speak. Frank Diana, TCS: 'Our world is entering a period of truly transformative change where many of us will be surprised by the scale and pace of developments we simply hadn’t anticipated' -Gerd Leonhard. Gray Scott, SeriousWonder.com: 'How could the process that gave rise to slugs and oak trees and fish produce a creature that can fly to the moon and invent the Internet and cross the ocean in boats?' -Steven Pinker. Doug Freud, SAP: 'Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one' -A Einstein. Join us for Three Futurists Walk onto A Bar: The Future of Business.

The buzz: I vant to be alone. -Garbo. Not! Did you hear the one about the major connectivity company that connected more 'new things to things' than 'new people to people'? As the Art of the Possible instantaneously connects innovative devices with people, processes and results, the lines between professional and personal blur more. Who is driving the IoT digital innovation bus – business, academia, government, individuals? Where is the bus heading? Are we ready to mass-adopt a fully digital world? The experts speak. Gary Nelson, SAP: 'There is no digital strategy anymore. Just strategy in a digital world' -Bud Caddell. Sharon Naidu, SAP: 'We are looking at a society increasingly dependent on machines, yet decreasingly capable of making or even using them effectively' -Douglas Rushkoff. Bill Newman, SAP: 'One thing I can tell you is you got to be free. Come together right now over me' -The Beatles. Join us for Future of Business: When Connected Things Surpass Connected People.

The buzz: Faster, driver! The pace of innovation is perpetual acceleration. New ideas, products and services are brought to market faster than ever, and life cycles are shorter. As consumers demand more speed and simplicity, average as well as best in class businesses, and entrepreneurs, are leapfrogging each other daily to capture market share. Who will survive? Successful companies are internally organizing, designing and implementing programs and processes to keep up with - and get ahead of - ever-shrinking innovation cycles. Ready to learn how? The experts speak. Jeremy C. Thomas, Carom: It showed me how to walk on my hands. Because, it said, it is good to have the ability to see things differently Kobi Yamada. Jennifer Ford, SAP: You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology Steve Jobs. Charlotte Bui, SAP: The history of discovery is full of creative serendipity Tom Kelley.Join us for The Future of Designing Innovation.

The buzz: “You like tomato and I like tomahto.” Many companies pledge to evolve to a diverse workforce from break room to board room. But for female workers seeking work / life balance and executive mentorship, roadblocks remain. And while the “Old Boys’ Club mentality may be (almost) a thing of the past, some women with great leadership potential choose or are forced to drop-out mid-career, leaving mentorship gaps for new leaders. How close is your company to achieving true and sustainable workforce diversity? The experts speak. Shannon Platz, SAP: “Each of us has a spark of life inside us, and our highest endeavor ought to be to set off that spark in one another” (Kenny Ausubel). Maria Haggen, SAP: “Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value” (Albert Einstein). Janis Fratamico, SAP: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don't help each other” (Madeleine Albright). Join us for Future of Business: Developing Executive Diversity.

The buzz: Ring. Ring. Pick up! Hello, CIO. This is your wake-up call! Your business, regardless of industry, WILL be changed by the combined forces of mobile, social, cloud, and analytics, and their impact on business models, processes, and people inside and outside of your enterprise firewalls. Welcome to the Digital Transformation (DT) revolution. How will your company survive? Ask these two questions. What needs to change? How can you get ready for the change? The experts speak. Allan Adler, Digital Bridge Partners: “This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism (Joseph Schumpeter). Paul Kurchina, ASUG: “Today, because knowledge is available on every Internet-connected device, what you know matters far less than what you can do with what you know” (Dr. Tony Wagner). Pank Kapur, SAP: “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often” (Winston Churchill). Join us for Ready for the Digital Transformation? A CIO’s Prescriptive Guide.

The buzz: Siri! Think Siri, Alexa,Cortana are fun voice-command helpers just for personal use? Not! Virtual assistants – bots built on APIs and Natural Language Processing – can help you and your team with scheduling, emails, market updates, routine tasks and more. Benefits? Previously unimaginable operational efficiencies and futuristic customer experiences. Hey! The experts speak. Vic Bhagat, Industry Expert: “The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter” (Malcolm Gladwell). Robin Kearon, Kore Inc: The key to learning is feedback. It is nearly impossible to learn anything without it (Steven D Levitt). Dr. Jeff Word, SAP: “Significant shifts in market share and fortunes occur not because companies try to play the game better than the competition, but because they change the rules of the game” (C. Markides). Join us for Got a Bot? Virtual Assistants and Employee Efficiency – Part 2.

The buzz: Buy it now! The classic customer engagement model is evolving, as business customers and consumers search a broad set of indirect content –including social media often beyond your marketing team’s direct control – to support their purchasing decisions. – to support their purchasing decisions. With your as-yet-unknown buyer already 70%+ of the way to the real or virtual checkout counter before they initiate any person-to-person contact with your company, how can you capture their early-cycle mindshare? The experts speak. Marisa Kopec, SiriusDecisions: “In 2015, SiriusDecisions reports, b-to-b marketers must create and facilitate, on average, between 11 and 17 distinct buyer interactions to enable a purchase to occur.” Nick Robinson, SAP: “We must learn what customers really want, not what they say they want or what we think they should want” (Eric Ries). Eric Martin, SAP: “Marketing is too important to be left to the Marketing Department” (David Packard). Join us for The Future of Managing Customer Mindshare.

The buzz: Hey, Siri! If you think Siri, Alexa, and Cortana are fun voice-command helpers just for your personal use, think again. Virtual assistants – in the form of bots built on APIs and Natural Language Processing – are poised to change the way we do business. They stand (or sit) ready to help you and your team with scheduling, emails, market updates, routine tasks and more. The benefit to you? Previously unimaginable operational efficiencies and futuristic customer experiences can now become the standard for your company. The experts speak. Raj Koneru, Kore: “The best way to predict the future is to create it” (Peter Drucker). Vic Bhagat, Industry Expert: “When Henry Ford made cheap, reliable cars, people said, 'Nah, what's wrong with a horse?' That was a huge bet he made, and it worked” (Elon Musk). Uddhav Gupta, SAP: “Digital creates the new demand and dimension for global leadership mind-set” (Pearl Zhu). Join us for Got a Bot? Virtual Assistants and Employee Efficiency.

The buzz: Teach me tonight. If your company’s workforce spans the generational gamut from Baby Boomers to recent college alumni born after the Boomers graduated, it’s a good thing! Talent from any source cannot be overlooked if you want to compete in the digital world. But how do you efficiently create or adopt the training tools and techniques that speak to each employee’s individual learning style? Are there new approaches you haven’t considered? The experts speak.Matt Donovan, Learning Solutions Group: “The illiterate of the future will not be the person who cannot read. It will be the person who does not know how to learn” (Alvin Toffler). Jesse Bernal, Knoa: “If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success” (John D. Rockefeller). Sohail Bhola, Tech Data Corporation: “My center is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack” (Ferdinand Foch). Join us for Simplifying the Future of Learning.

The buzz: Do more with less. Breaking news for global industrial manufacturers: You need to keep up-to-date on how the digital revolution and Industrial Internet of Things are impacting how your products are designed, produced, and serviced. This means it's critical to connect your engineering processes with your enterprise data. The key to success: a product innovation platform that truly unites research, development, and engineering with sales, supply chain, manufacturing, and aftermarket service. The experts speak. Alan Mendel, LeverX: “I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions (Stephen Covey). Jeff Hojlo, IDC: “Those who say it cannot be done, should not interrupt those doing it” (Chinese proverb). David Parrish, SAP: It's a beautiful day for a ballgame, let's play two!” (Ernie Banks aka Mr. Cub). Join us to discover how traditional product lifecycle management is evolving into tomorrow’s Next Generation Product Lifecycle Management.

News headlines report major corporate data security attacks almost daily. Yet despite this broad awareness, too many companies are still vulnerable to hackers who find inroads to exploit. Are you among them? Reality check! Even if you’ve already figured out how to plug holes in your networks, hackers may be finding inroads through your applications and solutions. Are you proactively securing your “Application Layer” from vulnerabilities? The experts speak. Jason Schmitt, Fortify – HP Software: “Who looks outside dreams, who looks inside awakes.” (Carl Jung) Rik Turner, Ovum: “…you better start swimmin' Or you'll sink like a stone … For the times they are a-changin'…” (Bob Dylan) Andreas Gloege, SAP: “Security is like adding brakes to cars. The purpose of brakes is not to stop you: it's to enable you to go fast!” (Eugene Spafford) Join us for Final Security Frontier: Application Layer.

The buzz: The law of life (JFK). What is it? Change. Even if you’re personally allergic to it, change is inevitable each time your organization needs to grow and adapt to new business requirements. Who handles change the best? A Human Capital Media / SAP survey reveals that learning and development (L&D) is an integral part of orchestrating change management practices at best-in-class companies. What’s in the Change Champion’s toolkit that you, too, can put into action? The experts speak. Marcia Conner, Impact Ingenuity: “The agony of change is the start of something good (Hugh McLoad, GapingVoid). Kerry Brown, SAP: “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often” (Sir Winston Churchill). Claudia Faerber, SAP: “Respect is how to treat everyone, not just those you want to impress” (Richard Branson). Join us for Change is Inevitable: Success Secrets of a Change Champion – Part 2.

The buzz: What’s in a name? Machine-to-machine connectivity, Industrial Internet of Things (IoT), Industry 4.0 – whatever you call the digital manufacturing revolution doesn’t matter. What matters is the tremendous unrealized value available from the digitization of industrial processes, products, services. What will it take to design, build, maintain digital solutions that leverage the IoT, product innovation platforms, and re-imagined service offerings? The experts speak. Markus Lorenz, BCG: “Machines have always been great…now we are in the middle of a revolution. Machines are becoming intelligent.” Russ LeFevre, Cisco: “Every business, industry, city and country will become digital to leverage unprecedented opportunities brought about by the IoT.” Georg Kube, SAP: “Industrial IoT started on the technology level. Now it’s about integrating new data streams into core enterprise processes and creating “IOT for Business”. Join us for Creating Game-Changing Value through Digitization.

The buzz: The law of life (JFK). What? Change. It’s inevitable when your organization has to grow and adapt to new business requirements. Who handles it best? A Human Capital Media / SAP survey reveals that learning and development (L&D) is an integral part of orchestrating change management practices at best-in-class companies. What’s in their Change Champions’ toolkit that you can put into action? The experts speak. Sarah Kimmel, Human Capital Media: “…learning to collaborate is part of equipping yourself for effectiveness, problem solving, innovation and life-long learning in an ever-changing networked economy” (Don Tapscott). Marcia Conner, Impact Ingenuity: “The world is wide, and I will not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum” (Frances Willard). Kerry Brown, SAP: “An artist is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo” (Seth Godin). Join us for Change is Inevitable: Success Secrets of a Change Champion.