LV Podcast_SteeleArbeeny_SNP 0:00 Hello, I'm Robert Holland and this is the SAP Insider Las Vegas 2025 podcast. 0:06 Thank you for listening as we speak with SAP insiders and industry experts about their experiences in the SAP space. 0:13 In this episode, I'm speaking with Steele Arbini of SNP. 0:16 Steele, thank you for joining us. 0:18 Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your role? 0:21 Thank you, Robert, and it's it's great to be here and thank you for inviting me. 0:24 We're really having a great show. 0:26 And so my name is Steel Arbini. 0:28 As you said, I work for SNPI, am the North American chief technology officer, which makes my primary responsibility the software products of SNP. 0:39 But, you know, as CTO, it's great to come to shows like this and, you know, spend time with customers and partners and also, you know, industry leaders like SAP insider and really get, you know, to understand the challenges that they're facing and how we can, you know, work together on those and, and really bring solutions that the customers are looking for. 1:03 And I think that's a great lead in because you talked about challenges. 1:06 And the first question I want to ask you is what are the challenges that SAP customers are experiencing today? 1:12 I mean, what are they coming to you at an event like this and talking about look, there is certainly many, you know, a lot of them are very well positioned. 1:21 But the big topic is one of the big topics today is what to do with Esfahan and Rise. 1:28 Is it something we're going to do now later? 1:32 What will our approach be? 1:33 Is it a kind of migrate now, transform later or can we do more transformation simultaneously? 1:41 This is this is a big question. 1:43 It's not about do we go to Rise or not. 1:45 It's about what is the best way to get there and how do we get the most value out of the platform once we are there. 1:54 So as they're planning their journey, you know, they're looking for ways to unlock that value. 1:59 It's, it's very difficult for them to position to their decision makers, CFO and so on. 2:06 Well, we're going to spend all this money and take all this disruption and we're going to get pretty much what we have right now. 2:13 You, you need a better story than that. 2:14 And they're struggling with that story. 2:18 And, and you know, that is one of the big topics they're working on. 2:22 And I'm sure we'll come to others in the natural course of our, our discussion today. 2:27 What do we do with big data? 2:28 What do we do with AI? 2:29 But all of that also fits into that larger question of, you know, how do we modernize? 2:37 How do we get, how do we make, how do we get value out of the journey, not just get to the end point, but how do we get better as part of that journey? 2:46 So this is, you know, a key topic that we see they want to be better positioned for M and a new technology adoption process changes, global uncertainty, you know, regional changes, all this type of disruption requires more business agility. 3:04 And this is the question that that they're struggling with. 3:07 Yeah, it, it, it's really tough in the SAP space. 3:10 I mean, you know, from the, the research that I do, maybe 35 to 40% of existing enterprise ERP customers that own SAPERP solutions prior to the release of SAPS for HANA have moved or even just licensed SAPS for HANA at this point. 3:27 And it's, it's a tough question. 3:28 I mean, SA PS putting the clamps on about rise for the SAP, but not everyone necessarily wants that like right now. 3:36 Oh, that that's the truth. 3:38 I mean, I was looking at some figures recently saying that only 20% of the customer base has actually moved. 3:48 The rest is in some, you know, earlier phase of the journey. 3:51 We're testing it where POC ING it, we're evaluating endpoints, this kind of stuff, but only 20% is there now. 3:58 That's great for the services industry and and the the partners because that's a huge wave of work that they're looking for. 4:06 But you know, a lot of customers are saying, well, to a point, Robert, we, we recently moved to sweet on Hana, then we moved to, you know, 19 O three or something like this. 4:20 Then we did a 24 version upgrade and now again, rise, you know, it's, it's tough to keep telling that story to the boss. 4:30 We need more than that. 4:31 And that goes to the first point about, OK, we're going to do it. 4:35 We want to do it. 4:35 We see the benefit once we get there, but how do we get the most out of the out of the journey as well? 4:41 And, and, and yeah, that's, that's kind of the challenge. 4:44 Yeah, absolutely. 4:45 So we talked about some challenges. 4:48 What are some ways that, you know, SAP insiders, the SAP customers can address those challenges? 4:56 Look again, with a wonderful ecosystem and, and leaders like SAP Insider providing that to the customers, giving them that kind of reach, giving them an event like this where they can talk to, you know, hundreds of top tier providers in this space is a great first thing. 5:16 Avail yourself of these type of events. 5:18 This is where you're going to get that that industry contact that you're not going to get, you know, surfing and and so on. 5:25 But also think about the journey right in, in a perfect world and half jokingly, I tell everybody, you should all go Greenfield. 5:35 This is the right solution for everybody. 5:38 You'll get exactly what you want. 5:40 You'll take 10 years and spend a billion dollars and you will build exactly what you want. 5:46 Oh, you don't want to do that. 5:48 You don't want to go to the boss and ask for 10 years and a billion dollars before we modernize. 5:53 Well, what's the what's the alternative? 5:56 This concept of selective migration, which S&P works with so-called Bluefield approach or there's a lot of names for it out there, is a great way for customers to get the most out of that journey. 6:07 Meaning we can pick and choose what you want to migrate and what you don't. 6:12 Or for example, you know, real world example, customer has five ECC systems, wants to move to Esferhana, contemplating 5 separate moves to five separate Esferhana systems. 6:26 Well, it's no, no wonder that they're not able to explain the benefit of that move, right? 6:31 If you can't put all the data together, get the benefit of all those predictive analytics, business AI and so on. 6:38 By having it all Co located in one platform, you really sabotage the whole reason that you're trying to go there in the 1st place. 6:46 So try to get the most out of the journey. 6:50 Use the journey as a way to do that transformation. 6:54 Get rid of the unused data, get rid of the previously divested businesses. 6:59 Standardize, I don't want to say move to clean core, but I'll say how about cleaner core, right, Right. 7:06 There's some things that are business critical. 7:08 We're not going to get rid of it. 7:09 It's how we run the business. 7:11 We're going to keep that. 7:12 But what about the stuff that we can standardize on? 7:15 Do we really need a customized AR process, right. 7:18 I mean, if you can't get that standard, there's obviously a big problem. 7:22 So there's plenty of things to standardize on. 7:25 Yeah. 7:25 And that's definitely, I mean that, that that example you gave, no one wants to move 6 ECC systems to 6S4 HANA systems, right? 7:35 They just don't. 7:37 And there's nothing that SAP provides in their standard, you know, transition tool set that is oriented at that sort of bringing together multiple existing ERP systems into a single SAP S4 HANA instance. 7:53 True, true. 7:54 And that's really what unlocks the benefit out of S Rahana in the 1st place. 7:58 You know, when you, when you have that discussion with the customer and say, OK, well, why are you moving? 8:04 Maybe the initial thing, you know, why it's going to be some date. 8:07 Well, can we do better than that? 8:09 Right? 8:10 Is that really why you're moving? 8:12 And then you peel that on even a little bit. 8:14 And, and then finally, it'll be like, well, we want to become a digital business. 8:18 We want predictive analytics, machine learning. 8:20 OK, now this is a good reason. 8:24 But do you see now that if your data is spread across 5 systems, you never get to that endpoint? 8:30 How does S for Hana know, Robert, that you're going to buy pencils next month? 8:34 Because you bought pencils every month for the last five years, right. 8:38 So if you can't get get the analytics to see that data, it never can give you the valid prediction. 8:44 So the benefit really comes in the transformation that, that that's what unlocks the benefit. 8:50 Yeah, no, absolutely. 8:52 So something that's new to the picture in the OR not now, not necessarily new because I mean SAP systems have included AI and ML for many years. 9:01 But what's new is the concept of business AI that SAP is integrating everywhere across their solution suite, you know, from from line of business applications to you know, Jewel and SAP. 9:12 As for HANA, what sort of impact do you see that having on the market? 9:17 I think it will have a great impact because this is what people and businesses are looking for for that next level efficiency jump, right? 9:28 Can we eliminate data entry, a lot of redundant data entry with Co pilots. 9:33 Can we use Co pilots to, you know, release payments and do three-way matches and these kind of monotonous daily tasks? 9:43 The more of that we can automate, the better quality we can get out of it as well is going to be a boost to productivity. 9:50 It's going to put people in the business really where you want them, innovating new products, interacting with customers, not pushing release on the payment button all day. 10:03 So there's a lot of benefit there. 10:05 And and you know, if you're not doing it, you can be assured your competitors are. 10:11 So you will certainly be left behind if you're not #1 using that technology and #2 learning from it, like reverse engineering in a bit. 10:21 OK, So the AI picked these kind of credit terms for this customer. 10:27 Well, why, right. 10:29 Can we understand why it did what it did and then have the humans learn from that so they can get better too at their job? 10:36 We don't want just the AI to learn and all the knowledge goes there. 10:39 We want to use it to make our people better also. 10:41 And so this is really a game changing way to modernize and innovate and improve the business problem. 10:50 You got to have the good data. 10:52 If you train it on all data that doesn't represent how you operate today, what's it going to learn? 11:00 It's going to learn the old way of operating. 11:03 So none of the predictions are going to be valid. 11:05 None of them are going to match the conditions of today. 11:09 So and what you wind up is, is with like a low level average of the 10 years ago way of doing it five years ago and present some kind of least common denominator of all of that. 11:20 That is not what you wanted to learn. 11:23 It's no wonder that people that do that say we did it. 11:27 We're not getting any lift out of this, though. 11:29 There's no benefit there, right? 11:31 Well, OK, you know, to quote an old term, garbage in, garbage out, it still applies today. 11:38 I was thinking that exact term. 11:40 I was talking about it, right. 11:41 You know, if your data isn't good, you're not going to get any, You cannot, cannot get value out of it. 11:46 And it's, it's a challenge and the journey is the time to clean that up. 11:51 Just to jump in, I started to interrupt. 11:52 That's the time, right? 11:53 You're going to touch all of it. 11:54 You got to touch all the data to move it. 11:56 So why not take that opportunity to get rid of this stuff? 12:00 You don't need archive decommission. 12:03 Get the data into the right format and then move forward with all that innovation. 12:09 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 12:10 So we talked about the challenges, we talked about AI. 12:14 What are what are the skill sets you think SAP insiders and SAP customers and SAP professionals need to have over the next couple of years? 12:23 Look, there is some unremarkable things I'm going to say right now in a way you still want to focus on basics. 12:32 You need the old fashioned business knowledge. 12:36 What is the customer doing? 12:38 How can we improve the customer journey with all these tools, right? 12:41 We're we're giving people capabilities and tools, but if you cannot take them to the field and use them to make the product better, ship the product faster, you know, and these type of business improvements which you need that business knowledge for, right? 12:57 It it doesn't help, right? 12:59 So there's an extent that the machine learning, for example, can uncover some of that, but with just a little human input to guide it in the right direction, the results get orders of magnitude better. 13:12 So that knowledge, that old school business knowledge, you know, leave the office guys, right, like get out of the office, go see the customers, go see the partners, go to the plants, go to the factories, see that, learn that this is there's no replacement for that. 13:28 There's really no all this super technology does not eliminate that need. 13:35 Of course we're going to need the statisticians, the mathematicians, we're going to need those guys as well. 13:40 But with disconnecting it from that business knowledge, we get a big problem. 13:45 I had a guy that used to say it has to work. 13:47 I got output. 13:50 Doesn't mean you've got good output, right, or, or, or relevant output. 13:53 So you need to tie it to the to the business and to the business value. 13:58 There's got to be that benefit there. 14:00 So SNP is an SAP partner. 14:03 You've worked with SAP for many years. 14:06 What's your perspective on the role that the SAP partner ecosystem plays in helping Dr. 14:11 innovation? 14:12 Look, it's it's a big role and it's a critical role because those are the experts handling some of these business challenges directly with the end customer, right? 14:24 It's not SAP who is speaking with a aircraft manufacturing company explaining them how they should improve their aircraft testing. 14:33 There are business process experts in that specific industry that have that knowledge and are bringing that to the customer. 14:41 They need to be the bridge between SAP and the customer to say, here's how we can use business data cloud, non SAP data, SAP data as well to make this end result better. 14:55 So they're really the how could I say that the the bridge between the technology of of ERP, which is now so much bigger than than it used to be and you know, the edge of the business, right? 15:10 Those are the guys helping those, those customers push the envelope as and, and not to, you know, discount their internal business experts as well. 15:21 But they need to function as that bridge. 15:23 They need to take that market experience and bring it back in with their own core products, put them in the marketplaces and so on. 15:32 But as well communicating directly to SAP. 15:34 Hey, this is what we need in the field, guys. 15:36 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 15:39 So in some ways, a lot of customers are adopting SAP solutions because they they have to, they're forced to. 15:47 It's a time frame issue. 15:49 They're not necessarily doing it for the best reasons. 15:52 If you could change something about the way SAP solutions are being adopted by SAP insiders and SAP customers today, what would it be? 16:01 It's a good question, Robert, but we touched on it a bit, right? 16:04 Yeah. 16:05 Start with doing it for the right reason, and I'm sure it's there, right? 16:09 I'm sure the right reason is there. 16:11 You just have to peel the onion a little bit. 16:14 I think the Japanese have a saying, and I'm probably misquoting it, that you need to ask why five times before you start getting to real truth and and and you have to do that like it's easy to say, oh, date. 16:28 That's the easy way out. 16:30 Why? 16:31 What else can we get better than that, guys? 16:34 And then you start getting to these summer some deeper questions and when you can drive that, then you could really add the value and and it should be a value discussion, right? 16:45 Don't get away from that. 16:47 Don't do it to make your AE happy or someone else happy and help someone else make their numbers. 16:53 Do it for the right reason for you. 16:55 And when you do that, you're going to get the most benefit out of it. 16:59 So it kind of sounds like this is this is your piece of advice for the community. 17:04 But as just as the last question, what advice would you offer that that might be different from that or what should people do? 17:11 Do it for the right reasons. 17:13 Use the ecosystem also that it's a great ecosystem. 17:16 Use SAP Insider to help you access that ecosystem. 17:21 How many events can you go to where the whole ecosystem is here, right? 17:25 And you can just walk around the trade show floor. 17:27 You have these wonderful events, and I'm sure any of these customers can call SAP Insider directly and say, hey, you should talk to this guy and you'll help them with that introduction. 17:39 They can go to your website. 17:40 You're here to support them, right? 17:42 That's the benefit of an industry group like this. 17:44 Do it for the right reasons, get the value, engage the right partners, right? 17:50 A lot of them have you know a tremendous amount of expertise. 17:54 Take SNP, we've been doing it 30 years. 17:57 Some of the largest Esfahana M and A type projects as well are done using S&P software. 18:03 That's an ecosystem partner you should leverage. 18:06 It's may not be the customers daily business, certainly not moving to Esfahana doing M&A divestiture. 18:12 That's not their daily business, but it is SNPs, right. 18:14 This is what we do every day for 30 years. 18:16 So use that ecosystem, right and do it for the right reason. 18:21 And it's there. 18:22 Just take some time to think about it, right? 18:24 And and I'm sure you'll find it. 18:26 Yeah, No, absolutely. 18:27 And I would totally support that in saying you can reach out to SAP Insider, You have our website. 18:32 I know you can. 18:32 Everyone who's here at this event has access to membership. 18:35 And you know, my name is on all the reports that I published. 18:39 So please feel free to reach out and I'll connect you with somebody. 18:42 And I know you guys respond. 18:44 And that's the great thing. 18:45 I mean, there are many analysts and so on that their e-mail address might be out there, but get them to respond, right. 18:51 Right. 18:52 Good luck. 18:53 Well, Steele, it has been a pleasure chatting with always is Robert. 18:57 Yeah. 18:57 Thank you so much. 18:58 Thank you for inviting me and thank you for listening. 19:00 Enjoy the rest of the event. 19:01 You too.