>> From Orlando Florida, it's theCUBE. Covering SAP SAPPHIRE NOW 2018 brought to you by NetApp. >> Hi, welcome to theCUBE. I'm Lisa Martin with Keith Townsend. We are in Orlando at SAPPHIRE NOW 2018. We're in Vanetta booth talking to all sorts of guests and we're welcoming to theCUBE for the first time, Anand Chellam at KPIT, the Global Leader for SAP at KPIT. Welcome to theCUBE Anand. >> Thank you, thank you so much for having me here. >> So you have been working with SAP in some capacity for twenty years or so. You've no doubt seen a lot of transformation that SAP has undergone, since then. You're now with KPIT, who was just named yesterday a Hybris America Service Delivery Partner of the Year. Congratulations. Talk to us about one, the evolution that you've seen at SAP and two, how that excites you being on the the KPIT partner site. >> Absolutely, absolutely. It's been interesting. This is my 20th Sapphire, so you know it's been a long journey, and while today in the keynote while watching some of the demos, it goes back to, we saw a demo by Hasso Plattner when they launched mysap.com in Philadelphia. There was a big storm and there was a lot of notion that is SAP going back because internet was new and SAP was not in the bandwagon and SAP was trying to prove themselves that no they are, and they are an internet friendly software and there's a lot of debate whether that's going to be transformed or not, but looking at today, they've done a phenomenal job. I really think the last 10 years, the 50 billion dollar investments, which SAP has done through acquisitions, I feel it's been very rewarding to a lot of our customers, our partners and it's really truly the next generation software, which all of us can look forward to to get the most value. So I'm personally very excited to see how SAP has really looked ahead and done these acquisitions, and more importantly integrating them. I think one of the keys at least in the ecosystem I've seen companies, they acquire a lot of software, but the biggest challenge is integrating them and making them seamless to the customers, and I think a lot of credit goes to SAP for being able to have a plan and integrate that, so it's very seamless. So net-net I'm very excited about what's ahead of us. >> Tell us about KPIT, what do you guys do and then what do you do specifically with SAP? >> We're in Sapphire and KPIT's theme this year is elevate IT, elevate IT or elevate IT. And it's basically elevating to the next level at every level, whether it's from front office to back office, whether it's integrating the connected devices, whether it's building some intelligent automation in the ERP, whether it is adopting and rolling out a personalized cloud model. All of it we are in, and we're very fortunate to being able to you know one is obviously, we planned this. We had a planned strategy on which are the focus areas we're very focused. S/4, we are one of the leaders in the S/4. We have over 120 HANA implementations which is pretty sizeable. If you see there is gonna be some press releases coming out, that has been some piracy where we are the leaders in S/4. And we're excited to see how much of that automation is going to come into the picture. So S/4 is a big area of growth for us. Connected devices is because we're a very strong engineering firm, so it comes very naturally how those two, engineering and IT come together and that comes along very well. In Hybris as you said thank you again we were very excited to get the delivery partner of the year for Americas, which is a pretty amazing accomplishment given you know the last four years our focus has been, but I think what's more exciting for us is the co-innovation we're doing with our customers. As an example you know we are co-innovating building the dealership portals for a lot of their dealers for their customers and see how that's integrating well. The other aspect is CPQ. Big in configuring products and how they can one, bring it to market and two, position that so that their customers are able to configure their products, so we're able to doing a lot of that. We are uberizing service to see on an on demand model how is it that they can provide. So lots of activity around that area as well. >> Anand talk to us, 20 years it's a long time to have observed and participated in the SAP ecosystem. I think it would be fair to say that 20 years ago the conversation in a typical enterprise would be you know what, we're waiting on SAP, whether it's some innovation, practically some batch foul process to end to now we're in a market that SAP is driving business. Can you talk to us about the importance of the relationship of this trifecta of SAP, NetApp, KPIT, how do you guys bring this new business capability? What's the critical components of you bringing this new critical capability to customers, where you can now say that innovations that KPIT, whether it's Hybris or S/4 coupled with NetApp is able to bring innovation to digital transformation. >> Excellent, good point. I think we're not, I'm stating the obvious. There has been so much changes happening in the IT world that it's very important I believe to coexist with partners, and that's where I see the SAP, NetApp, KPIT partnership is a very critical one right, because all of them bring such critical components to bear that we really can use the software, the infrastructure, the disaster recovery the implementation services and the IP, which brings to the table, bundle it together to see some very fast outcomes. I'll give you an example. We just went live with an S/4 implementation. And day one, day one we had a 40% increase in order entry, which is phenomenal so the point being 20 years back that would be unheard of. It would be like oh if we go live and we still can (all talking) were great, so the velocity aspect has increased tremendously. That comes through all these partnership, the underlying infrastructure, which supports the software and the people and the processes, which come into bear. So it's very important that the trifecta effect is seen in outcomes which customers really benefit from. >> Who are you talking to when you guys are going in together as this partnership that you just articulated. Who are you talking to? I mean because the C suite has has shifted so much right? I was reading from the CMO council that 67% of marketing execs rank marketing and commerce technology is critical to their overall performance. We've got the chief digital officer who have to drive cultural change, the CIO who needs to be bimodal. When you guys are talking with customers, what are are those conversations like? What's driving the innovation that KPIT needs to deliver for these customers? >> Very good point. So we've started adopting some of the newer areas to see some of the benefits, which customers are looking for. As an example, one of our customers who make packaging machines, they wanted to see how they can overall reduce their service costs by 20% and how they can implement, an IOT based solution on Leonardo Connected Goods to help reduce and build a new business model, so what in this new age it's just not about implementing a software. It's about how does it drive efficiency by reducing cost, but more importantly how does it spur and build new business models, so it's no longer restricted to an IT solution. I think in this digital era, it's more important how does how does it look differently, how are the models which we never thought about before are being brought in and we were part of the Medallion select group of Leonardo partners and we're very proud to see how that grows. >> What excites you about that because I just saw that announcement come out yesterday. Tell us a little bit about the KPIT's SAP Leonardo innovation portfolio and what you're delivering or will be delivering to customers with respect to that? >> We're focusing in many areas, but the couple which come to mind is Connected Goods. This is an example where we talk about how we reduce the overall service cost by 20% right by just implementing something around that lines. We're also doing a lot of work on the predictive maintenance side of things, where being able to predict failures, before it happens to reduce the downtime and increase the overall productivity, where KPIT is big in automotive and the vehicle insights are something, which we are working with closely to build some of those outcome based models, which I think will be very much beneficial to lot of the customers we have being seeing. >> So if we were live, John Fourier would be DM'ing us and saying this is a perfect opportunity to ask about blockchain in general, so let's not jump on a blockchain bandwagon. Let's talk about other enabling applications including blockchain. As you look out into the next few years, how important is SAP becoming a true platform company that embraces technology such as blockchain? Or they're reaching out to Internet of Things and manufacturing companies, the solutions, other supply chain integration points, how important is SAP's participation in the larger ecosystem and technology? How important is that to the overall success of this partnership? >> You know I think the concept of intelligent enterprise is truly evolving in SAP. What it's helping I think a lot of customers do is it's connecting the dots between their customer experiences, the 360-degree view of their customers. It's looking at connected devices where there's so many devices out there, how do we bring that to the table. it's building a lot of intelligent automation. It's building connected factories so that the production efficiency is where I think there's a lot of emphasis in the next few years going to happen and of course supply chain right, where there has been the case. I think what it's bringing it all together to really have an intelligent enterprise where using whether it's blockchain, using machine learning, to be able to bring that together, because I think in isolation there are benefits, but I think the power of all of this is how do we bring it together in a very seamless manner, and that's what's very exciting. >> When they announced that this morning speaking of integration that C/4 HANA, they talked about that. I thought they did a good job of showing integrations and talking about that, but if I kind of distill that down to one of the things that their CEO has been really vocal about it's got to modernize Legacy CRM and connect, synchronize the supply chain with the demand chain. With what they're doing this momentum that the SAP is carrying through, how do you see that as a differentiator for KPIT's business to be a partner with SAP? >> Absolutely, you know, fortunately for us we've been very strong in the three-generation CRMs. I know we are now talking about the fourth generation CRM, which is C4/HANA. But having lived through the journey of the three generations, I think KPIT has a very unique proposition in the market place. We know very importantly what not to do, what are the things which did not work. I think that's a very important aspect, which I think SAP themselves have learned and that's probably why they're talking about the fourth generation CRM. And I think we are in a very unique position and that's the example. We have implemented this for a long time, and I see that with their integration what they've done with some of the other softwares like Callidus, this is gonna be a complete portfolio of solutions, which they can offer, which I think KPIT is in a very unique position, whether it's cloud for service, cloud for sales, Hybris Commerce, the Callidus, commissions. We're very well positioned to be able to provide all of this to our customers, so the portfolio is a lot more enriched, and I think it's going to be very rewarding. >> What are some of the things in terms of all those announcements that you're looking forward to at Sapphire this year in terms of I can imagine there's a wealth of, I think there's a thousand SAP sessions alone, from an education perspective? Is your team here ready to, you said your theme was Elevate IT? >> Yes. >> What are some of the things that you're excited to learn how to do for those boots on the ground? >> I think one of the areas we are excited about is we're seeing the S/4 adoption going up. I think we're very excited about that. >> I think you said 1800 customers. >> Yes and there's lots... >> And counting. >> Lot's to go but I think yeah. >> Lot of opportunity here. >> Exactly, so I think that's one we want to make sure and then I think the intelligent Enterprise. I think we're very excited about that, along with the data hub. I know it's early days, but we'll closely be watching that because data is going to be a critical aspect for all of this to be successful. So I think we're right on very excited to see those three, four areas and I think we're well positioned to really be able to take this momentum to the next level. >> So you said this was your 20th Sapphire. I think when I was doing some research on this event, it looks like they had done this for about 25 years. Wow, so do you remember back 20 years ago like how many people were at Sapphire back then compared to the... >> Absolutely. >> 20 some thousand that are just here physically this week. >> Yeah I still remember I think it was '99 Sapphire in Las Vegas, that was the only Sapphire happened Vegas. It's easier for me. I don't know why they don't do that. >> Really? >> Yeah, so there I was sitting and one of the big areas we were very excited was, if I was able to enter sales order in HP Jornada. Believe it or not, it was one of the handheld devices. >> I remember that. >> And we were very excited to see oh we are able to enter an order in an HP Jornada. And today we're talking about virtual reality where we are able to look at stuff, change the colors, and be able to order just looking at what you like. >> Transparently. >> Yeah it is unbelievable the change, so to your point, lots have changed, all the way around, whether it's technology, whether it's expectations, whether it's the number of people, number of sessions, and you know we ourselves have got about 12 sessions, customer sessions in this Sapphire. We used to have two or three at the most. >> Wow there's customer centers here and theaters. >> Yes absolutely. >> So another 20-year perspective and looking towards the future. One of the great things about SAP is, also one of the challenges. 46 years of technology and moving customers along, SAP HANA, no question it changes businesses. The stat you gave earlier 40% more orders in one single day, day one. However, what are some of the major barriers that customers face with Legacy infrastructure and moving into taking advantage of S/4 HANA? Is it customization of environments that they did? Is that business processes? Like what's the top one or two challenges customers are facing? >> Very, very good point actually. I'm glad you brought this up. We've been at this for four years. In fact one of the first HANA migrations was done by KPIT at Varian Medical, one of the very early days. So from my perspective, the customers are looking to reduce risk, because they've been working on SAP for such a long time. They built it, it's evolved, it's customized. So how do we reduce risk? In fact KPIT has built a monetization tool, which automatically correct codes, so that it takes away, reduce the risks and reduces the time. So that's one aspect is, customers are very worried about the risks aspect. Second is of course the cost, because they don't want to be spending time in just implementing another system. They want to take leverage about the intelligence, which can built in the different processes, the advantage, so they do want to make sure that that aspect is there, but I think the biggest aspect is, they are looking for the business nuggets. You know what we talked about can this propel them into different business models. Can this be relevant for the next 20 years? Because this is a big investment and that's one of the big roadmap discussions we are having with a lot of our customers. >> Relevance, you know, you really hit the nail on the head. Customers have to be relevant. They have to be able to compete and become intelligent in order to do that. Well and I wish we had more time, but we're out of time. Thank you so much for joining us on theCUBE, and again congratulations on the award, the service delivery partner of the year for Hybris that KPIT has won. >> Thank you, thank you so much. Thanks for getting me here. >> Our pleasure. We want to thank you for watching theCUBE. I'm Lisa Martin with Keith Townsend, and we are at Sapphire Now 2018. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)