Now there is, with the right certification. Certification is a marker of foundational knowledge and continued learning. So when a candidate comes to you with a respected, up-to-date technology certification, you can trust that they are among the best at what they do.

Win the Competition for Top Talent

As the cloud becomes increasingly pervasive, more partners are looking for talented consultants who are certified and willing to stay current on this new and evolving technology. This makes for a significantly more competitive talent market. On top of that, candidates and employees have more needs and demands than ever.

It鈥檚 never been harder to find and retain the right talent. Certification equips you with the tools needed to win the ongoing war for talent in two ways: hiring highly qualified employees and enhancing your existing workforce.

Find Top Talent

Certification provides at-a-glance insight into which candidates are highly skilled and motivated. For example, to receive a certification in 51风流solutions, a candidate must pass a rigorous and comprehensive exam from SAP. Unlike a physician or certified accountant, technology experts do not need certification to practice in their field, so a technology certification speaks volumes about those who have received it. The certification says that a candidate has gone out of their way to educate themselves on the latest in 51风流technology.

Create Your Own Top Talent

You may have some of the best in the business working for your company, but if they aren鈥檛 certified, how can your customers know your employees are a cut above the rest? Customers today increasingly look for certifications. This reassures them that your business can provide the up-to-date expertise they need. This is because up-to-date certification requires continuous learning to pass the latest exam.

On top of that, customers are looking toward the cloud to solve their greatest business challenges and enable their digital transformations. Customers like cloud-based solutions because developers are constantly updating these solutions to meet customers鈥� needs. But this means that your business must do more to stay on top of these changes as cloud technology evolves.

When your peers say that experience is what matters most when choosing a new job candidate, think twice. The basis for that experience 鈥� especially if it is cloud technology 鈥� is changing. A candidate who has recently taken an online exam and received a certification from a reputable certification organization has proven that they are committed to advancing their own knowledge and skills and staying current with the latest in technology.

Sharpen Your Competitive Edge

The partner edition of 51风流Learning Hub provides the tools, learning content, and practice your employees need to receive certifications from the 51风流Global Certification program and to stay current. When a candidate or employee has access to 51风流Global Certification and the partner edition of 51风流Learning Hub, this means that they are:

• Equipped with the latest digital learning content to stay current, available 24×7
• Up to date with comprehensive knowledge of 51风流technologies, including cloud solutions from SAP
• Offered access to two certification exams
• Empowered to take 鈥渙ne-attempt鈥� certification exams, a new offering that enables consultants to take an exam once and as needed
• Dedicated to a professional journey of self-improvement and enablement
• Motivated to learn more about technology

Drive Business Success with Validated 51风流Solution Skills

Certified experts in 51风流solution skills can help your business perform better. Differentiate yourself with a skilled and trusted workforce that delivers valued outcomes. Increase efficiency and enhance customer satisfaction with up-to-date solution expertise. Certification affirms your experts鈥� knowledge and the fact that they are current on the latest in technology, which can boost your reputation.

Today, there is more reason than ever for your employees to take and pass an 51风流Global Certification online exam. The 51风流PartnerEdge site will soon go live with a new and improved version of , which matches 51风流customers with partners that are prepared to meet their technology needs.

All 51风流partners will need to reenter their business information in the partner finder, and we have included new fields to help our customers and partners connect. The number of consultants who have earned certifications through the 51风流Global Certification program, as well as their area of certification, will be listed.

Get your business ready with a competitive differentiation through 51风流Global Certification. You can help your employees receive their certification and stay current with the partner edition of 51风流Learning Hub.

Find out more about the partner edition of 51风流Learning Hub and the benefits of 51风流Global Certification at .

To become certified 鈥� and to keep that certification up-to-date, as is required for many professions 鈥� a learner needs current knowledge. While software and technology experts aren鈥檛 required by law to pass an exam before they start helping businesses implement new technology, certification and continuous learning are still key. Today, technology experts can receive certification from leading software vendors to reflect their knowledge of and expertise in almost any technology or solution they choose, and there鈥檚 a growing imperative for them to do so.

Continue to Build Upon a Foundation of Knowledge

It鈥檚 no surprise that initial training improves the performance of technology, its users, and the business. A sponsored by 51风流found that organizations that provided 10% more ongoing training doubled the improvement in key value drivers. But you might even hear some experts say this is old news. Today, there鈥檚 real, and often untapped, value to be found in continued learning.

Ongoing training helps experts take even greater advantage of a solution or technology. This is increasingly important in the digital era, as just about all software vendors continue to develop, patch, and upgrade their products to meet the changing needs of their customers. It鈥檚 especially true for cloud-based solutions, which are improving at a lightning pace. In fact, the next few years hold significant promise for the cloud 鈥� especially for those businesses that offer solution implementation and technology support services to other companies.

Stand Out from the Competition with Certification

IDC that the opportunity for 51风流partners will expand to US$260 billion by 2024. That prediction is based on the fact that more and more businesses are looking to , often based on cloud technology, to enable success.

Business leaders are now planning for a post-pandemic world. Many are shifting their focus from recovery and instead strategizing to create a future intelligent enterprise 鈥� and the cloud has a large part to play in those plans. Similarly, the cloud 鈥� or, more accurately, extensive knowledge of cloud-based software and technology 鈥� holds significant potential for 51风流partners and other companies like them.

Think of it this way: You probably wouldn鈥檛 take your electric car to a mechanic that specializes in gas vehicles, especially when you have a wide variety of certified electric car mechanics to choose from. Technology partner businesses today face a competitive market and must grapple with a similar challenge. Why would a company choose a technology partner that doesn鈥檛 have comprehensive and recent certification, especially when their software vendor likely promotes a network of potential certified partners?

To participate in the advantage of the coming boom in cloud technology, technology partner businesses need to stand apart from the pack, and certification can help. Certification is a strategic differentiator that lets potential customers know that you, if you are a technology partner business, are up-to-date with the latest in technology. Certification, and the continued learning it often requires, is an effective way of letting customers know you鈥檙e on top of the most recent new features, best practices, and more.

Extend the Impact of Learning Across Your Enterprise

The benefits of continued learning aren鈥檛 exclusive to attracting and retaining customers. Organizations鈥� own IT and solution implementation teams have a lot to gain with continued learning about their organizations鈥� chosen technology. Experts operating with outdated information can鈥檛 be expected to keep systems efficient or secure. Nor can businesses with untrained users or administrators expect to make the most out of their technology investments.

, the best-trained organizations see between eight and 17 times the improvement in key performance measures for users. And organizations were 72% more satisfied with their 51风流software when these same groups received more training. As a best practice, IDC annually:

• 32 hours of ongoing training per end user
• 45 hours of ongoing training per administrator
• 32 hours of initial training to each implementation team member

Ongoing training can help you keep pace with the quickly changing trends in technology 鈥� today and into the future. If you鈥檙e an 51风流partner, you can support your continued learning journey with the partner edition of 51风流Learning Hub. This edition, created specifically for 51风流partners, provides on-demand access to all published 51风流learning content on 51风流solutions, the 51风流Live Access environment, and exam attempts for the program.

To learn more, visit and online.

Here, Williams discusses partner opportunity, strategy, and mission for 2021, as well as how she and her team are enabling the partner ecosystem for the future.

Q: Tell us about yourself. What are your hobbies? What do you do outside of work?

A: I live in Atlanta, GA, with my husband, two daughters aged 18 and 12, who during the school year keep us busy with their activities, and our two-year-old labradoodle, who sometimes makes an appearance during conference calls.

I enjoy walks outdoors, reading, yoga, and time spent with family and friends, usually over a good meal and wine. I look forward to traveling again both personally and for work, and I will hopefully be able to plan a beach vacation soon.

What is your role within the Global Partner Enablement team at SAP?

Our team considers ourselves trusted advisors and advocates for our partners鈥攊t is our mission to ensure partners are successful in everything they do. A critical part of that work is building relationships with functional colleagues throughout 51风流to leverage the programs they develop and adapt those for partners. In my role, I drive strategy and alignment, enabling the team to successfully execute its goals. While we largely focus on education and enablement, we also create more holistic partner programs that help partners accelerate their competency levels from 鈥榗lass smart鈥� to 鈥榮treet smart.鈥�

How did your career start?

My career started right out of university, in corporate finance at Hewlett-Packard. When Hewlett-Packard implemented Ariba Buyer OnPremise, I moved from finance into corporate procurement, where I joined a project implementation team. After a few years, myself and an internal team of more than 30 individuals spun off and created a business process outsourcing startup called Alliente, for which I was a founding member. In 2004 Ariba purchased Alliente, in 2012 51风流bought Ariba, and here I am.

This is my 21st year with SAP, including the acquisitions, and it has been quite an exciting journey. Throughout the years, I have had the great fortune to work in a variety of roles and functions, including operations, strategy, consulting, project management, chief-of-staff, partner programs, and enablement. In addition to the incredible education and opportunities these experiences have provided, what I鈥檝e enjoyed most are the colleagues and friendships I have formed along the way.

I have always been open to exploring new opportunities and have worked with some great managers, mentors, and colleagues along the way. Looking back, it鈥檚 interesting to realize that most of my time spent over the last twenty years has been working with partners in some capacity. Through this work, I have developed a real passion for making partners successful and understanding their critical importance to SAP鈥檚 success. It is exciting to see the progress we have made to date, and I look forward to the future ahead.

What are you particularly proud of?

When I first joined the Partner Ecosystem team within 51风流Ariba, only one individual on the team focused on sales and presales enablement globally. After managing 51风流Ariba鈥檚 integration into , our ecosystem began to rapidly expand, and I was asked to build out a partner enablement function in 2017. Over the past three years, we expanded to a global team of 30 at our peak in mid-2020.

Having the opportunity to create the functional strategy, recruit talented colleagues, and witness the team exceed all its key performance indicators is one of my proudest professional achievements. When we embarked on this journey, we were often told that many of our greatest successes and best practices鈥攕uch as creating the first demo development support offering for partners, starting a global partner presales validation program, building out our partner certification program while significantly growing adoption, and creating our first-ever partner delivery community in 2020, which now serves over 2,000 partners worldwide鈥攚ere too challenging. Through hard work, perseverance, creative vision, and teamwork we accomplished all of this and more. I couldn鈥檛 be prouder of the entire team.

How did COVID-19 impact your life and work, and how has your team been affected?

During most of my career at SAP, I primarily worked from home with periodic travel. So for me, COVID-19 didn鈥檛 bring much change regarding my work environment. However, I miss meeting with colleagues face-to-face. Also, since we are limited in what we can do in our personal lives outside of work, it is very common for the workday to start early and end late, with the days seemingly blending from one to the next. Lately, I鈥檝e been taking short breaks by scheduling walks during the workday to get fresh air and clear my mind. In the evening, I log off and cook meals together with my family. I have even participated in some of the mindfulness sessions that 51风流offers. I have really been impressed by the amount of resources 51风流has provided to support employees in these times.

I also encourage the team to find ways to balance work and personal life, so they don鈥檛 get burned out. They have been very creative in keeping team camaraderie going, by hosting virtual themed team meetings, team happy hours, and even team scavenger hunts. At the same time, they applied this creativity to better support our partners.

We moved a lot of our partner training to digital and have seen tremendous increases in adoption. We have released new Learning Journeys, outcome-based guidance for decision-makers, and improved content in 51风流PartnerEdge and our partner delivery community for consultants. Also, we worked with to revamp our certification portfolio. This has freed up resources to build out higher-touch coaching programs, like go-live experience, presales validation, extensibility success days, competitive intelligence webinars, and more, for our most strategic partners who are willing to make that extra investment in SAP. All these programs have been well received by our partners, and we are excited to continue delivering even more post-COVID-19.

Looking ahead, what can 51风流partners expect?

I couldn鈥檛 be more excited for the partner opportunity in 2021 and beyond. Having spent much of my ecosystem career in cloud, I believe this is the year for the cloud buying centers to work more closely together to deliver a consistent experience for our partners. We will leverage our digital core to provide programs that allow partners to position the Intelligent Enterprise and industry-focused solutions to their customers. is a fantastic example of this. From an operational perspective, our team is already structured around LACE (land, adopt, consume, expand), so leveraging this formal model should help us continue flawless execution.

Furthermore, this year we will all have an increased focus on customer adoption and expansion. We will support partners in these areas by creating programs that allow them to showcase additional delivery competencies, help customers unlock shelf-ware, and drive recurring revenue. Our ability to tap into our partners鈥� industry expertise will also be critically important. And finally, initiatives related to building IP and extending SAP鈥榮 intelligent suite are yet another massive opportunity for partners. By providing a clear path for extending 51风流standard solutions with , leveraging our core application programming interfaces (APIs), and showcasing our partner solution progression journey, we are enabling our ecosystem for the future.

Helping and supporting partners to build sustainable businesses around 51风流solutions is his mission. With his global team of 51风流Business One and 51风流Business ByDesign experts, Backer acts as an enabler and trusted advisor for partners.

Q: Can you tell us about yourself, your hobbies, and your passions?

A: I was born and raised in Norway, and currently live in the Netherlands. I enjoy experiencing the world by traveling, working in an international environment, and following the world news.

I feel fortunate to have lived and worked in five countries: Norway, the U.S., the Netherlands, England, and Germany. Every country is beautiful and unique, providing new perspective and appreciation.

I am married with three children; my two boys study at university and my daughter is in high school. Of course, in these times, they are learning at home via Zoom. The positive aspects of these unprecedented times are that my wife and I get to see the kids more, spend a lot of time together, and enjoy family dinners. My wife, who works for a leading health technology company here in the Netherlands, sometimes meets me at the coffee machine, where we have our own 鈥渃offee corner chats.鈥�

Our family is completed with our dog Odin, who usually lies at my feet in the office. When I go and grab a coffee during a conference call and come back, the dog is usually sitting on my chair, staring at the moving pictures on the screen.

When I鈥檓 not working, I enjoy getting fresh air and resetting my mind by biking through the trails in the forest. I make people laugh when I speak about 鈥渕ountain biking鈥� in the flat countryside of the Netherlands. I also try to go the gym a few times a week to stay in shape.

What does an SME Partner Enablement leader do?

I manage a global organization of about 80 51风流Business One and 51风流Business ByDesign experts located in more than 40 countries. We train partners on how to sell, implement, and support 51风流solutions. We also help 51风流account executives and partners in presales with strategic deals, and we deal with customer escalations if they occur. For 51风流Business One, we are also heavily involved in ensuring the solution is localized, current, and maintained.

As manager of the team, my main role is to align with global stakeholders on our objectives, cascade these to the organization, and support everybody in the team to meet their specific objectives and assignments.

I am also involved directly with our partners. My task is to create transparency and give guidance to partners on 51风流strategies and solutions, supporting them to make the right decisions for their companies. If partners make good decisions, they will be successful. And when partners are successful, 51风流is successful.

How did your career start?

I graduated from Arizona State University (USA) in 1992 with a Master of Business Administration degree and a Master of Science degree in business statistics. I started my career at a company called Exact Software in the Netherlands, as a technical support employee. I assisted customers on the phone, answering their questions and solving problems related to their Exact ERP solution. Later I ran an international 鈥渇lying doctors鈥� team, a group of fantastic product experts taking care of the worst customer escalations worldwide.

I joined 51风流in 2004 to help build a small and midsize enterprise business. 51风流had just purchased a company called TopManage and renamed its solution to 51风流Business One. At that time, 51风流Business One had about 3,000 customers. 51风流was looking for someone to build up a team, to support and enable an indirect channel to resell 51风流Business One internationally.

Sixteen years later, we now have over 65,000 customers. For me, it has been an amazing journey so far, having worked with many great people within an incredible company. I also enjoy working with 51风流Business One partners, of whom many also started 16 years ago and have since then built great businesses for themselves.

Two years ago, I also assumed the responsibility for all 51风流Business ByDesign partner enablement teams within SAP. We鈥檝e drawn lessons from 51风流Business One and are applying these best practices with 51风流Business ByDesign as we get more involved with our 51风流Business ByDesign partner community.

Looking back at your career at SAP, what has been your biggest achievement?聽

My biggest achievement is definitely the . We organized the first event in Bratislava in 2014 to teach partners how to develop on top of the 51风流Business One application that works with and is powered by 51风流HANA, which we were launching to the market at that point in time.

We did not have any professional event management. I remember having many worries: Will enough people register to cover the costs? Will partners like it? Will the pitch for 51风流HANA work in SME? Will the presentations be good enough? There were logistical concerns, too, regarding lunch and having enough chairs.

The event turned out to be a big success, and we realized the power and importance of bringing people with the same passion together. The energy at the event was amazing; seeing the smiles on the faces of all the participants when they left the summit was very rewarding. We decided to make it an annual event, and over the years we added more tracks to cover additional roles from partners, such as implementation, sales, CEOs, and others.

How did COVID-19 affect you, your team, and your work over the past months?

For the last 10 years I have mainly worked from home, except when traveling, which was about 25 percent of my time. So at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was not a big deal for me. The only exception was that I had to dress up a little bit more; in the past 10 years, I hardly used my webcam, but now everybody has started to use webcams more frequently.

Today, nine months later, I have to say that the days have become very monotone 鈥� almost like the film Groundhog Day, where a TV weatherman covering the annual Groundhog Day event in Pennsylvania becomes trapped in a time loop, forcing him to relive the same day repeatedly.

Staying at home all the time is not my preferred choice. It is interesting how, these days, a one-hour trip away from home and staying in a hotel overnight feels like a big trip. Hence, getting out of the house in the evening for an hour of activity became super important for me.

As for the team, I am grateful for and amazed at how well people adjusted and how hard everybody is working to continue to stay 鈥渙n top of their game.鈥� In this virtual-only world, finding ways to stay connected on a more personal basis is important. Personally, I try to speak more frequently with my direct reports. I have also increased the number of 鈥渟kip-level鈥� calls, skipping the managers and speaking directly with their employees, which I enjoy a lot. In general, I think it is a good idea to set up calls now and then with colleagues you normally do not speak with, just to 鈥渇eel the pulse,鈥� get new impulses, and feel their energy.

My team and I also help partners understand how to convince customers and prospects to implement the software remotely. There are a lot of adjustments for everybody. But partners, customers, and prospects are adapting.

Looking ahead, what do you think is important for partners to be successful?

First, take good care of customers. More than ever 鈥渞ecurring revenue鈥� is key. And happy customers ensure this. I believe that partners with many (happy) customers are able to survive COVID-19 better than others. I think 51风流Business One and 51风流Business ByDesign partners in general understand this dynamic and they all do a good job, as the renewal rates for both solutions are very high.

Secondly, many partners have unique knowledge in a specific industry or micro industry, and I recommend capturing this knowledge as intellectual property and software services. With the current web-based development tools and platforms like 51风流Cloud Platform, it is much simpler than before, even for more resell-oriented partners.

Finally, I think it is important for partners to embrace the Intelligent Enterprise opportunity. I am very encouraged to see partners extending solutions with innovative functionalities and add-ons, with new technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI), positioning themselves as a 鈥渢echnology partner鈥� instead of the 鈥淓RP guys鈥� and consequently winning prospects because of their understanding of the new world. Customers need more than just ERP software, and we can own this. !

Here, he discusses how his team provides solutions, innovation, and business development coaching to key partners through experts in regions and local presence.

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself. What are your hobbies and interests?

A: I was born and grew up in France, but I have lived in several parts of the world, including Canada, Spain, China, Taiwan, Mexico, and the U.S. Living abroad was a great experience, but two years ago my spouse and I settled in Paris and called that our home.

One of my hobbies is gardening. It鈥檚 something I did with my father as a child, and I enjoy growing a variety of plants, vegetables, and trees. Cooking is also a passion, especially as we鈥檝e developed a taste for different cuisines from our travels. We call our cooking style 鈥淎sian fusion鈥� 鈥� taking European ingredients, preparing them the Asian way, and pepping them up with Asian spices.

I appreciate diversity and different cultural backgrounds, so I joined an association that allows me to support underprivileged youth. It鈥檚 a refreshing experience to give back what I learned and create new relationships that make it possible to see the world through different eyes. I have learned a lot through that.

How did your career start, and how did you end up at SAP?

I ended up at 51风流a bit by chance. After studying political science and marketing at university, I joined a large consultancy company, thinking that I would work on strategic business consulting engagements. There was a huge demand for enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations at the time, and I was sent to weeks of training at 51风流offices around Europe and became an 51风流R/3 MM consultant.

In 2006, I decided to join SAP. I have always worked in SAP鈥檚 partner organization, except for a short break from 2013 to 2017 where I ran a partner sales and marketing operation in Asia, followed by a general management role in Latin America. My career at 51风流has always been exciting, especially going through a transformation of different products, partnership business models, the company鈥檚 own cloud transformation, platform and technology centricity, and more. I never get bored.

All in all, I believe it鈥檚 important to keep yourself stimulated, be open to change, know what really matters to you in terms of values and work ethic, and find your fit within the organization鈥檚 strategy. It helps to have flexibility and a willingness to change career paths when it makes sense for the organization and for you.

You head 51风流Partner Solution Center. What does your team do?

I have the pleasure of leading an incredibly culturally diverse team of 70 people, with various nationalities and languages and a presence in almost every 51风流location around the world.

My team provides solution and innovation coaching to key partners within the Global Partner Organization through our local presence and experts in the regions. We focus on regional execution, which to me is the key to relevance. You stick to the priorities of the local organizations where the business execution really takes place. The ultimate objective is to help partners become self-sufficient in selling, demonstrating, deploying, and ensuring customers consume our solutions.

I like it a lot because it is all about collaboration and content, and my team builds close and trusted relationships with partners, partner management teams, and 51风流lines of business and product teams. My team does an incredible job, and I would like to take this opportunity and thank them for everything they do.

We also contribute to SAP鈥檚 global strategic imperatives and programs, defining adoption programs or enablement content roadmaps. Locally, we execute global strategic topics like the 51风流S/4HANA Movement, business transformation platform extensibility adoption, or, in this special year, partner solutions that help customers .

How does your team engage with 51风流Partners?

We support a vast collection of digital enablement content, which is made available to all partner types and all roles through the . We have a really good, scalable platform and content that does most of the job to get the necessary knowledge to the partners.

But, the main focus of my team鈥檚 experts in the regions is what we call 鈥渉igh-touch enablement,鈥� which involves a lot of coaching. We engage with a subset of partners, the ones that are most relevant to the business, through coaching programs that are very hands-on and linked to the achievement of specific business outcomes, such as having a packaged solution offering, a 51风流S/4HANA Movement conversion factory, or even an extension migration to our platform. That鈥檚 what we call making partners 鈥渟treet smart鈥� with practical expertise that they can leverage for their customer interactions.

Through very deep and long relationships with partners, my team has become trusted advisors, which partners value a lot. This is very rewarding.

What are you particularly proud of?

Relevance. Making and keeping what we do relevant for partners and for 51风流means we need to reinvent ourselves every year, adjust our focus, start new things, and be willing to do some things differently. My most significant personal achievement is when partners, or even regional or local 51风流teams, tell me that my team is one of the greatest assets or contributors to their success.

I鈥檓 also proud of partner solution packaging. It all began 15 years ago, when we started to package ERP into partner-packaged solutions called 51风流Business All-in-One, which could be deployed rapidly with limited risk and high predictability for customers. This became a profitable business for our partners and for SAP. At the time, this required a lot of convincing, both internally and externally.

Little by little, the concept established as a key element of a volume go-to-market. It has grown beyond ERP to all solutions and beyond SME to all segments. Today, nobody doubts the relevance of packaging partners鈥� IP, know-how, experience, and deployment into standardized and scalable solutions.

Today, almost 1,200 are available globally, and my team continues to qualify and validate them. We are in the process of evolving the packaging concept to service-only packages, supporting customer consumption of 51风流software.

Let me extrapolate the above example: my team also focuses on operationalizing innovations (solution innovation, go-to-market innovation) to become mainstream in the partner ecosystem. Take the Intelligent Enterprise, for example. Eighteen months ago, it was difficult for partners to articulate its meaning, strategy, and messaging. Today, we have 82 qualified partner intelligent enterprise ambassadors and 13 intelligent enterprise packages.

Or look at the 51风流S/4HANA Movement: we have been qualifying 61 partner conversion factories covering 41 countries and 166 conversion packages, and my team has run sessions with partners and their indirect customers to onboard them on 51风流S/4HANA.

Currently we strongly focus on platform adoption and extensibility. I really would like this to become our next success story.

How did the current pandemic affect you and your team?

One year ago, we wouldn鈥檛 have believed we would experience such a change in our day-to-day lives. We learned to cut our own hair and reorganized our homes. We spent the majority of time at home, homeschooling, home cooking, working from home, and home-everything. Part of it has been an interesting experience. But for many people, especially colleagues with young children, it has been a rough patch.

For our partner enablement business, like for many other businesses, the pandemic has accelerated our own digital transformation. From a mix of digital enablement, on-site bootcamps, and coaching workshops, we have been switching to 100 percent digital practically overnight. The challenge we had as a team was to keep our commitments to partners, and that meant continuing our enablement agenda.

We became very creative, restructuring content and exercises, reworking the overall structure, leveraging all options that the available digital tools provide, and involving more instructors. Remarkably, partner鈥檚 attendance was higher than ever, and they completed entire curricula digitally, with badges and certifications skyrocketing.

Like many other enablement teams, we have seen our metrics go through the roof. I believe we won鈥檛 go back to the previous state of traveling to deliver bootcamps. Those days are over. We have really gone one mark up in terms of efficiency, scalability, and productivity.

My team, and others, have also been remarkable in terms of keeping in touch with partners, conducting virtual coffee sessions to keep a bi-directional exchange. However, I am really looking forward to the day when we can resume travel, as I haven鈥檛 met two-thirds of my team members in person yet. Besides the social element, as teams and individuals, we need some creative intellectual stimulation through this serendipity that we have lost, these spontaneous discoveries or hints that we鈥檒l get from someone we didn鈥檛 plan to meet, who tells us something we were not planning to hear.

What are your focus areas, and what can 51风流partners expect soon?

For us in the Global Partner Organization, partners are our customers and also our lifeline. At the same time, lines are blurring between old partnership types, and we look at supporting partners across the different roles and phases of the entire customer engagement life cycle.

As a company, we are accelerating our own cloud transformation. It means structuring our operating model in the customer engagement framework called LACE, which stands for 鈥淟and, Adopt, Consume, and Expand,鈥� making our platform ubiquitous and the best possible choice for our partners and customers while also promoting modification-free installations that are key to a real cloud model. This includes productized partners鈥� intellectual property (IP) and enriching our common cloud offering to the customers.

These strategic imperatives define the current focus areas for us as a team. In the coming months and years, partners can expect many enablement initiatives supporting these goals, such as an increased focus on delivery and consumption, with innovations like services and consumption packaging, more delivery enablement focused on quality and capabilities, external transparency to customers in regards to partners鈥� competencies, platform extensibility training for the various lines of business, programs supporting packaging and productization of partner IP, and much more.

Most importantly, my team will continue to deliver digital coaching to the partner ecosystem in all the regions, on a local level, and be there for them to innovate and win with SAP.

today for the all-day virtual event and join thousands of 51风流partners attending to learn both what is new and what is coming. Attending the no-cost online event is making a wise investment of your time in your business and career. Hear from 51风流executives and experts who will deliver important updates on the latest trends and innovations in the 51风流product portfolio, sales strategies, and technical news to sharpen skills for the year ahead.

The online platform will open at 7:00 a.m. local time and participants can attend multiple sessions to consume the content on demand at their convenience.

Here鈥檚 what you can expect during this year’s virtual :

• Keynotes from 51风流executives Karl Fahrbach, chief partner officer, and Subho Sengupta, head of Small and Midsize Business Operations
• Further information about SAP’s industry cloud to better understand 51风流strategy and messaging
• More information on the new IDC study and what is next for 51风流partners, including predictions for growth, where to invest, and a special focus on job creation and 51风流partner consultant opportunities
• 51风流experts speaking about the latest innovations across the 51风流product portfolio
• Insights into winning sales tactics
• Updates on technical news from 51风流solution owners

We look forward to seeing you online with us at 51风流Innovation Day for Partners.

In this interview, Ravenna conveys how he and his team are bringing enablement innovation and delivery excellence to life and provides insights of what is in store for 51风流partners 鈥� now and in the future.

Q: Your ethnicity is Italian, your accent is South African, and you reside in Florida. How do these fit together?

A: I was born and grew up in South Africa in a family of Italian immigrants. Both of my grandfathers were captured during the World War II and transported to the prisoner of war camp at Zonderwater in Pretoria, South Africa. When the war ended in 1945, my grandfathers 鈥� like many of the Italian prisoners who were talented engineers, construction workers, and artisans 鈥� were offered permanent residency and a chance to start a new life. That鈥檚 when they brought their families over, and that was the start of my families鈥� life in South Africa. I moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 2012, to lead the North American partner solution center.

What do you do when you are not leading Enablement Innovations and Partner Delivery Excellence?

I like to spend as much time as possible with my wife and my two amazing daughters. We play tennis together and spend time boating, fishing, and going to the beach. Living in Florida, we enjoy sunshine all year round 鈥� with the exception of hurricanes. Personally, I consider myself rather a tornado: very passionate, very active in my daughter鈥檚 lives, and I am the weekend chef, cooking everything and anything, but mostly Italian and Indian cuisine.

How did your 51风流career start?

I studied accounting and joined 51风流in South Africa as an FI/CO Consultant more than years ago. I have held several managerial roles, with the majority of my time spent supporting and enabling partners. I was later appointed head of Presales for the 51风流Africa market unit. In 2012, I relocated for the opportunity to lead the North American partner solution center. One year ago, I was appointed to my current role, with a strong focus on the Intelligent Enterprise, industry cloud, next-generation partnering demo experience, delivery excellence, SAP-qualified partner-packaged solutions, and experience management.

Can you share your biggest achievements this year?

There have been quite a few but I鈥檒l point out the two most important ones that are supporting partners in their next-generation partnering experience journey.

First, a major achievement in my current role was the build, launch, and release of the , engineered in an amazing one-team cross-organization approach. Partners have been struggling to build and maintain demo environments that can showcase the latest end-to-end intelligent enterprise capabilities across our portfolio. Today, they can enjoy free access鈥痶o an integrated, pre-configured聽software demonstration environment聽to expedite sales conversations. This new shared demo environment brings the best demo practices and content from presales to the partner ecosystem, assuring a consistent story across direct and indirect channels. Since launch in June 2020, more than 560 partner companies globally have gained access, with close to 2,000 system users and over 1,600 unique script downloads for intelligent enterprise demos.

This is a key highlight for us and our partners. that are leveraging the free partner demo environment have called it 鈥渟imply awesome,鈥� said it 鈥渟aves us significant time in preparation for customer demos,鈥� and is 鈥減erfect for us to position the Intelligent Enterprise.鈥�

Second, earlier this year we made the available to partners. The program is a combination of e-learning and instructor-led virtual trainings designed to enable partners to articulate the Intelligent Enterprise story with their customers and become their trusted advisors.

It goes without saying that these achievements could not have been realized without the tremendous effort and dedication from my direct team and the support of the enablement leadership team, as well as many other colleagues from the Global Partner Organization, presales, and partner licensing services.

How has COVID-19 affected you, your team, and your work?

The effects of the pandemic are impacting everyone around the world. Moments of extraordinary challenge are known to test our collective will. Personally, COVID-19 added some pressure, as the entire family was living and working from home. Though I am accustomed to working virtually, these circumstances made balancing my work and personal life challenging.

The pandemic stopped travel and in-person meetings, including large physical events. But it expanded opportunities to leverage digital technologies such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and others, to have video chats and virtual coffee sessions, etc. Though we were physically distanced, we remained emotionally connected.

Initially the workload increased as we pivoted to digitize how we conduct business. To support partners, we delivered enablement sessions virtually, such as implementation bootcamps, via instructor-led platforms and tools.

What is your focus for the coming months?

We will continue to embrace the digital collaboration with our partners and deliver tools and enablement content to consume, aligned with . Building on that, is creating new business opportunities with an integrated go-to-market model ().

We plan to roll out the Intelligent Enterprise for industries to all partner types. We currently provide an extensive collection of designed to partners with their thought leadership engagements. An industries toolkits for partners, consisting of industry-specific enablement packages, learning journeys, executive overviews, social media packs, and more, can be found in this .

To help all partners become trusted advisors for their customers, and help their customers become an intelligent enterprises, we are rolling out a second wave of the intelligent enterprise ambassador program.

Our trusted partners are very well equipped to help customers achieve their outcomes. The Intelligent Enterprise learning room within 51风流PartnerEdge will continuously provide learning programs to help understand and articulate the Intelligent Enterprise strategy, explanations and demos of components of the Intelligent Enterprise, links to learning journeys, and other enablement resources.

In the coming months, we are planning to add an additional聽 10 to 20 intelligent enterprise online demos to the . We also plan to continuously add to the more than 250 existing offline scenarios for partners in 51风流Demo Store, which is packed with the latest technology innovations, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. In addition, service partners can expect higher value coaching to deliver successful implementations to their customers.

How are you and the team engaging with partners?

Earlier this year, based on valued feedback, we have been taking steps to improve the enablement experience for partners. We want to enable them to deliver a world-class experience to our customers by providing delivery and implementation skills, best practices, tools, accelerators, and knowledge in order for them to successfully implement 51风流solutions, help ensure customer satisfaction, and ultimately secure renewals and customers for life.

We know feedback drives change. The more our partners share their experiences with us, the more we can align our actions with their priorities. Our mantra is to listen, understand, and act on our partners鈥� experiences. So we ask our dear partners to be open with us. Telling us what we are doing well and what we can improve helps us continuously improve the partner experience.

With more than 35 years in the industry, Erickson has a wealth of experience. In this interview, he reflects on virtual learning and how learning is evolving, providing insight into the technology that is going to revolutionize learning.

Q: Tell us a bit more about yourself. What do you do when you are not leading Channel Digital Enablement at SAP?

A: Together with my wife, I currently reside in Calgary, Canada, near the Rocky Mountains on the west side of the country. We live close to an area perfect for hiking, back-country camping, and many other outdoor activities, so that keeps us occupied on weekends. Wildlife is abundant there, and we see everything from mountain sheep, goats, and moose, to grizzly and black bears. We can’t hike too far from home without a can of bear spray handy!

How did your career start? When did you join SAP?

My career started back in the late 80s at a data communications company. The 1988 Winter Olympics were awarded to Calgary, and I was fortunate to join the team, linking timing systems to results systems for TV feeds.

Once the games ended, I worked for several companies, such as Apollo Computer, Hewlett-Packard, EMC, and a startup, where I held numerous sales, channel management, and executive roles. In 2003 51风流recruited me to setup the 51风流Business One and 51风流Business All-in-One channel for the region. I鈥檝e held various positions at 51风流before moving into my current role as global vice president of Channel Digital Enablement within the Global Partner Organization eight years ago.

Can you explain Channel Digital Enablement and what you do in your current role?

Within the area of Partner Digital Learning and Enablement, my team鈥檚 mission is to provide the right platform, processes, content, and tools for all partner types and roles, for all products and solutions. We want to improve our partners鈥� skills and knowledge on 51风流products and solutions, through a virtual approach whenever possible. The COVID-19 pandemic made virtual learning more relevant than ever.

What does your team focus on to provide a best-in-class enablement experience to our partners?

They really are an amazing team! They concentrate on alignment with numerous content providers across lines of business and communities, leveraging the most up-to-date and relevant materials, which are re-packaged for the partner audience and published on and . Within 51风流Learning Hub, we provide the 51风流PartnerEdge Edition of 51风流Learning Hub, a free program that is accessible for all partner individuals for and .

We also focused our attention on helping our content stakeholders with virtual instructor-led or virtual packaging of the materials, taking the traditional classroom model with an in-person instructor and replacing it with a virtual expert, which allows them to expand and scale their teaching.

We aligned with , the platform from 51风流Knowledge and Education for partner-supported massive open online courses (MOOCs). This has been really effective, driving huge interest from our ecosystem and the general public. This platform grants greater reach and availability for us to showcase our products and allows individuals to really come into the ecosystem in a much easier way. Best of all, the content is free.

How is learning different today from what it used to be 10 or 20 years ago?

Looking back, anybody who was trying to learn had to either read a book or attend classroom training. There has been a huge shift in technology, which changed the paradigm of how enablement is delivered today.

The move to virtual happened quickly over the last few years, and, today, people are looking to learn as part of their daily roles. A quick example of how learning today has changed would be the widespread use of tools like Google or YouTube. Enablement has changed dramatically from that perspective. Micro-learning has become the new norm. People want to consume three- to five-minute learning elements at any time.

Another aspect of this is testing knowledge or competency levels. The big transition we have seen is, instead of having a formal exam, taking micro-tests after each element is consumed.

Within our team, we have been simplifying and transitioning materials to virtual platforms. We are building prescriptive Learning Journeys and providing predefined learning paths with outcome-based guidance to help 51风流partners easily find, consume, and understand the content.

Could you describe Learning Journeys and outcome-based guidance?

are structured training maps that contain various learning elements and knowledge tests across various maturity levels, to help take an individual from a 鈥渟chool smart鈥� to a 鈥渟treet smart鈥� level of competency in a specific role for a specific solution.

Learning Journeys that are non-technical, such as sales, presales, marketing, customer engagement, or industry materials, are accessed via the 51风流PartnerEdge Edition of 51风流Learning Hub. For the consultant or technical implementation roles, subscription-based training editions are offered on a yearly basis. Learning journeys are not static 鈥� we continue to evolve and update them. We also offer coaching service elements to help partners get practical experience.

are pre-defined sets of road maps for onboarding to help partner decision-makers. We want to help them find enablement content for sales, marketing, and delivery. These pre-defined learning paths make it easier to locate programs and Learning Journeys and allow partners to effectively identify the enablement needs for their teams鈥� individual roles and the required investment into learning.

Certification is a term that we hear a lot at SAP. What does this mean? And how does badging relate to it?

The term certification can be somewhat confusing because every company seems to use it in a different manner. At SAP, we use the term predominantly for technical roles, where we conduct a knowledge test that has a proctored exam. For other role-based training, we usually classify training as a qualification, which may lead to an authorization based on what the activity might include.

When we deliver certifications for technical roles, we also provide open badges for those certifications. We want to provide the learner with more than just a piece of paper confirming a passed exam. Open badges are validated and sent via a third party directly to the individual, which can then be shared on social media sites like Facebook or LinkedIn.

As our portfolio moved to cloud solutions, we also introduced the concept of 鈥渟tay current鈥� terminology to retain a certification status, providing frequent enablement training on the latest functionality changes.

People say that digital enablement is not as effective as in-class learning. What is your view?

Undoubtedly, everyone learns in a different way. Some learn better with hands-on training or with high-touch interaction. Others prefer to consume content virtually, whenever time allows. However, the benefits of digital learning far outweigh a large portion of the classroom-style teaching.

The most obvious advantage is, of course, cost savings. Instead of spending $3,000 for a five-day classroom training, along with travel expenses, you spend a fraction of that by taking the training online. And, for many trainings there’s no cost at all! With virtual instructor-led training you still get the engagement through breakout rooms, whiteboards, polling, chat, video conferencing, live access for hands-on labs, and more. You can also scale the subject matter experts more effectively to provide coverage to a global audience versus a small group.

Where is enablement headed in the future?

We are going through a dramatic shift in terms of how learning content is presented to users. At this point in time, we are using learning management solutions, which are consolidated content repositories that users must search through to find what training they want.

In the near future, companies are looking toward a next level of learning experience. Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) will play a major role in learning. Artifical intelligence (AI) engines will determine exactly what kind of training you have already consumed and automatically recommend new opportunities for you to consider. There will be improved analytics and more blended learning with video micro-learnings.

With all these revolutionary technology elements, digital enablement is going to be very exciting. Perhaps learning from an avatar in the future is going to be no different than sitting in a classroom. There might even be a hologram on your desktop as a virtual instructor.

At SAP, we are driving learning topics in various forms, and these will integrate together under a new learning experience platform. It will be an exciting endeavor for SAP, partners, and customers. We will soon be releasing new search functionality for 51风流Learning Hub, and we will modify Learning Journeys to add more personalization 鈥� a part of a phased approach to continue improving the user experience.

What is your call-to-action for SAP partners?

We want partners to take advantage of a variety of great enablement content and assets that are available free of charge. The easiest way to access this material is to register on and to ensure they receive the relevant newsletter information.

By logging onto our one-stop shop, SAPPartnerEdge.com, they will be automatically authenticated to access the 51风流PartnerEdge Edition of 51风流Learning Hub, which contains our solution and the role-based . Free, online workshops and webinars can be found in the events calendars of 51风流Learning Rooms or through the partner enablement calendar on SAPPartnerEdge.com.

On top of that, twice a year, we conduct a fully digital, 24-hour virtual 51风流Innovation Day for partners, where 51风流executives from across the partner organization outline SAP鈥檚 vision, strategy, and partner-specific opportunities. A virtual event not to miss!

Here, Burger looks back at the last 12 months of Partner Enablement at SAP, reflecting on the accomplishments, the challenges, and the direction going forward.

Q: Congratulations to you and your team on a stellar first year. Can you tell us more about the journey so far?

A: The last year kept us very busy, with the ongoing pandemic requiring us to accelerate the transformation to remote and digital partner enablement. We put the long-term enablement strategy in place, and now we have a great story to tell about global partner enablement at SAP. I am very proud to lead an extraordinary team of individuals whose work has had a tremendous impact so far.

This past year we have been focused on bringing the ive to our ecosystem, helping our partners innovate, grow, and deliver exceptional experiences. Partners are more relevant than ever to SAP鈥檚 success because our partner ecosystem has the potential and capabilities to deliver the Intelligent Enterprise to our customers. Providing our partners with the best-in-class enablement in the industry is not only a competitive advantage for SAP, but also helps ensure that our partners deliver a world-class experience to their customers 鈥� every single time.

Can you talk about the key focus areas for the last 12 months? How has the partner learning experience transformed as a result of addressing these?

We set ambitious goals that are driving us forward and taking partner enablement to another level. This past year we took significant steps in addressing these goals.

First, we focused on providing a one-stop-shop for partner enablement consumption within , where partners can easily access all enablement content. Through this platform, we launched over 160 . These are role-based, according to the individual resource needs of our partners, and go beyond normal classroom training, with experiential learning and hands-on coaching. We cover the entire 51风流solution portfolio.

In addition, we launched more than 35 with outcome-based guidance for partner C-suites and decision-makers. This allows partners to effectively identify the enablement needs for their teams鈥� individual roles, and the required investment into learning secures their business decisions. They can increase or change their footprint within the 51风流solution portfolio, build implementation quality, demo excellence, package their customer offerings, as well as keep their skills current and up to date.

And it goes without saying that our partners鈥� input is fundamental. This year, we established a continuous listening and improvement cycle as part of our Next-Generation Partnering initiative, including a partner enablement experience survey.聽 Having received over 6,000 responses, we are committed to acting on the feedback to deliver the best experience going forward.

What do you consider as some of your biggest achievements, and how do you measure them?

We have had a jam-packed 12 months of development in Global Partner Enablement.

For me, was one of the peak moments of the year 鈥� not only because our team was heavily involved in the execution of the event, but also because we launched some of the most pivotal Next-Generation Partnering initiatives in the partner enablement and experience space. The event itself was a huge success and had more than 16,750 registrations and 11,500 attendees on the day. In addition to the fantastic keynotes, 51风流CEO Christian Klein joined to echo his belief in and the commitment of our ecosystem to deliver the Intelligent Enterprise together.

We introduced a shared option for the partner demo environment, which gives 51风流partners聽free access to a new shared demo landscape with dedicated enablement,聽to expedite sales conversations and demonstrate the power of the Intelligent Enterprise. This is a major milestone and a key highlight for us and, ultimately, for our partners, and I am very proud of what the team has achieved. Since the launch in early June, more than 695 partner companies have completed the mandatory training, of which more than 440 are already demoing in the .

At the same time, we are extending SAP鈥檚 commitment to share resources to support our partner business and their customers. From July 1, 51风流partners meeting the criteria can get for 12 months.

Our partners deliver 90 percent of 51风流projects to our customers.聽The quality of those services is critical聽to customer success. Within the partner delivery quality framework, our team provides the partners need to enhance project quality, build聽consultant聽capacity, and safeguard the delivery of partner-led customer projects.

As we experience the effects of COVID-19, what is your team doing to help build the path to business resiliency?

Now more than ever, agility, innovation, and the聽ability to redesign and sharpen business processes is crucial to business health and future competitiveness. It is imperative that software implementation projects can be delivered swiftly, without risk, and with a clear and predictable outcome and fast ROI.

Many of our聽聽already contain offerings that are highly relevant in our 鈥渘ew鈥� world of social distancing 鈥� such as remote learning, improved analytics, and increased supply chain elasticity and efficiency. These solutions are combinations of market-leading 51风流software and a partner鈥檚 services and intellectual property, creating a unique and highly targeted offering. Currently, there are more than 1,100 solutions created by over 440 51风流partners to choose from.

In addition, to help midsize customers resolve the current challenges quickly, recover, and build resiliency for the future, based on a predefined scope that can be delivered by partners remotely, with implementation in days or weeks rather than months, with low to no project risk. Based on this relevance, more than 140 partner packages are ready to be consumed by customers in the COVID context.

The transformation to digital partner enablement accelerated dramatically in the last months and, going forward, virtual partner enablement will be the new normal. From an enablement perspective, we responded to this need and offered聽聽on how to use digital tools on a daily basis to meet, interact, and collaborate virtually as well as on best practices to create engaging virtual training content with聽听迟别肠丑苍辞濒辞驳测.

Looking ahead, what can 51风流partners expect?

In 2020, our team has been recognized and rewarded for our work and our cross-collaboration capabilities. Going forward, we are committed to delivering what our partners ask of us and need the most, helping them to deliver the Intelligent Enterprise for our joint customers.

Delivering the best enablement experience to our partners can only happen if we continuously demonstrate and deliver excellence by ensuring all our partners are provided with the right capacity and competencies. We also must lower the costs of partnering, including cost of learning, and offer the same demo capabilities to partners as 51风流presales.

For instance, our plan for the coming months is to add up to 20 intelligent enterprise online demos to the 51风流Partner Demo Environment. We will also continuously increase the number of more than 250 existing offline scenarios for partners in 51风流Demo Store 鈥� packed with the latest technology innovations, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. In addition, service partners can expect higher value coaching to deliver successful implementations to their customers.

With SMEs accounting for about 80 percent of our customer base, we understand their need to optimize and simplify IT processes. We will deliver an intelligent enterprise story to 51风流Business One and bring intelligence and automation to fast-growing cloud midmarket businesses with 51风流Business ByDesign. Helping customers become intelligent enterprises will require the right combination of technology and expertise from 51风流and our partner ecosystem, who are uniquely positioned to deliver the intelligent enterprise strategy and message.

creates new business opportunities with an integrated go-to-market model. Building on the Intelligent Enterprise strategy, 51风流is putting resources into expanding its vertical solutions and investing heavily in the partner ecosystem 鈥� both in enablement programs as well as development efforts. Partners can leverage this momentum to focus on building vertical innovations and deploying them much more easily and efficiently, together with the industry-specific 51风流solution portfolio.

Partner enablement will be a core component of the , especially around competencies 鈥� like rewarding and recognizing partners鈥� investments in high-quality delivery practices that drive customer adoption 鈥� , readiness transparency into 51风流for Me, and the .

How did you personally experience the last few months, and how has your own daily life been affected?

I am convinced that COVID-19 has changed all our lives, and it is on each of us to take away some positive gains on the private and business sides. In the very first phase, it was about securing health and keeping the lights on. Then, we quickly switched gears to transform the services to our partners to help ensure we add the same value in a remote environment. Partners麓 responses to that were very encouraging and rewarding. The digital way of delivering our job will give us a maximum of scale. Once the pandemic is safely behind us, we look forward to meeting our partner family in person and maintaining our trustful relationships.

During the lockdown, I learned how to be more flexible at balancing my time between family and work. In the future, I will travel less and work from home more often for a healthy mix 鈥� that鈥檚 a gain for my personal life!

What do you do when you are not leading Global Partner Enablement at SAP?

There is a very simple answer to that question! As a father of three children, I spend and enjoy as much time as possible with my family 鈥� sharing a good meal, sitting at the table with the entire family, or enjoying a good bottle of wine with my wife and our friends.

Partners spoke and 51风流listened. With Next-Generation Partnering becoming reality, 51风流wants to enable partners to deliver a world-class experience to customers through the best-ever enablement experience. Based on valued feedback, the company is taking steps to improve the partner experience.

Steps to a Next-Generation Enablement Experience

On the transformation path to a next-generation partner enablement experience, we want it to be the best in the industry, and to help partners deliver a world-class experience to customers. We want all enablement content to be easily found and always in the same place. Therefore, 51风流is driving significant enhancements to the learning experience, focusing on a one-stop-shop enablement consumption within the .

51风流is harmonizing enablement offerings, starting with complete and easy-to-use 51风流PartnerEdge learning journeys for every solution across the entire solution portfolio and for all partner types and roles, including more applied skills enablement and coaching services. Learning journeys are interactive guides designed to easily help navigate a learning path — explore, filter, and access a curated set of learning offerings.

51风流has built outcome-based guidance for partner C-level leaders, practice leads, and decision-makers, in order to help drive guided decisions through specific outcomes, resulting in investment decisions to increase or change the partner footprint within the 51风流solution portfolio.

Feedback matters to SAP, and the company is establishing a continuous listening and improvement cycle to make the enablement experience the best.

The first wave transformation toward a next-generation partner enablement experience has been accomplished. The second wave is soon to come.

Here鈥檚 what you can expect today:

• Harmonized and complete 51风流PartnerEdge learning journeys for 51风流S/4HANA Cloud, the on-premise edition of 51风流S/4HANA, 51风流SuccessFactors solutions, 51风流C/4HANA, 51风流Ariba software, and the Intelligent Enterprise to help ensure all relevant applied skills enablement offerings are made available. Access and leverage these learning journeys can be accessed in the . Alternatively, the 51风流PartnerEdge learning room of choice can be selected on the 51风流PartnerEdge site, and learning journeys can be accessed through the training tab or tile.
• A new outcome-based guidance tool to provides enablement consumption across the entire 51风流solution portfolio, built with the purpose of accelerating the adoption with clear, guided steps. Getting enabled is an investment; 51风流wants to make investment decisions easier, linking them to business outcomes that relate to strategy. This tool is now available through the site.
• An improved, continuous partner enablement experience feedback loop, with the purpose of getting closer to partners and receive input based on their experiences.

Harmonized, Updated Next-Generation Learning Journeys

Next-generation 51风流PartnerEdge learning journeys are role-based and available for sales, pre-sales, delivery, development, CEE, and marketing. They are structured alike:

• Start with an overview: Get a general understanding of the topic.
• Become competent: Get an in-depth knowledge of the topic, as well as the respective requirements for product authorization.
• Stay current: Find all the content you need to stay up-to-date.
• Expand your skills: Broaden your skills and skill-up in particular areas.We have included direct access to the events calendar with an overview of available trainings, and sessions globally or in a particular region.
• Apply your skills (news): Actively practice your skills.Within this content area, we provide you with a new functionality. You can now apply your classroom competencies and your skills, get coached by 51风流with hands-on experience and ultimately apply all the knowledge gained when interacting with the customer.

Following this structure for any role, allows participants to gain the training that develops all classroom competencies needed for a particular solution. and please provide feedback through the thumbs-up and thumbs-down icons at the end of each learning journey.

New Outcome-Based Guidance for Partner Decision-Makers

A new tool built to provide decision makers in an organization with enablement consumption and outcomes across the entire 51风流solution portfolio. These outcomes are clustered by solution based on the various knowledge domains: marketing, sales and pre-sales, delivery, customer engagement, and development.

The tool will empower users to build the capabilities within staff that are required across all solutions and roles. It will also guide participants to keep their skills current and up-to-date. A fit and well-educated team empowers the ability to monetize an investment into the innovative and fast-evolving 51风流solution portfolio more quickly and efficiently.

Decision-makers need clear, concise, and actionable guidance to find out what actions need to be taken to achieve critical goals, such as:

• Do employees have the required skills and knowledge needed to effectively position, sell, and demonstrate solutions?
• Do they need to improve implementation quality?
• Do we need to develop packaged offerings with a compelling value proposition?

Actionable outcomes to such questions will be provided, leading to the relevant content and tools required to accelerate adoption of 51风流solutions, such as role-based 51风流PartnerEdge learning journeys, web applications, or downloads of required resources, as well as lay out the steps to quickly take appropriate investment decisions.

. Browse directly into outcomes for the product or domain of your choice, or .

Check back regularly, as 51风流continuously expands the actionable outcomes to help with driving guided decisions. The following outcomes are planned for released in the coming weeks:

• Expand your 51风流S/4HANA practice to 51风流S/4HANA Cloud
• Expand your 51风流S/4HANA practice to the Intelligent Enterprise
• Expand from HCM to HXM by adding Qualtrics to your 51风流SuccessFactors practice
• Drive more net-new names with qualified partner-packaged solutions
• Improve win rates with demo excellence
• Hire and ramp-up X new cloud for sales consultants right from university
• Move your on-premise HCM installed base to 51风流SuccessFactors

Share submissions for missing or additional outcomes through the feedback button on the homepage of the tool.

Both the new outcome-based guidance and the next-generation 51风流PartnerEdge learning journeys are game changers to boost the partner enablement experience one step further — start leveraging today.