The Best-Run Businesses Run SAP

Data is key to the success or failure of many big-ticket business initiatives. However, the reality is that while organisations claim data is strategic, they typically approach it tactically, addressing data quality only when forced to. There's no budget - therefore no tools - for data governance beyond compliance purposes. The net result is great vision but typically low effectiveness in data-reliant projects.

Attend this session to learn about the reasons companies suffer from bad data, its associated costs and the most common challenges to managing data. We'll then explain what the drivers are for better data management and the five key steps to establishing an effective information governance strategy that delivers significant business value.

Plus, we'll demonstrate how the SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise Information Management solutions provide a single platform for managing data and a standard approach for delivering high quality information including:

- Fixing data as it moves between systems
- Providing consistency for the creation of new data
- Having standards around the process of managing data through its lifecycle
- Closed loop monitoring of data quality

Accurate and trusted financial information is crucial to providing confidence in the business. However, the reality is that whilst many organisations meet shareholder expectations, they aren’t always perceived as a valued business partner. Lack of visibility, timeliness and restricted budgets often mean that whilst the business recognises the finance role, they often have their own interpretation of performance.

Attend this session to learn how finance can raise their profile and become trusted business advisors, providing valuable insight across the organisation - both internally and externally. SAP and PwC will discuss how businesses are using technology to transform the finance function - from improved profitability reporting to integrated financial and operational plans to full compliance and disclosure management.

In addition, listen to real-life customer stories of how organisations are balancing the need for transformation within finance - implementing techniques and technologies that enable:

- simplification of the planning process, allowing more frequent re-forecasts to improve business agility
- maximised cash flow and reduce your DSO in today’s volatile market
- ensure regulatory compliance and effective risk management with embedded management and controls

Controls bring value to any organisation. They are not just a "check-the-box" activity; they ensure a company's products are of the desired quality, customers are billed accurately, decisions are based on reliable information, and more. PwC and SAP will discuss how it is critical to have the right combination of controls in every business process, and to manage the risks of poor information when it comes to making decisions and running the business.

In this session, hear about:
- the role of preventive and detective controls, and how to optimise business processes
- the risk of unreliable information and how to address them through controls

"Real real-time analytics" is now here with the recent advances in business intelligence, visualisation tools and enterprise mobility combined with the latest high performance in-memory computing appliance - SAP HANA. Why wait for processes that take weeks to reconcile? Why wait to react to external conditions or exploit market opportunities? Why wait days for actionable insight when you could have it in seconds?

During this session, we will demonstrate how organisations can now analyse business processes and operations in real-time, as it happens. Ask questions – no matter how complex - in the moment and get answers on the spot, revealing insights once impossible to attain.

With the average company seeing a 41% year-on-year increase in data volume, it is more important than ever to harness 'Big Data' with real-time analytics to:

- Enable decision-makers to analyse live enterprise information in seconds or minutes - not weeks or months - in fine detail
- Identify opportunities, risks, trends and customer behaviour patterns earlier and more accurately
- Experiment with the outcomes of business change by enabling complex simulations and "what if…?" analyses
- Transform processes such as planning, forecasting and pricing optimisation
- Eliminate latency of decisions to reduce the risk of missing deadlines, losing out on opportunities or incurring penalties

Business no longer happens from behind a desk between nine and five, so enterprise mobility is fast becoming indispensable to today's workforce. This imposes three key demands on organisations:

1. Adequate device management
2. A robust development platform
3. User-focused applications

During this session we will show you how, thanks to SAP's device-agnostic Sybase Unwired Platform and the Afaria device management console, you can successfully unwire your enterprise and increase on-the-go productivity. Plus we'll demonstrate current and future mobile applications for Analytics and Financial Performance and Risk Management including:

- SAP Mobile BI
- SAP BusinessObjects Exploration View
- SAP GRC Access Approver
- SAP GRC Policy Survey
- SAP Payment Approvals
- SAP Travel Receipt Capture
- SAP Travel Expense Approval
- SAP StreamWork

People have always been curious about what's next, but interest in the future has exploded recently as a result of rapid technological change and world-changing events. The latest technology connects people, information and businesses networks with greater accuracy - but to what extent can we extrapolate from this knowledge to predict the future?

The world now contains unparalleled risks but it also offers extraordinary opportunities. Acclaimed author and futurist Richard Watson will examine some of the new threats and opportunities with an emphasis on how digitalisation, mobile connectivity and demographic change are redefining our daily lives and shaping the future.