ASUG continues to launch industry- and technology practice-focused alliances with the debut of the Energy and Natural Resource Alliance last month. After the introduction, the Town Hall immediately tapped into trending topics now on the alliance agenda.
Alliance structures are developed to connect and support related think tanks, peer groups, and event collaborations among other activities. They include volunteers, SAP leadership and subject matter experts, and ASUG staff. This alliance is meant to “build a sense of community” across participants and interests, said Bob Davis, alliance leadership team member and Global Solutions Manager, SAP Oil, Gas & Energy Industries Business Unit.
During the Energy and Natural Resource discussion, attendees listed what they want to discuss in future virtual sessions and called attention to opportunities and the importance of three upcoming conferences: SAP for Utilities: Presented by ASUG https://www.asug.com/events/sap-for-utilities-presented-by-asug; ASUG Best Practices for Oil, Gas, and Energy https://www.asug.com/events/asug-best-practices-sap-for-oil-gas-and-energy; and ASUG Best Practices: SAP for Chemicals https://www.asug.com/events/asug-best-practices-sap-for-chemicals.
A Trove of Topics
Alliance leaders proposed an initial topic list during the Town Hall. Stefan Wolf, SAP Global VP, Go to Market Execution for the Utilities Industry, and an alliance leader, ticked off topics, some of which he called “big ticket items” in the industry. The list included:
- Today’s utilities’ smart meter rollout
- ‘Going to Zero’ improving customer self-service
- Electricity—distributed energy resources
- Electricity—building and supporting the EV-charging infrastructure
- Efficiency and water conservation
- Going to the cloud
- The move to SAP S/4HANA.
Rebecca Simoneaux, also on the leadership team and Senior Director, Enterprise Business Systems, Albermarle, offered topics from the chemicals’ perspective, including:
- Chemicals enterprise digital transformation
- End-to-end supply chain transformation
- Sustainable drive to net zero
- The Chemical organization of the future.
Those suggestions were supported yet quickly supplemented with ideas from session attendees. The input included:
- RISE for SAP and enterprise roadmaps for utilities
- Customer experience and call centers in the energy and utilities industries
- Use of ISO standards for master data
- SAP S/4HANA and Fiori reporting
- The business case for S/4HANA
- Fieldglass and Ariba
- Best practices and lessons learned—S/4HANA versus ECC
- How to get the most out of SAP Business Transformation Platform
- Tools for end users to do things in new ways
- Tools for master data governance
- Past-due account management.
Each Alliance leader welcomed more volunteers and participation in all activities. Other Energy and Natural Resource Alliance leaders include: Kristina McClenahan, Product Development Manager, Billing and Payment, Puget Sound Energy; Mark Carlson, Director, SAP Chemical Industry Business Unit; Sanjiv Agrawal, Lead SAP Analyst, PQ Corp.; and Paul Barney, IBU Mill Products North America Lead.