Look into the future of digital business!

The technology connecting the IoT and smart cities, how we can make our purchases through the Charlie chatbot and how new employees can adapt quickly to the company with the help of virtual reality were some of the topics presented by local and international experts at the one-day SAP Forum.

On October 17, SAP presented the latest trends in digital business and innovative application of technology in the local market at the Yugoslav Drama Theater, as part of the thirteenth SAP Forum Belgrade 2017, in front of 500 guests.

This year’s program started with a panel of SAP experts, who presented innovative digital business in service of employees, customers and citizens through solutions such as SAP Success Factors, SAP Hybris, SAP Leonardo, SAP Vehicle Insights and SAP Cloud.

Tom Raftery, a SAP evangelist, continued the conference with his lecture, in which he brought practical implementation of SAP solutions, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things closer to the guests.

– We shouldn’t fear artificial intelligence and robots. It is obvious that such innovations will brings us more jobs different from what is currently in demand and requiring a different skill set – Tom says and adds that his position as an IoT evangelist at SAP didn’t even exist 5 years ago.

One of the most interesting guests at this year’s SAP Forum was Marko Pesic, former basketball player and current general manager of Bayern Munich, who showed how a European club used SAP Sports One to analyze basketball data to the end of optimizing player performance and achieving better results.

Marko said that, by using new technologies, players can be better prepared, coaches can make better decisions during the training, whereas the flow of information within the team was quick and transparent, all of which made the team very efficient as a whole. He emphasizes that “data is the new gold”.

Success stories of SAP users were also part of the program, showing that the local market is already using innovative SAP technologies to optimize its business activities.

The conference closed with a speech by Simon Kaluza, CEE Managing Director at SAP, who shared some interesting market projections with the audience.

– The global GDP will be up to 14% higher by 2030 than today thanks to the development of artificial intelligence. This is equivalent to USD 15 billion or the combined current GDPs of China and India – Simon said.

The SAP Forum is the company’s most important conference and its goal is to present digital business as well as to provide a venue for an exchange of experiences. The forum proved to be a great opportunity for companies and startups to be introduced to new possibilities and technologies developed by SAP.

This year’s golden partners of SAP Forum Belgrade 2017 were Lanaco and Atos.