Coffee Break With Game-changers, Presented By Sap

The buzz: “Male VCs—obviously most are—are very comfortable now giving female entrepreneurs capital for ‘girl stuff’” (Vivoom). Don’t be fooled. Sexual harassment and discriminatory treatment toward women are not a Silicon Valley-only problem, nor can they be undone by men’s “nice” blogs. Female-founded businesses are out-performing male-started businesses 5 to 1, boosting the US economy by $1.6T. Yet only 2% of funding has gone to women startup founders. What will it take to lift these gender barriers? The experts speak. Adam Quinton, Lucas Point Ventures: “Power’s not given to you. You have to take it” (Beyoncé). Victoria Pettibone, Astia: “You've got only one lift to live. You can either make it chickens**t or chicken salad (Cousins). Dr. Patti Fletcher, SAP SuccessFactors: “What has destroyed every previous civilization has been the tendency to the unequal distribution of wealth and power” (Henry George). Join us for Don’t Start with Me: Funding Female-Founded Startups – Part 2.

The buzz: “Motivation is an art, not a science” (Dan Tyre). If you’re regularly paying sales incentives to customers and partners but getting nothing in return, you know the challenges of juggling an array of programs and pressure to achieve bottom line visibility. Wouldn’t it be helpful to learn how to optimally manage complex partner programs for contracts, pricing, rebates, incentives, and more? The experts speak. Cara DeGraff, Vistex: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them” (Albert Einstein). Gary L. Adams, Vistex: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts” (Winston Churchill). John McDonnell SAP: “While physics and mathematics may tell us how the universe began, they are not much use in predicting human behavior…I'm no better than anyone else at understanding what makes people tick…” (Stephen Hawking). Join us for Target Incentive and Rebate Programs: Driving Digital Transformation.

The buzz: “You can invent alone, but you can’t innovate alone” (G. van Wulfen). Business leaders have long pondered whether culture impacts an organization’s evolution and growth. If culture is the “personality” shaping the ability to drive innovation, what type of culture will spark new ideas while disrupting old models? Will multiple personalities fight each other? The experts speak. Dan Seewald, Pfizer: “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something” (S. Jobs). Ingo Rauth, PhD, Rotman DesignWorks: “If you want a robot to maneuver aggressively, it has to be small. As you scale things down, the 'moment of inertia' - the resistance to angular motion - drops dramatically” (V. Kumar). Jennifer Ford, SAP: “I don't go by the rule book.I lead from the heart, not the head.” (Lady Diana) Join us for Innovation Culture: Is Your Business A Split Personality?

The Buzz: “Tax complexity itself is a kind of tax” (Max Baucus). The confluence of global trade, new technologies and governments' increasing need for tax revenue is impacting the global commerce landscape, challenging you and your competitors. To stay afloat, you need to understand, prepare for and stay on top of changing tax and regulatory compliance rules, as well as new technologies and platforms – including blockchain, machine learning, and big data. Got your lifejacket ready? The experts speak. John Viglione, Vertex: Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose” (Bill Gates). Robert Kugel, Ventana: “The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing” (Jean-Baptiste Colbert). Camilla Dahlen, SAP: “Strength lies in differences, not in similarities” (Stephen Covey). Join us for Global Commerce, Tax and Technology: Navigating Rough Waters Ahead.

The Buzz: “Disruption is a process, not an event, and innovations can only be disruptive relative to something else” (Clay Christensen). Rapid change has forced today’s visionary business leaders to replace conventional growth models with a Disruptive Solutions mindset. Say what? This creative thinking methodology enables leaders to anticipate and quickly react to industry disruptions, identify unplanned opportunities, and move past internally-directed core competency thinking to leverage open innovation. We’ll tell you how. The experts speak. Bryan W. Mattimore, Growth Engine: “If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old” (Peter F. Drucker). Erica Dhawan, Cotential: “If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun” (Katharine Hepburn). Denise Fletcher, EZassi: “The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it” (Mark Weiser). Join us for Disruptive Solutions Mindset 101.

The Buzz: “Don't annoy science fiction writers…people who destroy entire planets before lunch. Think of what they'll do to you” (John Scalzi). Think a beach day with a sci-fi page-turner is an escape from reality? Not! Sci-fi could prepare us for the possibilities of tomorrow hurtling at us via tech advances like AI, robotics, IoT. Should it be mandatory reading for business leaders? The experts speak. Gray Scott, Futurist: “Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not” (Isaac Asimov). Brenda J. Cooper, Sci-Fi Author: “Change is the principal feature of our age and literature should explore how people deal with it. The best science fiction does that, head-on” (David Brin). Dan Wellers, SAP: “For me science fiction is a way of thinking, a way of logic that bypasses a lot of nonsense. It allows people to look directly at important subjects. (Gene Roddenberry). Join us for Sci-Fi, AI, Wi-Fi: What’s the Story?

The buzz: “It's actually women who are creating and leading some of the most established and promising companies overall” (@DrewAHendricks). Female entrepreneurs’ accusations of sexual harassment from male VCs and others, are symptoms of entrepreneur ecosystem gender bias. Female startup founders received $1.46B in VC funding (2016) vs $58.2B to males. Does Silicon Valley mirror global tech-intensive industries? How to access power and capital for all? The experts speak. Adam Quinton, Lucas Point Ventures: “[In politics] If you want anything said, ask a man; if you want anything done, ask a woman” (Margaret Thatcher). Sharon Vosmek, Astia: “Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible (Dr Maya Angelou). Dr. Patti Fletcher, SAP Successfactors: “There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. As well speak of a female liver” (Charlotte Perkins Gilman). Join us for Don’t Start with Me: Funding Female-Founded Startups.

The buzz: “You always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” (Wayne Gretsky). Despite headlines about companies that make regulatory missteps and have lax internal controls, many are still playing catch-up to grasp pitfalls in the business environment. In contrast, risk-aware organizations frame risk as an enabler of business performance vs containing it, and embed risk management in day-to-day. If you’re one of the former, can technology – cloud, analytics, robotics – help gain a competitive edge via effective risk management? The experts speak. Ben Zimmerman, EY: “The biggest risk is not taking any risk...in a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks” (Mark Zuckerberg). Brian Ocampo, EY: “Data is the sword of the 21st century, those who wield it well, the Samurai (Eric Schmidt). Kevin McCollom, SAP: “Test fast, fail fast, adjust fast” (Tom Peters). Join us for No Reward Without Risk: Your Company in the Digital Economy.

The buzz: “Human resources professionals have long worked to earn a voice in the C-suite and boardroom; yet the Chief Human Resources Officer role remains elusive…many companies still lag in their perception of HR’s value” (Boyden). The unique human capital in your workforce is your only true competitive differentiator. But as the power of the employee takes center stage, does your board have CHRO expertise to guide policies and strategies? The experts speak. Chris Johnson, Mercer: “Society only exists as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals” (Oscar Wilde). Fabiana Lacerca-Allen, Ethiprax: “Acknowledge and watch your habits, for they shall become your values. Understand and embrace your values…they become your destiny” (Gandhi). Dr. Patti Fletcher, SAP SuccessFactors: “Digital is the main reason just over half of the companies on the Fortune 500 have disappeared since the year 2000” (Pierre Nanterme). Join us for CHRO: New Roadmap to the Boardroom? – Part 2.

The buzz: “While efficiency…is important…[the HR] function has to think of itself as talent consultants not service deliverers.”” (Josh Bersin, Forbes.com) HR evolved in Europe during the Industrial Revolution from an idea by Robert Owen and Charles Babbage to structure, organize, pay and develop the people who lead and execute on business strategy. Fast-forward. The advent of technology and the need to scale have management evaluating HR with a focus on efficiencies, more than people. Now the workforce is demanding HR put the ‘human’ back into Human Resources. The experts speak. Tim Aldrich, EY: “If I went to work in a factory, the first thing I would do is to join a union” (F.D. Roosevelt). James Sinclair, EnterpriseJungle: Success is 1% inspiration, 98% perspiration and 2% attention to detail (Phil Dunphy). Dr. Patti Fletcher, SAP SuccessFactors: “if it doesn’t make the world a better place, don’t do it” (Kid President). Join us for Humanizing HR: Is Technology the Answer?

The buzz: “We don’t even know If a salesperson replying to us in real-time in the year 2020 would be a human or a robot…AI has already penetrated into our lives with or without our consent” (Mehreen Siddiqua). AI is changing business in ways not seen since the Industrial Revolution, says Accenture. But when we apply AI technologies to human interactions, particularly in B2B Social Selling, will it add value for modern B2B salespeople? The experts speak. Bernie Borges, Vengreso: “The secret to success is good leadership…making the lives of your team members or workers better” (Tony Dungy). Tim Hughes, Digital Leadership Associates: Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine (Alan Turing). Kirsten Boileau, SAP: “As more and more artificial intelligence is entering into the world, more and more emotional intelligence must enter into leadership” (Amit Ray). Join us for Social Selling and AI: New Frontier or Pricey Gimmick? Part 2.

The buzz: “49% of employees feel that a future in which people will ‘work from anywhere in the world’ is now” (ADP “The Evolution of Work” 2016). Reality check: Your company can’t be global without being local. What is your CHRO's role in this? HR needs to understand and comply with local and global cultures, practices and regulations – recruiting, interviewing, hiring and compensation – while supporting a globalized business with a local feel. Say what? The experts speak. Nicole Sahin, Globalization Partners: “For the first time in human evolution … the individual mind is now a constituent player in the global transformation of human culture” (William Irwin Thompson). Dr. Patti Fletcher, SAP SuccessFactors: “Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark … there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves” (Carl Sagan). Join us for HR, Globalization, and Localization: More than Meets the Eye – Part 2.

The buzz: “You already have zero privacy – get over it” (Scott McNealy). We as individuals have welcomed Internet-connected, mobile devices to help us make daily decisions. But when we share data with companies, and they share it with their business partners, are their built-in and bolted-on data security capabilities enough to protect our personal information? The experts speak. Brian Kilcourse, RRS Research: “If you spend more on coffee than on IT security, you will be hacked. What's more, you deserve to be hacked” (Richard Clarke). Frank Diana, TCS: “You could go crazy thinking of how unprivate our lives really are–the omnipresent security cameras, the tracking data on our very smart phones… (Susan Orlean). Larry Stolle, SAP: “I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive…” (Stephen Hawking). Join us for You Don’t Own Me: What About My Data? – Part 2.

The buzz: “Stories give people enough space to think for themselves” (Annette Simmons). Your favorite movie, book, and song are memorable because the director, author and songwriter told an engaging story using drama and emotion. Storytelling is also important for everyone in sales for the same reasons. Prospects need to feel, believe and remember you in order to be moved to make a purchase. If you don’t make it easy for them, you risk becoming the next book they forgot they ever read. The experts speak. Heidi Berenson, Berenson Communications: “It is no secret in television that the best ad-libs are always thought out and put into notes ahead of time. Two or three words will remind you of whatever the point is... (David Brinkley, A Memoir). Janis Fratamico, SAP: “My mother wanted us to understand that the tragedies of your life one day have to potential to be the comic stories the next (Nora Ephron). Join us for The Art of Storytelling in Sales – Part 2.

The buzz: “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work” (Aristotle). Coffee Break with Game-Changers Radio was invited to broadcast live from SAPPHIRE NOW 2017. Our assignment: ask SAP partners, customers and executives what’s keeping today’s C-Suite awake at night – and what makes them excited to go to work. Today we’re bringing you six “excited” answers: New World of Cognitive Robotic Process Automation (IBM & Mondi); Innovation and Agility: Accenture Liquid Studio (Accenture & SAP); Technology for Humanitarian Good: Addressing the Refugee Crisis (Deloitte & SAP); Blockchain Driving Next Gen Supply Chain (HCL & SAP); Incentives, Rebates and Complex Partner Programs for Digital Transformation (Vistex); Surviving Your Digital Transformation Journey: Business Partnerships (SAP). If you missed the “awake” sessions, click www.voiceamerica.com/episode/99250/c-suite-insights-from-sapphire-now-2017-part-1. Join us for C-Suite Insights from SAPPHIRE NOW 2017 – Part 2.

The buzz: “I made over 40 Westerns. I used to lie awake nights trying to think up new ways of getting on and off a horse” (William Wyler). Coffee Break with Game-Changers Radio was invited to broadcast live from SAPPHIRE NOW 2017 in Orlando [May 16-18). Our assignment: ask SAP partners, customers and executives what’s keeping today’s C-Suite awake at night – and what makes them excited to go to work each day. Today we’re bringing you six “awake” answers: Enterprise Tax Challenges in the Digital Economy: Look to the Cloud (Vertex & SAP). Golf Industry and Technology: Hole in One! (Callaway Golf & SAP). Turn Your Business into An Intelligent Enterprise (Capgemini & MindTouch). E-Signatures: Streamlining Document Processes (DocuSign & SAP). A Stitch in Time: From Industrial Revolution Business to 21st Century (Coats). Reaching the Digital Summit with SOLEX (SAP’s Tom Roberts). On May 31, we’ll cover the “excited” answers. Join us for C-Suite Insights from SAPPHIRE NOW 2017 – Part 1.

VoiceAmerica and SAP team up at SAPPHIRE NOW 2017! Bonnie D Graham, host of, Coffee-break with Game changers and SAP radio. Join in today as are wrapping up the Live event with Thought Leader live at SAPPHIRE NOW 2017! Don't miss the inspiring Thought Leadership talk radio on technology and business topics that are changing the game!

VoiceAmerica and SAP team up at SAPPHIRE NOW 2017! Bonnie D Graham, host of, Coffee-break with Game changers and SAP radio. Join in today as are wrapping up the Live event with Thought Leader live at SAPPHIRE NOW 2017! Don't miss the inspiring Thought Leadership talk radio on technology and business topics that are changing the game!

VoiceAmerica and SAP team up at SAPPHIRE NOW 2017! Bonnie D Graham, host of, Coffee-break with Game changers and SAP radio. Join in today as are wrapping up the Live event with Thought Leader live at SAPPHIRE NOW 2017! Don't miss the inspiring Thought Leadership talk radio on technology and business topics that are changing the game!

VoiceAmerica and SAP team up at SAPPHIRE NOW 2017! Bonnie D Graham, host of, Coffee-break with Game changers and SAP radio. Join in today as are wrapping up the Live event with Thought Leader live at SAPPHIRE NOW 2017! Don't miss the inspiring Thought Leadership talk radio on technology and business topics that are changing the game!