Coffee Break With Game-changers, Presented By Sap

The buzz: “I fell off my pink cloud with a thud.” -Elizabeth Taylor. By 2019, cloud software delivery will grow to 112 Billion dolars –five times faster than traditional software– leveling the IT playing field. With uneasiness, skepticism and “technical acrophobia” about the cloud mostly a thing of the past, cloud adoption could grow from 22 percent today to 32 percent in the next 24 months. The main beneficiaries? Small and mid-sized businesses -SMBs. But should they still worry about reliability, availability, data security, and pricing complexity? The experts speak. Tim Fuller, EY: “Sooner or later, everything old is new again” -Stephen King. Eric Gunther, SAP: “My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that” -Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland. Steve Day, SAP: “I shall either find a way or make one” -Aut viam inveniam aut faciam, Hercules, Oedipus, Hannibal. Join us for Cloud Computing: Growth, Adoption and SMBs.

The buzz: It’s NOT like “déjà vu all over again”! -Yogi Berra. Wake up call for the Chemical industry: Digital Transformation is real and more relevant than ever for your businesses. Reality check: Many of them still think of “digital” only as a way to improve manufacturing and supply chain. But today’s digital is a path to becoming more agile and productive, growing profitability and achieving sustainable competitiveness. The time has come for the industry to refocus your digital lens on the future – and that starts now. The experts speak. Greg Gorbach, ARC Advisory Group: “If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine” -Jim Barksdale. Charles Wallace, Solenis: “Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster” -Elon Musk. Rich Seltz, SAP: “If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong” -Charles Kettering. Join us for Chemical Industry: Digital Transformation as a Success Model.

The buzz: Knock Knock! Futurist Edie Weiner coined the term ‘templosion’ to describe rapid and massive changes in increasingly shorter timeframes. As the templosive acceleration of digital transformation – Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Smart Machines – disrupts tech-laggard Finance, do they need a new business model to adopt and adapt? The experts speak. Sam Parikh, Deloitte: 'Computers themselves, and software yet to be developed, will revolutionize the way we learn' -S. Jobs. Jon Essig, SimpleFi: 'There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home' -K. Olson. Srikanth Tamma, Deloitte: 'Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius…to move in the opposite direction' -E.F. Schumacher. Karuna Mukherjea, SAP: 'Insight is not a light bulb that goes off inside our heads. It is a flickering candle that can easily be snuffed out' -M. Gladwell. Join us for Templosion, Technology and Future of Finance Part 3.

The buzz: Living for the City -Stevie Wonder, 1974-. Violent attacks in Florida, France, Texas and Turkey make public safety a top global concern. Can governments protect us in our homes, in public, at work and play? Tech advances in facial recognition, geo-fencing, streaming multi-source data analytics offer law enforcement and security organizations better awareness, sensing, detection and prediction across the public safety value chain. But must we choose between personal safety and data privacy? The experts speak. Sara Gardner, Hitachi Insight Group: 'Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future' Niels Bohr. Ruthbea Yesner Clarke, IDC: 'The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get olds ones out' Dee Hock. Marlyn Zelkowitz, SAP: 'Our technological powers increase, but the side effects and potential hazards also escalate' Alvin Toffler. Join us for Making Cities Safer and Smarter: The Internet of Things – Part 2.

The buzz: Talk is not cheap! With dramatic workforce and business changes – multi-generations at work, gender inequity challenges, developing economies and globalization –it’s high time for the CHRO role to evolve. How? For starters, the CHRO can build transformational value-based relationships with HR supporting the business and strategies, engage permanent and external workers in new collaborations, use consumer-style tools and social HR to better engage the workforce, and more. Where to begin? The experts speak. Tim Good, Accenture: 'To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time' -Leonard Bernstein-. Dan Ward, Author: 'I get a lot of ideas at the beach' -Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick, 'Feynman' biography-. Jewell Parkinson, SAP: 'I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel' -Maya Angelou-. Join us for CHROs: Time for a New Conversation – Part 2.

The buzz: The Gambler (K. Rogers). Business ownership can be a Coney Island rollercoaster. One moment, an exhilarating ride up; the next, a frightening plummet down. There are thousands of guidebooks, but no one has ever walked in your shoes with precisely your mix of talents, opportunities, and obstacles. How do you know “when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em?” if you don’t know what’s “normal” or how to solve the unique challenges of running your own business? The experts speak. Nina Kaufman, Esq.: “I believe that if life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade... And try to find somebody whose life has given them vodka, and have a party” (Ron White). Nance L. Schick, Esq.: “Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else” (Les Brown). Renée L. Duff, Esq.: “Conflict cannot survive without your participation (Wayne Dyer). Join us for Legal Lessons for Women Business Owners Part 4: Don’t Make a Federal Case out of It.

The buzz: 'Takin’ Care of Business'. According to Forbes Magazine, 543,000 new businesses launch each month in the U.S. The catch: of the 28 million U.S. small businesses, 22.5 owners are self-employed, average 44,000 in annual revenue and have no employees. Is that the life you want now? Could you ever retire? Tune in for secrets -and not so secrets- to building a business that runs independently, instead of running your life. The experts speak. Nina Kaufman, Esq.: 'As an entrepreneur, you have to be OK with failure. If you’re not failing, you’re likely not pushing yourself hard enough' Alexa von Tobel. Susan Solovic, THE Small Business Expert: 'The man who comes up with a means for doing or producing almost anything better, faster or more economically has his future and his fortune at his fingertips' John Paul Getty. Edward 'EJ' Jackson, SAP Anywhere: 'There are no mistakes. Only new paths to explore' Gregory David Roberts. Join us for Build a Business, Not Just A Job.

The buzz: The Internet of Who (Whom)? The Internet was created in 1969 to facilitate the free flow of information. The IoT inherited this spirit. Fast forward to 2016. With cameras and emerging connected devices collecting and reporting data about our lives, it seems we’re designing the IoT to quantify and see ourselves clearly, like a virtual mirror. It’s time to take a step back and examine what this all means and whom it benefits now and in the future. What to call it? The “IoT of the Self”. Are you ready or do you need to run for cover? The experts speak. Gray Scott, Futurist: “Technological advances could allow us to see more clearly into our own lives” (Kevin Kelly). David Jonker, SAP: “… if hundreds of millions of people do that, you have a big cloud of data about people's behavior that can be crawled through by pattern recognition algorithms” (John Battelle, The Human Face of Big Data). Join us for Here’s Looking at YOU, Kid: IoT of the Self and CyberCrime – Part 3.

The buzz: Stressed? Join the crowd. 78% of employers in the 2013/14 Staying@Work™ Survey said stress is the #1 workforce risk. We have a solution: Radical Resiliency. But individuals, managers and senior executives face tough challenges in achieving it for themselves, their employees and their culture. How to overcome and prevail? The experts speak Eileen McDargh, The Resiliency Group: “It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like ‘What about lunch?’” (Winnie the Pooh). Bill Jensen, Mr. Simplicity: “What we leave behind is not as important as how we lived” (Capt. Jean Luc Picard). Dr. Terry Paulson, Paulson and Associates: “A healthy person goes 'Yes,' 'No,' and 'Whoopee!' An unhealthy person goes 'Yes, but,' 'No, but,' and 'No whoopee’ (Eric Berne). Kathy Dempsey, Keep Shedding!: “Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened” [Dr. Seuss]. Join us for Radical Resiliency: Start Your Engines, People! – Part 2.

The buzz: Show me the money? Our current financial world is rife with inefficiencies: cross-border payments take days and cost money, inter-bank funds are slow, accessing money is cumbersome, trading securities takes time. Hail, cryptocurrency! Bitcoin and blockchain were created to solve some of these challenges. How does it work? Should your business, your industry, and you personally adopt this new form of currency? What are the risks? The experts speak. Angus Champion de Crespigny, EY: “It's not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren’t doing” (Terry Pratchett). Richard McCammon, Delego: “…Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted” (William B. Cameron). Gerlinde Zibulski, SAP: “The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas, but in escaping from old ones” (John Maynard Keynes). Join us for Bitcoin/Blockchain: Hype or Hope for a New Secure Cryptocurrency?

The buzz: “We just have a way of getting ourselves into hot water” (Carl Wilson, The Beach Boys). How Social Selling is conducted and how a brand is portrayed in social media – whether undertaken by the PR department, sales force or an individual worker in a large company, or by a small enterprise or a new start-up entrepreneur – can have big ramifications for the company, good and bad. If you’re not paying attention to the lurking pitfalls related to how you can contact prospects, what you can convey, and how to properly use company intellectual property assets, tune in and take notes! The experts speak. Renée L. Duff, Esq.: “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal” (Earl Nightingale). Peter Hoppenfeld, Attorney At Law: “When you see a fork in the road, take it” (Yogi Berra). Kirsten Boileau, SAP: “The best way to predict the future is to create it” (Peter Drucker). Join us for Social Selling, Social Media and The Law: How’s Your Brand Doing?

The buzz: “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” The key to a healthy population is more than an individual’s personal decisions and behaviors. Genetic science says the fault may be in our stars, after all. Can population-based wellness programs be equitable when our genes, cultures and environments make good health a stroll for some but an uphill battle for others? Is Big Data the new Big Brother? The experts speak. Dr. Paul Tunnah, pharmaphorum: “Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing” (Warren Buffett). Michael Maniccia, Deloitte: “We’d like to help you learn to help yourself. Look around you, all you see are sympathetic eyes (Paul Simon, Mrs. Robinson). Petra Streng, SAP: “In the real world there is no nature vs. nurture argument, only an infinitely complex and moment-by-moment interaction between genetic and environmental effects” (Dr. Gabor Maté). Join us for The Behavior Side of Preventive Medicine: Genetic Science and Big Data – Part 3.

The buzz: “Trust, but verify.” (Ronald Reagan) Social Selling is real - now! How do we know? The numbers. Sales people not using social media missed quota 15% more often than peers who do (Hubspot). Directors with SSI 70 were promoted 1.6X faster to VP than those with SSI 30 in the past two years (LinkedIn profile data). Sounds great, but you may still need to convince your entire sales organization to internalize and adopt a new selling and engagement strategy. How? The right training and follow-up programs. The experts speak. Barbara Giamanco, Social Centered Selling: “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory, tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat” (Sun Tsu). Mario M. Martinez Jr., M3Jr Growth Strategies: “What got you here, won't get you there” (Marshall Goldsmith). Kirsten Boileau, SAP: “Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge” (Plato). Join us for Social Selling Adoption: How to Make It Happen – Part 2.

The buzz: Boom! The speed of technological innovation is leading to a world of “Templosion (Edie Weiner): massive changes happening in increasingly compressed timeframes. The impacts of this plus digital transformation will even be felt in Finance, where Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Smart Machines will play a role. What business models will guide Finance as it adopts and adapts to disruptive technologies? The experts speak. Sam Parikh, Deloitte: “Contrary to popular belief, transformation cannot be based on a single event, advice, book, or seminar…real transformation requires the formation of new thinking patterns and behavioral habit.” (Med Jones). Jon Essig, SimpleFi: “It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory” (W. Edwards Deming). Karuna Mukherjea, SAP: “In a world that's changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks (Mark Zuckerberg). Join us for Templosion, Technology and the Future of Finance–Part 2.

The buzz: Every day is a revolution. Welcome to the future. The upside: The 4th industrial Revolution’s smart factories, connected machines, and IIoT offer limitless possibilities for collaborative robotics, digital twins, and myriad “smart” use cases. At the heart of it all: the industrial machinery and components (IM&C) industry. The downside: Information overload and insufficient cybersecurity are barriers to capitalizing on the near-term estimated $15 trillion IIoT opportunity. Why you should care: This all impacts your business, your career and your personal life. The experts speak. Sean Molloy, itelligence, Inc: “Thought, not money, is the real business capital (Harvey S. Firestone). Jason Coffman, Deloitte: “A man who has no imagination has no wings (Muhammad Ali). David Parrish, SAP: “It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much...” (Yogi Berra). Join us for Digital Manufacturing: Powering the 4th Industrial Revolution – Part 2.

The buzz: Knowledge is power. Reality check for utilities. Digitization and the exponential growth of mobile devices are changing your customer engagement. But still fewer than half of customers are digitally connected with their utility. Your challenge: If you’re not talking to your customer, they’re not listening to you. Solution: Rethink your customer engagement model. Reimagine your business models. Now! The experts speak. Jacqueline Robinson, DTE Energy: “You cannot look in a new direction by looking harder in the same direction (Edward deBono). Robert Thiele, OpenText: “What I worry about the most is the competition for young eyeballs. We have so many other competing forms of media. I don't take any audience members for granted” (Chris Meledandri). James McClelland, SAP: “Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future” (John F. Kennedy). Join us for Digitization: Changing the Utilities Customer Engagement – Part 2.

The buzz: WHY ME? Business ownership is tough, especially when clients push back on your pricing, employees act like four-year olds, vendors don’t deliver as promised. Add to that the fear of growing at a snail’s pace, while others soar. Is it possible to reclaim your power and use the law as a tool to strengthen your business foundation and relationships? “Yes!” say three legal experts. They’ll share legal pitfalls that many women—and men—entrepreneurs encounter, and how to sidestep them. Take notes! The experts speak. Nina Kaufman, Esq.: “Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn” (Harriet Beecher Stowe). Nance L. Schick, Esq.: “Order and simplification are the first steps towards the mastery of a subject” ((Paul) Thomas Mann). Renée L. Duff, Esq.: “Believe it can be done. When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find the ways to do it (David J. Schwartz). Join us for Legal Lessons for Women Business Owners–Part 3.

The buzz: What’s a vacation? Entrepreneurs and business owners have always carried the weight of their company, with precious few days off. Now pressure to “mind the store” is literally always-on, with digital customers online 24/7 from every device and location, 74% using social networks to make a buying decision and share experiences. How can small players use social selling, digital decision tools and ecommerce solutions – but retain their uniqueness – to compete with the “big kids”? The experts speak. Lil Mohan, University of Chicago: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place” (George Bernard Shaw). Max Dower, Unfortunate Portrait: “A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is – it is what consumers tell each other it is” (Scott Cook). Susan Reynolds, SAP: “The start-ups that do well are the ones that are working all the time” (Sam Altman). Join us for Becoming Digital, Staying Human: Be True to You and Your Business – Part 2.

The buzz: Woo woo or woo hoo? Companies like yours across all industry sectors are trying to deal with almost daily security threats to your networks and devices. Can available Security Incident and Event Monitoring (SIEM) analytics tools help you mine and analyze data to protect your vital data from eagerly prying eyes? Ideally, the analytics will enable you to detect and prevent future attacks, recover quickly from present breaches, and learn from past vulnerabilities. Ready for a reality check? The experts speak. Paul Alvarez, EY: “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit” (Harry Truman). Richard McCammon, Delego Software: “Be vigilant, for nothing one achieves lasts forever” (Tahar Ben Jelloun). Gerlinde Zibulski, SAP: “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge” (Stephen Hawking). Join us for Security Breach Threat Analysis and Intelligence: Just Voodoo or Real Help?

The buzz: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” Businesses used to focus on the goods they produced. Now that customers in the Digital Economy demand faster, better ways to receive what they buy, product delivery logistics could become as critical to B2B business success as to B2Cs. How do you know if this is right for your business model? The experts speak. Sunil Daluvoy, Uber Technologies: “If you’re competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering” (Jeff Bezos). Charlie Cole, Tumi: ““Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light” (Dylan Thomas). Hari Ashvini, SAP: “The price of doing the same old thing is far higher than the price of change” (Bill Clinton). Join us for One-Hour Doorstep Delivery: Can It Transform Your Business?