As SAUG members will know, this is the flagship event in the SAUG calendar, and highlights this year include:

Keep up to date with the latest in SAP

• 8 keynote presentations and 45+ customer presentations covering over 20 SAP solutions

• Dedicated SAP HANA Workshop, presented by Jeff Word, VP Product Strategy, Database & Technology, SAP

• 25+ service and solution providers in the Exhibition area

As with all SAUG events, it’s a great opportunity to network and share learnings, and the Welcome Networking drinks on Wednesday 11th September provides an ice-breaker to unite fellow SAUG members, SAP customers, SIG Leads, SAP Mentors and others.

The agenda promises an enticing mix of  tech news, world-renowned SAP experts, and case studies from both the private and public sectors.

Registration is available at the SAUG National Summit 2013 webpage and closes on the 9th September.

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This grand event, departing from Sydney on 22nd March, will feature some cyclists riding for 26 days covering 3,716km taking in Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide before finally arriving in Uluru in April.

For those without a month (and the required stamina!) to spare, there are week long Guest Pelotons, Two Day Stage Rides (all fully supported) and Bike-a-thon options in major capital cities. Best of all for the cyclists, it is fully supported and everything will be taken care of so all you need to do is hop on and ride.

More than just a bike ride, The Variety Cycle and the cyclists will visit and engage with schools, hospitals and the public right along the expansive route. On every level this will be an epic life changing adventure for all those involved.

About Variety

Variety is a fantastic charity which provides assistance to kids who are sick, disadvantaged or have special needs. Last year alone, Variety provided essential equipment for over 150,000 individual children suffering from one or more of 74 medical conditions. And best of all, less than 10% of the funds raised go to administrative costs, so your money goes where it’s needed – to the kids.

There’s plenty of time to train!

Those of you who know us both will be aware that Marie is the super fit one, so she is planning on cycling a leg to do her bit towards raising that $1M for sick Aussie kids.  I’ve indemnified myself from having to squeeze into the faded lycra tights by chipping in $1,000…but am holding open the possibility of a short ride as it will be a great opportunity to get those sculpted calves back!

Of course, it’s a great way to reduce your tax bill at this time of year, while giving something back to the community.  Click here to get started!

If only I could get sponsored on this…

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Released late last year and impacting all PMI certification exams by August 2013, the new 5^th edition now has a whole new Knowledge Area, called Project Stakeholder Management, taking the total number of Knowledge Areas from nine to ten.  While stakeholder management is not new to PMI, it was previously addressed in less detail (via 2 processes, as opposed to the 4 new processes) in the Communications Knowledge Area.

  The four new processes are:

• Identify Stakeholders;
• Plan Stakeholder Management;
• Manage Stakeholder Engagement; and
• Control Stakeholder Engagement.

By elevating stakeholder management to its own Knowledge Area, PMI is saying it’s really important. And what they seem to be strongly emphasising in PMBOK 5 is that the project manager must keep the stakeholders engaged throughout the project, not just informed.

At Adapt2 Consulting, stakeholder management is absolutely central to our methodology, and we have the expertise to ensure that it is integrated seamlessly within projects of all sizes.

Learn more about how we do it or  contact us to let us explain how we can help your project succeed.

PMBOK is a registered mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

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The event aims to explore mobile learning as a unique and significant contribution to achieving the Education for All (EFA) goals of increasing education access, quality and equality.

MLW 2013 will consist of a symposium, senior policy makers’ forum, and a series of open webinars; which run from 21-22 February and will be moderated by leading thinkers in the field of ICT in education. International mobile learning experts will present the latest developments and, hopefully, the webinars will be recorded and made available after the event.

Of particular interest to corporate mLearning practitioners should be the webinar UNESCO Report on the Future of Mobile Learning presented by renowned expert Dr. Niall Winters of the University of London, for which registration is available now.

The post UNESCO Mobile Learning Week – 18-22 February 2013 appeared first on Adapt2 Consulting.

SAUG – Keep up to date with the latest

The SAUG Canberra Forum has been scheduled for the 13th of March 2013, at the Canberra Park Hyatt.

As SAUG members will know, this is an invaluable, one-day annual event.  It provides a forum for more than 150 public sector professionals to discuss challenges unique to their SAP landscape.  It’s a great opportunity to network and share learnings.

Attendees will include representatives from Australian federal, state and local government agencies. Whether you are an SAP program director, a business process manager or a solution architect, this event will provide information that is valuable to your role.

Speaking places are available, which can benefit you, your organisation, and other SAP professionals.  Submit a speaker form early to secure a place.

Registration is available at the SAUG Canberra Forum 2013 webpage.

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The new solution from SAP helps customers minimize those risks that could lead to catastrophic events and compromise business continuity, not to mention managing smaller events – similar goals to that of the existing incident management solution, which for ECC6.0 users is part of the Environment, Health and Safety module.

Successful deployment…provided there is effective change management

The standard solution is very popular with large mining companies, with it recently being rolled out by miner MMG for their sites in Queensland and Western Australia.

What’s new about the latest offering is the fact that it’s part of the SAP rapid-deployment solutions suite, which come packaged with software, pre-configured content and pre-defined services that streamline the implementation process at a fixed price and within a designated timeframe. According to SAP, companies can have a full system up and running typically within 90 days with fewer costs and risks.  This will appeal to smaller organisations who wish to enhance their OHS system capability quickly with limited resources.

Other Rapid Deployment Solutions currently available from SAP include health and safety, product and safety, stewardship, product life-cycle management and energy management.

These new SAP solutions, which offer short implementation timelines, are fantastic news for customers.  However, they make the need for effective and engaging change management, communication and training more acute than ever.  There is virtually no room for error with these timeframes, and regardless of the technology, the key remains, as always, user adoption.

Considering a project which needs to succeed under tight time pressures?  Ask us for help.

The post SAP’s Rapid Deployment Solutions Suite Increases appeared first on Adapt2 Consulting.

SAP vs. Oracle in India – who will win?

Oracle and SAP are going head-to-head for market share in India, where enterprises are spending more than ever before on technology.

In the past few weeks, California-based Oracle, once a pure database specialist, has published advertisements specifically targeting the clients of SAP, the world’s largest business software maker.

India is the main game for global growth opportunities. According to research by Gartner, India will spend an estimated US$3.5 billion on enterprise software in 2012. Further raising the stakes, Gartner believes that India will be the fastest-growing enterprise software market for at least the next four years.

Cloud adoption in India, which has been slow until now, will start seeing “healthy adoption” in the country by 2013-2014, according to Gartner. This could give SAP the edge, due to its emphatic push into this space.

One thing is for sure – the fight is one to watch.

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The new products include the Product Stewardship Network and EHS Regulatory Documentation OnDemand. Both are based on the idea of sharing information so that it only has to be collected once – data about supply-chain materials, in the case of the Product Stewardship Network, and data about environmental safety regulations, in the case of the EHS Regulatory Documentation OnDemand.

The Product Stewardship Network is a network that enables manufacturers and suppliers to collaborate and collect information more easily about the substances in their products.

“Think of it like LinkedIn for product compliance,” says Dieter Haesslein, vice president of sustainability solution development at SAP. “Basically, companies can connect with each other and keep them updated” on what’s in their product.

Currently, it can be difficult for manufacturers to get a detailed list of the materials in their suppliers’ products, mostly because suppliers are overwhelmed with these types of requests, he adds, with some SAP customers receiving thousands of these enquiries a month.

With its Product Stewardship Network, SAP hopes to cut out those thousands of emails – and countless hours – by giving suppliers a place to publish that information once for all of their partners to see, instead of having to send it separately to everyone.

Basic membership – which enables suppliers and manufacturers to connect with each other, share product data and get regulatory information — is free, but SAP is also offering additional services – including mass uploads of product data, bulk supplier invitations and tech support – starting at $160 per month.

At Adapt2 Consulting, we are looking forward to widespread adoption of SAP’s Environmental Compliance (EC) Solution – something that has been around for a while but doesn’t get much airplay. When the mandatory carbon reporting thresholds come down, organisations will have to adapt to this very quickly.

The post SAP offers new environmental reporting solutions appeared first on Adapt2 Consulting.

Click here to view full details, including registration details address.

The agenda promises a very engaging list of speakers and topics.

Congratulations to the SAUG team also on their excellent rebranding and fresh website, which offers greater online functionality for searching other members, online registration and payment, and a social networking portal via the communities pages. Worth a look.

The post SAUG Sydney Plenary – 22 November appeared first on Adapt2 Consulting.

Clearly, SAP is leading the way in mobile enterprise apps, in response to mobile application development becoming a top concern for enterprises and their CIOs. According to the 2012 Gartner CIO Survey, 61 percent of respondents plan to enhance their mobile capability during the next three years, with 48 percent believing they will become leaders by fully adopting innovative mobile solutions.[1] Read the full news article here.

SAP Mobile Solutions are coming soon – if you aren’t already using them. What does this mean from a change management, training and user-adoption perspective? As with any component in a technology deployment, you must ensure that your Change Strategy considers the integration of mobile solutions from the very beginning of the project, permitting early user involvement to allow opportunities for feedback into the design and deployment of the apps. And of course, don’t overlook the unique training requirements of using mobile solutions.

[1]Gartner, “Magic Quadrant for Mobile Application Development Platforms,” William Clark, Ian Finley, Song Chuang, April 26, 2012

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