July in review: ERP news

We know you are busy, so we have compiled July’s top ERP news for you in one neat, easy-to-read article.

In this July recap of the top ERP news, we learn about the strong leadership behind SAP, Oracle’s big boom and subsequent hiring, a comparison of AI, and a glimpse of the moon. Check it out below!

Bill McDermott: The Underdog with a Vision

With more than 85,000 employees in over 130 countries, SAP must be agile enough to service all of its customers – who better than the deli shop owner turned captivating leader, Bill McDermott, to see the organization into the future.

“When I present to a U.S. audience, I try to inspire them quickly, get them engaged right from the beginning… With a German audience, I need to be more fact based up front and have a more disciplined presentation style to build a case, almost as if I were in a courtroom. I also find that many business cultures appreciate a clearer acknowledgment of problems than U.S. audiences want.” – Bill McDermott

“SAP is probably the embodiment of what I would term legacy systems, this old clunky world of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning software), (a) huge investment but incredibly difficult to change…A lot of German companies struggled over the years to become more global and almost to shed almost their German DNA and embrace a lot more global mindset. For me, SAP has embraced that, and somebody like Bill, it’s probably his point of reference is more a global one than anything else.”

– Tom Reuner, colleague of McDermott

Throughout the bio by CNBC in it’s The Brave Ones series, McDermott talks about his childhood, personal life and his household accident in 2015 which left him missing an eye.

Oracle to Add 1,000 Employees in European Cloud Push

After reporting a 58% year-over-year revenue growth in the cloud, Oracle have announced that they are now looking for employees. According to a report from Bloomberg Technology, the ever-growing company will seek to fill 1,000 positions for its cloud computing service.

Vice president of Oracle’s California-based cloud computing region says, “Our cloud business is growing at incredible rates, so now is the right time to bring in a new generation of talent.” Now’s the time to go looking for work!

Business Apps Vendors Are All In on Artificial Intelligence

On the announcement of Infor’s newest Artificial Intelligence platform, Coleman joins the ranks of IBM’s Watson, Salesforce Einstein, and other services like AI available on other platforms such as Oracle, AWS, Google and Microsoft. How do they all rate against one another? eWeek discusses how they stack up.

What’s important to remember, says Scot Peterson of Ziff Brothers and author of the eWeek blog, is that: “None of this is true with human-like reasoning and interaction. At best, these are helper applications that can automate and optimize existing processes. It will take time and many more breakthrough use cases for AI to start making a meaningful impact on the bottom lines of the vendors and their customers.”

Oracle Expands Cloud at Customer Portfolio

Going along with its 58% revenue increase, Oracle has expanded its cloud at customer portfolio to cover PaaS, Saas, and big data.

According to ZDNet, Oracle Cloud at Customer will now include Infrastructure, Data Management, Big Data and Analytics, Application Development, Enterprise Integration, Security, and Software as a Service.

15 Famous ERP Disasters, Dustups and Disappointments

And now for something completely different, a list of 15 famous ERP mishaps throughout history. Remember the time that Hershey could not deliver $100 million dollars worth of Kisses® during Halloween 1999? Or how about that time SAP’s Hasso Plattner mooned Oracle’s Larry Ellison while out at sea? CIO does, and the compilation of kerfuffles is all right here.

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Did we miss something major in ERP news? Let us know in the comments below or by tweeting @Washington_Frk.