SAP User Group Hamilton – Where Knowledge Sharing Feeds Risk Mitigated Change and Innovation

I’m on record as saying that I value TTC Global’s community-focussed approach. This not only relates to our own setup and facilitation of community Test Professional meetups across New Zealand – it also includes our support of key industry communities like the New Zealand SAP User Group. On Friday 30th May, our team had the privilege of supporting, sponsoring and presenting at the New Zealand SAP User Group Hamilton event. A well-attended SAP user focussed conference in Hamilton and a key event on the New Zealand SAP User Group calendar.

Well run user groups contain a mix of both vendor updates, real user stories and lessons from the field. For the Hamilton SAP User Group along with the key messaging around the continued development of the SAP Joule AI technology (and the ongoing enhancements in this area are very impressive), Rainer Moritz of SAP’s Integrated Business Planning (IBP) development team was on hand to talk to current and proposed work on this module – key to the Hamilton attendees that were primarily from the manufacturing and distribution sectors of the New Zealand economy. That Rainer Moritz was here in New Zealand and directly contactable by the event attendees is testament to the value that SAP is placing in the New Zealand market and user community. The merge of both the IBP development plans and the integration of the SAP Joule AI technology as agentic AI to increase the awareness of potential disruptions to the supply chain process – and the potential areas to optimise – were very well received by those at the event and secures SAP’s ongoing footprint in the manufacturing and distribution sector – so key to New Zealand’s overseas earnings and export growth.

While the IBP roadmap is impressive, the highlight for me was our own team’s presentation on the lessons learned in the field from testing and quality assuring SAP implementations and upgrades. Sitting across many of our work programmes I’m aware of the clients that we have and the engagements that we deliver. What I often don’t get to see however is the extensive intellectual property and experience that our team does have – and how each engagement that we successfully deliver feeds into this and add even more value to our next engagement.

The presenting team of Mei Reyes-Tsai and Brendon Russell – between them too many SAP Quality Assurance engagements to count easily – gave a succinct and current breakdown of not only the setup and approach to successful SAP quality assurance work programmes, also of their lessons learned along the way and the potential pitfalls to look out for and either avoid or mitigate. This included the positioning and value of test automation. It should only be done where it will be proven to add value (cost reduction / reduced timeframes) and during delivery should always be re-evaluated to ensure that the value add is still there. The team’s presentation is available here, and if needed I can set up an introduction for you and your team.

User Groups such as these are a great way to hear about both the upcoming enhancements and product roadmaps, as well as the lessons learned from real world work activities and delivery. The Hamilton SAP User Group definitely delivered on this, and the packed-out room is a good indication of the value to the local user community of this initiative. Thank you, SAP and the New Zealand SAP User Group, for allowing TTC Global to be a part of this.