Heard at SAP Sapphire

I recently attended and presented at the annual SAP Sapphire conference in Orlando. I expected to see strong interest in optimization of back office functions but after years of attending this event, I was amazed to see the high level of interest specifically around invoice process optimization. One personal example…I conducted a micro forum related to SAP Invoice Management where we expected 10 -15 people…the final attendance was 60 people.
In discussions with many of the attendees, I found a significant growth interest related to vendor networks such as provided by Crossgate and dynamic discounting (DD). The adoption of DD will drive corporations to invest in solutions such as SAP Invoice Management to ensure they achieve a high rate of straight through processing. DD will also require invoice exception processing to occur in very few days as opposed to weeks.
I also see the increased adoption of vendor networks driving standardization of invoice meta data content and format; not unlike what edi has driven in the past. This will be slow to evolve but I think will eventually happen.
One topic that caught my attention…Shared Service. While not a new topic, I feel a combination of searching for efficiency gains and control combined with merger and acquisitions has created renewed interest in shared services. The major difference this time around is focus is on utilizing technology and out of the box solutions such as SAP Shared Services Framework & SAP Invoice Management as opposed to prior efforts that focused on moving to less expensive labor pools.