Enterprise Mobility @ SAP – Introduction

This is the first blog post of a series around the enterprise mobility team at SAP. We are an internal IT team focused on managing mobile devices, mobile applications, and developing custom apps for SAP’s 100,000 employees. I have been a part of this team for the past six years and believe we have some unique stories, software, tools, and insights to help others in the community considering, or currently undertaking, some of the challenges which surround mobility and its adoption in the enterprise.

Introduction

SAP has been on the leading edge of adopting, deploying, and developing its Enterprise Mobility strategy for over ten years. It was one of the initial early adopters of Apple in the enterprise, with a field deployment of over 11,000 iPads in 2011. At the time, it was the second-largest deployment worldwide. Not only did SAP deploy and encourage the adoption of these innovative devices in our employee’s hands, but the team also had a early start on developing native iOS apps to support and empower our employees in their daily lives, enabling them to be more productive anywhere. read more

King Kullen

It’s a relevant and intriguing story of how one employee at Kroger, Michael Kullen, wrote a 6 page letter to a Kroger VP, encouraging them to consider a different business model. He was not taken seriously, resigned from Kroger and opened his own grocery chain called King Kullen. It is considered Americas First Supermarket due to it having separate departments; self-service; discount pricing; chain marketing; and volume dealing. In 2007 King Kullen had revenues of $800 million and operates 32 stores in New York state.

Dee Hock (Visa) – Quote

I like this quote from the founder and CEO of Visa. I believe “thinking out of the box” is a challenge for many of us when your mind is fulled with preconceived notions and ideas. I am also reasonably convinced there is strong correlation between the longer you continue to use and believe the existing ideas, the harder it is to get them out …