Hasan Kidwai: Ecosystem-First Thinking for AI and Industry Solutions

Chip Rodgers  0:00  
Hey everyone. We're back here at Google Next and, gosh, it's been a fantastic couple of days. It's been really a lively event, and just a ton of people here. So

Hasan Kidwai  0:13  
it's been a fantastic event, I must say, because, you know, it's been really exhilarating with all the announcements and things that are happening, especially on the SAP side, and especially the joint customers that we have over here, and the different meetings that have been taking place. I mean, I must say future is bright and to cloud,

Chip Rodgers  0:31  
that's awesome. That's awesome. So I'm so excited to be joined by Hassan Kidwai. And Hassan is global vice president for the Google Cloud relationship, Google relationship for SAP, big job and Hassan. Welcome.

Hasan Kidwai  0:46  
Thank you. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot. It's a pleasure chip to catch up with you. And yeah, I mean really, very, very exciting and good to be in the middle of this particular relationship where we actually taking the relationship to the next level. There's extreme focus on the partnership from both sides, from both SAP leadership as well as the Google leadership. And certainly for us, the common theme and the common focus is what we are doing for our joint customers. How do we actually bring more value jointly, and in the spirit of that particular joint value, you've seen a lot of announcements that have come through in the in Sapphire, and now here at Google Next,

Chip Rodgers  1:25  
yeah, yeah, it's fantastic. There was a lot of there was a lot going on at Sapphire with around rise and BTP, and I know a lot of that is very close relationship with Google Cloud. No,

Hasan Kidwai  1:38  
certainly, I think, I think the initial start of that particular relationship started with the infrastructure as a service, or what we call rise as SAP, which obviously meant taking our customers from the on prem sap to the cloud SAP. Or, as for HANA rise, as we say, which is more of a transformation, where we try to run a lot of the services, whatnot. And that was a good start, I must say. And then certainly after that, we started looking at how we can deliver more value to our customers, and the exchange of data between SAP and Google Cloud in terms of how can we create new scenarios and new insights for our customers. So think of scenarios where you can bring in the search data into planning, or you can think about assortment planning, thinking about, you know, how customers rank a particular product, and then retailers are able to shelf, or rather, put the products on the shelf in a particular way based on the internet searches. I think these are some phenomenal scenarios, or say, for example, picking up, picking up Internet Trends, and, you know, making sure your inventory is stocked up for that those kind of invent for those kind of trends. These are some of the unique scenarios where we are actually trying to bring in the Google insights using SAP data sphere, and bringing that data back and forth. And now, obviously, with the announcement that you saw, we are looking at exchange of data in the automotive sector, which means, how do we actually, how does SAP and Google are in the car, and we are able to drive insights and drive information to the consumers in the car, and also, you know, sort of taking the data from the car and sharing it with the host of suppliers and service providers on The SAP network. So these are some of the interesting scenarios sustainability. You heard the session that I delivered the other day with Frank sival, and we are, we have some unique cases where we are actually bringing in satellite images along with the sustainability data, or scenarios like water level and, you know, the how, what is being or the the, you know, the grid information, things like that, to our customers. So I mean, the ability to combine data and sort of bring that insights to our customers is what we are trying to do. And again, the whole intention is to, as we say in SAP, run the word better.

Chip Rodgers  3:59  
That's right, well, and, gosh, I mean, you just named three or four industry use cases and solutions that are really interesting. And, you know, SAP with it's 25 now, I think 2526 different vertical, you know, industries were very strong, you know, solutions, it's unlimited. The the opportunity,

Hasan Kidwai  4:22  
no, it's certainly it's unlimited. And I think the ability, I mean, SAP obviously, has been a leader, as you know, in running the fortune 500 companies, majority, more than 90% of the Fortune 500 companies run SAP. And that certainly places us a huge responsibility on us, and obviously a lot of, let's say opportunity on our side to do what we can do, and certainly bringing in technology partners like Google along with us to sort of deliver some of the value that we can jointly deliver to our customers is something unique in a way, and and for us, I think it. Especially with the now, now, with the AI, with the AI trends. There's a lot that we are actually working with Google right now, as you saw the announcement from yoga as well. And we are actually going to be delivering some good content on the AI side, both on the on the on the traditional AI as well as the generative AI as well. So there's a lot that is going to be coming from our website.

Chip Rodgers  5:21  
That's exciting. That's exciting, yeah. And I think, you know, TK and Kevin, you know, made the announcement was that maybe last year, 100% partner attached. So that's a that's a phenomenal statement to the market from Google and SAP is right in there with with Google.

Hasan Kidwai  5:39  
No, certainly, I think our partnership has been very strong. And the reason why our partnership has been strong is because both of us have always kept the customer interest at the heart of it, and that obviously makes because both the companies are extremely focused on the customer interest, that makes the partnership much easier to do, and certainly the leadership on both sides, SAP, as well as Google, has actually been focused on, how can we deliver more and more value to our customers? And that makes it easier. And certainly on the other side, you also have alphabet as a customer of SAP, which obviously you heard on sapphire as well that TK talked about the fact that there's so much that SAP is doing with alphabet as a customer. So certainly, you know the opportunity is immense. Customers are going to have a great time in what we can deliver. And our joint partners, some of the larger size are obviously going to be up for it in terms of delivering the value jointly with us. So

Chip Rodgers  6:41  
I said at the beginning, you have a big job. How do you manage it all? You have a big job.

Hasan Kidwai  6:46  
No, I think, I think, certainly, it's very interesting. It's very, very interesting. It's been very satisfying. As you know, Chip I've in my past roles I was in sales, took over this role about almost, about nine months, sorry, about 11 months back, moved over here to us. And certainly it's very, very interesting, I must say. And it's, as they say, it's good to be in the in the center of the storm.

Chip Rodgers  7:10  
Yeah, that's for sure. Well, Hasan, thank you so much for taking a minute and sharing some of the the incredible things that are happening between SAP and and Google and, you know, it's all about partnership and bringing value to customers, right? Creating innovation and bringing value to customers?

Hasan Kidwai  7:28  
No, certainly, I think, I think it's really interesting and really, really heartening to see how our customers, joint customers, are getting benefited, and how they are actually able to, again, as we say, you know, it's not only our joint customers, but customers, customers that we keep in, that we keep in our focus, and as long as we are able to serve our customers, customers, you know, business will be great.

Chip Rodgers  7:49  
Yeah, fantastic. Well, thank you for again, for for joining and and, you know, I think the the party is about to start here this afternoon.

Hasan Kidwai  7:59  
So I mean, the party between SAP and Google has always been there. It's just that the very good, physical party is about to start, all right.

Chip Rodgers  8:07  
Well, thank you Hassan, and thank you for joining us, and we'll see you next time. Thank you. Applause.

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