A chat with Paul Clark from SAP and Business Objects about the “non SAP” customer base of Business Objects before and after the acquisition and what can we expect for them in the future.

A key phrase for me was “we will protect that market”…

Narina is the Senior Vice President & General Manager, Governance, Risk and Compliance Business Unit at SAP and during our chat I got a very good impression of why SAP can with certainty claim it’s spot as #1 for GRC.

GRC is one of those areas that effect everything about your business, even those areas you were not thinking about, Narina was also able to give an idea of what is to come and what areas SAP for example are focusing on for the near future.

In my second attempt I managed to finally get Jonathan on camera (with audio) to talk about SAP, Business Objects and the idea behind “1 + 1 = 3″, a great chat looking at merging markets and tackling the challenges of two powerful companies and how the synergies make for an awesome looking road forward!

Jonathan is also a blogger, so be sure to check out his blog where he describes the blog as,

A primary goal of this blog is provide information about performance management in a vendor-neutral way. The inspiration for the title of this blog, Manage By Walking Around, can be found in my inagural post. Because the term performance management gets bandied around by many different people to describe many different things, in some of my earlier posts (Operational, Financial or IT and What’s In A Name) I try to disambiguate the different uses, but in reality confusion still reigns in the market. Perhaps it’s a small consolation that continued confusion means continued reading of this blog…

While in Boston the other week I was able to stick around to attend the SAP SME Deep Dive, this was a day dedicated to SAP’s SME market space and they filled it with customers and partners telling their own stories. Dennis Howlett a fellow Irregular was in attendance as well and has a great post about a SAP All-in-One implementation. For Starship Enterprisey having Stacey and Mona from SAP setup an interview with an actual customer was a first overall let alone a first in the SME market space. The customer is TAM Ceramics LLC and I got to sit down for a chat with George Bilkey.

George Bilkey is President of TAM Ceramics LLC currently implementing SAP Business ByDesign. Bilkey has had extensive experience of ERP implementations in the ceramic manufacturing and was previously holding management positions in global companies including Ferro Corporation, Washington Mills, and Saint Gobain. He holds a BS of the Ceramic Engineering, Alfred University and an MBA from the State University of New York at Buffalo, School of Management. Bilkey also holds executive level positions with key trade associations and groups.

Before I even turned on the camera though I got to know some things about what it is George and TAM does, TAM’s mission is to focus on being the quality leader in the zirconia market and to expand into new markets. With a dedicated highly seasoned labor force, low overhead and costs, the company is positioned to reclaim the market volume leader in the industry. TAM sees continued expansion in both the investment casting and refractories industries and will greatly expand their reach in these areas along with a focused effort on increasing the Titanates business. Working with existing and new customers to provide new innovative solutions that are customized for their specific use, TAM has increased annual sales for 2008 by over 30% compared to 2007 in less than four weeks.

After awhile I decided I should probably start the camera rolling and hear about the pain points, successes, positives and the negatives of an aggressive two month implementation of SAP Business ByDesign!

While in Boston I attended the SAP SME Deep Dive and had a chance to sit down and chat with Jeff Stiles SVP of SME Marketing. 20,000 Customers for SAP Business One, Crystal Reports for SAP Business One, SAP Business ByDesign, SAP Business All in One and a perfect way to get started http://www.sap.com/sme – the Solution Advisor tool.