SAP and Enterprise Trends Podcasts from Jon Reed (@jonerp) of diginomica.com

In collaboration with ASUG Talks, we bring you another live edition of "Ask us Anything," recorded on the SAP Sapphire show floor during the ASUG annual conference as well. After the day two keynote, ASUG CEO Geoff Scott, Josh Greenbaum and Jon Reed fielded questions from the live show floor audience. As expected, there were some doozies, and some curveballs. From AI skills imperatives to outcome-based pricing, to the infamous "magic genie to change SAP" question, the seats were hot and the convo was interesting. We took as many questions as we could before running out of time - but we'll take more questions during a summer follow-on in July. Note: this podcast has already been released on ASUG Talks. You may notice a few differences in the recordings, as I tend to go with a raw file, as is the tone of my channel.

Salesforce Connections 2026 had an ambitious narrative: apply agentic AI to turn marketers from bogged-down admins to "makers." But how did that narrative go over with attendees? And how do Salesforce customers achieve these changes and reduce marketing/sales pain points - even on older "heritage" releases? Does the fragmentation of enterprise data remain an obstacle? Jon Reed hashes out these questions and more with Rebecca Wettemann, who has done notable research through Valoir on CX data fragmentation. Can the two get to the bottom of the show on the clock, before their conference room time expires? We're about to find out...

After day one of Epicor Insights 2026, Jon Reed and usual suspect Brian Sommer hashed out what they learned in a vigorous day of keynotes, exec meetings and customer discussions. Epicor's ERP manufacturing bona fides are well known, but what is the impact of their Cognitive ERP push? Is the AI strategy differentiated? Does it line up with what customers need? An unexpected AI candor came out from the keynote stage, but how are Epicor customers faring in their own AI pursuits? Yes, it's time to dissect the "forward deployed engineers" buzzword... Did Brian managed to avoid getting through the entire podcast without bashing the Gaylord Opryland Hotel venue? You're about to find out.

In a time-honored tradition, on the Thursday morning after Sapphire 2026, Josh Greenbaum and I commandeered an abandoned session room at the Hilton to ask ourselves the burning questions: what the heck just happened? What we can take away? Where did SAP advance the conversation, or come up short? Given I have issued multiple podcast from the event, I issued another challenge: let's not repeat prior podcast topics as much as possible. Also, in the context of SAP's new "autonomous enterprise" all-in messaging, the clear/awkward question must be asked: has Greenbaum, one of the most vociferous agentic AI critics in the SAP ecosystem, especially in terms of ROI, changed his stance? And: what did we learn from all of our interactions with SAP execs and customers? And yes: the API data controversy is addressed here. We had an hour of hot topics to work through, and didn't even get to them all. But, a few timestamps:

4:15 - AI and "Toolchain" advancements redux

16:43 - the API controversy breakdown - what we learned at Sapphire

26:00 - has Josh's stance on agentic AI changed?

38:00 - the autonomous enterprise framing

49:00 - SAP Connect, the business case challenge, and final hot seat questions

Note to listeners - if you believe in totally ad-free, totally unsponsored podcasts like my series - an increasingly rare thing - consider giving me a positive rating or share. There is intentionally no business model - these podcasts are entirely self-funded and it's your engagement with them that keeps them going (thx).

At the tail end of SAP Sapphire Orlando, Jon Reed sat down in a semi-empty location with UKISUG Chair Conor Riordan to get his reactions to SAP's news, AI strategy and how customer value is changing. Amongst the hot topics Riordan brought up were: business cases and SAP's new AI migration tools (and Joule for Consultants). How impactful is this on business cases and customer AI adoption? Will partners/SIs make the shift? Where are we with public versus private cloud ERP? We also discuss Riordan's take on SAP's recent API policy changes - and how user groups got involved. Some back-and-forth on agentic accuracy and consumption pricing kept things lively as the event wrapped up. Note: after this conversation, Jon Reed talked with SAP's Philipp Herzig, who clarified that the ability to compare private and public cloud ERP readiness does already exist, and can likely be enhanced further, re: industry readiness assessments.

On Tuesday, SAP kicked off SAP Sapphire Orlando with a important keynote to set the tone for their enterprise vision amidst AI and SaaS upheaval. So how did they do? This audio production recaps the live Watch Party we held with Jon Reed, Josh Greenbaum and Bonnie Tinder, along with a stream of savvy/snarky audience members. In this 30 minute version, you'll hear our pre-keynote expectations and what SAP needed to accomplish. Then you'll hear our post-keynote recap - the highs and the lows, and what SAP accomplished, or not. Note: you can view the entire Watch Party replay on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/events/7458204874200186881?viewAsMember=true. SAP's keynote is also available online, check the SAP Sapphire Virtual event as a starting point.

About ready for an event detox? Need a break from agentic keynote overdose? Join us for our picks and pans of the month, and perhaps a surprise guest or two, as we valiantly push to break through the noise and boil down our top road lessons. As always, Brian's infamous slide deck will be on display. Bring your savviest and snarkiest commentary...

What is the state of SAP in April 2026? The markets have one take - but is that the whole story? What if we frame this in terms of customer priorities and value instead? And how does the enterprise AI story factor in - with the "garbage in, garbage out" data issue firmly in mind? That's plenty of fodder for our first air-it-out 'State of SAP' review in six months. (Though there is also our live ASUG Talks sessions with live customer Q/As since then). This podcast begins differently - Jon Reed had an opening ventilation in store for Geoff Scott and Josh Greenbaum to riff on. From there, we follow on our unscripted way, into SAP's AI strategy - and what individuals (and customers) should do in the face of global volatility and tech disruption. Along the way, we address two of SAP's major news items as well: the Reltio acquisition, and Thomas Saueressig's move into Chief Customer Officer on the SAP Executive Board. This podcast is intended to set the stage for SAP Sapphire Orlando and the co-located ASUG Annual Conference, where will we be taping live again.

When you issue research that says things like this, you have my attention: "Instead of simplifying, many organizations are doubling down on complexity in the name of AI. This is where the story takes a turn. AI has become the top priority for modernizing customer service, but it's also exposing just how broken the underlying data layer really is." Rebecca Wettemann of Valoir released fresh CX research that laid out the siloed predicaments CX (and contact center) teams are facing. But what should enterprises do about it? And why do we keep pursuing sexy AI solutions that won't get results - until we deal with the underlying data/people/silo problems? At Oracle AI World New York City, I hashed out these issues with Wettemann live during an event pit stop. (We also recorded a halftime recap of the Oracle AI event and agentic apps news, which was released as a separate podcast). Note: you can see the Valoir CX research summary/reveal on diginomica: https://diginomica.com/pursuit-customer-holy-grail-why-organisations-must-finally-tackle-cost-dis-connected-cx).

Halfway through Oracle's AI World Tour in New York City, Jon Reed caught up with Rebecca Wettemann of Valoir to recap the highlights of what we heard so far. After discussing Valoir's new CX research - released as a separate podcast - we dig into Oracle's enterprise AI play, which is a bit of a neglected media story, lacking the sensational appeal of the market news Oracle has been in the middle of. We also discuss where Oracle CX goes from here, and what to make of Oracle's 22 new agentic apps - news which dropped a week before this event. Note: Jon will release deeper analysis of this event on diginomica, after his 1:1 interviews were completed.