John Appleby, CEO Avantra, managed to duck a podcast taping with me at SAP Sapphire. But after Appleby told me that this year's SAP Insider marked a change in SAP events, I put him in the podcast hot seat: what matters most to SAP customers? After our review of RISE with SAP, Appleby gives his answer: SAP automation. But hold up - automating SAP landscapes is different than classic DevOps. Can SAP Basis engineers make this transition, and have impact on their company's automation strategy? What are the pitfalls? I had some tough surprise questions ready for Appleby. I hope this practical look at why SAP automation is coming to a head will be useful to project teams. Disclosure: Avantra is a diginomica partner, but this podcast is not part our contract, nor is this a diginomica podcast. We did this one for fun, with only a bare bones list of topics, no script.