12 SAP colleagues. Ten home countries. Four NGOs. One month in Argentina. A different kind of business trip.

When I tell people I’m spending a month in Argentina on a Social Sabbatical, I usually get a puzzled look.

“A what?”

Understandable question. A sabbatical sounds like time off work. Add the word social, and you might imagine a month of meeting people, exploring Buenos Aires, and enjoying a few glasses of Malbec.

To be honest, I hope to do a little of that. But that’s not why I’m here.

Consulting with a social purpose

SAP’s Social Sabbatical is a global pro bono consulting program. Employees step away from their regular roles for four weeks to work alongside nonprofits and social enterprises on real business challenges. SAP partners with PYXERA Global to coordinate the experience.

Organizations gain access to our expertise in areas such as strategy, technology, operations, and communications. We get a chance to expand our cross-cultural skills, learn from local partners, and see the world from a different perspective. Ideally, everyone goes home with something useful and meaningful.

It’s one way SAP puts its purpose, helping the world run better and improving people’s lives, into practice, alongside broader efforts to expand access to education, employment, and economic opportunity.

I’ve participated in SAP volunteering programs at home before, from packing school-supply backpacks to providing short-term brand strategy consulting to U.S. social enterprises. This opportunity appealed to me because it meant going deeper: dedicating a full month to understanding an organization’s needs and helping develop tools it can use long after we leave.

A change of destination and perspective

When I learned I’d been selected, I was elated. Felt a bit like winning the lottery. SAP has over 100,000 employees, and close to 500 people from around the world apply.

Our assignment was originally in Medellín, Colombia. More than 20 years into my SAP career, I welcomed the chance to shift gears, work outside my usual network, and put my own advice about curiosity and cultural awareness into practice.

I was equally grateful to my team members at home who would be covering the responsibilities I’d leave behind, and to my leadership for fully supporting the opportunity. Four weeks away doesn’t happen by magic.

A few months before departure, the assignment moved to Argentina. I couldn’t believe my luck.

My mother is Argentine, my grandfather was a gaucho from Salta, and I’ve visited Argentina frequently for work and family my entire life. I usually follow a familiar itinerary. This time I could return to a country I love and see it through fresh eyes.

Twelve people, ten countries, four NGO partners

Our cohort brings together 12 SAP colleagues from the Philippines, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, Singapore, India, China, the Czech Republic, and the United States. Another SAP cohort is serving in Uzbekistan concurrently.

Here in Buenos Aires, we’re supporting four non-government organizations (NGO’s): Fundación Compromiso, Fundación Pescar, Luz de Esperanza, and Puerta 18. Each has its own mission and priorities. My team is partnered with Puerta 18, which helps young people explore technology, develop skills, and find pathways toward meaningful employment.

Our job isn’t to arrive with answers. It’s to listen, understand each partner’s challenges, and work together on practical solutions. And we have just four weeks to do it. No pressure!

Prepared, at least in theory…

For two months before arriving, we’d joined preparation calls, introductions, and pre-work. We were mentally ready. At least in theory…

Put that many people from different countries together and you get different personalities, work styles, communication habits, and assumptions. English is our shared language. I’m the only SAP participant who speaks Spanish fluently. We had a lot to navigate while learning to operate as a team.

I’ll admit I wondered whether we’d encounter that old school-project dynamic: a few people do all the work while everyone’s name appears on the final presentation.

Thankfully, that concern evaporated. Everyone came ready to contribute. My teammate Soeren, for example, had already thought deeply about our assignment before we arrived and had drafts of possible solutions at the ready. Clearly, no one had mistaken this sabbatical for a vacation.

Each team also has a local assistant. Ours is Candelaria Di Lelle, a university student nearing graduation with impeccable English, a sharp mind, and an excellent instinct for helping us navigate cultural questions, including the important question of which alfajor brand is best.

(Her pick is Rasta, by the way, and she thoughtfully brought both dark- and white-chocolate versions for us to sample. We took that research seriously… I’d already conducted my own dulce de leche taste test before arriving, but that deserves it’s own post.)

From Salta’s family table to SAP’s Buenos Aires office

The experience became real at our opening event at SAP’s Buenos Aires office, hosted by Claudia Boeri, President, SAP Multi-country, Latin America & the Carribean, and Fernanda Perez, SAP Argentina Country Manager. More than 50 local colleagues joined us to meet the cohort and learn about the four organizations. We took turns introducing ourselves and the work ahead.

I felt a sense of pride to have been selected and I knew it carried weight representing a large, global organization like SAP. But I felt an even deeper connection to the room because I’d just visited family in Salta. Just days earlier, I’d been sitting around their table, enjoying asado, empanadas, and the kind of conversations that last well beyond the meal.

So when it was my turn to speak, I shared a little of that experience. Honestly, talking about asado and empanadas felt like a pretty good way to connect with an Argentine audience.

I’d returned to a familiar country for an unfamiliar assignment. That mix of family connection, new colleagues, and shared purpose made the moment special.

Now the real work begins…

We’re starting by listening to our partner organizations and learning what matters most to them. I spent several years working as a business consultant and strategist in SAP’s Professional Services organization, so I know that good solutions begin with good questions and intentional listening.

Over the coming weeks I’ll share what we learn at Puerta 18, how our international team works together, and what this experience changes for us. I hope you’ll follow along and perhaps consider how your own skills could help an organization close to home.

Next up: Back to my consulting roots — getting to know Puerta 18.

#SAPSocialSabbatical #SAP4Good

A Month to Make a Difference: What Exactly Is a Social Sabbatical? was originally published in SAP Social Sabbatical on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Many in the media hailed 2018 as “The Year of the Woman” — a result of the record number of women who ran for and won seats in the U.S. House, Senate, governorships and other political offices across the country.

Despite this recent success, women continue to be in the minority of legislative leadership positions comprising just 23% of Congress, 29% of state legislators and 18% of governors according to Pew Research Center. And when it comes to women in business, the disparity is even more pronounced. The share of female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies declined to a mere 4.8 percent this past year.

Gender diversity is a buzzword on everyone’s radar. The topic makes its way onto leadership conference agendas and management task forces, but too often, it gets little more than lip service.

With everyone talking about how important it is, why does business have such a hard time realizing equity for women? How do we put into practice what we preach?

McKinsey & Company, in partnership with LeanIn.Org, has been probing these questions for the past four years through their annual Women in the Workplace Report. It is the largest comprehensive study of its kind, compiling data from 462 companies that collectively employ nearly 20 million people, with a goal to advance women and improve gender diversity within organizations.

For the first time since publishing the report, results indicate that despite companies declaring their commitment to gender diversity, progress has stalled. Women continue to be significantly underrepresented at every level, and the numbers are worse for women of color.

LeanIn.Org founder Sheryl Sandberg expressed her frustration in an op-ed posted on Facebook. “There is a disconnect in corporate America. Year after year, companies report that they are highly committed to gender diversity. But the proportion of women in their organizations barely budges. For this to change, companies need to treat gender diversity as the business imperative it is.”

How do we make that happen? The 2018 Women in the Workplace Report shares insights from a range of experts and identifies six concrete actions that companies can take:

1. Get the basics right — this means targets, reporting and accountability. Set goals, track and reward progress and communicate it.

2. Ensure that hiring and promotions are fair — especially at the entry and manager levels to avoid uneven playing fields down the line.

3. Make senior leaders and managers champions of diversity — they signal what is important and should treat it like any other business imperative.

4. Foster an inclusive and respectful culture — promote a safe, supportive and civil culture, seek out different voices and perspectives to build a better workplace for everyone.

5. Make the “Only” experience rare — 25% of all employees are “Only’s” on some dimension. Work to reduce the number of “only one’s” in the room (woman, woman of color, LGBTQ person). Be thoughtful about how teams are put together, look out for employees that may feel left out.

6. Offer employees the flexibility to fit work into their lives — help employees manage the complexity of running a household, caring for others and building a career.

The report was shared before a live audience at The Wall Street Journal’s Women in the Workplace forum in San Francisco. As a sponsor of the event, SAP sat down with several attendees to seek their advice: “What is one small thing that companies can do right now to improve the work culture for women?”

Watch “One Simple Fix” for their responses:

Gender diversity is good for everyone. Diversity brings with it a wider variety of perspectives, backgrounds and experiences to generate more powerful approaches to leadership, innovation and management. These differences ultimately make their way to the boardroom — creating growth and opportunity at every level, as well as happier employees.

What action will you commit to in 2019 to make a difference?

Join the conversation at SAP Women Forward.

The Quest for Equity was originally published in SAP Innovation Spotlight on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“When you embark on the acquisition of another company, you never know what’s going to happen. And you never know exactly what’s going to be required,” explained Tommy Mars, Managing Director, as he tells the story about how his energy management consultancy firm, Opportune, helped UK-based, Carlyle-backed, Assala Energy beat the clock to ink one of the largest foreign direct investments in sub-Saharan Africa, for Gabon onshore assets owned by international oil major Royal Dutch Shell.

Opportunities in Divesting

As market conditions continue to create uncertainty in the oil and gas industry, companies survive oil price fluctuations by focusing on being lean. They are rigorously eliminating waste, managing by exception, focusing on core skills, outsourcing their commodity tasks, and optimizing production and throughput of existing assets.

This creates opportunity for mid-market firms like Assala Energy as large enterprises like Shell opt for a divestiture strategy in parts of their business where substantial corporate overhead eats into profit margins. Shell’s program of divesting $30 billion worth of assets through 2018 focuses on the most competitive projects that can earn returns even at lower points in an oil price cycle. They plan to exit five to ten countries and focus only on projects that provide competitive advantages.

But there was a catch. To execute the $628 million acquisition, Assala had to set up a complete corporate IT application estate in less than 6 months. “When you enter into one of these acquisition deals, there is a transition period over which the work is done to ensure that when the business is finally purchased, it meets the intended outcome for both parties,” explained Jonathan Davis, IT Transformation Director for Assala.

Assala was acquiring a business that had been running in Gabon 40 years. Their goal was for a seamless and transparent transition to minimize the impact on employees.

Teaming Up to Meet the Challenge

“We went in knowing that we were going to acquire certain assets from Shell where SAP was probably one of the most significant applications supporting the business, and that they would have more than 300 hundred people familiar with using SAP in some way, shape, or form,” said Davis.

The team that met the challenge of delivering the solution in this short timeline included Opportune, Accenture, and SAP. Opportune provided client-side project management and SAP business process expertise. Accenture served as application systems partner, leveraging their Accenture Upstream Direct© industry template to bring deep experience in both the Upstream Oil & Gas sector and SAP agile delivery methods. SAP provided hosting services.

“Using the latest agile approach to delivering SAP solutions; the combined strengths and assets from Accenture, SAP and Opportune; and the focus that an acquisition deal completion date can bring; drove the team to achieve a common goal to deliver operational-ready business SAP applications in under 6 months,” explained Phil A. Smith, Accenture Managing Director (SAP).

Together the team implemented SAP S/4HANA Oil & Gas solution on the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, as well as SAP SuccessFactors solutions. They successfully transitioned employees off the Shell systems onto Assala’s new platform that included payroll and another 40 core applications.

With no time to spare, in November 2017, Assala announced the successful completion of the acquisition.

Focusing on the Assets

“The bigger picture that I think this demonstrates to companies of a similar size, is that you can implement SAP in a very quick and sustainable kind of way — in a six-month sort of timeframe, with one of the big system integrators using the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, in a way that isn’t going to break the bank,” said Davis.

By removing excess overhead and placing a stronger focus on the assets themselves, Assala can now run a very lean business. “Effectively, upstream oil and gases are a very simple business. You take the oil out of the ground, you sell it for the price — whatever the price is and what the market is trading at the time. The main thing you have to control is your cost base, and having SAP gives us a very strong, reliable, view on how cost is accumulating so we can manage more effectively,” said Davis.

This is just the beginning. Over time, Assala plans to look for new growth and expansion opportunities as well as play an important role in the future development of Gabon’s energy sector. Stay tuned…

Hear more about Assala’s implementation journey at the International SAP Conference for Oil & Gas, April 17–19, 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal.

Greasing the Wheels of Oil & Gas Divestiture through the Cloud was originally published in SAP Innovation Spotlight on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There is nothing like a bad storm cutting the power to our homes and businesses to remind us just how much we rely on energy. From heating our homes and refrigerating our food to powering our many devices, there is not much we can do without it. So how do we make the most of the finite natural resources we have while renewable sources are being developed and adopted?

The question becomes increasingly important as we consider how fast the global population is increasing –7.4 billion and counting, growing to an estimated 9.6 billion by 2050 according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

The answer? In part, it’s better management of those resources through digitization. Oil and gas companies for example, are optimizing their assets through cloud technologies, sensors, wireless communication, and big data. Suppliers are implementing real-time, remote control asset management and predictive maintenance to extend the life of their assets and improve operational efficiency. But sometimes the most impactful changes are the simplest.

Introducing HOERBIGER

HOERBIGER is an engineering-driven company with innovation in its DNA. 120 years ago, founder Hanns Hörbiger invented a steel plate valve for the compression industry that revolutionized the market. Today, operating in over 100 locations in more than 50 countries, the company’s 7,000 employees cater to three major markets. In the automotive industry, HOERBIGER makes synchronizer systems for manual transmissions and double clutch transmissions. In the industrial segment, they produce actuators for medical technology, machinery, and even amusement park rides. But it is in their energy business, where HOERBIGER manufactures components and services for turbomachines, natural gas-fired engines, and compressors for gas wells, where transformation efforts of routine maintenance processes are paying off.

Maximizing Returns on Existing Resources

Gas and oil wells that are nearly depleted are often abandoned, even when considerable resources remain and could still be extracted. The reason is that the remaining oil and gas can no longer be recovered profitably with conventional methods. A HOERBIGER wellhead compression unit sits on top of a gas well and allows mature fields to continue to produce and transport gas over long distances for high-pressure storage, as well as for use in power plants and industrial processes. This process extends the life of mature oil and gas fields cost-effectively and increases output by up to 30%, yielding more profit for the owner and more gas for consumers such as the chemical industry and power generation.

The company currently has 400 wellhead compressors running, with 300 in Argentina. The rest are in Mexico and throughout Latin America.

To date, the service of these compressors has been labor intensive, and in some cases, dangerous for those working on wells in remote areas. Servicing requires an operator to travel to the machine by car, sometimes several hundred kilometres, taking up to an entire day to visit just one machine. During that visit, the operator must retrieve all the information he needs during operating hours, document findings by hand, transfer the information to a laptop, and then make a second trip if analysis reveals further maintenance is required.

Pilot Delivers a Major Maintenance Makeover

A pilot project underway in Mexico will fully digitize the cumbersome maintenance process by bringing machine information into the SAP Cloud and transmitting it to the ERP system. If a machine goes down for any reason, the system autogenerates a maintenance ticket and the operator can be prepared to address the specific issue. HOERBIGER then can provide real-time information to the mechanics, saving unnecessary trips to physically inspect it, and allowing their resources to focus on proactively servicing the units and their customers.

“It’s changing the way we work drastically because suddenly we can better utilize and manage our mechanics,” said Thomas Kriechbaum, Chief Process Officer at HOERBIGER. “It is also changing our business model. We can react instantly on performance of the machines and have a more holistic view because we have live data.”

HOERBIGER’s future plans include leveraging machine learning and Internet of Things to perform preventive and predictive maintenance on the equipment.

The more efficiently HOERBIGER can facilitate the extraction of natural resources, the less these precious commodities will go to waste.

Hear more from executives at HOERBIGER about how SAP is helping them deliver innovation:

Learn more about how to create a flow of real-time information across your organization with a digital core

Digitization Fuels Efficiencies in the Energy Sector was originally published in SAP Innovation Spotlight on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.