Exclusive: SAP's Ashley McGibbon on AI, data and the future of partner innovation
Speaking to TechDay at the SAP NOW AI Tour in Melbourne, Chief Partner Officer for SAP Australia and New Zealand, Ashley McGibbon, said partners in the region were "pivoting to meet fast-growing demand for AI solutions".
"In ANZ we have about 800 partners – from those building applications, to services partners, to those helping us sell and position our cloud solutions," she said. "The focus is no longer just on go-live. It's about continuous adoption."
This vision is captured in SAP's "flywheel" model, which combines applications, data and AI to build momentum for ongoing innovation.
Introduced this year, the concept draws on the physics principle where connected components generate increasing energy. For McGibbon, it's not just about clever technology – it's about feeding AI the right inputs. "We run mission-critical business processes, and those processes hold a treasure trove of business-critical data," she explained. "Our Business Data Cloud allows customers to harmonise SAP and non-SAP data, structured and unstructured, to feed AI with accurate business data."
Without that accuracy, she warned, AI can go badly wrong. "If they can't trust the data feeding the AI, then the decisions will ultimately be wrong," she said. "It's far easier to achieve a harmonised platform with Business Data Cloud."
McGibbon said SAP values partners who work quickly and with purpose, adopting a "minimum viable product" mindset to deliver rapid returns for customers.
She noted a surge of AI interest at board level, with directors eager to explore how it can boost productivity, in line with the Australian Government's focus on data-driven efficiency. The response to Business Data Cloud since its February launch has been "the most reception to a new product" SAP has ever had in the region.
The momentum is already visible in real-world deployments.
SA Power Networks has built a generative AI app on SAP's Business Technology Platform that delivers mobile repair instructions directly to technicians in the field, saving the utility a million Australian dollars in its first year. Beverage company Lion built an app in just 10 days, a sign of how diverse industries are embracing AI. McGibbon pointed to Deloitte's recent CFO study, which found 80 per cent of CFOs in APAC prioritise automation through AI. "Everybody's talking about it," she said.
For partners still making the shift to cloud and AI, McGibbon said enablement is key.
SAP has opened its AI demo systems to partners, rolled out a new business AI certification, and launched "Joule for consultants" to speed up software build and implementation. She's also watching the market evolve through moves like DyFlex's acquisition of Bluetree, which expands into New Zealand and strengthens analytics capability. "It's a combination of a cloud-native partner with an analytics partner," she said. "I think they will bring AI strategy to life across all their existing cloud customers."
Central to McGibbon's message is a change in how success is measured. "In the past we celebrated go-lives. For me, it's now go-begin – get the platform right, then continue that cycle of innovation," she said. Quarterly cloud updates mean partners must be ready to help customers adopt new capabilities quickly. "That's how we make the flywheel spin."
She believes AI is also prompting customers to rethink design from the outset. "Customers are demanding we look at AI as part of the design, not just copying what was done before," she said. "This is the time to do it better."
Early wins, she added, are often found in human capital management. "In SuccessFactors, you can use Joule to write your performance review and it makes you sound amazing," she said. "There's a lot of low-hanging fruit for existing customers."
Her advice to organisations exploring AI in the SAP ecosystem is simple but firm: talk to your partners, identify the easy use cases, and above all, get your data strategy right. "You have to get that right first," she said.
"Once you've done that, the world is your oyster."
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