Finovate and SAP SAPPHIRE: more in common than you might think

Over the last ten days I’ve spent time at two different conferences, Finovate and SAP’s SAPPHIRE NOW. Two very different conference models generated serendipity where I wouldn’t necessarily have expected it. Both shows were rife with partnership possibilities. SAP spoke continually of the partnership ecosystem, realizing that one of its values is bringing partners together, while at Finovate, the notion of small companies going direct to consumer by themselves was basically dead – they realize they need partners. So if providers are demonstrating that they’re willing partners, all they need is someone on the other side – and that’s where banks come in. As banks strive to compete with upstarts, they’re going to need help, which means they’re going to need to work with others. And today, they just don’t do a very good job – ask anyone who’s ever been stuck in procurement hell. Banks must get better at working with outside parties, from streamlining the vendor approval process, to designing compensation models, to navigating the shoals of procurement. Speed is of the essence, and banks are woefully slow. But I digress… At SAPPHIRE NOW I participated in a panel: “Disrupt or Be Disrupted to Survive in Financial Services.” Partnership was one of my key themes. SAP earlier gave center stage to its recent acquisition, Concur, its T&E management solution. The presentation’s available here (go to 41:30 where Bill McDermott introduces Concur). Along the very same lines, one of the Finovate Best in Show winners was Shoeboxed, for its Receipt Capture for Banks solution, which boosts the functionality of online and mobile banking apps while providing fraud protection. While they have different perspectives on the expense problem (SAP goes for an integrated enterprise travel solution, including the T&E, while Shoeboxed focuses on letting banks provide its white-labeled expense solution to smaller business customers), both have focused on a particular pain point for employees and developed solutions to address it. Simplifying expense reporting may not seem like a big deal, but it’s some pretty low hanging fruit for digitization and disruption. And disruption, of course, is one of the main themes of Finovate. A who’s who of Fintech, the conference this year was outstanding. Best of show winners were the aforementioned Shoebox, together with Alpha Payments Cloud, Avoka, Money Amigo, Moven, Namu Systems and Stratos. More can be found here. What were my impressions? After having had a couple of days to assimilate all that was thrown at us, a couple of thoughts coalesced:

1. There was only one bitcoin demo.
2. The Apple Watch made it's first set of demonstrations, with three demos featuring it on day 2. Two out of three had glitches, not because of the programs (it seemed), but because of the watch itself. While mobility is going to be a very powerful force, I’m still going to wait for the Apple Watch 2.
3. Personal Financial Management (PFM) was rarely mentioned, even when the demos concerned. This TLA (three letter acronym) has acquired a questionable connotation, and presenters avoided it (with some, like Moven, even declaring it dead).
4. There were a lot of different concepts discussed. Here’s the wordcloud I created on Day 2, based on my impressions of the concepts that presenters were trying to get across.

As always, please let me know of your feedback or questions.