"I think we are extraordinarily fortunate to have the partners that we do. And to your point their presence at SuccessConnect Vegas and previously at Berlin are a testament to that. And I think one of the things that we're doing from a corporate strategy perspective that also ties in here is this focus on becoming open."

That means having open API and micro services. That means tapping into open source technology and it means having an open ecosystem which means that we have solutions that are are complementary to one another and in some cases, yes there might be a bit of functionality that is duplicative across our partner's capabilities and our core products. But in many ways that we end up serving different types of customers that have different needs."

"And so for me I rarely think of that as sort of any type of direct competition because again, what we're doing is providing our customers access to the best solutions that are out there and helping guide them to make the right decisions for them in terms of whether it's of course SuccessFactors product or something from one of our ecosystem guiding them to the best solution for their business." Jason Chapman

I met my guest today, Jason Chapman, Vice President, Corporate Strategy at SAP, at one of the many press briefings I attended at SuccessConnect - the SAP SuccessFactors annual user group meeting at the Aria in Las Vegas. This is the first time I've covered SuccessConnect and I have to tell you I was blown away at the scale of this event. The Aria has a very large conference area and I think SAP and its partners were occupying every part of it. First, a shout-out to Geraldine Lim, Public Relations Lead at SAP SuccessFactors and my friend Bill Kutik (the host of Firing Line with Bill Kutik on YouTube),for making the introduction. Geraldine was a tremendous help in Vegas and help to arrange this podcast with Jason.

Welcome to a HR Technology Channel of TotalPicture - I'm your host, Peter Clayton. A little bit about Jason: He joined SAP in 2017 as VP of Corporate Strategy. Previously, Jason was a Principal at Bain & Company. He has an MBA in Marketing and Technology from from the Sloan School of Management at MIT in Boston. Enjoy!