Simon Carpenter has 26 years of experience in IT, 14 of them with SAP. He is currently responsible for:

• Providing thought-leadership on emerging business and technology issues such as Business Network Transformation and Services Oriented Architecture.
• Leading a team of Solution and Presales experts responsible for positioning the company and its solutions, developing new markets and building partnerships and business development.
• Organizational and eco-system preparedness for the transition to Service Oriented Architectures and SAP's Business Process Platform. Member of the African Market Unit Executive Management team

Simon has worked predominantly in the area of operations and logistics solutions ranging from on-board computing in transport to large-scale enterprise systems. He has broad experience having worked in sales, marketing, support management, project management, consulting and systems development. He thus has good insight into the soft issues (such as change management) that must be addressed for any technological initiative to be successful.

Presentation
Is there value in industry reference models?
The business world is changing rapidly, driven by a number of forces. Two dominant responses are Innovation and Business Network Transformation. Both seek to maximize business value albeit from different perspectives. Both of these have important implications for Business Architecture and the underlying technology enablers. Both of these are contingent on levels of collaboration, coordination and shared insight that we are not yet used to in business. Communities are the key; we need to be able to share insight and work across all organizations and people involved in an end-to-end value chain. Rugged individualism will no longer work because, to quote Albert Einstein;"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."  The ability to overcome parochialism, proprietary behaviors and protectionism will be keys to success in the near future and Enterprise Architects will play a central role in shaping this success. SAP has garnered significant experience from working with Industry and Enterprise Service communities and will share some of the value we have seen being delivered.

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