Tom Raftery's Musings

I have been recruited into SAP in the role of Global Internet of Things Evangelist starting this month.

When I left RedMonk earlier this year, I mentioned that I was talking to a couple of people, but that there was still a window of opportunity for other companies to get in touch about my working for them. SAP, and a number of others, saw the post and got in touch.

It has been an exciting few months in the meantime. I’ve had fascinating discussions with lots of companies (including the CEO of a US electric car company who wanted me to move to Palo Alto to work for his organisation).

After weighing the various options though, I decided to accept SAP’s generous offer, for a number of reasons:

• The Internet of Things is at its very inception – it is now where the Internet was in 1994 – back when organisations didn’t have websites or a company email address even. So there are going to be seismic changes in the workings of the IoT over the next few years. This ever changing landscape, and the incredible outcomes which will accrue, are what makes this topic fascinating for me.
  Also, when I worked on cleantech, it was an area which was very broad and cut across many verticals. IoT similarly crosses many verticals, so it maps very closely with what I’ve already been doing.
• Then there is SAP – SAP is a large enterprise software company. SAP has in the region of 77k employees, and reported revenues in excess of €20bn in 2015. By any measure SAP is an enormous organisation. And I have only ever worked for very small companies, so why go for SAP?
  Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? Working for a small company it is very hard to make an impact, but when you are working for a company with hundreds of thousands of customers, if you make even a small difference, it can have really significant outcomes.
• 
  And then there’s the fact that we live in the city of Seville. It is a beautiful city, and my family and I love living here. SAP had no problem with me living in Seville and didn’t even think of asking me to move to Germany, to Palo Alto, or even require me to work out of the SAP Madrid office. This was a big factor inthe decision too.

So now that I have started, I am looking forward to getting to know all my SAP colleagues, helping craft SAP’s Internet of Things strategies, and showcasing all the seriously impressive IoT solutions that are possible with SAP’s software.

If you want to get in touch to know more, feel free to leave a comment here, DM me on Twitter, email me at tom.raftery at sap.com, or get me on my mobile +34 608 252 871