Youd: From my point of view, in each of the face-to-face forums that I've been in with customers and partners, in every case they have asked for an ongoing discussion tool. They haven't named it BPX directly, but they've asked us to provide some kind of a mechanism that we can record the discussions that took place - the action items, the follow ups - and then really enable the sharing of valuable information on an ongoing basis, in a two-way forum.

Retail BPX is the perfect tool to do that, and we certainly see it developing beyond retail into the other industries in our sector as well.

Reed: Makes a lot of sense. For our next to last question, I wanted to ask Mohamed and then Verlin how you see the future of Retail at BPX. Obviously, retail industry has gone through a lot of ups and downs, but there's a lot to be said for tracking the industry going forward and seeing how the SAP functionality for retail evolved. With that in mind, are there any plans on the horizon you'd like to share with us, or a vision of how you'd like to see the community grow?

Amer: Jon, I don't think I'm overstating it when I say that Retail at BPX has the potential to internally transform the way our product managers view the product rollout and roll in with that interchange with the customers and partners. BPX offers a scalability and reach such that we can't imagine using the traditional methods that we have today and have leveraged in the past.

It helps us create efficiencies as we get better at understanding the whole range of possibilities. I think in the future every solution and new product release needs to use BPX as a rollout channel. Every business case and scope should get tested and validated via BPX from a roll in perspective.

From an external view, I think BPX can be that one-stop shop for anyone wanting to learn about retail, starting in implementation or setting a test plan or wanting to stay on top of the latest in the retail community. We've got almost 3,000 threads in the retail forum today, and I'd like to see greater participation by the community even beyond that in these forums, as well as integrating not just specific information that they're looking for today, but integrating that with SOA, Business Process Platform and building on what we have today.

Of course, this isn't going to happen overnight; it's a journey for both SAP and our customers and our partners, and we'll do this together.

Youd: From my point of view, we're just getting started. We take this very seriously. We absolutely see this as a primary tool for communication going forward, for whatever reason, to help drive the products and solutions forward from a development point of view, as well as to share information with our customers and partners around the globe. We're committed to making it happen.

Like Mohamed said, it is a journey. We're getting started and we'll learn as we go; customers will learn as they go; the world is becoming a connected, networked world. We all use it in our professional lives as well as our personal lives, so there are a lot of different tools and capabilities out there that we continue to look at and figure out how we can leverage them along with Retail BPX to drive this interactive discussion process.

One good example is Facebook. I've just recently put up an SAP Retail Facebook page. We have that linked to Retail at BPX so people can use either one or both of those tools, whichever one they're most comfortable with, to drive a discussion line and to interact and get value with SAP.

We'll continue to look at other tools and other capabilities, we're not going to jump into things because they're a fad: we're going to jump into them when we believe we can truly provide value to our customers - and we're always open to new ideas. If customers and partners and others inside SAP have good ideas about how we can use this kind of technology to best leverage the value in the marketplace, we're absolutely open ears. Mohamed and I would be very interested in that feedback.

The very last thing I would say is we see this as critical to our success, not just in the future, but now. We have to have this kind of a dialogue - it's mandatory if we're going to continue our leadership position in retail.

Reed: One of the most interesting things about planning this podcast with you guys was getting that sense that SAP users are getting more and more comfortable with actually sharing aspects of their business that you would have thought historically businesses are not as comfortable sharing. But I guess one of the culture changes that we're seeing at Retail at BPX and other BPX communities is that there is a benefit in sharing business information with companies that might have been perceived at one point as competitors, but there's a lot of collaboration to be had as well.

Are those the kinds of trends that you're seeing?

Youd: Absolutely.

Amer: When you go through the forum threads and also the contributions from blogs, you can see there are some companies or some users within these companies that are further along in that process than others. But clearly from the feedback that we've received at ASUG and Sapphire - just in the last month and also directly from other customers - they are watching what's happening on BPX and they are intrigued.

Some have jumped in, of course, and others are kind of in a "wait and see" mindset, but we definitely have that change in perception around sharing information, and we're seeing it first hand.

Youd: As I mentioned earlier, it's following the exact same pattern that we've seen in some of these physical meetings we've brought together competitors, partners and collaborators together in the same room and watched as they've decided how to best interact, and it almost always turns out being a very open and productive dialogue.

Customers are obviously quite careful with sharing competitive information, but as it turns out, like I said earlier, the discussions that are limited by competitive information seem to be few and far between, and they have very open and rich discussions about those items they don't see as competitive.

Reed: Well, hopefully, some of the folks listening to this podcast will be encouraged to jump in on those discussions as well. I thought you made a really good point earlier on about "lurking," and I think to a certain degree, even the notion of lurking gets kind of a bad name - there's nothing wrong with spending some time listening in on some of these threads and stepping in when the time is right or when you have a problem or issue.

Youd: Absolutely.

Reed: We've touched on a lot of topics in this podcast and it's about time to wrap. Do you have a last parting word on Retail at BPX that you want to touch on?

Amer: Maybe a year and a half or so ago, I looked at BPX and I really wasn't sure how that would fit within our strategy and within what we're trying to do at Retail at BPX. Over the last 6-9 months, it has become clear from the response from the community, from the adoption internally, and from the way we've gone about executing it that BPX for Retail represents an unprecedented level of sharing and learning on a global scale. It's going to revolutionize the way customers, consultants and partners interact with SAP, as well as how SAP goes out to the marketplace. I'm very excited about it.

Youd: BPX is really a powerful means of communication. The tool is there, the capability is there; it can address retailers large and small, partners large and small anywhere around the globe, but it all comes down to interaction and contributions from all of those parties. It really is up to SAP, to our customers who participate, and to our partners who participate to maximize the value of BPX at Retail and maximize the value of all of these networking tools we're providing to help customers get greater value than ever before out of SAP solutions.

Reed: Thanks for giving us this thoughtful view of Retail at BPX and how we can get involved in this discussion. Before we sign off, I'd like to make sure our listeners know how to access the Retail at BPX Community. If you're not yet registered with SAP's online communities, you can register for the SAP Developer Network, the BPX Community and the SAP Business Objects Community at the same time. If you're already signed up for one of them, but not for SAP BPX, you can simply update your profile and check off the BPX Community on your information.

The Retail at BPX Community can then be found by clicking on the "Industries" menu on the left-hand side of the SAP/BPX web site . Click on the "Service Industries" submenu, select "Retail" and then "Retail at BPX." We'll include a link to the community in our podcast description as well.

On that note, I would like to thank our listeners for joining us today for this SAP/BPX community podcast. With that, this is Jon Reed of JonERP.com signing off. We'll see you online soon at BPX.SAP.com.