Thoughts on the Controlling 2015 Conference from John Pringle, SAP FICO Competency Group Lead with Illumiti

I just got home from Controlling 2015 and am already missing the sunny California weather.  This was the second year for me at the conference and the first year for presenting.  I think I underestimated the amount of time and work involved in pulling the presentations together, but overall it was a great experience and I would encourage anyone who is interested to give it a try.

I have been implementing SAP as a consultant for over 15 years and am still surprised by the amount still to learn. I don’t just mean the newer products like Simple Finance, Lumira, Fiori etc. but also tips and tricks on functionality that I have been working with for years. I think particularly of John Jordan and Paul Ovigele presenting the Tips and Tricks session during the pre-conference session – there were a few gems that I noted in that session for future use. Also although the conference is aimed at an SAP audience, Gary Cokins gave an amazing and fast paced keynote and a more detailed breakout session on activity based costing that was not specific to SAP but offered some great insights into the benefits of activity based costing and methods for implementing it that would benefit many organizations. As in the prior year, Janet Salmon from SAP gave us a detailed and honest assessment of Simple Finance and some insights into future directions for the SAP Financial Modules. These were just a few highlights of the conference but I would say that other than the times that I was presenting, I attended breakout sessions and was always impressed by the material and the preparedness and professionalism of the speakers.

As I said before working with SAP is a continual learning experience and conferences like Controlling 2015 are an excellent opportunity to have access to learning sessions and experienced SAP professionals. Sometimes it is a hard choice to decide which breakout sessions to attend as there are often multiple topics of interest being presented at the same time, but in general I think that is a good problem to have.