Integrating technological aspects like SAP in businesses has become quite a necessity rather than a want. To acquire adequate solution architecture and other managing services, many enterprises are approaching promising SAP providers in the market. Thus to ensure the efficiency of the organization, the responsibility of delivering impeccable services falls on a proficient and prolific leader. With almost three decades of experience in the SAP industry, Christopher Carter, the Founder and CEO at Approyo, has put forth some undeniable offerings to consumers. CIO Look admires such leaders, possessing a desire to make fruitful technological benefits accessible to every customer.
In an interview with CIO Look, Christopher shares his insights behind setting a benchmark in SAP industry:
Cloud you share the story behind starting Approyo?
Approyo provides full SAP service technology with extensive capabilities in consulting, solutions architecture, hosting and managed services, in order to develop the right solution for our customers. When our I started Approyo in 2012, SAP HANA was just getting started. After meeting with various colleagues at SAP, discussing SAP HANAI decided to come out of retirement to start Approyo. I immediately noticed that SAP HANA was a major game changer, so he came out of retirement to start Approyo. The goal was to help companies realize the benefits of deploying HANA in an easy and effective manner to help customers realize their business goals. Simply, I wanted Approyo to be the most customer and cloud centric SAP solution provider in the world.
Over the past several years, Approyo has continued to rapidly expand in the SAP ecosystem and become a leader in cloud centric SAP solutions. We take pride in being the first company to launch SAP applications in the cloud and offer those solutions to our customers.
Additionally, we have expanded our team in 2018. Over the past few months, we have hired multiple positions to our expanding SAP technical team in the Milwaukee area. Our team of experts works together with our customers and partners to manage and support their SAP environments. This is just to start of more substantial growth.
What has changed in the technology industry in recent years?
Technology is changing faster than ever and customers are becoming smarter thanks to the amount of information online. Just a few years ago, it was all about educating the customer around the benefits of cloud. Now, the cloud is an important part of everyday IT strategies. Instead of educating clients, we have to prove how we have partnered and helped our clients grow based on our SAP cloud solutions.
Kindly brief us about Approyo strategies to tackle its competition.
Our goal from the start has not changed; we want to be the most customer centric SAP HANA provider in the market place today. To do that we must always stay up-to-day on technology and our client needs. Consistent communication and support to all of customers, partners and staff is key.
We take a “design thinking” approach with our customers to become a true business partner. We want to first understand their business needs. We start with asking “what the customer wants to accomplish” and dive deep into the business goals and dreams. Then, we look at the economic and technical feasibility to truly deliver the best possible solution for the customer. Finally, we deploy the right SAP solution for our customers and continue to provide ongoing support and services.
What inspired Approyo to enter the SAP Solution Providers segment?
The introduction of SAP HANA sparked Chris Carter to create Approyo. HANA—a big data platform—allows customers to manipulate and design the available data specific for their business needs and help gain better insights into their company’s functioning.
Built upon the premise of making SAP HANA an easy, flexible, and cost-effective on-boarding solution for companies, Approyo has developed custom-made solutions, with Ignite being one of their flagship products. Ignite encapsulates HANA’s various components into one neat and easy package, with companies having the freedom to either use the entire package or only those components fit for their specific purposes.
What are your views on today’s industry scenario?
The SAP ecosystem continues to grow, and the current IT landscape is evolving more rapidly than ever. Organizations in every industry and region recognize the need for a digital core to meet—todays and tomorrows—business needs.
Important factors impacting today’s IT landscape:
- Digital Transformation of business processes
- Consumerization of IT & Technology
- Data overload
- Cloud becoming the new normal
- And SAP environments are growing more complex every day
Who is your ideal leader? Why?
My Ideal leader is a person who follows—Faith, Family and then your role as a leader. My founding principles are that Communication is leadership, if you cannot communicate during the good times or the bad you are not leading. They need to commit to you, your team, your customer and your job. Commit to be a servant leader, they need to nurture everything and everyone and they need to provide solutions
What advice you would like to offer to the young leaders?
GO FOR IT! Don’t sit around hoping to do something just do it as the old commercials said, if you are not willing to try or to stick your neck out and put it on the line why would you expect your staff to do the same?
