SAP today at the SAP Global Partner Summit announced it is adding an SAP Leonardo Partner Medallion Initiative to its channel program that is intended to make it simpler for partners to build solutions based on a raft of emerging technologies spanning everything from machine learning algorithms to blockchain databases.
The goal is to enable partners to build solutions based the SAP Leonardo portfolio that are repeatable enough to build a practice around, says Mike Friday, vice president of ecosystems for SAP Leonardo and data and analytics.
SAP Leonardo is a set of advanced technologies that span artificial intelligence, Big Data, Internet of Things (IoT) applications and advanced analytics. SAP has been building a series of accelerators based on these technologies that provide customers with a services engagement to build a proof-of-concept for a fixed price. Now SAP wants to enable partners to build their own PoCs by combing their intellectual property with these technologies, says Friday.
“We’re looking to the partners to build innovation kits,” says Friday.
Initially, there are 13 partners participating in the Medallion program, says Friday. Those partners include ABeam Consulting, Accenture, Capgemini, Deloitte, EY, HCL, Hitachi Consulting, KPIT, Mindtree’s SAP practice Bluefin, NTT, PWC, TCS, and Wipro. SAP says partners already have introduced 35 industry innovation accelerators, with an additional 43 planned.
Each partner is expected to build a custom application using SAP Leonardo technologies that a customer is willing to issue a testimonial that confirms its business value.
SAP then provides support and certification for new industry innovation accelerators. Partner don’t, however, have to convince customers to serve as a reference account to achieve a Leonardo Medallion. Partners should also be certain to define what part of the solution they build is their own IP versus that of the customer before building a practice around that solution, advises Friday.
SAP Leonardo collectively represent a set of advanced technologies that SAP as yet has not decided to embed in its core packaged applications. That may change over time. But for now, SAP Leonardo represents a portfolio of enabling technologies that partners can leverage to add value in a way that generates a lot of business value to the end customer.
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