Wilde talks at length about the inno-
vations coming out of SAP and the
5G Council and why, as the company
celebrates 50 years in business, it is
important for it to be seen at the lead-
ing edge of technology.
“We’re fundamentally changing how
we’re going to market and how our
customers go to market and innovate
together,” he says. “So rather than
thinking about sequential innovation
or step-by-step improvements to a
given platform, one of the benefits of
5G is that you can think differently.”
Wilde cites Tesla, Lyft, and Uber
as examples of companies that have
disrupted their markets in a short
space of time, taking leadership posi-
tions in established industries, by
thinking differently.
“It’s not just a question of improv-
ing your revenue or improving your
profitability. Really the key question
is around survival, right? If you could
easily be disrupted by a 5G and
edge solution – whether it’s in retail,
manufacturing, transportation, enter-
tainment – there’s a number of new
capabilities that can come to life,”
says Wilde.
“We really feel that it’s not just a ques-
tion of incremental improvements or
enhancements to how you’re operating,
you know, another 10% or 20% more in
sales or improving your bottom line by a
few percentage points in terms of opera-
tional efficiency. There’s the question
of will you be able to survive a key chal-
lenger in your market. So we’re helping
our customers think differently and be
much more aggressive around how they
think about innovation.”
With public 5G networks rolling out
globally, and private networks being
implemented in large sites for manu-
facturing and retail, for example, 5G
is making progress, but when are we
going to realize its full potential? In a
previous interview with us, Wilde talked
about a watershed moment, but when
does he think that will be, and what will
it look like?103technologymagazine.com