Future economic growth

The Cooperation between SAP and HP has proven its worth for our companies and customers for years. It definitely has a model character that goes beyond the IT-industry. Because if we want to master the great challenges of our time, we need more cooperation. Not only the Companybut all sectors of society - business, politics, science - must work more closely together. We should place a focus on greater promotion of technology transfer, across industries and research institutions. Only in this way can we combine the strengths of our business location with the advantages of global Cooperation for future growth.

Cloud and Big Data: most important driver of innovations

Especially for the innovative and export-oriented German Company is the Information- and telecommunications technology (ICT) have become the key factor for their business development. But what are the prerequisites for a future- and innovation-oriented use of ICT? There can only be one answer to this question: We urgently need to move away from isolated solutions and drive forward standards. Standards are the prerequisites for the successful use of Cloud Services and Big Data, the two main drivers of innovation. In this way, we can turn the current challenges into opportunities for innovations in and from Germany The most urgent fields of action for technology transfer are outlined below:

• Industry:
  The industrial sector is facing a massive upheaval with ever shorter product cycles, rapidly increasing variance, and strongly growing individualization of products. At the same time, value chains are transforming into value networks.The buzzword in Germany It stands for the combination of the core competencies of industrial segments with those of ICT. In order to achieve the Internet of things Standardization is indispensable in order to shape the production process so that machines and machine parts can communicate with each other and with each other. The Cloud Makes safe engineering communities work across borders.
• Traffic:
  To reduce CO2 emissions, it is not enough to replace combustion engines with electric motors. What is needed above all is the development of a comprehensive e-mobilityInfrastructure We need a mobility ecosystem. Intelligent networking of traffic data, vehicles and other means of transportation will enable people to use different mobility models quickly and easily as needed. This brings efficiency, huge cost savings and reduces emissions.
• Energy supply:
  Smart grids can save 15 percent of CO2 emissions worldwide. This is made possible by intelligent demand management and greater flexibility in the grid when renewable energies are fed into the grid.
• Healthcare:
  Information and communications currently account for 30 to 40 percent of healthcare costs. Improved networking of service providers through an intelligent network and the electronic health card would result in potential savings of 1.2 billion euros per year.
• Administration:
  As citizens, we feel in many places that the applications that are in use before the introduction of the Internet have been written. For greater efficiency and service, we need to standardize procedures and processes as quickly as possible, make them web-enabled, and use them as a Cloud-provide services. The savings potential is at least 15 percent.
• Education:
  The global "war for talents" is in full swing - the shortage of qualified specialists is now threatening competitiveness Germany. We entertain today IT-Island solutions at 400 universities and 15,000 schools. An efficient e-learningInfrastructure on the basis of a Cloud-platform is still in vain in this country.

More speed, co-innovation and stronger investments

A common denominator of the fields of action addressed is the demand for intelligent Infrastructure. And this must be from the outset - as the Internet - be designed to be cross-border.

The most important upcoming project in the next few years is to rapidly build fiber-optic-based broadband networks for households and businesses. To facilitate the transfer between science and Economy to accelerate, we need more Cooperation from first-class institutes and Company in Germany, in Europe and at the transatlantic level.

The basic virtues of the art of engineering have Germany made successful over the past decades. To remain successful, we must combine these virtues with the entrepreneurial spirit and risk appetite that are still more likely to be found on the other side of the Atlantic. The Company HP and SAP are good examples of this linkage.

It is the foundation of our Cooperation. Among other things, HP is a co-founder and cooperation partner of the Co-Innovation Labs of SAP. Here we work together on forward-looking solutions that benefit our customers around the world.

Just recently, HP opened a Center of Excellence for in-memory computing to Company to help them use real-time transaction data to improve business processes. Another proof point for successful co-innovation.

Volker Smid is Chairman of the Management Board of Hewlett-Packard. He is also Vice President of Bitkom. Before joining HP in January 2009, he held senior international management positions at Novell, PTC and POET.