Chief Revenue Officer of Customer Success & Member of Executive Board, Sap
Search every verified Scott Russell interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In July 2022, Scott Russell appeared on the IBM video series "Common Grounds" alongside IBM's Rob Thomas to discuss the 50-year partnership between SAP and IBM. Russell described the relationship as a "great partnership" built on technology collaboration, citing examples such as NetWeaver and WebSphere. He stated that customers need to "digitally transform" and require the combined capabilities of IBM technology, services, and SAP applications. Russell emphasized that companies "don't just want to move to the cloud — they want to transform in the cloud" to navigate current challenges and future opportunities and threats. Russell highlighted the announcement of "Rise with SAP powered by IBM Cloud as a premium partner," which he called an "end-to-end offering" that addresses customer challenges. He noted that neither company could achieve this alone. He also pointed to the potential of combining SAP's industry solutions with IBM's AI and Red Hat technology, asserting that the combination of IBM's technology with SAP is "unbeatable" regardless of the business challenge or industry.
“We should celebrate our history — we've got a great partnership for 50 years. We've done technology collaboration from NetWeaver and WebSphere to CRM and SAP, and our foundation has always been through technology partnership.”
“There's no time like now when we think about what our collective customers need — they need to digitally transform. They need the collective capability of IBM technology, IBM service capability and SAP applications to help serve it.”
“It's easy to get absolutely obsessed about the problems, but I like to look at it from an opportunity — the opportunities for companies right now is to navigate uncertainty with technical and solution predictability.”
“Companies don't just want to move to the cloud — they want to transform in the cloud, and that's what they need to be able to navigate today's challenges and tomorrow's opportunities and threats.”
“We can't do this alone — IBM's cloud capability, your service capability, your application managed services and the bundling around them are critical.”
“What I'm excited about is the announcement we shared at Sapphire: Rise with SAP powered by IBM Cloud as a premium partner — it gives an end-to-end offering that we can't do alone, but together it solves the customer's challenges.”
“I think of some of our industry solutions and the power of AI that IBM has — using Red Hat technology and that cloud technology to give new innovations and new insights on top of a scalable platform.”
“It doesn't matter what business challenge or industry you're in — the combination of IBM's technology with SAP is unbeatable.”
Rob and Scott celebrate the 50-year partnership between IBM and SAP and how the two organizations continue to come together to help clients transform in the cloud to navigate today's challenges and tomorrow's opportunities and threats. For more information about our Common Grounds series: https://ibm.co/3vIrwYL
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