NTT DATA Business Solutions

Markus Muller | november 5, 2024 | 4 minutes

A generous community: Highlights of Transformation NOW! 2024 in Copenhagen

This year’s Transformation NOW! in Copenhagen took place in the architectural masterpiece “DR Koncerthuset” with more than 550 attending clients, experts, partners and guests joining us for a full day of inspiration, of sharing knowledge and tons of valuable networking.

Generosity was the keyword of the day, as a total of 17 of our clients shared their insights and experiences from their current projects, confirming the strong and trusting connection we maintain — highlighting what a generous, strong, and valuable community Transformation NOW! has become.

Relive an inspiring day in this blogpost.

At Transformation NOW! we try to stop the clock — cutting through the every day whirlwind of challenges and nonstop changes that come with working in digital transformation.

As we write 2024, we also write new breakthroughs in ERP. New strategies for SAP, new developments in solutions, Cloud advancements and many new tools. Projects have taken leaps and bounds and are entering new phases.

At Transformation NOW! — we can take a deep breath, step back from the front lines, and regain perspective. With the clock paused, we can dive into the details. Bring all the stories to the table. The specific experiences. The case stories. Hard-earned ups and downs. The big victories and ambitious goals, and the paths to achieving them.

Generosity is the key behind the community

We introduce each other to solutions and intelligent ways of organizing. Some of Denmark’s largest companies, with exceptionally complex IT and technology setups, shares their insights, knowledge, experiences, thoughts, and stories with like-minded industry professionals.

Generosity is the key behind the Transformation NOW! community — sharing the possibilities that are out there and being open about the good days and the bad days.

The result? Everyone leaves inspired, wiser, and with a renewed vision of what’s possible. Ready to put the clock back on again and get back to work.

After a cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll in the foyer of DR Koncerthuset, the bell rang to gather everyone in Studio 2. Over 500 people made their way down stairs and along corridors through the building’s labyrinthine structure on their way to the grand Studio 2, which normally hosts musical world stars but, today, hosted the morning program with the opening and keynote talk.

A vocal soundscape

The rows of seats filled up. The lights dimmed, silencing the conversation. A moment of quiet, until a guest stood up. And to everyone’s surprise, he began singing: Boys, boys don’t cry // Boys keep it all inside // I tried to hide it underneath // Still, my heart starts to beat. Two other guests stood up. Then two more, until a full choir was spread out across the hall — enveloping the audience in a rich vocal soundscape of Human Heart by Coldplay.

The official welcome

Transformation NOW! 2024 was officially opened — in a musical fashion — and Per Falck Jensen, Managing Director of NTT DATA Business Solutions Nordics, could step onto the stage to welcome everyone and begin his presentation by thanking not only the choir but also the 550 attendees, including customers, experts, partners, and guests for joining us.

Per Falck Jensen took the opportunity to reflect on the year of 2024.

Hot topics of 2024

To nobody’s surprise, one of the major trend this year has been heavyweight projects like S/4HANA transformations with clients such as Lemvig-Müller and Andel. One highly interesting point for Per Falck Jensen to mention here is, how the focus is shifting towards not just technical but also enterprise and business-driven transformations.

Talk of the town

GenAI was also pointed out as a top priority for clients. Luckily for them, NTT DATA Business Solutions are already on the forefront of the development. Not only are we already executing and deploying our own AI solutions, we are focused on offering solutions within SAP’s AI solution Joule and we are working closely with IBM integrating their WatsonX-technology. AI was, of course, also a popular theme later for the afternoon breakout sessions.

Project trends

Sustainability also plays a significant role in projects these days, and will feature more prominently in our coming projects (Per could reference the afternoon session on Salling Group’s sustainability efforts). This was also the case for a new focus-area of Advisory Services in NTT DATA Business Solutions, where we find that many of our clients prefer us to act as their advisors as well.

Challenging seagulls

Observant attendees in the audience noticed and wondered why Per Falck Jensen was not wearing the classic white shirt under his blazer, but actually a red football jersey.

Wearing the jersey, Per Falck Jensen brought the last trend to the table: Sports and Entertainment.

NTT DATA has been the Official Technology Partner for the Tour de France for the 10th consecutive year, as well as for the prestigious golf tournament The Open. In fact, Per Falck Jensen travelled to experience The Open himself, and could share one interesting insight: That the biggest challenge at the event wasn’t IoT, data tracking, and an exceptionally extensive technology setup — but that local seagulls were leaving droppings on the screens. An unexpected and practical challenge that only technology projects can present.

Per Falck Jensen shows his true colors

Now back to the football jersey. Per Falck Jensen revealed some news that he might be the most excited about of all: This summer NTT DATA was announced as the new technology partner of Premier League football club Arsenal F.C.

Arsenal F.C. is — as it turns out — Per Falck Jensen’s beloved club, and that explains why he, of course, wore the red jersey of Arsenal F.C. for today’s presentation in front of over 500 clients and experts. Just so there’s no doubt about his allegiance in terms of football!

The time had finally come for our headliners of the event, something everyone had been looking forward to: The keynote speakers.

The election in the U.S

Danish star journalist Steffen Kretz took the stage with a talk about the upcoming U.S. presidential election and the challenges the result could pose for Denmark and Danish businesses. A healthy mix of analysis, anecdotes, and material from Steffen Kretz’s time as a U.S. correspondent for DR Nyheder and his book Storm på Vej from last year. An uncomfortable but extremely urgent subject that left no one in the audience untouched.

From crisis to growth

The global perspective was echoed in the following keynote talk. On stage, we welcomed Torben Ruberg, CIO of Satair — one of the world’s largest suppliers of aircraft parts, services, and solutions. Torben Ruberg shared Satair’s dramatic journey when Covid-19 suddenly shut down all air traffic worldwide, pushing the company into an existential crisis. He spoke about how they managed to turn the crisis into growth, with Satair not looking back since.

The urgency of strategy

Strategy was the common thread in the morning’s final keynote talk, where the two former Gartner professionals, now NTT DATA Business Solutions advisors, Geir Balsnes and Patrick Ekström, took the stage for an experienced presentation on the value of advisory services and IT strategy in 2024.

In many ways, it was a fitting conclusion: to rise up, gain perspective, and focus the strategic laser vision before we zoomed in on a total of 16 specific case stories from our brave customers, who shares their experiences, knowledge, and insights about our projects in breakout sessions throughout the afternoon.

Sharing experiences from IT projects is not as straightforward as it sounds.

It’s certainly not easy to discuss the less flattering aspects when implementations, projects, and innovations stumble along the way, are delayed, or must take two steps back to take three steps forward— as it is well known that development can be unpredictable and goals may shift.

That’s why it’s particularly impressive that 16 companies are willing and brave enough to step into the spotlight and, for over 20 minutes, lift the hood and share their experiences, knowledge, and dos and dont’s from their current projects.

The presentations unfolded like a menu, truly showcasing the great diversity and colorful complexity inherent in digital transformation. It highlighted the many sub-genres into which the discipline branches out, along with the complexities involved. Worlds within worlds.

A burning hot topic was, of course, AI, and we were fortunate to have Børns Vilkår participate and share their innovative solution: A highly relevant use case, where NTT DATA Business Solutions and Børns Vilkår are using artificial intelligence to create automatic follow-up registration and enhance the quality and efficiency of the Children’s Phone (read our success story here: https://nttdata-solutions.com/dk/success-stories/borns-vilkar/).

Aarhus Municipality also discussed their investments in AI, where Jobcenter Aarhus has found success with a PARSONII digital human self-service solution that frees up human resources and improving customer service by taking over manual and repetitive tasks at the reception.

Another highly relevant topic was, of course, S/4HANA, where PostNord shared their S/4 implementation, Lemvigh-Müller discussed their experiences with migration to both S/4HANA and the Cloud, and Andel shared their success in transitioning from two SAP ECC systems to a single, unified SAP S/4HANA platform.

Sustainability came to the forefront with Salling Group, which shared insights into how they work with compliance to support their sustainability goals through technology and data analysis.

HR and SuccessFactors were also a topical theme, where Dibber discussed the importance of HR IT projects for companies experiencing growth, and ISS talked about our current co-innovation process, where ISS and NTT DATA Business Solutions are developing an extension for SAP SuccessFactors.

Data was once again a key topic — and Topsoe discussed master data management and their need to maintain a structured data core, which is an essential tool in a global world marked by change and challenges. The Government of Greenland shared their project aimed at creating a digital platform to process key data, ensuring better knowledge and information for decision-makers at all levels.

We were also enriched with stories from DLG, Silhorko Eurowater, DAKO, and Royal Greenland. With a total of 16 breakout sessions, our customers demonstrated the value of engaging in conversation, asking questions, and bringing both challenges and solutions down to earth, with generosity, curiosity, and honesty. Exactly what Transformation NOW! stands for as a community.

After four rounds of breakout sessions in four different studios, the clock soon pointed to 4 pm, and the sounds from the DJ directed us back to where it all started: in the foyer of DR Koncerthuset, which also housed the exhibition area.

Here, there was time for a final cup of coffee, a glass of wine, beer, water, or soda.

Time for networking

The exhibition area is not just the heart of Transformation NOW! — where you can meet experts from SAP, Microsoft, IBM, EPI-USE LABS, AWS, e2ycommerce, and alokai for an informal conversation, as well as get an introduction to some of NTT DATA’s innovative solutions in master data management (GLASSWING), document automation (MAKIRA), and AI (PARSONII).

It’s more importantly the place where the networking takes place, which is a central part of Transformation NOW! In more common terms, this is where we offer an open space for continuing the conversation before and after the breakout sessions. It’s a place for informal meetings and new connections — where you can actually meet some of the few people in Denmark facing the same challenges as you, to connect with and widen your network of industrial peers.

A generous community
Transformation NOW! 2024 was a day that created an open forum for sharing thoughts and meeting like-minded individuals, where the generosity and willingness of all our customers to participate and engage is the heart and unique DNA of our customer conference.

Truly a generous community.