In this episode of the Full Throttle Leaders Podcast, host Michael Falato interviews Dennis Onstenk, who leads the delivery of SAP public‑cloud ERP packaged solutions for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) at Cognizant, now an IBM company. Dennis explains how his team tailors SAP’s cloud ERP by adding industry‑specific functionality, and how the recent IBM acquisition expanded his resources from a few hundred to hundreds of thousands of colleagues, especially boosting integration expertise. He discusses the dual impact of AI: it automates routine tasks, allowing his team to focus on higher‑cognitive work, but also causes some customers to delay ERP purchases while they evaluate rapidly evolving AI capabilities. IBM Watson remains a core tool in their bid and implementation processes. Dennis clarifies the partnership model: SAP provides the software and hosting, while IBM acts as a global implementation partner that can configure the solution across multiple countries. He outlines his ideal customer as an international, growing company with $50 M–$1.5 B in revenue that is outgrowing legacy systems. Contact details (LinkedIn and email) are provided for interested prospects.
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Hello everybody, Michael Falato here from GTN Full Throttle. We have our friend Dennis Otting from Cognizant, an IBM company now. So Dennis, tell us a little bit about what you do over there. And also, what happened with IBM and Cognizant in the last couple months that you'd want to explain that's different than what you were when you weren't an IBM company?
All right, so yeah, my job is to bring the Cognita success in the United States to bring that to Europe, Middle East, and Africa, so EMEA. And doing that, we've been promoting basically SAP public cloud solutions, public cloud ERP it's called nowadays. It changes every few years. And we do that by using packaged solutions. So we take what SAP makes, we add what's needed to solve the pains in a certain industry, for example, professional services or consumer packaged goods. We find out the pains in that industry, we put it in a package, and then we say, this is the solution for your industry. And I've been bringing that to Europe, Middle East, and Africa for Cognitus. Having some success with that, of course, luckily. And then sometime around November last year, IBM announced that they purchased the company I was working for. So I went from 700, 800, 1,000 colleagues to 300,000 colleagues. So that was quite a ride. Yeah.
And what would you say, like, if you had to give us a little TEDx story, right? Like, we help either, either before or after the merger or acquisition of someone that you helped that was like, it was a pretty good story to tell, like, to kind of internalize it for someone in the audience.
Yeah. I've been learning a couple of interesting things. So Cognitus is focused on delivering clean core SAP. So we do the functional implementation. And IBM, of course, is a lot bigger. And one of the things—
Well—
Yeah, just a little. And so one of the things that happens is when you place a new system at a company that's already operating, of course, it needs to be integrated in the landscape. So they've got lots of other systems like Salesforce, some Oracle, some Workday, you name it. All sorts of stuff that you need to integrate with either for production or for billing. And what I think has been really fantastic for me is to see the talent that IBM has for the integrations. And so when you start— this is not a pitch, obviously— but so when you start implementing a more or less standard solution, which is what public cloud ERP is from SAP. The difference gets made on how well you integrate it in the systems that are already there. And let's say the experience, the broadness of IBM really helps there.
And how is AI affecting what you're doing?
Huh. So AI, It's a double-edged sword. So on the one hand, it makes my work incredibly more efficient. It also makes it also cognitively more heavier work because I don't spend time doing boring, dull work anymore because that's all outsourced. So I'm continuously doing high cognitive workloads. And the AI that we work with at IBM, they are powerful. Of course, you know, they've been doing AI since the '70s, so it's not a new thing for IBM at least. And so for me, it's been a learning curve to use, to start learning and using the powerful AI inside the company. We use it for all our bids. We use it for everything. The double-edged sword is that what we see with people looking to buy a new SAP solution, they're spending a lot of money on AI already. So they tend to postpone new software purchases. They tend to postpone it a little bit. There's also 2 ways of looking at it, of course. So most old systems are not set up for dealing with AI. So some companies, they're switching now to a new system, like the stuff that I work with, that is AI-ready. But there's also a lot of companies that are saying, well, let's not buy anything just yet because AI is innovating so fast. And so for different people, different companies, there are different ways of looking at it. And also, I guess, different solutions depending on what you're sitting on in terms of Yeah, your IT infrastructure, where do you need to go?
Is Watson, IBM Watson, a big part of what you're using now?
Yeah, still is. Yeah, definitely. For the past 50 years. You're right. Yeah.
And how is— if you had to describe to someone that's not knowledgeable the difference between IBM and SAP, how do they work together? And why is that also a good fit, SAP and IBM?
So SAP makes the software. Nowadays it also hosts the software, and IBM can be the partner to set it up for you. Okay, so particularly for an international company, you need to have a An SAP partner, which is what IBM is, that can help you in all the countries where you operate, because your billing and your purchasing and your finance requirements will be slightly different from country to country. And so you need a partner that can set that up for you.
And who's the best person that should reach out to you from this podcast, and what problem would you want to Like, what's your ideal customer profile for you?
Ideal customer profile is a growing company that is either outgrowing what they're using at the moment, or they're running on something just ancient that needs to— that doesn't satisfy the requirements anymore. It needs to be a company, not huge, actually, let's say between $50 million in turnover and $1.5 billion in turnover. But they need to be working on having an international footprint. So they're active in several countries, not just the United States, for example, but also internationally. And then we're in a very good position to help them get set up quickly and conveniently.
And what's the best way to reach out to you once they hear this podcast?
LinkedIn is fine. Email donstenk@ibm.com. I'm easy to find.
And his LinkedIn is Dennis, Dennis dot, my sorry, Dennis dash O N S T E N K. So linkedin.com slash I N slash his name. Pretty easy. Well, thanks for being on the show today, my friend. I look forward to working with you in the future, and, uh, we'll talk soon, my friend.
