Conference
SAP Connect Daywith SAP Spain
SAP Spain's event day at IFEMA Madrid: seven gatherings at once on artificial intelligence, data and enterprise applications. Attendees followed the sessions in their language, on their own phone.
The day
SAP Connect Day Madrid is the day SAP Spain devotes to innovation, strategy and enterprise technology. The 2026 edition took place on 16 April in Hall 8 at IFEMA Madrid, under the slogan “Conéctalo todo. Impulsa lo imposible” (Connect it all. Drive the impossible), and was aimed at professionals in finance, procurement, technology, human resources, operations, customer experience and business.
The common thread was how artificial intelligence, data and enterprise applications are changing the way companies work, and how to move towards the “autonomous enterprise”. Carlos Lacerda, Senior VP and Managing Director of SAP for Southern Europe, opened the day at 9.30am with a central idea: the value of AI lies in automating decisions with context, by integrating each company’s data and processes.
Rika Christanto, of LifeX Ventures and founder of Ontruck and Idoven, also spoke, analysing how AI is changing the investment landscape, what results it is delivering and who is gaining from it. Laura Goodrick, Director of Financial Operations at the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team, explained how her work brings together finance, operations and technology in a high-performance environment, where the precision of data and systems shows in the results on track. And Olympic medallist Saúl Craviotto and Luis García Abad, Managing Director of the Formula 1 Madrid Grand Prix 2026, talked about performing in high-pressure environments and the impact of major events on the city.
Seven sessions, one hall
After the opening, the day split into seven parallel sessions, one per area:
- Business AI and Business Data Cloud
- Business Technology Platform
- Finance
- Procurement, with Spend Management
- Customer experience
- Supply chain
- Human resources, with HR Connect
All seven shared the hall, arranged around a seven-sided central stage. SAP ran the format as a “silent conference”: each attendee followed the session they were interested in through headphones, without disturbing the others.
What we set up
At IFEMA we set up Speech. Scanning a QR code was all it took to bring the session up on a phone, in each person’s own language and with no app to download. From there, each attendee could listen to the AI interpretation or read, as it happened, what was being said on stage.
