Digital technologies pave the way for more service orientation, new digital possibilities and business opportunities. To make the most of it, companies need new billing models.
SAP BRIM offers comprehensive functionalities spanning subscription and order billing, flexible pricing, automated and convergent invoicing, and personalized payment processing to establish digital business models and optimize new processes.
The component ‘Contract Accounts Payable and Receivable’ (SAP FI-CA) includes a subledger which was specifically developed for industries with a huge customer base and subsequently a lot of billing processes involving mass data processing. Therefore, SAP BRIM is ideal for industries like insurance, utilities, telecommunication, media as well as the public sector.
Example: Energy and utilities
Energy and utility providers need to be able to offer more than just electricity, gas and water. Usage data are transferred and billed through smart metering systems in almost real time. It can be differentiated between on-peak and off-peak usage because time stamps and current type are also transferred to BRIM.
Rent, lease and share
There’s almost no product or service that can’t be rented. This business model is ideal for BRIM’s customer-specific billing capabilities. With BRIM, rental companies can bill their services in real time or based on usage data collected by sensors.
For example, if a customer rents an excavator plus driver, the rental company can equip the excavator with a sensor collecting usage data. These data are sent to BRIM and billed in the system. Furthermore, the need for maintenance can be evaluated in real time.
Individual billing
Thanks to its high flexibility and modular adaptability, SAP BRIM is ideal for internet or collaboration platforms and startups. Companies wanting to tackle digital transformation will find even more use cases for BRIM, for example switching from a traditional hardware-focused business to a digital service provider.
Furthermore, BRIM is useful for procurement platforms because it simplifies billing for both B2B customers and individual users.
SAP is one of the world’s leading producers of software for the management of business processes, developing solutions that facilitate effective data processing and information flow across organizations,what is SAP and how it works?.
Founded in 1972, the company was initially called System Analysis Program Development (Systemanalyse Programmentwicklung), later abbreviated to SAP. Since then, it has grown from a small, five-person endeavour to a multinational enterprise headquartered in Walldorf, Germany, with more than 101,000 employees worldwide.
With the introduction of its original SAP R/2 and SAP R/3 software, SAP established the global standard for enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. Now, SAP S/4HANA takes ERP to the next level by using the power of in-memory computing to process vast amounts of data and to support advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.
The company’s integrated applications connect all parts of a business into an intelligent suite on a fully digital platform, thereby replacing the process-driven, legacy platform. Today, SAP has more than 230 million cloud users, more than 100 solutions covering all business functions, and the largest cloud portfolio of any provider.
Christian Klein (40) leads the company, heads up the Executive Board of SAP SE, and, at 40, is the youngest CEO of any major enterprise on Germany’s DAX blue-chip market index.
SAP software products provide powerful instruments for helping companies to manage their financials, logistics, human resources, and other business areas. The backbone of SAP software offering is an SAP ERP system which is the most advanced Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system from currently available ones.
How Does SAP Work?
SAP software products provide powerful instruments for helping companies to manage their financials, logistics, human resources, and other business areas. The backbone of SAP software offering is an SAP ERP system which is the most advanced Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system from currently available ones. SAP has evolved to offer application software for supporting complex business functionality and in this post, we are going to explain (on a high level) how does SAP work.
It is a good idea to start answering the question “How Does SAP Work?” with a discussion of what the components of an SAP ERP system are, how they are related to each other, and what are their purposes. We should mention that SAP ERP is not the only SAP software component. There are other business application components such as Business Intelligence (BI), Supply Chain Management (SCM), and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). However, in this article, we are going to focus on SAP ERP because it is the primary component and provides capabilities for integrating business data from other application components.
SAP ERP system is commonly structured in a three-tier client/server architecture. The three-tier architecture is the recommended one because it enables high scalability and flexibility but SAP can also be deployed on two- and one-tier architectures. Figure 1 provides a graphical illustration of the differences between these architectures.
In the three-tier SAP architecture, the presentation tier provides the interface to the user, the application tier processes the business logic, and the database tier stores the business data.
The presentation tier is typically located on PCs of business users and provides the SAP Graphical Interface (SAP GUI). SAP GUI is a lightweight application that can be installed on any computer running MS Windows or Mac OS and it provides the interface for communication between the user and the SAP ERP system.
The application tier is basically the heart of the SAP ERP system. It executes the business logic, responsible for processing client transactions, print jobs, running reports, coordinating access to the database, and interfacing with other applications. It is possible to distribute the application logic between several server machines in situations when the load exceeds processing power of a single server.
The database is used for storing two types of objects: the business-generated data and the SAP application programs. The business-generated data represents data objects created by users as part of various business processes. For instance, sales orders or customer master records are classified as the business-generated data. SAP application programs are routines written in ABAP (special programming language used in SAP) that are loaded into the SAP application servers from the database at runtime.
It is possible to use databases from different vendors (for instance, Oracle or Microsoft) and it is up to the company to decide which database vendor to choose. Usually, the database license is included into the price of SAP. The database tier has the highest requirements for availability, reliability, and performance because usually each SAP system is deployed on one database instance. Therefore, performance of the database tier ultimately determines the scalability of the entire SAP ERP installation.
There are situations when three tiers can be reduced to two or one. The possibility of these situations depends on available processing power and number of business users. For example, it is possible to install all three SAP tiers on a single computer for demo purposes. On the other hand, large SAP productive installations require multiple powerful servers for each of the tiers in order to ensure good performance of the SAP system.
Above these tiers, SAP architecture can be further segmented into several application modules. Each module contains the SAP application programs and business data related to a specific business area such as financial accounting (FI) or materials management (MM). Figure 2 illustrates the application modules which are included in the SAP ERP system.
Traditional business models often decentralize data management, with each business function storing its own operational data in a separate database. This makes it difficult for employees from different business functions to access each other’s information. Furthermore, duplication of data across multiple departments increases IT storage costs and the risk of data errors.
By centralizing data management, SAP software provides multiple business functions with a single view of the truth. This helps companies better manage complex business processes by giving employees of different departments easy access to real-time insights across the enterprise. As a result, businesses can accelerate workflows, improve operational efficiency, raise productivity, enhance customer experiences – and ultimately increase profits.
In this post, we attempted to explain how does SAP work. We tried to avoid difficult technical details and keep the explanation easy for understanding. We first had to describe SAP architecture and various components of the system. Next, we explained and illustrated with a simple example how these components work together and support business processes of an enterprise. Your feedback is very important for us, so if you liked the article, please bookmark it in social networks and leave a comment below.
ERP giant SAP has announced new low-code/no-code tools and three complementary and integrated process automation tools, which address different skill levels and automation scenarios.
SAP Cloud Platform Workflow Management allows developers and business experts to gain end-to-end process visibility, and to configure and automate enterprise workflows in a low-code approach. SAP Cloud Platform Workflow Management includes new predefined content packages and integration with Experience Management solutions from SAP and Qualtrics, combining operational and experience data.
The SAP Ruum solution allows business users with no coding skills to create departmental processes in hours instead of days and weeks. About 50 SAP customers and partners, including German chemical company Evonik Industries AG, U.S. company Varian Medical Systems Inc. and Norwegian furniture maker Ekornes Ltd., have already joined the beta program for SAP Ruum.
“With SAP Ruum, Ekornes was able to model the process in about an hour, without requiring a lengthy project with resources from our central team,” said James Fogarty, an Ekornes business operations analyst.
SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation (RPA) 2.0 technology targets developers looking to automate repetitive, manual tasks with software bots. SAP Intelligent RPA includes prebuilt bot templates to drive efficiencies with SAP S/4HANA and 12 lines of business. Beginning January 2021, SAP plans to include a limited edition of SAP Intelligent RPA in every SAP S/4HANA Cloud subscription.
SAP in 2021 plans to offer developers a free tier model for SAP Cloud Platform, the integration and extension solution for SAP Business Technology Platform. The free tier model will provide users access to learn, develop and implement integrations and extensions in one account. It removes current time restrictions and allows users to transfer projects to production without the need to rebuild content. As an intermediary step toward the free tier model, SAP recently extended its current SAP Cloud Platform trial offering from three to 12 months.
“SAP Business Technology Platform is key for our customers to integrate and extend their SAP applications and to enable future business,” said Juergen Mueller, chief technology officer and member of the SAP Executive Board.
“As the cornerstone of SAP’s own transformation and accelerated shift to the cloud, it helps to provide value to customers with a seamless technology experience, a robust ecosystem and greater development efficiency. The ongoing innovation to SAP Business Technology Platform underscores our commitment to the developer community and the entire ecosystem of customers and partners, and shows we are not only listening but also acting on what we hear.”
SAP stands for Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing. SAP, by definition, is also the name of the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software as well as the name of the company. What industry is SAP in? SAP Software is a European multinational, founded in 1972 by Wellenreuther, Hopp, Hector, Plattner, and Tschira. They develop software solutions for managing business operations and customer relationships.
SAP system consists of a number of fully integrated modules, which covers virtually every aspect of business management.
SAP is #1 in the ERP market. As of 2010, SAP has more than 140,000 installations worldwide, over 25 industry-specific business solutions and more than 75,000 customers in 120 countries
Other Competitive products of SAP Software in the market are Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, etc.
What industry is SAP in? Manufacturing, Life Science, Distribution, Technical and Business Services are the top industries that use SAP Business ByDesign, but healthcare, energy, education, telecommunications, finance and retail also heavily use it.
When a business invests in enterprise resource planning software (ERP), it is investing for the long haul.
That’s because even though cloud ERP has made it easy to switch platforms, actually moving to a new ERP solution still is time-consuming and costly. ERP sits at the center of a business, so changing solutions requires adjusting business processes and migrating everything from data to employees over to the new system. With ERP software sitting at the center of your organization, you can’t just pick another product and be on your way.
So, investing in an ERP solution is also investing in a long-term partnership with the vendor that makes the software. While the specifics of a given ERP solution are important, so is knowing and trusting the vendor you will be relying on for years to come.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at the largest and most pervasive ERP vendor on the market today, SAP. No matter your industry or company size, SAP probably will be on your ERP solution shortlist.
Where does your company fit on the Pyramid of ERP Solutions?
It is estimated that roughly 77 percent of all global transactions come in contact with SAP software. There’s a reason for this: SAP not only helped invent the ERP space, starting with an integrated accounting solution in 1973 and leading the industry as it grew into what it is today. It also is the largest ERP vendor and the 12th largest technology company in the world, used by more than 404,000 businesses across 180 different countries.
Most large businesses use SAP or its closest competitor, Oracle, and SMBs also rely on SAP software; 80 percent of SAP’s customer base is made up of small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), a surprising number given the company’s reputation for powering some of the world’s largest multinationals.
SAP certainly serves big business. But over the years, the company has developed distinct product lines that serve each segment of the market. There’s SAP Business One for smaller firms, SAP Business ByDesign for growing medium-sized businesses, and the company’s flagship SAP HANA for larger enterprise customers.
Much of the underlying technology is the same, but each SAP product line is full-featured and built from the ground up for its intended market. A multinational has different needs than a 10-employee business, and vice versa. So, SAP has built appropriate solutions for each.
SAP SE engages in the provision of enterprise application software and software-related services. It operates through the following segments: Applications, Technology, and Services; Intelligent Spend Group; and Qualtrics. The Applications, Technology, and Services segment includes software licenses, cloud subscriptions, and related services. The Intelligent Spend Group segment comprises cloud-based collaborative business networks, subscriptions to the cloud offering, and related professional and educational services.
If you haven’t heard yet, mainstream maintenance for SAP’s classic WMS, SAP WM (Warehouse Management), will end in 2025. SAP announced that SAP WM is not the target architecture within SAP S/4HANA but instead EWM (Extended Warehouse Management) is the future for SAP!
SAP is now delivering EWM with the power of S/4HANA through an embedded version of EWM, replacing the dated WM module for S/4HANA. With multiple licensing, deployment and hosting options, there is flavour of SAP EWM for all businesses.
With this new direction, SAP offers EWM with two different licensing structures for embedded EWM on S/4HANA, Basic or Advanced.
EWM Basic is geared towards businesses who are running S/4HANA ERP and want to leverage the warehouse management functionality included with their current licensing. EWM Basic has additional and enhanced functionality over the old WM module, including more granular bin levels and a robust user-friendly RF framework. On top of that, the users will have access to standard EWM processes, from Physical Inventory to Outbound processing.
Nevertheless, if your warehouse processes are in need of a more robust warehouse management solution, EWM Advanced is your answer. The Advanced licensing for EWM provides operators with access to all the capabilities included with the Basic licensing, plus additional and optimized functionalities. With EWM Advanced, users have enhanced processes like optimized Inventory Management that includes slotting and rearrangement and improved Outbound processing with Wave Management. EWM advanced also includes additional functionalities such as Yard Management with access to the Shipping Cockpit and Dock Appointment Scheduling or Labor Management with Engineered Labor Standards and Travel Distance Calculations.
Along with the choice of different licensing options, is the decision of how to deploy SAP EWM.
There are multiple options to meet every business’ needs, from large 24/7 365-day operations to small 9-5 business operations.For larger businesses with a high volume of transactions, they will want to investigate a few options for EWM deployment; Business Suite Decentral EWM 9.5, EWM Embedded in S/4HANA or the soon to be available Stand Alone EWM on S/4HANA, of which MSCG is currently involved in partner testing. For these deployments, businesses will decide how to host their environment, whether owning this internally or having a third party do so. For smaller scale operations, SAP offers EWM S/4HANA Cloud with Single Tenant and Multiple Tenant options and is soon to offer Stand Alone EWM S/4HANA Cloud. It’s important to weigh all options because the factors that go into making a correct decision for your business will drastically vary, each affecting this decision differently.
According to the current SAP road map, the outdated WM module will no longer receive new development work and it’s support cycle is slated to end in 2025. With that, now is the time for your business to start planning the upgrade and migration to S/4HANA Embedded EWM. During your migration to S/4HANA EWM, decisions will be made as to what new functionality should be leveraged or how current WM master data can be utilized with EWM. My Supply Chain Group provides the expertise your company needs to ensure the right decision is being made. With over 75 EWM experts, My Supply Chain Group is the right implementation partner for any business.
Is your business already ahead of the curve and operating its warehouses with SAP EWM? Continue to stay ahead and begin planning your conversion from decentral SAP EWM 7.0-9.5 to stand alone EWM on S/4HANA. The first version of stand alone EWM on S/4HANA is scheduled to be released next month, May 2019. Even if the rest of the business is not ready to convert from ECC to S/4HANA ERP, this doesn’t have to stop the warehouse from blazing the trail. Multiple paths are laid out from SAP to enable a smooth conversion for the entire business. Along with these different options, SAP is enabling customers to intelligently make these decisions through empowering My Supply Chain Group with the knowledge required to guide them along the way. My Supply Chain Group is actively part of SAP EWM pre-release product testing and will advise your business on the new functionalities of SAP S/4HANA Extended Warehouse Management and if the time is right for your business to convert!
S/4HANA represents an opportunity for organizations to impose shape and direction on their business that will carry them into the future.
Generally speaking, organizations are constantly undergoing an evolution – gradually, and in response to circumstances – and their support systems accordingly reflect and accommodate these changes.
But every now and then, a significant event can threaten to interrupt this development. Organizations take stock – you may want to reconsider your entire course of action.
One such occasion is the forthcoming discontinuation of the current SAP ERP platform, and its replacement by SAP S/4HANA. Major businesses can’t continue as they are; but on the other hand, they can’t start with a clean sheet – especially if they are long-established multinational enterprises. So, what do they do?
The way forward
Of course, there are challenges implicit in this opportunity. Finance teams need to shape the right roadmap. They need to determine what the rest of their business is doing about the transition so they can coordinate. They then must decide how to start, what to prioritize, how to engage the business in their approach, and how to create and sustain momentum.
I’d argue that the way to address these challenges and to make the most of the opportunity is to recognize that SAP S/4HANA doesn’t provide all the answers on its own. It can, or should, be part of something bigger.
Central to this effort is a core of mission-critical applications that run the business. It’s part of what we at Capgemini term the Renewable Enterprise, which aims to reduce that core to its essentials; to introduce intelligence; to integrate, standardize, and protect its key elements; and to link it to the cloud. In short, it aims to bring together the technology, the process, and the operating model to sustain digital transformation and enable rapid innovation.
It’s a real-world approach, because while organizations are implementing it, it doesn’t require things to stop, or for changes to be made offline. It increases productivity and revenue-earning potential while organizations are doing business, and while they are exploring new revenue streams – and it also builds momentum in the new levels of efficiency it brings.
Implementing a Renewable Enterprise can include architectural change, SaaS products, upgrades, team changes, and more. One means by which we deliver it at Capgemini – for line-of-business finance in particular – includes the application of our Digital Global Enterprise Model (D-GEM). With D-GEM, as organizations make the transition to SAP S/4HANA, they will be better able to:
Identify the business value and IT benefits they seek
Revert to standard application functionality
Build the right application suite
Facilitate the move by streamlining and improving processes and controls using our ESOAR (Eliminate, Standardize, Optimize, Automate, Robotize) approach
Embed artificial intelligence (AI) in processes, and
Increase efficiency at a lower cost
Potential applications for FAO
When things are considered in this way, the obligatory move to SAP S/4HANA becomes part of a bigger solution, with greater potential. In finance and administration operations (FAO), for example, organizations will be able to achieve a continuous “virtual close” – reporting faster, analyzing more deeply, acting more promptly, and predicting more accurately, to add immediacy and value to the business.
They will be able to streamline journals and also introduce robotic process automation (RPA) to key finance tasks, deriving more from their resources (human and otherwise). In addition, they’ll be able to integrate processes end-to-end so as to optimize financial performance by using machine learning and artificial intelligence to identify and address predicted late payments, for instance.
Digital transformation has to be holistic, meaning it needs to encompass the entire value chain, every business department, and internal and external factors. SAP S/4 Hana can help with that.
It is crucial that companies align their digital transformation efforts with their individual strategic business goals. To be successful in their endeavors, they’ll need a real-time ERP suite like the S/4 platform. SAP S/4 Hana combines the advantages of an intelligent next-generation ERP system with those of SAP systems. To benefit from S/4 and Hana, companies need to consider more than just technological factors, however.
Strategy and organization are just as important as technology. S/4 Hana implementations grant companies the opportunity to evaluate and optimize every single process, their entire business structure and all their base principles to ensure they are all aligned with business goals. It is essential to first define a mid-term and long-term corporate strategy, however, as it is important for S/4 Hana business goals.
Like every complex IT project, S/4 Hana implementations need meticulous preparation. Companies need to plan individual project phases by including and informing all involved parties like managers, CEOs, IT decisionmakers and stakeholders.
S/4 Hana migration needs to align with business strategy
In our digital age, there is only one constant for numerous companies: permanent change. Managers should use such a fundamental change like migrating to a new ERP suite to make sure their mid-term and long-term business goals are what they would like them to be. It is not enough to only reevaluate overall corporate strategy, however; every goal in every individual department needs to be aligned with business strategy. Managers need to consider legal and economic aspects as well as running and planned IT projects.
If an overall strategy has been defined, the goals of the transformation can be derived from it. These goals act as guidelines for an effective, significant, and sustainable S/4 project. The defined goals also determine which transformation method is most suitable. Greenfield or brownfield? To decide between new implementation and migration, companies need to be aware of their current process landscapes, their critical processes, and their future IT needs.
A structured approach to a strategic transformation requires meticulous planning and execution of each individual project phase and the definition of milestones. Moreover, companies have to define roles and assign tasks. It is also recommendable to not only identify business-critical processes, but also validate them against industry standards.
In previous projects, it has furthermore proven useful to define concrete goals for every project phase, calculate expenses and efforts for subsequent steps, and provide suggestions on how different components can be implemented.
Meeting requirements of end users is only possible by asking them what they want. It is indispensable that companies identify all affected staff members when it comes to S/4 Hana transformation and implementation. Companies need to find out what future end users want, which processes individual departments require, and if these requirements align with mid-term and long-term business strategy.
While the opinions of decisionmakers are essential to S/4 Hana projects, companies cannot neglect the IT department and their needs and wishes, as it is the IT department that makes digital transformation in other business departments happen. Collaboration is a must, as every stakeholder has a different perspective, different requirements, and different expectations. Only then do companies have a stable foundation for their S/4 Hana transformation projects.
SAP stands for Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing. SAP, by definition, is also the name of the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software as well as the name of the company. … SAP system consists of a number of fully integrated modules, which covers virtually every aspect of business management.
SAP represents Frameworks Applications and Items in Information Handling. SAP, by definition, is likewise the name of the ERP (Endeavor Asset Arranging) programming as well as the name of the organization. SAP Programming is an European global, established in 1972 by Wellenreuther, Hopp, Hector, Plattner, and Tschira. They foster programming answers for overseeing business activities and client connections.
SAP framework comprises of various completely incorporated modules, which covers basically every part of business the executives.
SAP is #1 in the ERP market. Starting around 2010, SAP has in excess of 140,000 establishments around the world, north of 25 industry-explicit business arrangements and in excess of 75,000 clients in 120 nations
Other Serious results of SAP Programming in the market are Prophet, Microsoft Elements, and so forth.
For what reason is it Required? Assume a client moves toward an outreach group requesting a specific item. The outreach group contacts the stock division to really take a look at the accessibility of the item. Amazingly, the outreach group figured out that the item is unavailable. So next time this doesn’t occur, they need to present a SAP ERP apparatus.
Before we really find exhaustively, what ERP is and the way that ERP can assist in your business with handling, we will comprehend how various divisions are associated with the entire business process, right from the requesting of the natural substance – to assembling merchandise – to conveying end results to the client.
Six key benefits of ERP
Higher productivity: Streamline and automate your core business processes to help everyone in your organisation do more with fewer resources.
Deeper insights: Eliminate information silos, gain a single source of truth, and get fast answers to mission-critical business questions.
Accelerated reporting: Fast-track business and financial reporting and easily share results. Act on insights and improve performance in real time.
Lower risk: Maximise business visibility and control, ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, and predict and prevent risk.
Simpler IT: By using integrated ERP applications that share a database, you can simplify IT and give everyone an easier way to work.
Improved agility: With efficient operations and ready access to real-time data, you can quickly identify and react to new opportunities.
An ERP system – also called an ERP suite – is made up of different enterprise resource planning applications that talk to each other and share a database.
Each application (or ERP module) typically focuses on one business area. You can combine different modules to meet your needs. Finance, human resources, sales, and logistics are popular starting points. There are also modules specific to industries, from manufacturing to retail.
Modern ERP systems can be deployed in any number of ways: in a public or private cloud, on premise, or in various hybrid scenarios that combine environments. Here are some of the high-level benefits of each to help you identify the implementation option that makes the most sense for your business.
In cloud ERP, the software runs on a provider’s cloud computing platform. The maintenance of the system is handled by the provider. There is also a choice of utilising a public or private cloud, which is gaining acceptance because of the low upfront costs.
On-Premise ERP
This is the traditional model for deploying software where you control everything. The ERP software is installed in your data centre at the locations of your choice. The installation and maintenance of the hardware and software is your staff’s responsibility.
For companies that want a mixture of both to meet their business requirements, there is the hybrid model. This is where some of your ERP applications and data will be in the cloud and some on premise. Sometimes this is referred to as two-tier ERP.
Most businesses start out using a variety of simple, standalone tools to manage different processes – such as QuickBooks or Excel spreadsheets. Here are five signs you’ve outgrown them and need a modern ERP system.
You’re spending more time on daily activities. If it’s taking longer to manage key activities, like closing the books, too many disparate applications may be to blame. ERP software integrates solutions and data into one system with a common interface, making it easier for business units to communicate and do their jobs effectively.
You have many unanswered business questions. Can you easily answer important questions about your business, such as revenue per product line or a number of returns? If not, segregated systems and a lack of access to metrics and KPIs may be holding you back. Enterprise resource planning software is designed to address these challenges.
You have runaway business processes. Are there areas where your processes are getting away from you? Maybe it’s harder for you to manage inventory, satisfy customers, or keep costs in check. If so, your business processes may need to be restructured to accommodate growth or changing priorities – a natural fit for ERP software.
You have manual processes with multiple data sets. Are most of your departments using their own applications and processes to get things done? If so, chances are you’re spending too much time on duplicate data entry. When information can’t flow between systems, reporting takes longer, errors happen often, and decision-making is hampered.
You’re missing out on fast-moving opportunities. Are you spending so much time running your business that you can’t pursue exciting new opportunities? Newer ERP systems include advanced, intelligent capabilities, like machine learning and predictive analytics, that make it easier to identify and capitalise on profitable new ventures.
SAP Hybris is also complete customer engagement and multichannel e-commerce solution with fully integrated tools and capabilities. It serves B2B and B2C companies in industries such as financial services, telecommunications, insurance, media, manufacturing, retailing, and wholesale.
It can be purchased through a hybrid suite that offers cloud, on-premises, and in-device deployment according to customer requirements and level of company operations.
In recent years, SAP Hybris has evolved significantly with the real-world footprint, claiming to be an “omnichannel” commerce solution that enables exclusive customer engagement
Customer experience is kept at the heart of the solution and includes customizations to allow for enhancements in the solution as per the customer requirement.
The Hybris product portfolio includes the following capabilities –
1. Products for Commerce 2. Products for marketing 3. Products for sale 4. Products for service 5. Products for billing 6. Cross-functional solution
The Hybris products can be integrated with other backend solutions from SAP such as SAP ERP and SAP CRM to achieve an end-to-end customer engagement experience. Here, we mention six products. However, there are actually only four products produced for sale and one product for service, part of the SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer solution.
Hybris Omni-Channel Commercial Solutions help you to better target your customers and provide seamlessly enjoyable experiences on every channel. Hybris Marketing Suite which is another capability in the SAP Hybris eCommerce platform offers great insights into customer behavioral analysis. You can easily leverage on bringing customer loyalty by making decisions based on real-time data. The platform empowers your marketing, sales, and service teams to provide the best experience for your customers.
SAP intelligent RPA works with the SAP ecosystem to help automate time-consuming processes. Learn what intelligent RPA is, how some companies are using it and a few of its limitations.
Robotic process automation — or RPA — has been one of the fastest-growing segments in enterprise software because it facilitates the rapid automation of many tasks by simulating the way a human interacts with apps.
SAP began working on Intelligent RPA technology in early 2018. It acquired Contextor in November 2018 to augment these early efforts with connectors to non-SAP tools, web apps and Microsoft Office. The first version commercial version of this new product was launched in May 2019.
SAP intelligent RPA, sometimes referred to as iRPA, is meant to provide better integration into the SAP application stack than other platforms and easier implementation when companies have adopted SAP-prescribed best practices for enterprise processes such as procure-to-pay or quote-to-cash. Organizations can also use intelligent RPA technology as a complement to other RPA platforms that may provide better automation across non-SAP software applications.
“Many organizations adopting RPA adopt more than one platform,” said Maureen Fleming, vice president of intelligent process automation for IDC. “Because many companies adopting RPA start by automating financial processes, it wouldn’t be at all surprising to see SAP intelligent RPA competing with other RPA platform vendors as well as see enterprises running both, depending on the use case.”
Automating quickly
The Asia-Pacific office of Rehau, a polymer manufacturer, distributor and designer, recently adopted intelligent RPA.
Intelligent RPA provides deep integration into the organization’s existing SAP backbone, said Chengbo Yu, CIO for the Asia-Pacific region of Rehau. The platform is transparent to business users who are already familiar with SAP. As a result, developing and testing new automations takes less work and requires less of IT’s involvement. RPA projects can move into production in under two weeks, which enables Yu’s team to adopt an agile, iterative approach in improving both the automations and the processes they automate.
Automating best practices
SAP’s current strategy lies in positioning intelligent RPA as a complement to other RPA products and the company is actively partnering with RPA leaders such as UiPath, said Oliver Betz, senior vice president and global head of product management for S/4HANA at SAP. The real strength is pre-building an RPA component into S/4HANA applications, he said. This can help automate the process of creating RPA automations — that is, bots — with less work. SAP launched a program in 2018 to support 10 pre-built automations and now offers about 100.
For example, if a customer is using a standard invoice-to-pay process with standard SAP content, that customer can use an RPA bot out of the box. One of the benefits of this is that these standard processes enforce the best practices observed by SAP from work with the industry in various domains including invoice-to-pay, procurement, sales, professional services and manufacturing.
Embedding intelligence
The design of the SAP Cloud Platform organizes discrete capabilities so that the individual technologies can work together seamlessly to solve a larger automation problem.
“That creates strength for iRPA because customers are able to do more with the tooling,” Fleming said. For example, intelligent document processing is a layer that most of the RPA vendors are beginning to offer as they extend capabilities to support AI use cases. SAP has a document processing service that works with iRPA and is callable by a workflow, a form or by an integration component.
Reusing applications
The development tools in intelligent RPA are intended to be well-integrated with SAP applications.
Individual components of the UI are addressable from the studio library and can be dragged into an automation, said Fleming. This makes it easier to use for inexperienced end users trying to automate. It also improves resilience, creating a separation of UI from individual automation projects.
If the target application UI changes, the RPA team can make changes in intelligent RPA in one place without having to manually change each automation that needs to interact with that application.
Limitations
SAP intelligent RPA does pose some challenges, however.
Enterprises should keep an eye on the cost to run automations, Bartheidel said. SAP’s licensing model is transaction-based.
Transaction-based licensing requires internal governance and controls to avoid unexpected and unplanned costs,” he said. “On the other hand, it allows a small-budget entry into the world of digital workforce.
Another limitation is that it only works via the cloud. Only being able to access the tools via a browser could limit the potential usage, Bartheidel said. This could be a bigger problem for areas with slow or even no internet connection.
