The rise of "as a service" offerings

Expect the outcome of this pandemic to push for more "as a service" offerings, this will be on the back of the rise of "remote servicing" & "smarter automation" becoming the new norm in Enterprise Architectures.

Here are some of the types of "as a service" offerings likely to dominate/continue to dominate in the years to come:

- IoT as a service - IoTaaS

- Blockchain as a Service - BaaS

- Infrastructure as a Service - IaaS

- Device as a service - DaaS

- Cloud as a service - CaaS

- Management as a service - MaaS

- Platform as a Service - PaaS

- Software as a Service - SaaS

- Support as a service - SpaaS

- Status as a Service - StaaS

- StatusQuo as a Service - SQaaS

- IP as a Service - IPaaS

- Unified communications as a service - UCaaS

- Everything as a Service - XaaS

More on this in Twitter & Slack

Twitter: https://twitter.com/imssuren

Slack Channel: https://blockchainarena.slack.com/

Traits of an Intelligent Enterprise

"The measure of intelligence is the ability to change." - Albert Einstein 

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Timing is Everything!

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Tech Trends gaining MOMENTUM..

Some of the above (e.g. Angular 2, React) are already being used at a large scale to build mobile apps, however, with newer features and functionalities introduced in the framework releases it has the potential to offer more to multiple development domains and go mainstream. Stay Informed, Stay Ahead. ;-)

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So, what really is FinTech ?

The impact of FinTech in other industries has also played a part in the rise of TechFin, where existing financial capability is being optimized through technology. I'll cover more of TechFin in a future post.

For now, here is a list of companies which are doing great things in the FinTech space, happy reading.

Digibank
Ant Financial
Credit Karma
Revolut
Atom Bank
Kabbage
ZhongAn
Avant


                                                                                           Feel free to download and share.

Ready to disrupt mainstream soon - Blockchain

With all the craze around crypto-currencies at the moment, it’s easy to get side-tracked on how the  cryptocurrency is performing and miss out on what else is actually happening with the computers under the hood that is driving this new craze.

The fascinating technology behind it, as we all know it is “Blockchain” , but it is more than crypto-currencies & Financial Tech, it is becoming the new standard for trust and verification of data. It’s mind-boggling to think about how blockchain can completely disrupt today’s industries and processes.

Innovative companies are already beginning to implement blockchain that is integrated with their ERP systems which talk to IoT devices to do more in real-time than otherwise possible. With the increasing use of “Smart contracts” (which is where a network of nodes will only validate transactions if certain conditions are met and then transfer value from one person to another) it is most likely that this will replace many existing processes and data traps, and this, in turn, will give rise to a new generation of companies to thrive.

The biggest wins of using Blockchain technology is that it makes things transparent, democratic, decentralized, efficient and secure.

Here are some areas where blockchain will most likely make its biggest impact in the next few years:

1. Banking & Payment - It will make it possible to transfer money overseas in real time just as simple as it is , to do a skype video call across oceans and boundaries.
2. Supply Chain Management – It will reduce time delays, human mistakes and will automate most of the process in the supply chain life-cycle.
3. Cyber Security – No explanation needed here really.
4. Retail – It will connect buyers and seller without a middleman and everything will cost less.
5. Government Systems – It will help reduce bureaucracy and improve efficiency.
6. Healthcare – It will create a single secure platform that will replace a zillion legacy system.
7. Voting – It will prevent rigging of election results and make it absolutely transparent.
8. Transportation – Automatically pay for parking, tolls, fuels, public travel & rides.
9. Charity – It will help record every penny donated and where it is actually being used.
10. Crowdfunding – It will help raise money through smart contracts.

...and all of the above is just the tip of iceberg, once the ability to develop databases with a blockchain design goes mainstream , the potential it has is unlimited.

The biggest impact blockchain could have on ERPs is that blockchain could radically change the nature of integration and might even completely replace existing systems as we know it. If the big wigs of ERP are not already on-board with blockchain, well things could change so fast that we might not see the big wigs around in the future.

Here is a simple simple example of what a blockchain design could do for you.

Imagine if you moved to a new address but would only have to update one record online and this automatically updates all the addresses of all the profiles you have ever created. That's the power of blockchain and smart contracts.

The future is uncertain but promising.

Machine learning, Design thinking, Big Data, Blockchain, IoT, these are all some of the terms we are accustomed to by now and we are likely to hear more on these in the next decade and beyond. The digital race is truly on, with all technology companies innovating with new tools and solutions to tackle the challenges of the future. Here is a look at some of the latest product offerings from the 3rd largest software company in the world, SAP.

SAP Leonardo

SAP Leonardo is an innovative solution portfolio that enables companies to not only realize the digital transformation of existing end-to-end business processes but also enable them to evolve new business models to run digitally. The SAP Leonardo Foundation is based on the SAP Cloud Platform.

It comprises of 3 main components:

 - SAP Leonardo IoT Bridge – a configurable cloud solution

 - SAP Leonardo IoT Foundation - includes best of breed Business Services

 - SAP Leonardo IoT Edge - offers data protocol conversion, persistence and data analytics

https://www.sap.com/australia/products/leonardo.html

SAP Vora

SAP HANA Vora is an in-memory computing engine that is designed to make big data from Hadoop more accessible and usable for enterprises. SAP developed Vora out of SAP HANA as a way to address specific business cases involving big data.

https://www.sap.com/australia/products/hana-vora-hadoop.html

SAP Connected Goods

SAP Connected Goods is a cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) solution, designed to maximize the value of mass market devices (such as coolers, vending machines, or power tools) through remote monitoring, management, and central control.

SAP Connected Goods helps enterprises to reduce operational costs, increase revenue, and improve customer satisfaction. At the same time, it allows enterprises to avoid lost sales and missed revenue opportunities.

From a technical perspective, SAP Connected Goods uses the following:

 - Cloud Foundry services on SAP Cloud Platform

 - SAP HANA for storing, processing, and managing data

 - SAP HANA Vora as the central infrastructure component for big data

 - SAPUI5 and SAP Fiori UX for User Interfaces

https://eaexplorer.hana.ondemand.com/_item.html?id=12360#!/overview

SAP Cloud Platform Blockchain service (BaaS)

Embedded in the SAP Cloud Platform, our blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) pilot is giving registered customers an easy way to experiment with the technology. By eliminating the need for a large upfront capital investment, BaaS is a low-risk gateway to enterprise blockchain adoption.

Things you could do:

 - Experiment with blockchain to see how it could benefit your business

 - Use open standards to create consortium and private blockchain networks

 - Prototype, test, and build customised blockchain applications and smart contracts

SAP is co-innovating with customers and partners to explore high-value blockchain functionality for some of the existing products. This involves investigating new capabilities for multiple solutions across the IoT and supply chain portfolios, including: SAP Asset Intelligence Network, SAP Distributed Manufacturing, SAP Transportation Management, and SAP Global Track and Trace.

https://www.sap.com/australia/products/leonardo/blockchain.html

Others that have been around for a while:

SAP Lumira 2.x

SAP Lumira Cloud enables the use of self-service BI in a secure cloud environment, including the capability to access, visualize, and share data without IT assistance. This solution empowers users to explore information and expose insights with the ease of drag-and-drop.

The benefits of the cloud environment include reducing the amount of time that it takes to access and upload data from numerous resources, and the ability to expand self-service BI consumption with flexible accessibility at any time and on any device. Furthermore, no software or hardware is necessary to get up and running quickly.

https://saplumira.com/

SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer

This cloud CRM portfolio brings sales, customer service, and social CRM together – to help your team form powerful personal connections that drive customer engagement across all channels. Take advantage of rich predictive insight, flawless execution and contextual customer experience relevant to your industry. 

https://www.sap.com/australia/products/cloud-customer-engagement.html

SAP Predictive Analytics

SAP Predictive Analytics is business intelligence software from SAP that is designed to enable organizations to analyze large data sets and predict future outcomes and behaviors. For example, SAP Predictive Analytics can help make sense of big data and the Internet of Things by building predictive analytics models to identify unforeseen opportunities, better understand customers, and uncover hidden risks.

https://www.sap.com/australia/products/analytics/predictive-analytics.html

SAP Cloud Platform

SAP Cloud Platform, our enterprise platform-as-a-service (PaaS), provides comprehensive application development capabilities to help you extend, integrate and build innovative applications in less time – without the effort of maintaining the infrastructure. Use services for mobile, Big Data, Machine Learning, Internet of Things, and more to deliver secure business apps that integrate and optimise your IT landscape, drive agility and accelerate digital transformation – in weeks instead of years.

https://cloudplatform.sap.com/index.html

Source: As in links provided.

The "C-Levels" of the future

Replacing the age-old “C” levels with the new “C” levels for the future is a bold move. It was also a bold move to create the first marketing departments in history, and expect them to re-shape an entire company. But that happened anyway, and now the below "C" level positions are springing up in organizations too.

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The user who cried wolf (Just Saying…)

The best part of working in a Business transformation ERP implementation project is the gratification you get knowing that your work is going to help the organization and its users move to the next level. However, the hunger to move to the next level is something that should be come from within the organization too,  if the users don’t have the hunger to change, then there is a problem. The insecure users are the ones who generally resist the move to change and would raise a fuss about every new thing done in their area. This resistance to change does get noticed by the wider organization over time. The real problem is that any future genuine concerns raised by the same individual might get treated as “noise” and this oversight might hit the entire organization where it hurts most, all because of that one individual who cried wolf too many times, just saying….

Practicing Enterprise Information Management (EIM) in an ERP

The old saying of “Information Is Wealth, Knowledge Is Power” cannot hold more significance than in the world that we live in today.

Information (data) has always been there, will always be there and will continue to grow, by 2020 the digital data generated will be approx 44 Zettabyte (ZB) compared to 4.4 ZB in 2013.

This exponential growth has seen the emergence of the new thinking behind "Big Data" and its importance in the digital world. The Big Data analytics market is a $203 billion one, it’s no big surprise that jobs such as Data Scientists are beginning to become mainstream.

Where is all this information coming from? Well, it is from every transaction taking place, every word that is spoken, every letter written in the whole wide world.

Today's ERP systems have evolved into a very complex set of integrated systems that read data from various sources and perform analytics to provide management with what they need.

However, an ERP is only one cog in the working wheel of an entire ecosystem, it is a known fact that there are various other platforms that play a vital role in decision making within an organisation. This is where a proper EIM (Enterprise Information Management) strategy can help to manage the information streaming in from all sources into and out of an organisation.

From an ERP’s perspective, the following EIM guidelines will help turn big data into “Big Value”:

• Improve Data quality - work on KPI relevant data, everything else is noise.
• Improving reporting models - reporting across the board is a waste of resource, instead, report on what needs to be addressed.
• Improving "Information digestibility" -  reports of the future are going to be concise and to the point. AI is going to condense information to arrive at simple “Do” or “Don’t Do” decision. Get ahead now and prepare for it.
• Improve information trust by harmonizing master data – If you have different versions of the truth, it’s all a lie. Centralize master data and improve data accuracy.
• Improve Business-ready information data sets - Go for solutions that give you up-to-date information that is updated at the frequency which you require for your business decision making, routine setups like scheduled programs, batch jobs etc are soon to be a thing of the past, don’t hold onto those.
• Reduce data liability – Too much of data that doesn’t serve any purpose could become a liability and weigh the business down. Practice information life-cycle management and archive the data where appropriate.
• Improve “Data on the Go” - “Best in Breed” implementation is the new thing.  Cloud-based specialized BI tools that integrate seamlessly with critical business data are beginning to gain prominence, make the most out of them.

By following proper EIM guidelines you could turn information into your "Strategic Asset”.

In today's world reporting on structured data is a given, however, the ability to identify & decipher unstructured data could be the game changer because what we know is a drop in the ocean of what we don't know.

The Benefits of ERP for SMEs

This infographic is courtesy of my good friends at Notable

The battle for “In-Memory Computing” dominance

As you might already know, In-Memory computing is what is on most of the architects and consultants lips these days. It’s true, it’s a damn good architecture that could change the way business analyse data and make decisions.

Reducing the time to make decision, could fast-forward world economies at a tremendous rate.

So in this post, I thought I’ll share with you what the vendors out there have in their arsenal to fight it off in the “In-memory” computing battleground.

SAP SAP HANA - SAP HANA is an in-memory, column-oriented, relational database management system (RDBMS) that’s designed to support transactions and complex query processing on the same data set  

Aerospike - A Distributed NoSQL Database that delivers both speed and scale. Key-value focused operations on whi 

DataStax Apache Cassandra, a NoSQL database - Apache Cassandra is an open source distributed database management system designed to handle large amounts of data across many commodity servers, providing high availability with no single point of failure.

IBM IBM DB2 - IBM DB2 is a family of database server products developed by IBM. These products all support the relational model, but in recent years some products have been extended to support object-relational features and non-relational structures like JSON and XML.  IBM DB2 with BLU Acceleration is an in-memory columnar data platform that speeds up real-time and ad hoc analytical and operational workloads on IBM DB2.  

Kognitio Kognitio Analytical Platform -  Kognitio Analytical Platform is a scale-out in-memory, Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) Not-only-SQL that is optimized for low-latency data load and high-throughput complex analytical workloads.  

Microsoft SQL Server 2014 - SQL Server 2014 provides a new in-memory capability for tables that can fit entirely in memory (also known as Hekaton). Whilst small tables may be entirely resident in memory in all versions of SQL Server, they also may reside on disk, so work is involved in reserving RAM, writing evicted pages to disk, loading new pages from disk, locking the pages in RAM while they are being operated on, and many other tasks. 

MemSQL - MemSQL is a distributed In-Memory Database that lets you process transactions and run analytics in real-time, using SQL.  

Oracle - Oracle Database In-Memory / Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database

Oracle offers a mature, in-memory database product called Oracle Times Ten In-Memory Database as well as Oracle Database In-Memory, an option that extends Oracle Database 12c to support in-memory.

So there we go, a whole lot of products out there to cater to the needs of “in-memory computing”, it all comes down to who can sell better and who can keep the innovation lab churning out new ways of analyzing big data faster.

Hope you found this post informative, have a nice day.

Happy New Year 2015 - Lets get started !!

Wishing all my readers the very best of everything in 2015 !!

 Make this year count, get started on doing everything that you've been putting off last year.

What's next after Cloud ?

By S.Suren

Well, everyone is talking about cloud computing, have been talking about it and most likely will continue doing so for quite some time into the future too, so then what's next after cloud ? My guess, is after cloud it's just going to be more of the cloud and new ways of dealing with the cloud.

Cloud computing has taken the world by storm, the dependence on the internet these days for ERP vendors is more so than ever and that will only increase. As far as the terms go, the term cloud computing will die out soon, like it already is and new terms to define new ways of working with the cloud will evolve.

Apps talking to each other in the cloud, complete ERP systems and its integrated parties will all be hosted in the cloud. More transactions will be carried out in the cloud than single servers and with the increase the technology infrastructure its only about time until complete databases and predictive analysis data is held in the cloud and respond directly based on inputs received from connected systems.

I wouldn't be surprised if in 50 years time, places like schools and work offices will be considered a thing of the past, everything will be hosted in the cloud and can be done in the cloud itself, drastically reducing the need to commute. Just take the various e-learning solutions and infrastructure that is being built in the cloud and that itself is a great indication to suggest that students will no longer be sitting at desks in front of a teacher in a class , but rather in front of a computer monitor at home attending classes, submitting assignments and ordering their favorite type of plaque for their certificates as well, not that it is not being done now in some countries, but all this will probably be done throughout their entire schooling life in the future.

For more for on cloud computing you could visit similar articles on :

• http://www.infoworld.com/
• http://www.pcmag.com/

Hope you found this post informative, feel free to drop in your comments on ssurenlk@msn.com

Movements in SAP HQ

Given that I'm involved in SAP, I thought I'll share with you all some changes that have taken place at the  SAP HQ very recently.

If you haven't already read about it, the head of product development Vishal Sikka very recently moved out in a move that is being deemed as "all too sudden". He was the champion of Hana, the in-memory computing platform that SAP is working on with head over heels right now.

Shawn Price, SAP's cloud software sales chief has moved away as well, though it was a short gig since he, this is another high profile movement within SAP HQ.

The final one is something that is likely to come by soon, where the Co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe will be stepping down leaving Bill McDermott as the sole CEO of SAP.

People move in and out of organization that is nothing new, but it doesn't hurt to know what's going on in terms of the executive players moving around in the ERP world.

The Changing ERP World

Gone are the days where you would look at an ERP for just the purpose of controlling your cost,  providing you an integrated view of all your Business Processes and other sub-processes that help you make smart effective strategic business decisions.

Today’s ERP requirements spans well beyond the ones mentioned above, which is why most ERP vendors need to strike a balance between 2 variables that always pull in different directions, i.e. Complexity and Flexibility. Today CEOs, CFOs, COO's are talking about sustainable IT solutions not necessarily only CIO's. The onus is on technology based solutions that can initiate organic grow from within the business pushing for  the inside -out towards changes to business processes.

The changing trends of ERPs & IT systems is to be able to be record and analyse external factors of a business process and provide insight to the organisation. Focusing on just manufacturing, logistic costs and others will surely help the company a lot in terms of improving their  bottom line, but today’s management trend is to be able to perform these tasks by  taking into consideration likely changes in the external environment on their internal operations.

If you work in this ever changing ERP environment, it has become absolutely critical that you upgrade your technology  "savviness" in areas which will help you to have something to offer when it comes to the technologies the clients are now more interested in. Best advice here would be to read websites in your areas of expertise.

Here is a list of sites I would recommend:

• http://www.gartner.com
• http://www.technologyevaluation.com/
• http://www.computerworld.com/
• http://www.informationweek.com/

People talking about the future of IT these days are not in IT at all, but rather people who are affected by changing technologies and who have begun adopting the new technology not via a business software but via a personal one. So being in the IT industry , your success would be more about understanding and be understood by  the "new people", after all there is no business if you don't understand your customers , right !!

Have a nice day.

Wishing all my readers a "Safe, successful and fun filled New Year !!"

All the best in 2014 !!

"Time is always on our side, it just depends on what you decide to do with it"

Thank you for all your interest, support and comments over the year.

Human-centered Design (HCD) enabled ERP Solutions

The term human-centered design (HCD) seems to be used mainly across the development stage of a product which involves human interactions, in basic hindsight HCD is simply a designing approach keeping in mind how easily the end user, i.e. a human, would interact with it and for how long will he/she will be able to continue using it in its true form.

There are various technical jargon's associated with it that makes it sound far more complicated than it actually is.

Many companies struggle with problems caused by bad usability of their products although they have invested in human-centered design (HCD). Their product may still have not gone through a systematic approach, adequate knowledge and a clear definition of responsibilities in HCD.

In this article I thought I’ll share with you a few HCD principles that can incorporate into any ERP solution design.

Some of the HCD elements that could be used would be:

Usability – ability of the users to use the function with minimal supervision.

Maturity – ability of the user to understand the core function of the solution and being able to branch out into other related areas to understand the functionality in its entirety within the organization.

Participation – Assess the solution based on how much the user would be able to participate if a change is to be made to the core logic.

Piloting period – Assess how long is it likely to take a new user to take over the functionality from an existing user, the lower the better as it indicates user sustainability.

Most often than not, these are discussed in a project environment, but laying them down and assessing them during the development process will definitely help in delivering solution that is more human centered and more sustainable.

Hope you found this post informative. Feel free to contact me on ssurenlk@msn.com.

Big Data and it's 3Vs

Fact : Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data — so much that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone.

In today's information age there is data maintained in all forms, shape and size, if a close look can be taken at this data and some research carried out, the next biggest thing could be in this data. It's all about sorting the data, identifying what you require and reporting the results in a comprehensive yet concise method.

 In order to do this, you need to make sure you target the 3Vs of big data management and use them in it's proper form to work for you :

Make the VELOCITY of data work towards your goal.

e.g. If you are a business introducing a new product in a 3 day tech exhibition, setup a process to capture and analyze every possible feedback, comments, news feed regarding the product during the day in order to maximize the value input in your go to market strategy.

Track large VOLUME of data for better analysis

e.g. If you are into marketing a particular product range you could be collecting terabytes of Tweets of similar ranges in other markets created each day to identify and improve product sentiment analysis for new launches.

Capture a VARIETY of data for better analysis

First collect all types of data relating to your particular industry, market, product, competitors, consumers and in all formats as well, i.e. texts, pics,  audio, video, click streams, log files etc. Once you've gained all this analyse all this data together in various different dimensions.

e.g.  if you are a boutique store in a large mall use video surveillance to capture number of people who cross the store, number of people who glance at the entrance, then  record  how many of them come into the shop and record what item they find on the inside of the shop appealing, analyse your sales to find out how many of those items were sold, if a lot was done, then you are now in position to make a connection and perhaps place more of those items next to the door in order to attract more passer by in the store !!

There is data everywhere and it always has been, its available in all forms, shapes and size, all we need to do is to capture it in a readable form and analyse it, that's basically what ticked off the information age and that's exactly whats going to take it to the next level as well.

Hope this was insightful. Have a nice day 

Happy New Year 2013 !!

Wishing all my readers the very best of everything that 2013 has to offer. 

Thanks for your support over the years.