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.

Feel free to download and share.

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.

For the SAP S/4 HANA Finance newbies

The Benefits of ERP for SMEs

This infographic is courtesy of my good friends at Notable

A 10 step approach to designing & delivering an integrated solution

When talking about integrating an ERP solution with internal or external systems, it’s easy to get carried away with the details to the extent that a high-level streamlined plan is often overlooked.


Given my experience in the industry, I thought I’ll put down a simple 10 step plan that if followed at
a high-level will at least guarantee an effective integrated system being delivered.

1.Firstly, list down the key processes, those that at a high-level cover the many facets of the business, these are processes such as Procure-to-pay, Make-to-stock, make-to-order etc.

2.Next draw up some process flow diagrams of these business processes. Given that these are existing process there is likely to already be process flows when the initial implementation was done (if you don’t have them, contact the hiring managers and inform them that these documents are the lost intellectual property for the company because of the few $100 that was saved employing an amateur)

3.Identify each process by its system components, e.g. Finance & Controlling, Sales & Distribution, Material Management etc.

4.Identify the relevant business process owners and departments handling each of the above business processes identified, these names are important for actual integration testing.

5.Draw up different scenarios for each of these processes and perform integration testing for each of these scenarios, these should follow the same sequence as the process flow diagrams.

6.Pass onto the business owner’s the ownership of their business processes, they need to feel the ownership and take responsibility for their process when the system goes live.

7.Always records all test results, issues, errors or problems.

8.Perform the routine processes of addressing the issue. Make sure any missed processes are recorded, validated and implemented.

9.Setup workshops/ training session where the business owners run them for all the internal users, try and keep this session very interactive and interesting, otherwise the end-users will see these are extra work rather than taking ownership. Refer to my post  - 13. Training vs Educating (Just Sayin>

10. The key now before GO LIVE, is to make sure all the  concerned parties have a clear idea of the areas integrated and the importance of doing their tasks correctly, no matter how good the integrated solution is if the users don’t know how to use it then this solution might not fly, so make sure the users know how to use the tools to make the delivery a success.

There you go , a high-level simple check-list of the 10 steps to help design& manage & deliver an integrated solution, all the best.

Skills that matter !!

I strongly believe it’s the mix and match of technical and personal skills that makes a consultant tick, keeping this in mind I have listed out some important personal skills that every consultant needs to be aware of, and most importantly practice!!

Interpersonal & Communication skills

• Remember consulting is 70% listening and 30 % talking. So listen more until you know exactly what the client wants and rephrase the same requirement to  get it confirmed from the clients before beginning to work on it, most importantly always have it in black and white.

• In any meeting give the customer the first 10 minutes of it, and if possible get others from the clients side involved in the initial discussions too, this gives you time to assess the situations your clients are in and identify the key players in the meeting, then you can begin to discuss your points with these key players.

• Keep it simple, simple and simple. Use jargon with your colleagues who understand and would praise the fact you know these, but avoid doing this with a customer who isn’t familiar with these jargons, speak the customer’s language.

• After your first interaction with a potential client on what your services or product is about, make sure to draft a document with most of the exact same words you used during the discussion and circulate it with him. This way there is a record of it and he could get back to it anytime he would like to. Always inform your clients to let you know if someone else is interested in your service so you could approach them directly, referrals most often than not, work well.

• Be truthful, period. If there is something you are not sure of, it's always fine to let the customer know that you will research on the matter and get back to him, and make 100% sure you do in the next 48 hours.

Keeping customers in mind

• A general rule that all consultants have to play with is that “Customers are king”, that’s fine cause they pay for the service or product, but a consultant should be able to question a clients assumption, ask "why not” questions if the clients assumption are vague!!

• Always rehearse the question in your mind before putting it across, it’s a combination of good questions and good confident answers that’s shows the consultants ability to understand the issue at hand.

• You must have the ability to say “No” sometimes in the best interest of the projects, however before making this call its always better to get another perspective on it and always be nice about it.

• Do something the customer would appreciate but didn’t ask for. There is fine line between doing this and doing too much, so make a realistic delivery plan before doing so and keep the client informed of the plan.

• Always consider the impact a decision in the project can have on the project environment, best way to do this is to keep other relevant parties informed as well when an important decision is made. No one likes to feel left out!!

Brand Image & Attitude

• As a consultant you are selling yourself together with the service and product. You are your own BRAND ambassador. Make sure you have everything set to make a good first impression, because like the saying goes 'there is never a second chance to make a good first impression'.

• Don’t make Promises you can’t keep, and if you can’t keep your promises…. don’t make excuses!!!

• If you have promised your customer you will deliver something against a deadline, make sure to send a reminder that you are working on it!! Clients like to know that someone is working on it rather than being left in the dark.

• As a consultant you’ll have a lot of challenges, just enjoy it and keep moving forward. Remember Murphy’s Law "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”, but remember it’s your reaction in the end that could determine the outcome of such a situation.

All the best.  Hope you liked that. Your comments, feedback and suggestions are welcome at ssurenlk@msn.com

13. Training vs educating (Just Saying…)

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that training a user is different to educating a user. Most often in an ERP implementation, a training on how to do stuff in the new system takes precedence over educating the user on why they’ve got to do that, this, in turn, leads to (in most cases) the users not understanding the overall process and they’ll not bother about what happens elsewhere, its human mentality after all. So, when training make sure you educate the users on the entire process rather than just showing them what to do in their area, give them a sense of ownership of the entire process, however there will always be those users who don’t want to do more, well that’s where a good consultant can make a world of difference. Remember, the chain is only as strong as its weakest link, if its weakest link breaks the whole purpose of the chain is lost, just saying….

What is S/4 HANA Finance ?

Given that I've been working on the latest version S/4 HANA Finance, I thought I'll share with you all some sneak peeks of the latest version without making it sound more complicated than it actually is.

SAP S/4 HANA Finance (formerly SAP Simple Finance) is a comprehensive finance solution based on SAP HANA. To keep it simple "SAP HANA" is an innovative in-memory data-platform where d application logic can be done within the in-memory engine (more on this topic can be found on SAP.com)

Now coming back to how S/4 HANA Finance came to be, SAP had decided to take the key components of the previous FI/CO suite and re code them to be able to harness the full advantage of running SAP FICO on a SAP HANA Database.

Initially, SAP Simple Finance (version 1.0) was released in 2014, then came SAP Simple Finance 2 in 2015. The version 1503 was followed by 1505, 1508, and 1511, the releases are versioned based on the year of release (first 2 numbers) and the month (last 2 numbers),

From September 2015 onwards the term SAP Simple Finance was made redundant and was renamed to "SAP S/4 HANA Finance".

S/4 HANA Finance has been designed to be easy to use, it can deliver instant insight for finance professionals. It enhances the current finance solution portfolio from SAP, preserving its functional strength while enabling no disruptive migration (more on how it does this is future posts).

SAP S/4 HANA Finance, on premise edition covers SAP Accounting powered by SAP HANA and SAP Cash Management powered by SAP HANA, and is complemented by SAP HANA Live content, SAP Fiori apps, and SAP Smart Business apps designed for SAP Simple Finance.

That is basically a wrap-up of what S/4 HANA Finance is.

Your questions , comments & suggestions are welcome at ssurenlk@msn.com.