From my education I am a computer scientist. I studied at the Vienna University of Technology. Thus, the statement "ERP is dead" is to be understood from an information technology perspective. It is an analytical realization without a valuation of specific products. Maybe it is a paradigm shift?
Enterprise Resource Planning - colloquially translated: the holistic management of operating resources. It can therefore only be one aspect of the bigger picture of "digital transformation". Doing without a business warehouse, predictive analytics, machine learning, blockchain, IoT would be foolish. On-prem, virtualization and cloud operating models have and will continue to have their place. But cohesion, i.e. cybernetics, is no longer the ERP of an R/3 system, but an enterprise operating system that reacts in real time - an enterprise RTOS.
Cybernetics, the helmsman's art from antiquity, is the model for an enterprise operating system. The theme is harmonization and orchestration. All IT solutions and apps must be connected. The enterprise operating system is a connected platform for the applications and SW modules. The experience and success of Hana teaches us that it must be a platform that responds in real time - hence the desire for Enterprise Realtime Operating System.
Ex-SAP Chief Technology Officer Vishal Sikka had this perspective when he announced from the Sapphire stage: Realtime Enterprise. He recognized the need to respond in real time. In a 24×7 hour world, there is little time for analysis. The first step at SAP was the Hana database platform. It allows deep and comprehensive analytics to be completed in a fraction of the time (compared to traditional databases). The path was the right one. Meanwhile, almost all database vendors offer similar concepts to dramatically reduce response times. SAP executives, according to Vishal Sikka, did not understand the real-time concept of Hana. Instead of building on the Hana database platform to replace the outdated ERP and turning Hana into a real-time operating system for the enterprise, SAP got bogged down in cloud computing.
But the idea of an enterprise operating system is not lost. The former SAP partner Celonis from Munich is building this operating system platform for digital transformation together with partnerships to IBM and currently to ServiceNow. The important real-time component is still missing - here would be an opportunity for SAP: Hana becomes an enterprise RTOS!
Global supply chains or life-threatening pandemics can only be controlled if the instructions for action are on the table immediately, i.e. in real time. What to do when the chips run out at the car factory, when the container ship gets stuck in the Suez Canal? Colorful user interfaces should have the others. Inexpensive cloud storage is beneficial. Business process analysis and repair can save resources. But we will survive only if we find real-time, verified answers to the problems at hand. We agree that the carbon footprint needs to be reduced. But only Fridays for Future is right, because this group demands that it must happen now, immediately now - in real time!
The computer scientist speaks of real-time when the answer to a problem is guaranteed to be available at the moment when the answer is solution-relevant and necessary, because everyone else always knows better after the fact. The Enterprise Realtime Operating System provides answers in the time of greatest need, when solutions become critical to survival.
ERP and, by its very nature, S/4 are dead. Those who are already running Hana and S/4 operationally have done nothing wrong, because S/4 is a worthy successor to ERP/ECC 6.0. However, migrating to S/4 in the coming years under the given circumstances and challenges would be negligent. S/4 is a very good ERP system. But all ERP systems are no longer capable of providing the answers needed for a successful digital transformation. Digital transformation needs an enterprise RTOS, Realtime Operating System.
The enterprise operating system is the new ERP. Alexander Rinke, Co-CEO of Celonis, and ex-SAP CEO Bill McDermott outlined such a platform as the ERP successor on the occasion of the new partnership of Celonis and ServiceNow. -Alexander Rinke also reinforced this strategy through the other Celonis partnerships, for example with IBM. What is obviously still missing in the considerations of Celonis, IBM and ServiceNow is the comprehensive real-time claim, which Vishal Sikka has repeatedly demonstrated impressively through numerous Hana Proof of Concepts.
Enterprise Realtime Operating System, RTOS, is becoming the new ERP, making concepts like the Intelligent Enterprise obsolete, because an enterprise operating system is by definition the platform for IoT, Machine Learning, Analytics, Sustainability, Blockchain, Financials and all other enterprise functions. The goal is to sustainably manage the valuable resources and operating assets of our world in real time.
