Hour of the specialists

A key success factor of SAP R/3 and later ERP ECC is that SAP created mechanisms for integrating systems, data or business partners at an early stage. One example is the connection of external partners via third-party systems using tRFC and IDocs as interface technology.

Over decades, SAP users have used it to build up an immense number of process integrations. This is now proving to be a somewhat difficult legacy for the migration: S/4 must be able to integrate all systems and processes that have been coupled with ERP ECC over the years right from the start. Project experience with S/4 migrations and new implementations has shown that without early involvement of integration specialists, the planned go-live runs into trouble.

Over time, a number of systems specialists have taken on the topic of "SAP integration" and offer partner solutions and consulting services for SAP customers, such as SAP partner Seeburger. They are guarantors of S/4 project success, as they reduce the number one technical project risk. 

SAP has a duty to its customers to provide integrated business processes based on its products and cloud services. And it has committed to doing so for four core business processes. The integration of third-party products from other manufacturers is understandably not a direct focus for SAP.

No one should expect Walldorf, for example, to deliver the best Salesforce, Workday or Coupa integration - and thus make it as easy as possible to use competitor products. One dilemma - as SAP itself says - is that a large proportion of integrations are driven by external system requirements. 

SAP has its eyes on SAP first

In particular, the success of SAP alternatives in the area of cloud-based business
applications means that IT landscapes are increasingly penetrated by non-SAP systems. In order to retain this freedom to select providers in the long term - also from a technical perspective - many SAP users are now looking for vendor-independent and powerful platform providers when it comes to integration. 

Specialists often offer decades of experience, in-depth know-how and partnerships with non-SAP manufacturers. In addition, some providers have configurable application and system connectors and ready-to-use interface mappings in their solution portfolio.

This ensures rapid implementation success in the project and reduces risks based on inexperience. Integration providers enable their customers to carry out very demanding integration projects with a very large number of business partners and third-party systems in a short time, without the customers having to build up expertise themselves or maintain scarce developer capacities. 

Nevertheless, with S/4HANA, SAP has managed to hold on to a key quality of SAP ECC: the fundamental openness of the system by providing sophisticated interface technology. Thus, there is no technical risk on the part of SAP for integration platforms that do not come from Walldorf. 

Solution offerings and content 

In view of the multi-cloud phenomenon, market observers such as Gartner recommend so-called hybrid integration platforms (HIP), which can be used both on-premises, as a cloud-based solution or in a hybrid manner, depending on the customer's individual and functional requirements.

Seeburger's Business Integration Server (BIS) solution platform meets these functional and non-functional requirements. In fact, Seeburger's approach goes far beyond that: Instead of just offering "technology" for A2A, B2B, API, IoT, Secure File Transfer and other integration requirements, Seeburger provides content, services and integration-as-a-service.

It is important to know that the mappings between SAP systems and trading partners, for example in connection with EDI or IDocs, do not have to be rebuilt each time. 

Seeburger customers can access a variety of ready-to-use interface mappings of a mapping repository, large enterprises as well as medium-sized companies from many industries. From the automotive industry, from trade or from the energy industry.

Seeburger provides over 15,000 such plug&play partner mappings, with variants even many times more. This is made possible by a double conversion with a canonical master format.

This means that the wheel does not have to be reinvented again and again, but existing definitions and mechanisms can be used with greatly reduced effort. This content, coupled with demand-oriented services, significantly minimizes the time factor in the implementation of integration topics and thus also the costs.

Hard and soft factors

To illustrate the point, here's a practical analogy: if you order a pizza from a delivery service and want to enjoy it, you're unlikely to be interested in which pizza oven is used, how long it takes to heat up, or how many pizzas it can produce in an hour.

What counts are hard and soft factors for a pleasant enjoyment experience and thus for the expected and agreed service. The situation is similar with Seeburger Cloud Integration Services. Here, the focus is not on the solution (pizza oven), but on service orientation (based on a service catalog with corresponding SLAs).

For example, availability, feedback capability, quality of employees, communication, or even empathic skills to address individual needs. In addition, the long-standing SAP partner offers cloud services in the sense of one-stop shopping from the areas of consulting, support, operation and security.

Thus, the solutions offered by Seeburger Services turn out to be an elementary project accelerator for S/4HANA projects: Outsourcing non-differentiating but necessary integration requirements to a specialist creates the freedom to focus own resources on the essentials in the project context. Also for SAP consulting firms.