Killer competition digitization

E-3 spoke with Hans-Gerd Schaal, Senior Director SAP Solutions Group EMEA, about the current state of development.

E-3: Mr. Schaal, what is your assessment of S/4?

Hans-Gerd Schaal: SAP has indeed hit the big time. For years, the market has wondered how to bring a product as complex and diversified as R/3 into the Internet age. S/4 Hana is the answer.

E-3: However, many existing SAP customers are still skeptical.

Schaal: That is very easy to understand in human terms. S/4 Hana changes almost everything. And change is scary. But fear is a bad advisor and leads to losing sight of the opportunities.

E-3: What are they?

Schaal: The megatrend is called digitization. Small start-ups are challenging industry icons and threatening to throw them out of the market. It's a fierce cutthroat competition.

Incumbents therefore need to become faster and more flexible, but they still carry a lot of legacy burdens.

E-3: Sounds like squaring the circle.

Schaal: No one is calling for a revolution; digitization is also an evolution, but one that needs to be tackled now. SAP's existing customers don't have to switch to S/4 Hana in one big step, but can do so in phases.

In addition, the new SAP generation offers all implementation options: public as well as private cloud, but also on premise.

E-3: So the question is not cloud or not cloud at all?

Schaal: This alternative is engineered. The future will be hybrid. The crucial thing about the new software world is its simplicity: at the infrastructure, process and user level. It is no coincidence that S/4 Hana and Fiori go hand in hand.

E-3: So you are following the SAP strategy?

Schaal: Yes, we do. Because the principles of simplicity and flexibility for customers, including end users, are right. We put it this way: Simplify Your Platform. Simplify Your Business. Simplify Your Digital Transformation.

E-3: What does that mean in concrete terms?

Schaal: We offer solutions in the SaaS model with consumption-based pricing in the manner of public cloud offerings. These include our Archive Center Cloud Edition (see page 50).

This is an encrypted archive in the cloud for SAP data and documents, for other files and e-mails, but also for content from repositories with CMIS support. Customers can use it immediately and operate it via a simple web interface.

E-3: Are these the only cloud solutions?

Schaal: Not at all. Our flagship product for SAP, Extended ECM, can also be run in the cloud, both in our own cloud infrastructure and on Microsoft Azure.

By the way, from April next year Extended ECM will also run on Hana, as is already the case with our archive today. Then there will be no additional database license fees.

Other examples would be our document management and collaboration tool in the cloud, called Core, or our invoice receipt solution VIM. By the way, this has received the highest qualification for interaction with Simple Finance.

This means that the data VIM reads from incoming invoices is 100 percent reliable. The automated SAP postings triggered as a result are correct.

E-3: So is the future all cloud after all?

Schaal: Not at all. Of course, our solutions are still available on premise or in a so-called private cloud, i.e. in our data centers and managed by us.

Example: Our digital personnel file is integrated with SAP's SuccessFactors. But it's always tricky to store particularly sensitive HR documents in a public cloud. With our solution, that doesn't have to be the case.

The functionality comes from the public cloud, the content resides in the enterprise or in the private cloud environment. This is how we simplify the effort that customers have to put into their platforms.

In addition, our solutions optimize business processes that are not always triggered by the SAP system.

E-3: What do you mean?

Schaal: One third of all SAP data in a company is generated by processes that originate outside the company. This data mainly comes from documents or EDI transmissions such as incoming orders or delivery confirmations.

Our Business Center for SAP Solutions solution (see page 47) reads the information contained in the documents correctly, fully automatically and thanks to self-learning mechanisms, and transfers it to SAP.

The solution can basically be used in all document processes, for example also in purchasing and human resources. And an SAP Fiori app is also included. This results in optimal, because largely automated, fast and flexible as well as user-friendly business processes.

E-3: That leaves "Simplify Your Digital Transformation."

Schaal: We support our customers with advice on their way to the digitized economy. Our special workshops are designed for this purpose (see page 51).

In a two-day seminar, we use eight criteria to analyze the digital maturity of a company. This is the basis for sounding out the possibilities for further development of the business model and possibly already concretizing them.

This then includes prioritized, very specific steps such as simplifying the platform and optimizing processes. Of course, we offer to repeat this procedure at regular intervals, developing a long-term project roadmap in the process.

E-3: Why don't companies go to product-independent consultants?

Schaal: Even if they don't know exactly what the new digital business model will look like, one thing is certain: the amount of unstructured information will explode as a result of digitization.

Just think of "proof" photos of products that will be printed out directly in retail stores in the future, or the further increase in self-service scenarios, whether in the store around the corner or at home on the computer.

In addition, companies are aware that information does not stop at the SAP system or at their own four walls. So they need process-oriented information management along the entire value chain, from the supplier's supplier to the end customer. They know that we can do this.

E-3: Do end customers play the central role in digitization?

Schaal: We are convinced of this. This applies to both end consumers and enterprise customers. But it also applies to end users in companies.

Digitization only succeeds if it is easy to use, works on any device, at any time, and is intuitive. That's why all of our SAP solutions are being converted to the new Fiori interface and we are successively making numerous functionalities of our SAP solutions available as SAP Fiori apps as well.

In this way, we ensure a consistent user experience, and the training effort is reduced accordingly. The underlying concept of a role-based display is very convenient for us here.

E-3: What do you mean?

Schaal: We have always applied the principle in our solutions that the user should only be shown the information that is relevant to him according to his role.

Anything superfluous or unauthorized is hidden. SAP takes the same approach with Fiori. You no longer need to know transaction codes to complete your own tasks, but are guided through the process with the help of tiles.

We supply the unstructured content and the knowledge of how this content relates to each other and to the SAP data.

E-3: ... to provide them in a situation- and user-specific manner.

Schaal: Exactly. That is the most important thing when automating processes. Humans always intervene at some point, but they must not waste their time first gathering everything they need.

Companies need to think in terms of end customer expectations. After all, we all want personalized information, but not advertising and customer targeting on a scattergun basis.

E-3: Is personalization another building block of digitization?

Schaal: A very essential one, in fact. Take Hybris as an example. The focus here is on providing customer-specific information. But this is only possible if all the necessary assets are managed properly, including the trademark rights, by the way.

In which market can I show which video, use which logo? It's no wonder that our digital asset management in Hybris is the preferred solution for this.

Again, the functionality can be sourced from the cloud if desired, but the assets remain under corporate control.

E-3: So all speed ahead into the digital economy?

Schaal: Yes, but don't rush into it. After all, digitization is not an end in itself. Digital business models must also be sustainable. But companies need not be afraid of it.

The transition will be gradual, uniting the old and the new. No one will be forced to do anything. We accompany the companies on their own path to digitization.

E-3: Mr. Schaal, thank you very much for the interview.