Self-extinction: SAP Data Hub

Imagine an IT architecture where compatibility, interoperability, compliance and data quality are solved, where borderless, comprehensive Master Data Management exists.

You can add any app, cloud, IoT and blockchain and still have consolidated and verified data quality. You mix SAP, IBM, Salesforce, SAS, Microsoft and Oracle and still you have consolidated and verified data quality. And so on.

Dream or reality?

After a presentation by Franz Färber, SAP EVP Products and Innovation Big Data, I believe this happy data world can become a reality. With SAP's Data Hub, Franz Färber has created a universal architecture and operational infrastructure for every data application imaginable: Data Visibility, Quality, Innovation, Cost and Compliance.

In this context, SAP's existing customer BASF spoke of "SAP Data Hub has the potential to become SAP's next game changer". As gratifying as this innovation is for the SAP community - there are two sides to every thing - it begs the question: Can this new universality of sustainable master data management also be good for SAP itself?

SAP Data Hub makes it even easier and simpler for existing customers to integrate third-party applications into their R/3, ERP/ECC 6.0, or S/4 landscape.

Whether applications from IBM, Salesforce, Microsoft, SAS, Siemens or Bosch - everything is possible and the "golden record" remains. The SAP Data Hub will be the central clearing house for existing customers, who will enjoy a whole new level of freedom in their choice of apps.

By its very nature, no existing SAP customer will abandon and replace its established core system, SAP Financials and HR/HCM. But consistent end-to-end scenarios starting with an Adobe Magento online store, Salesforce CRM, demand-driven SCM (see cover story on page 42), IoT from Siemens, and billing via SAP Simple Finance are thus not only conceivable, but extremely realistic based on the SAP Data Hub!

SAP has only one possibility to defend itself against this new IT freedom: indirect use! If SAP maintains the sword of Damocles "indirect use" despite antitrust law and the EU Software Directive, Adobe, Salesforce, SAS and many others will be excluded from an E2E process - but then there will be no need for an SAP Data Hub.

SAP's innovation is therefore a double-edged sword: It solves the MDM problem and activates "indirect use". If SAP forgoes the "indirect use" license construct, it forgoes a lot of revenue - but certainly promotes acceptance of the Data Hub.

With the SAP Data Hub, all IT players are back at the table together, even though SAP previously wanted to push Oracle, Microsoft and IBM out of the ERP realm with its Hana database.

All in all, the Data Hub runs between the legs of the current SAP strategy and brings it down. With the Data Hub, SAP risks self-destruction of the C/4 and S/4 initiatives that have only just begun.

The E2E scenario of CRM (C/4) and ERP (S/4) presented at Sapphire collapses like a house of cards when the individual process steps can also be occupied by third-party providers - based on the Data Hub.

The trend is moving away from centralized monolithic software solutions, which have dominated in the past, toward networked digital platforms, according to the core thesis of the position paper "Digital Platforms and ERP" published by the digital association Bitkom in the run-up to Cebit 2018.

The future belongs to modular ERP solutions and the new networked, digital platform in the SAP community is the Data Hub. And Bitkom analyzes logically: In digital platforms, applications from third parties can be integrated and at the same time they offer developers the possibility to integrate their own solutions.

In the future, digital platforms will give customers previously unknown freedom in selecting providers and developers the chance to be represented on several platforms. (End of quote, source: bit-kom.org/Bitkom/Publications/Digital-Platforms-and-ERP.html)

Will we see a new ERP spring in the World Cup summer? At the moment, it's hard to imagine SAP CEO Bill McDermott letting go of the reins so lightly and allowing his revenue drivers to self-extinguish - but SAP Data Hub has the potential to bring a new freedom of choice to the IT community. And as we all know, fewer and fewer existing customers are opting for on-premise SAP applications and cloud computing.