How SAP BTP Is Powering Sustainable Digital Transformation
Features and Benefits of the SAP Business Technology Platform
Digital Transformation remains a hot topic. In PwC's 2022 Pulse survey, 60% of executives surveyed said Digital Transformation was their most important growth driver for 2022. Yet it is not always clear precisely what we mean by Digital Transformation or what success looks like. As Gartner puts it, "Digital Transformation can refer to anything from IT modernization […], to digital optimization, to the invention of new digital business models".
Ambitious Digital Transformation programs do not consistently deliver what they promise. George Westerman of MIT pointed out, "when Digital Transformation is done right, it's like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, but when done wrong, all you have is a really fast caterpillar". Zippia.com reports a success rate for Digital Transformations of below 30%. Pragmatically, it is worth considering Digital Transformation as anything that improves the business by harnessing digital capabilities. Transformation can deliver benefits at any scale, from automating a single 'swivel chair' business process to moving a retail operation online.
Successful Digital Transformation is about understanding what the business is looking to achieve, identifying the digital capabilities that will help it get there, and having a platform that enables those capabilities to be integrated and deployed effectively. The SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) delivers these capabilities, bringing together application development, integration, data and analytics, and AI in a single, flexible platform that empowers the enterprise to re-engineer or create new business processes and continually innovate and transform to meet its goals.
What Does SAP BTP Offer?
SAP BTP provides an open, flexible platform for enterprises to extend and integrate their SAP and third-party solution landscapes to meet changing business needs and to keep pace with the rapidly evolving technological world. It brings together four key Digital Transformation technologies:
Application Development
Effective Digital Transformation depends on rapid, flexible application development. A Mckinsey study of over 400 companies found a clear link between accelerating software innovation and performance. Companies that can innovate faster showed 60% higher total shareholder returns and 20% higher operating margins.
As well as a complete Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for applications to be built from scratch or templates, SAP BTP provides a unified Low-Code/No-Code (LCNC) offering for IT and business developers. This enables rapid application creation, leveraging business expertise to transform business processes and accelerate time to value. Add-ons can be developed and implemented rapidly to improve the quality and speed of the supply chains without having to change the core system.
Integration
SAP BTP delivers the capability to integrate SAP and third-party applications on-premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid model while securely connecting applications, processes, and people. This includes API management, support for business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-government (B2G) integration, data integration, including event-based and Internet of Things (IoT) support, and process integration. It offers ready-built content, including integration packs, APIs, and connectors, along with continuous access to best-practices via pre-packaged SAP business content and an AI-powered Content Advisor to speed integration development and lower on-going support costs.
Data & Analytics
Clive Humby’s oft-quoted saying “data is the new oil” resonates partly because, just as oil is worthless until it is refined and turned into usable products, data must be organized, contextualized, managed, analyzed, and turned into insights to create value.
SAP BTP provides a broad range of data management and analytics capabilities, enabling the enterprise to integrate, store, catalog, prepare, model, and share data, both inside and outside the company. It offers an aligned data model that connects previously siloed data across the end-to-end business process, along with powerful database, data management, data warehousing, analytics, and planning capabilities.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI-powered solutions are starting to transform how we live and work with their ability to apply intelligence to a vast range of data to optimize processes, maximize resource efficiencies, and drive innovation.
SAP BTP’s pre-built AI models enable self-learning programs and intelligent business processes, helping enterprises realize sustainable Digital Transformation.
SAP BTP, Digital Supply Chains and the Sustainable Enterprise
A 2022 Forbes article, “Industry 4.0 and the Future of Supply Chains,” highlights the importance of the digital supply chain to “a fourth industrial revolution, a.k.a. Industry 4.0. Some central themes are digitalization and connectivity—capturing, sharing, and applying data across the physical and digital realms.”
SAP BTP’s open architecture and integration capabilities enable intelligent systems and real-time analytics, including predictive data from the Internet of Things (IoT), to be shared and deployed across enterprises, optimizing processes throughout the supply chain. The aligned data model, powerful analytics, and intelligent systems enabled by SAP BTP play a critical role in the sustainable enterprise by creating the foundation for robust, effective future planning. For example, it makes it possible to analyze how sales will grow during some peak times for specific items, so the business can work on placing the product in a different location in the warehouse, thus minimizing the routes to be walked.
Understanding, tracking, and reporting progress against sustainability goals requires the assimilation and analysis of a wide range of data from within and outside the organization to create actionable insights. SAP BTP’s data and analytics capabilities deliver this, while its application development, integration, and AI functions enable those insights to be enacted quickly and effectively.
Arvato Systems offer extensive IT expertise, a high level of technical understanding, strong industry knowledge, and a pedigree of demonstrating partnership in action. At the time of publication, we are one of only three companies worldwide to be SAP-certified for outsourcing partners in SAP Business Technology Platform operations. This combination positions us uniquely to support our clients in deploying SAP BTP to deliver maximum business benefit.
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