sovanta AG, our esteemed partner, plays a crucial role in our collaborative efforts. Join us for an engaging interview with sovanta, where they will shed light on empowering customers through innovative SAP Build portfolios. Be prepared to be inspired as Christian Heinrich, Executive Board Member, and Lisa Keller, Senior Project Manager at sovanta, share their valuable insights!
SAP has recently launched Enterprise Automation with SAP; how do you perceive its importance in the context of your customers' journey?
Process Automation is certainly one of the most important topics for our customers now. On the one hand, it is a topic with extremely high potential. Every customer can name off the top of their head a multitude of processes within their company or their department where there is potential for improvement. And all the customers we talk to quickly realize that SAP Build Process Automation can help them with exactly those challenges. On the other hand, the topic is an excellent opportunity to get started with BTP. Many of our customers have used it to gain initial experience with the platform and the cloud and have ventured into other topics from there.
What are the biggest issues your customers are facing now?
We have many clients that we are privileged to serve on BTP. Some are already well advanced on their BTP journey, while others have just started their journey. We repeatedly hear similar challenges from customers who are still very new to BTP. On the one hand, they wonder how best to get started on BTP. On the other hand, they don't know which expertise they need to get started or they simply do not have the resources available to get active on BTP. Many companies have a lot of expertise with traditional SAP, but do not yet have enough employees with expertise in BTP. In my view, SAP Build can be an important pillar in answering these challenges, as many of the tools offer a quick and lightweight introduction and employees have a steep learning curve.
How do you consider low code generally at sovanta?
The topic of low code plays a decisive role for us. As a member of the AppHaus Network, we have been pursuing the human-centered approach to innovation for years, in which close coordination with end users and their involvement in IT projects is of crucial importance. Up to now, we have relied heavily on visual prototypes for coordination with users. Low Code offers us completely new opportunities to involve business users even more closely in projects. Not only do we get results even faster, but we also increase commitment, because it's always different when you've worked on a solution yourself.
In addition, the issue of speed cannot be overestimated. On the one hand, low code gives us the opportunity to integrate other user groups into the solution creation process and thus scale it differently, and on the other hand, we are increasingly able to convince pro developers of the advantages of low code and thus make their work even more efficient. Low Code is a great addition to the toolbox for developers.
How did you start with SAP Build?
We started a lot of activities before the actual announcement of SAP Build. We worked actively with customers in SAP Work Zone and SAP Workflow Management, and we tried SAP Build Apps for internal solutions.
What is SAP Build for in your portfolio?
We have integrated the entire SAP Build portfolio into our sovanta portfolio. Because in the end, for us it is always about improving the user experience. SAP Build is an excellent tool for this. We help customers to implement employee or customer portals based on SAP Build Work Zone. We modernize and improve processes for our customers with the help of SAP Build Process Automation and we help to implement extensions based on SAP Build Apps. Of course, SAP Build Apps cannot support all our extension projects, for many of them we continue to rely on the established Pro Code support such as SAP CAP or SAP Fiori (Elements). But where it makes sense, we have had good experience of working in "fusion teams" with the citizen developers on the customer side. We have developed a special solution for this called "SAP Build Apps Bootcamp" in which we realize a solution together with business experts on the customer side in just three weeks. The customer does the actual low-code work, and we provide support with UX design, integration, and expert consultations.
Can you share an example on how SAP Build Process Automation helped in a customer project?
We all must admit, paper-based processes are still around a lot. While those scenarios might not be the shiniest ones, they are the ones with a lot of potential and clear business cases. One of our customers from the real estate management sector has really taken a liking to process automation and we have already been able to improve several processes together with them. One of these processes involved a classic of process automation - approvals. Investments as part of renovation work must be checked and approved by several people. However, the associated documents can sometimes fill several folders. Instead of carrying these across the company as before, the process can now be mapped completely digitally thanks to process automation.
Can you share an example on how SAP Build Apps helped in a customer project?
If it's ok, I'd like to use a sovanta internal example here. This example shows very well the challenges that SAP Build Apps can help with. It involved the implementation of a solution within our Innovation Factory. We wanted to provide employees with all relevant information and assets from our Innovation Factory in one central location. However, sometimes it is difficult to find the right experts for a new internal topic even within a software company at short notice, especially when everyone is heavily involved in customer projects. So, we thought, let's just try it out ourselves based on SAP Build Apps. And I have to say, it worked very well. Sometimes SAP Build Apps simply opens new possibilities for tackling projects quickly, even when resources are scarce.
Can you share an example on how SAP Build Work Zone helped in a customer project?
SAP Build Work Zone is great whenever you have processes span multiple systems. Having relevant data sitting in separated systems can lead to scenarios where there is a lot of room for improvement. This was also the case within a project we realized together with one of our customers in the retail field. Within one of their core processes the customers employees had to touch multiple systems to get their jobs done. By using SAP Build Work Zone for a central cockpit, we now allow the users to have all relevant information at hand and to trigger all needed steps for the process from one central cockpit.
How do you plan to use SAP Build in the future?
For us SAP Build Process Automation and SAP Build Work Zone are really a no brainer. They are well established within our portfolio; our experts know how to handle it and are always up to date when it comes to new features.
For SAP Build Apps we are currently figuring out how we can further support the decision process. A lot of customers ask us about parameters that indicate whether a planned solution should be realized by Low Code or by Pro Code. Whereas we worked out a set of criteria to support that decision there is still the need to give even better guidance, maybe by introducing a clear decision tree.
In addition, we are really interested in getting our hands dirty with SAP Build Code, how GenAI and Low Code can be integrated into the everyday work lives of our Developers.
Could you kindly provide insights into your methodology and activities for assisting customers in migrating from SAP Intelligent RPA and SAP Workflow Management to SAP Build Process Automation?
It is possible to make processes easily available in the ‘new world’ via the appropriate APIs. However, we recommend using the moment to challenge and improve the process and remodel it with the SAP Build artifacts - this way customers benefit from the advantages of Low Code.
We want to give a big thank you to Christian and Lisa for taking the time to join us in the interview. Their commitment to connecting with customers through SAP Build solutions is truly impressive. We appreciate their efforts and can't wait to work with them in the future.
Additionally, SAP Build has organized an insightful interview with Maria Woydich, Senior Software Engineer, and Christian Bernhardt, Senior Project Manager, both from sovanta. Don't miss out on their fantastic insights:
▶️Learn more about sovanta’s SAP Build solutions: https://sovanta.com/en/simplify-it/process-automation/
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