Blog 2: The role of Business Technology Platform as an extension and innovation platform - Background Interview
I interviewed my colleague Pinaki Ray @pinakiray from SAP to get some more background information.
Timothy Kaufmann: What does get you excited about SAP BTP?
Pinaki Ray: SAP BTP represents a paradigm shift in enterprise transformation. SAP BTP is home to a ton of innovation services, which allows business and IT to jointly push modernization, innovations and intelligence into their business processes in a rapid fashion. The most important aspect in my view is, users can now use information which is relevant to them and take actions. That’s empowering the user and their role, and ultimately the enterprise.
Timothy Kaufmann: In your opinions, which type of extensions would you recommend to develop on BTP?
Pinaki Ray: I will recommend fast, agile, and modular extensions to my customers. This can be done in two modes. First mode: use SAP BUILD to develop extensions rapidly, alongside your core applications. With BUILD, I can automate processes, build intuitive apps with AI services and make them available on any device of choice for the users. The second mode: CAP based extensions, to build complex applications extensions with integrations. CAP based extensions are preferred by developers for rather complex scenarios.
Timothy Kaufmann: Why is the BTP relevant to drive innovations and for which type of use cases?
Pinaki Ray: There is a multitude of use cases that come to my mind to drive innovations. Smart mobile apps, single point of entry for users to deal with SAP applications and functions, embedding analytics stories into user dashboards for timely actions, enterprise integrations and automations, making SAP application more intuitive using Gen AI. All these use cases are tangible and will bring value to our customers.
Timothy Kaufmann: Why should every customer be enthusiastic about the BTP?
Pinaki Ray: Traditional development methods are time consuming, that’s the reality. Plus the availability of skills is an issue our customers face. BTP is an industry standard environment, where simplification, modernization, and innovation are key. It encompasses cloud solutions that brings newer and faster ways to deliver value to business.
Timothy Kaufmann: Which functionality do you like most on SAP BTP?
Pinaki Ray: I personally like the idea of automating processes, injecting machine learning and orchestrating workflows across systems with dedicated user prompts. This has clear benefits in gaining efficiency and reducing costs in the process.
The other important aspect for me is BTP makes SAP core solutions upgrade-proof. New innovations can be turned on quickly, if required you can de-commission use cases no longer required, and I reuse BTP resources for new and urgent scenarios. That’s agility.
Timothy Kaufmann: Do you have examples of what customers have done with SAP BTP?
Pinaki Ray: Customers have built interesting extensions on BTP. One client has implemented Service Cloud, and identified a feature gap whereby service technicians could be directly entered in the service order by presenting the user with a list of technicians. The client extended Service Cloud application using CAP and leveraged Integration Suite content to integrate with Field Service Management. The time to complete a service order is reduced from more than 12 mins to less than 2 mins. Huge productivity gain with no manual errors anymore.
Another customer in the process industry has used AI to understand notifications resulting from factory issues, Gen AI is employed to find previous orders based on similar notifications and generate a list of work order activities, and components to be sent to the planner. This greatly reduces the time consumed to generate work orders.
Another interesting use case developed by an Oil and Gas customer provided analytics on mobile applications via dashboards to enable oil containers make spot deals, thereby increasing profitability on their trades. As you can see, there are a multitude of use cases which we can build on BTP, using data, analytics, integration and automation capabilities.
Timothy Kaufmann: When you get asked by our customers what they should develop on SAP BTP and what on Hyperscaler platforms, what is your answer?
Pinaki Ray: SAP BTP is available on all Hyperscaler platforms. We understand the benefits of the scale, and customers now understand the business centricity of BTP in the SAP context. The symbiotic value is unparalleled. SAP BTP is an open platform, which means we can apply industry standard technology provided by Hyperscalers, be it machine learning algorithms or bot technology, and combine that data with SAP data to provide business semantics and actions to users. An example that I can cite is IoT based projects, where customers can rely on connectivity solutions and data from sensors provided by Hyperscalers, and SAP can take on the responsibility of interpreting that data and execute business processes and necessary workflows across SAP and non-SAP solutions.
Additional Blogs of the Blog Series:
- Blog 1: The Central Role of Clean Core and AI: 10+ ways to reshape your SAP landscape with SAP Bu... - SAP Community
- Blog 2: The Role of BTP as Extension and Innovation Platform: 10+ ways to reshape your SAP landscape with SAP Bu... - SAP Community
- Blog 3:How SAP Clean Core Strategy can accelerate your Transformation SAP Clean Core Strategy: The Key to Business Transformation
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