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10+ ways to reshape your SAP landscape with SAP BTP - Blog 7 Interview

Tim_Kaufmann
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
2 weeks ago
0 Kudos

Blog 7: The Role of Automation for Transformation - The background Interview

Interview_Philip_Blog.png

 

My colleague Philipp Zaltenbach posted an inspiring blog last week and we had a background interview for more information.

Timothy Kaufmann: Philipp, why are you so enthusiastic about Automation with SAP?

Philipp Zaltenbach:There are especially two aspects that I want to highlight. First is versatility. I really like that automation technologies can be applied to such a broad range of scenarios. We have customers that use our technologies for simple approval workflows. These may differ from one Line-of-Business to the other. On the other hand, we have customers such as Lufthansa Technik who use it for complex automation scenarios that touch a lot of applications, both SAP and Non-SAP. The second point is ease-of-use. Many customers who experience our offering in a hands-on workshop are impressed at how quick they can build something without having had extensive training beforehand.

 

Timothy Kaufmann: Where do you see the USP for SAP?

Philipp Zaltenbach: In my view there are three points that I would stress. First, we have a unified end-2-end offering that can be applied in a modular fashion. This is really unique, given the range of capabilities overall. Second, we have built a lot of pre-built content, such as integration packages, workflows or RPA bots, that can serve as a starting point and avoid reinventing the wheel. Third, the tight and robust integration into our SAP application landscape, be it an S/4HANA system, or an LoB application such as SuccessFactors.

 

Timothy Kaufmann: How do you see the role of Automation for Clean Core?

Philipp Zaltenbach: As I have shared in my blog article, our Enterprise Automation offering can play an important role in Clean Core initiatives and related ERP modernization projects. It can help both before the move – to analyze, clean-up and streamline processes – but also after the move, to help with continuous process optimization.

 

Timothy Kaufmann: How do you see the potential of AI for Automation?

Philipp Zaltenbach: With the advent of GenAI we see a massive opportunity for automation. Many customers still have scenarios that require working with unstructured documents such as PDF files. Here our embedded AI services can provide drastic benefits for automated document extraction and processing. On the other hand, we also strive to make the development process even more accessible and simpler by using GenAI based assistance. Users will then be able to talk to the system in natural language and with that they can create entire process automations from scratch.

 

Timothy Kaufmann: Where do you see the difference between Workflow and Automation?

Automation is a very large area that covers many topics, for example integration, RPA-tools or workflow engines just to name a few. Hence, workflow can be considered as a sub-topic of automation. So workflow can be part of an overall automation that is made of different building blocks, comprising e.g. workflow elements (such as approval forms and business rules), as well as RPA elements (such as bots for UI automation of an application).

 

Timothy Kaufmann: When you talk to companies about Automation, where do you see the biggest challenges?

Philipp Zaltenbach: The challenges vary from customer to customer. Some customers struggle with where to start and which use cases to tackle. For that we can offer workshops with SAP Consulting or partners to identify the most promising areas and scenarios. Also customers often look for how to get familiar with our products. Here, we have self-guided, interactive learning journeys (e.g. the one for SAP Build) as well as hands-on workshops as a starting point.

If you want to read all blogs:

 

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