Blog co-authored by Michael Ameling, Philipp Herzig, and Stephan Hetzer
SAP TechEd 2022 in Las Vegas made a strong re-entry last week and the Opening Keynote by Jürgen Müller and the Business Application Keynote by Thomas Saueressig were packed with lots of great announcements, also in the integration space.
Here’s three key takeaway that you should know:
|  | A recent survey by the Enterprise Strategy Group found that 96% of the CIO offices identified the need for enterprise integration. 83% of the CIO offices see improving enterprise integration as a top 5 business priority for the next 12 to 24 months. |
But let’s take one step back…
The harmonization and integration of the various SAP cloud applications across our entire portfolio has become a major focus at SAP in recent years. Pre-integrated SAP solutions along the core processes of every company help our customers to fully unfold the potential of an intelligent and sustainable company. Because data-driven insights across all business processes enable better business decisions.
With our two customers Henkel and Frosta, we demonstrate how our integration processes can drive digital transformation and help our customers improve their business processes:
- Henkel AG & Co. KGaA was able to automate 100% of the ordering process by using our integrated SAP Ariba solutions and the SAP Business Technology platform, since all supplier and purchasing processes are now handled on a consolidated platform that brings together buyers, suppliers, and shared service centers.
- FRoSta AG leverages our integrated SAP SuccessFactors HR solutions to streamline their HR processes from job application to digital learning, earning the trust and support of all employees for their digital transformation into a green and sustainable company. In addition, FRoSta AG relies on access to information and the ability to interact with systems and data at any time and from anywhere. To achieve this, FRoSta AG introduced SAP Mobile Start, a central mobile entry point to access standard and custom SAP Fiori apps as well as various third-party software, and the integrated SAP Task Center for a seamless and integrated user experience across for workflow approvals across multiple applications.
| | Check out the updated SAP Integration Strategy Paper to learn about the most recent integration highlights, and how businesses can take advantage of SAP’s integrated Line of Business applications that are based on the SAP Business Technology Platform. The updated SAP TechEd version now includes compelling Artificial Intelligence integration scenarios, latest process and Suite Qualities innovations, and much more… |  |
Integration is a continuum. Expanding and further simplifying the integration experience across our solutions is and will of course remain one of the core topics for us at SAP.
Over the past three years we have invested heavily in the following integration topics and have laid a strong integration foundation:
- Unified user experience and user interfaces
- At SAP TechEd we just announced SAP Start, the new central web-native entry point into the intelligent enterprise, provided by SAP free of charge and out-of-the-box with all SAP cloud business solutions. This new standard offering provides the most relevant business information in one central place, based on the user’s role, and federated from all connected SAP cloud business solutions. The offering enables easy search and navigation to SAP cloud business apps, as well visibility into the status of tasks from the connected business solutions. SAP Start is in beta and will be generally available in Q1 2023. The offering corresponds to the already available mobile-native SAP Mobile Start app.
- With SAP Task Center, we provide a unified inbox for approvals across multiple applications with a seamless and integrated user experience
Approval items from multiple SAP solutions are gathered in one list and are ready to be processed in just one click. This SAP BTP service was first launched at last years’ TechEd and by now integrates into all major SAP applications. Latest application integrations, for example, include SAP Ariba Sourcing, SAP Ariba Buying, and SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition and SAP Build Process Automation, for a central view of our customers entire workflow management. - We introduced a mobile experience strategy that, for the first time, focuses on how we get the power of SAP onto customers’ devices: more holistically than ever before. Apps from SAP Mobile Start to the newly introduced SAP Warehouse Operator and SAP Direct Distribution now convey a suite feeling with the fresh SAP Fiori “Horizon” design. The recent release of SAP Mobile Start for Android underlines that SAP's Mobile Experience is here to change the way people work with SAP across devices. For example, getting the latest workflow notifications anywhere and approving items becomes radically simpler and quicker with added SAP Task Center features that bundle requests from several systems in SAP Mobile Start, on any device.
- Improved quality of documentation and predefined integration content
- The SAP API Business Hub now stores 23 end-to-end process documentations for the leading processes of any intelligent enterprise (Lead to Cash, Recruit to Retire, Source to Pay and Design to Operate) for cloud and hybrid deployment.
- Moreover, you can now access around 3,400 APIs on SAP API Business Hub and 2600 pre-packaged integration flows - for both numbers that’s around 20% plus as compared to SAP TechEd last year! Predefined integration content can be used for SAP-to-SAP, SAP-to-non-SAP, cloud, and on-premise integration. More than 90% of our public APIs are now documented in the API Business Hub and can be tested there.
- Openness and interfaces for the integration of hybrid landscapes and third-party applications
- Complementing the expansion of the SAP API Business Hub as a content hub for integration with third-party providers and on-premise solutions, the SAP Integration Suite is also being continuously developed as SAP's versatile integration platform. Using this platform SAP customers have deployed half a million integration flows and 170K connections across SAP and third-party applications in their landscapes. SAP Integration Suite has been recognized as a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for EiPaaS solutions for the second year. Adapters and integration scenarios for third-party solutions are continuously expanded by the partners of the so-called Integration Factory, and integration scenarios are also made available as community content.
- Hybrid landscapes will also be optimally supported in the future: "Edge Integration Cell" (beta) is the hybrid deployment option for the next-generation, lightweight runtime of SAP Integration Suite. The general availability of Edge Integration Cell is planned for 2023 and this will enable SAP Process Orchestration customers to switch to the hybrid integration suite. And at the same time, you can modernize your integration landscape by using more modern integration styles and patterns, such as event-driven integrations and API-led integrations. We are offering free assessment and migration tools to support our customers’ move from SAP Process Orchestration to SAP Integration Suite. You can find this and more information around how to migrate on-prem SAP technology to the cloud all in one place on sap.com.
- Complementing the expansion of the SAP API Business Hub as a content hub for integration with third-party providers and on-premise solutions, the SAP Integration Suite is also being continuously developed as SAP's versatile integration platform. Using this platform SAP customers have deployed half a million integration flows and 170K connections across SAP and third-party applications in their landscapes. SAP Integration Suite has been recognized as a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for EiPaaS solutions for the second year. Adapters and integration scenarios for third-party solutions are continuously expanded by the partners of the so-called Integration Factory, and integration scenarios are also made available as community content.
- Consistent security and identity management
- In addition, we have made great progress on the topic of unified identity management in the cloud. For example, the landscape-wide user identifier can be assigned by the customer and distributed with the identity tools of their choice. In addition, all SAP applications now consistently implement the System for Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM) Standard, which is supported by practically all modern identity management tools today – this makes it easier to integrate the SAP cloud applications.
In 2022, we also continued our progress in developing functional integration, including the following end-to-end processes:
- Recruit to Retire: Organizations rely on end-to-end process integration to tackle the critical data-entry steps needed in a hybrid IT landscape, resulting in more organized, error-free, and faster processing. The new cross-system workflow package for SAP SuccessFactors solutions that run on SAP BTP provides HR administrators with an efficient, guided, collaborative, and orchestrated experience for completing their tasks.
- Source to Pay: Enhanced integration of SAP S/4HANA, SAP Business Networks, SAP Fieldglass, and SAP Ariba solutions enables streamlined order creations for both goods and services, as well as supporting product hierarchies across all the transactions in the execution flow.
- Lead to Cash: By integrating Account Engagement from SAP Emarsys Customer Engagement with SAP Sales Cloud, businesses can now act on shared customer views across sales, marketing, and commerce. This effort results in contextualizing engagements across all touchpoints and embedding personalization into email and mobile channels.
- Design to Operate: Implementing robots in existing warehouse processes with minimized disruptions and fewer technical complexities is critical. The SAP Warehouse Robotics on the SAP Business Technology Platform is closely integrated with SAP S/4HANA Extended Warehouse Management, enabling accelerated onboarding of multiple robotics vendors, driving optimal decisions, efficient task orchestration, and rapid execution in warehouse applications.
For 2023 we continue extending our integration scope, focusing on strategic solutions, transparency and compliance, customer experience, and more. For more information, please visit the SAP Road Map Explorer.
- Recruit to Retire: The strategic recruiting process needs a consistent master data model in order to fully exploit all opportunities across all planning, staffing, and employee lifecycle processes and to keep a clear overview of costs. Organizations want to use the rich functionality of Concur Expense for both employees and external workers. The integration of SAP Fieldglass solutions with Concur Expense allows organizations to apply the same travel and expense policies and expense approval workflow, and it enables external workers to use the ExpenseIt mobile app to upload their receipts.
- Source to Pay: Enhancements to source-to-pay collaboration process using SAP S/4HANA and SAP Business Network, enables broader collaboration with the trading partners and provides more transparency to the flow of materials across the value chain – this will result in better prioritization as well as reducing delays in the flow of goods.
- Lead to Cash: In a working environment where different solutions are used, a seamless switch between the applications is needed to easily handle the different requirements. By integrating SAP CPQ Quoting with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Solution Order Management, we enable customer business transformation with quoting capabilities such as bundling of service contracts and sales products with flexible configuration and pricing, integrated in a fully automated order–to-cash process.
- Design to Operate: Only through seamless integration in a digital supply chain is it possible to connect production with end-to-end process handling across the entire supply chain. We offer this service both in the cloud and on-premise.
Integrated tools are essential for product developers who manage the lifecycle of product structures in early development. The new enterprise product structure in SAP Enterprise Product Development, which is integrated with bill-of-materials management in SAP S/4HANA, supports product development teams in creating and managing modular product structures.
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