How Industry Cloud Helps Organizations Get Through Uncertainty: ASUG107

Hosted by Jason Zhang, SAP

Panelist:

• Chris Daniels, DNOW, Director of Integrated Solutions
• Joshah Alencheril, J.R. Simplot Company, Principal Enterprise Architect
• Kelly Pinskey, Deloitte, Managing Director Records & Contracts Management

At the recent SAP SAPPHIRE and ASUG 2023 event, Jason Zhang, Sr. Director, Industry Cloud Advisor for SAP hosted a panel for Americas’ SAP Users’ Group (ASUG) members in order to expand awareness of SAP Industry Cloud Solutions, better understand what SAP means by “Industry Cloud” and to offer current SAP customers the opportunity to share their experiences.

Jason began the session with a quick overview of Industry Cloud. Essentially, Industry Cloud solutions can be thought of as apps. Just as you may go to an app store to enhance your use of a personal device such as an iPhone, a business can find a multitude of solutions to enhance their SAP experience in the SAP Store. Super easy: https://store.sap.com/ and search. I could not find recently published numbers regarding how many apps are now part of the SAP Store, but I was able to verify that the number is over 2000.

Two different Industry Cloud Solutions were represented by this panel, DataXstream’s OMS+ used by DNOW and J.R. Simplot, and Icertis Contract Intelligence in use by Deloitte.

With over 2000 options, how does a business know that they are choosing the best SAP Partner Solution to address their pain points?

Certifications.

OMS+ by DataXstream is an Endorsed APP. We engage with the SAP team yearly to update all of our certifications.  In February 2023, our OMS+ platform became Premium Certified as an SAP endorsed app for integration with SAP S/4HANA 2022 via the SAP integration scenario Extension Application on SAP Extension Suite.   What this means is that DataXstream’s technology has through been through rigorous testing and security requirements and is trusted by SAP to be part of their eco system.

Why choose an Industry Cloud Solution?

Efficiency. All three panelists listed efficiency and simplicity as a reason to consider an Industry Cloud Solution. Chris Daniels, Director of Integrated Solutions for DNOW mentioned that they are moving away from operating on custom code. So lets stop here a minute, and ask why?

First, why the custom code?

When SAP was being implemented previously it was not only common but considered best practice to customize the SAP code to meet the business needs. Many companies have extensive amounts of customized code within their SAP platform. However, when it became time to upgrade their SAP platform to take advantage of the new versions of SAP and the benefits that could be realized with upgrading, the custom code became a barrier to the process. The roadmap ahead is focused then on clean code. Agile solutions that take advantage of technology like SAP BTP that will not hamper progress are becoming more important.

Chris Daniels also pointed out that scalability was one of the driving points in considering Industry Cloud Solution OMS+.

Why?

Organizations can leverage the cloud to quickly add additional computing power, storage or network resources as their needs scale and grow.  Because SAP BTP is an elastic cloud solution, technologies such as DataXstream’s OMS+ , which is built on BTP, eliminates the need for additional inventments in hardware, infrastructure, or a support team to manage these new resources.   This allows organizations to scale without the limitations and cost of physical resources.

It’s All About Efficiency

Efficiency was mentioned multiple times throughout the presentation.  Why?  Because it has been a pain point for a lot of organizations. To create and implement a custom solution from scratch can take years and a few million dollars. All three panelists agreed that by purchasing a solution from the SAP Store they are saving both time and money. OMS+ is an agile solution that can be configured to specific customer needs but these configurations are maintained within parameters to allow the business to adapt to changes in the marketplace as well as supporting future upgrades.

Joshah Alencheril, Principal SAP Enterprise Architect for J.R. Simplot Company pointed out that they reached out to SAP for guidance and SAP showed them a few Industry Cloud Solutions. “The benefit of OMS+ was the user experience, the point of sale experience with OMS+ is absolutely phenomenal.”

Another way Industry Cloud solutions can deliver efficiency is by leveraging the Partner’s Proficiency. By leveraging the partner’s proficiency through the SAP Partner App or Solution, the business does not need to go out and find the specific talent to solve these pain points. By implementing a solution designed for SAP SD a business is leveraging the SAP SD experts that built that solution, leveraging those experts to configure the solution to their needs and doing so in a condensed way. Instead of engaging the talent as consultants for years to build a custom solution that will later require maintenance or upgrades, configuring a certified solution can be done in months.

Additional Points:

• One of the reasons for choosing OMS+ was that it could be implemented in ECC but will also work in S/4 when an organization is ready to undertake that migration.
• Change Management can be a challenge. People naturally resist change and there can be gaps in adoption so being able to view user engagement enables management to reach out to those individuals who have not realized benefit from the solution.
• Joshah Alencheril from J.R. Simplot Company is passionate about adopting SAP and the OMS+ solution based on user feedback, and his team is working closely with DataXstream around security for information as it regards to customer accounts and payment methods.
• Chris Daniels from DNOW pointed out that Industry Cloud Solutions can be accessed on a mobile phone or tablet which greatly enhances customer and sales rep interactions. He also notes that DNOW measures order efficiency, quote efficiency and has found 30% improvement and in some cases as high as 70% improvement in time to create a quote.