SAP's promise for the future is that companies should have maximum influence on their business success and be able to extract added value from data as quickly as possible. To make this promise a reality, SAP has developed SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). It consists of the SAP Cloud Platform, SAP HANA, analytics, and business services. The individual components are formed to a coherent concept.
Developers should have the opportunity to easily embed intelligent functions into integrated, modular applications – regardless of the type of provision (on-premise or cloud-based) and equally for SAP and non-SAP products. The advantage for users is that they can convert data into real business benefits much faster than before.
SAP Business Technology Platform is based on the four pillars of the intelligent enterprise: data/database management, analytics functions, intelligent technologies as well as application development and integration. Efficient data management is an enormous challenge for companies. The SAP Graph software is designed to help. With the help of a virtual, semantic data model, developers can easily integrate existing and new applications into the entire SAP portfolio. Currently, SAP Graph is available in a limited beta version.
To be able to make data-based decisions, it is not enough to make data available to the right people at the right time. It also requires the ability to analyze data in order to draw the right conclusions. SAP Analytics Cloud is to be embedded in SAP S/4HANA Cloud in the course of 2019. This was announced by Jürgen Müller, Chief Technology Officer of SAP, at SAP TechEd in Las Vegas (September 24 to 27, 2019). With the Fiori Launchpad, companies can then create analytical stories directly in SAP S/4HANA without having to switch between operational tools and analysis software.
To help companies meet the challenges of digitization, SAP is integrating additional intelligent functions into more and more applications. Customers should be able to flexibly use solutions and infrastructures from different manufacturers and with different types of provision in an open IT landscape.
SAP Cloud Platform forms the basis for integrating intelligent technologies such as machine learning and the Internet of Things (IoT) into central business processes. In Las Vegas, CTO Jürgen Müller announced that SAP Data Intelligence is now generally available. This service enables developers to create and train machine learning models from a single tool, with access to SAP and non-SAP data sources across the enterprise. SAP Data Intelligence combines SAP Data Hub and SAP Leonardo Machine Learning Foundation into an integrated cloud offering.
The SAP Intelligent Business Processes Management (SAP Intelligent BPM) service package also extends the capabilities of SAP Cloud Platform. It enables users to transform paper-based processes into digital workflows. It gives them an end-to-end view of their business processes in SAP and non-SAP applications. Business services based on machine learning and the IoT are also available to better address business challenges.
SAP customers now have access to best practices for integrating SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation (RPA) into SAP S/4HANA. Pre-defined automation capabilities cover key business processes such as customer order management or order confirmations. Thanks to robot-assisted automation, users can reduce personnel costs and react more quickly to changing market conditions or changing requirements.
The latest releases of SAP S/4HANA Cloud and all other SAP applications use Quartz Light, the new interface design of SAP Fiori 3. This ensures uniform operation on all devices and in all applications. The artificial intelligence embedded in SAP Fiori 3 enables intelligent start pages that display all information relevant to the user.
By driving the integration of its own solutions among each other and with 3rd party tools and permanently realizing additional functionalities for users and developers, SAP creates consistent processes and a consistent user experience. The degree of automation is also increasing. With the continuous expansion of embedded analytics functions and machine learning, customers are making step-by-step progress on their way to becoming a data-driven company.