In this episode, Michael Pytel discusses The SAP Traveling Campus ; bringing FREE hands-on labs and demos to cities across the nation. This seasons topics cover SAP Cloud Platform, SAP Analytics Cloud, Fiori Cloud, and SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
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SAP’s annual juggernaut of an IT conference, Sapphire Now, is time of year for the global ERP software company to showcase its latest innovations in software upgrades, functionality, and business value. In years past, some of the unveilings have been SAP Simple Finance, SAP S/4HANA, S/4HANA Cloud, and SAP Cloud Platform. Introduced at last year’s Sapphire Now, (and one of this year’s hottest topics that SAP is looking to showcase) is SAP Leonardo; a digital innovation system that leverages SAP Cloud Platform to integrate new technologies such as IoT, Machine Learning, Analytics, Blockchain, and more.
Inspired to showcase some of SAP Leonardo’s unique functionality, SAP teamed up with the Denver based SAP consulting company, NIMBL, to create custom applications that track athletic performance and give real time analytics on speed, endurance, accuracy, and physical potential. Thus, the SAP Leonardo Basketball Event and NIMBL Bball Skills challenge were born.
The current technology landscape offers organizations of all sizes many options to gain insight through business intelligence software and predictive analytics. As such, the market offers products for every level within a company, but few options have a holistic end-to-end approach to their information analytics services, a crucial factor for enterprise. This is where the SAP Analytics Cloud solution stands out from the competition as it incorporates analytics throughout the entire business process, integrated across every organizational level.
Information is hard to manage properly since it is produced from every single point in the company. Even the smallest data transaction from an intern’s desk could prove valuable when used to feed predictive analytics engines. SAP Analytics Cloud lets you synchronize data from across your entire infrastructure, in real-time, using a single system. Running on a cloud platform and the HANA in-memory database, SAP Analytics Cloud has the power to integrate, process, and analyze real-time information and provide valuable insights for users at every level of business. Predictive analytics can then be used to leverage decisions made in the boardroom, in the office, or in front of a client; then the information can be accessed and used from any device, at any time. This empowers users throughout the company with fact-based/real time insight to support their decision-making at every step.
SAP’s patented in-memory database working in conjunction with SAP Cloud Platform makes SAP Cloud Analytics a speedy solution to data management for analytics. Processing time for analysis can be greatly reduced thanks to the speed of HANA’s unique data collection architecture. For companies using SAP products and across the whole organization, the speed of digital transactions is even more noticeable.
SAP Analytics Cloud benefits the entire organization, but it gives senior leadership a wide, detailed view of the company and the ability to predict outcomes with certainty. Decision-makers in enterprise can visualize information through easy-to-understand dashboards and reports generated by SAP Analytics Cloud. Business intelligence and predictive analytics software calculate possible outcomes in different scenarios through the entire business process using complex algorithms. This brings a game-changing factor into the boardroom, boosting the ability to set goals and plan and organize the strategy to reach them. Leadership can track analytics for financial reports (financial close, reconciliation, regulatory filing, etc.), risk analysis, budgeting, capital planning, and manage KPI’s to compare performance across the board. SAP Analytics Cloud helps decision-makers save time and money, as well as mitigating risk with easy-to-access real-time information and the business intelligence tools to interpret it, accurate forecasts can be made to make optimal strategic use of corporate resources. What makes SAP Analytics especially attractive for senior management is how it simplifies collaboration from team to team; from the salesperson all the way up to the people at the company’s helm.
SAP Analytics Cloud is a subscription-based SaaS (software as a service) that represents a lower cost of ownership since it incorporates all features for all users in a single cloud-based solution. Besides the usual cost-effective benefits of using cloud solutions, SAP Analytics Cloud lets you forget about having to buy, implement, and manage multiple analytics point solutions; business analysts, decision-makers, and stakeholders are all empowered through a single system.
Ensure your business is always a step-ahead and schedule a consultation to see how SAP Analytics Cloud can drive your company to the next level.
Companies that want to stay competitive need to start using data as a strategical resource to detect and maximize business advantages. Digitalizing processes and using business intelligence insights is becoming a requirement in today’s environment and SAP S/4 HANA is at the forefront of ERP innovation.
Here at NIMBL we have proudly transformed our clients’ organizations through the application of SAP Enterprise Management solutions running on the SAP HANA database. SAP S/4HANA delivers fast integration of data, reporting and analytics based on real-time information, a flexible deployment, and an unmatched user experience.
SAP HANA, the database on which SAP S/4HANA is run, is in-memory, setting it apart from traditional relation databases; collected data is stored in columns rather than rows. This digital architecture allows faster and more fluid computing, which translates into the ability to process advanced real-time analytics and seamlessly integrate data from your ERP. In layman terms, the SAP HANA in-memory database makes everything run faster.
What does this represent for business leaders and deciders? It makes their job a lot easier by delivering a more agile and better-informed decision-making process. One of our clients, a Food Industry Freight and Logistics global leader, managed to cut their process for daily transaction analysis from an average of 10 hours to half that time. Another of their processes related to revenue was cut from an entire weekend to just 45 minutes. Faster processing time and use of predictive analytics meant reduced costs, improved productivity, and the ability to act on real-time information.
SAP S/4HANA is offered in On-Premise edition and Cloud edition (deployed on private or public cloud) but can also be deployed over a variety of hybrid scenarios. While SAP S/4HANA is focusing on developing its cloud capabilities, it still offers wide support for on-premise environments and ideally makes use of a hybrid model. SAP S/4HANA ensures you have more control when deployed on-premise, but there is a whole new level value added when deployed on SAP’s private Enterprise Cloud.
Having a cloud ERP that is fully-managed by an IT solutions provider represents a lower total cost of ownership than deploying on-premise. This also means your business will see a faster return on your IT investment and maintenance costs will be included in the service. SAP S/4 HANA Cloud also ensures legal and regulatory compliance by providing tax support and preconfigured audit reporting aligned with local accounting rules, along with regional data residency compliance. But perhaps the most interesting benefit S/4HANA Cloud delivers is its innovative business intelligence services. Automated and streamlined processes are great productivity boosters, but the use of intelligent applications provides insights and predictive suggestions based on machine learning algorithms. This can completely change the way decisions are made and resources are used, ultimately driving forward profitability.
Using SAP Fiori, new generation SAP products, such as SAP S/4HANA allow for simplification and personalization of user experience. Design concepts are focused on increasing productivity, such as faster access to important information and a prompt notifications system; everything is centered on helping users make quick and well-informed actions and the ability to personalize. The improved UX and UI will transform the way your team members interact with their ERP and will pave the way to taking more advantage of SAP S/4HANA’s benefits
Is your business ready to digitally transform? Schedule a consultation to see how SAP S/4HANA can drive your company to the next level. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for more news.
SAP’s annual juggernaut of an IT conference, Sapphire Now, is time of year for the global ERP software company to showcase its latest innovations in software upgrades, functionality, and business value. In years past, some of the unveilings have been SAP Simple Finance, SAP S/4HANA, S/4HANA Cloud, and SAP Cloud Platform. Introduced at last year’s Sapphire Now, (and one of this year’s hottest topics that SAP is looking to showcase) is SAP Leonardo; a digital innovation system that leverages SAP Cloud Platform to integrate new technologies such as IoT, Machine Learning, Analytics, Blockchain, and more.
Inspired to showcase some of SAP Leonardo’s unique functionality, SAP teamed up with the Denver based SAP consulting company, NIMBL, to create custom applications that track athletic performance and give real time analytics on speed, endurance, accuracy, and physical potential. Thus, the SAP Leonardo Basketball Event and NIMBL Bball Skills challenge were born.
I had the chance to sit down with Principal Solution Engineer for SAP Digital Enterprise Platform Group, Dirk Pluschke, and NIMBL Chief Technical Officer, Michael Pytel to discuss their process in creating this one of kind event for the largest SAP conference of the year.
How did this idea/initiative come about?
Dirk: Throughout the years it has become a habit at SAP in North America for individuals to use the arrival day at our yearly sales kick off meeting for playing sports. Recently we have been playing basketball, soccer, and even ice hockey. As a German, I personally prefer soccer and have been organizing the venue for the last 2 years. Our friends from NIMBL volunteered this year to sponsor the rental fee for the soccer venue for us soccer buffs. Throughout the sales meeting I noticed how many great connections I’ve made with colleagues from different geographies and focus areas that I have never met before. I realized there is no better way to network than by playing sports together. This ignited the idea that we should offer this opportunity to our customers. Then I thought that if we do this at SAPPHIRE, we should absolutely use this event to showcase our technology where customers experience the power of SAP Leonardo. I reached out to my peers in SAP Leonardo Presales, SAP’s Industry Business Unit for Sports & Entertainment our Global Sponsorship teams, and circled back with NIMBL to put this event together.
Michael: When we ran the events in Las Vegas, everyone really enjoyed playing soccer together. So, we had to find a way to do something like this. At Nimbl, we’ve been working with SAP Cloud Platform IoT services for multiple months now and it just made sense to figure out a way to integrate it with sports using simple sensors with Raspberry Pi devices and sending that to SAP Cloud Platform.
What are some of activities featured in this event?
Dirk: While the soccer World Cup starts right after SAPPHIRE, we thought basketball would be the most popular sport for such an event. The central activity is a 3v3 basketball tournament where players are equipped with pro-style IOT sensors for real-time performance tracking. For SAP’s team management solution Sports One, we are partnering with KINEXON which is specialized in sensor based-performance tracking and does this for NBA teams like the Philadelphia 76ers and the Golden State Warriors.
SAP is technology partner to the NBA and we are maintaining a very close relationship. We wanted to invite former NBA players who are involved with the league to see what we are doing and are able to talk to our customers about the changes in professional basketball when it comes to the application of sensor technology for performance tracking. We are super excited to have Detlef Schrempf and Nick Anderson join us.
Finally, we anticipate many customers to join us and the NBA legends at the event even though they may not be up for playing in the tournament. I reached out Michael Pytel from NIMBL and he was immediately excited about this event. He and his team designed and developed a set of sensor-based skill challenges that perfectly demonstrate how sensors can feed into SAP Cloud Platform in a super fun way. This allows us to extend the event to many more participants and have even more customers experience the power of Leonardo which is really what this event is about. We want customers to experience the application of sensor technology in this athletic setting instead of looking at slides.
I believe we put an event together that is exciting to many audiences, from the basketball enthusiast to the technology geek.
Michael: For the skills challenge, it was interesting to think about how we could use sensors to take measurements related to speed, height, distance and shot accuracy. We wanted to avoid attaching devices to people to keep costs low and really showcase how inexpensive sensors can be applied in real world scenarios and connected to SAP Cloud Platform. There will be one event to capture hangtime as part of the jump challenge. Another event to measure time through a dribbling course. And lastly a shooting challenge.
Dirk: The competitions are referencing the major basketball skills: dribbling, jumping, shooting. Participants dribble through a track of sensor equipped cones to measure time to finish. For jumping NIMBL and Breadware designed a pad that senses the jumping height to remove the factor of body height from the competition. Finally, shooting has to be part of a basketball skill competition where we count hits and misses from different positions over time. After the event, we will combine all data points into a Digital Boardroom. I’m excited to see what correlations we will find between the skill challenges and the performance tracking data. That’s really the fun part!
What has the process looked like in creating the applications (both from a technical and functional perspective)?
Dirk: To understand the development process, you really need to ask Michael. NIMBL is a fantastic partner to work with. While we were collaborating closely and maintaining constant communication of ideas and status of development, you can hand a scope to the NIMBL team, they run with it, and exceed expectations at the end. For example, Michael researched and tested several different sensor-supported basketball products and found none to be fit for our event. Then he decided to partner up with Breadware and custom equipment. I thought that was really cool!
Michael: SAP has really made application development on the cloud platform easy to execute. We leverage the SAP Web IDE to build the front-end applications and activated the IoT services within SAP Cloud Platform and SAP HANA in order to capture sensor data.
What do you see as the benefits in having this real time data available – in the world of athletics and beyond?
Dirk: These days real-time is everything. Take pro-basketball, these guys play almost every day. What’s the point of reviewing performance related information if not timely? I would say that other industries are pressed even more so for time. As an example, if you think about sensors on heavy machinery to detect issues and failures, only timely alerts will allow to avoid costly service disruption. That’s why real-time insights, or even better predictive analytics are key. The exciting part of SAP Leonardo is the combination of cutting-edge technologies, such as IOT, big data, advanced analytics, and machine learning.
Michael: Our goal with this event is to highlight how easy it is to deploy low costs sensors and connect or blend them with SAP applications. This stuff really does work outside of PowerPoint. We want attendees to see and touch these devices – and explore how NIMBL used SAP Cloud Platform to bring everything together. We feel that SAP’s consumption model pricing for SAP Cloud Platform will enable customers to launch low-cost protypes – which ideally will show business users that IT can help them innovate. We’re excited to meet customers and let them see under the hood – whether that’s IoT Services, SAP HANA, or Fiori App Development – it will all be on display with SAP & the NBA.
For more information on SAP Cloud Platform, please contact michaelpytel@benimbl.com.
The Business Technology market today is overflowing with software and services engineered for a world where cloud computing is becoming standard practice. Overall cost, ease of use, and employee adoption are all critical factors when deciding which software to choose; but functionality continues to be of the highest priority. Often times, all of these criteria are not fully met on one platform…until now. SAP Cloud Platform represents both the cost effective and business transformative choice for decision makers looking optimize their company’s business processes.
SAP Cloud Platform (also SAPCP) is the highly-versatile solution for the integration of cloud technology into a company’s business model; both for the optimization of their customer-experience, as well as their internal processes. Offered as a PaaS (Platform As A Service), SAP Cloud Platform not only integrates with SAP S/4HANA on premise as well as SAP S/4HANA Cloud, it can also function as a standalone platform for the development of new cloud applications. Integration Services, Analytics Cloud, Fiori Cloud, and SAP Machine Learning Leonardo are just a few examples of the available cloud applications that allow users to gradually assimilate different phases of their business processes into the Cloud Platform, at their convenience.
Decision Makers know the importance of providing the best customer experience possible; SAP Cloud Platform allows companies to develop and build cloud-based applications personalized for services they provide without the need to invest in expensive on-premise hardware. In turn, this lowers total cost of ownership. Combined with cutting-edge analytics services and business intelligence, customer-oriented applications can also help a company learn about their users’ tendencies and behavior. Using the information and insights from BI allows developers to shape existing applications to further the impact of their customer experience.
SAP Cloud Platform services are not only focused on developing customer-targeted applications; through cloud services, organizations can also build customized applications that address internal business processes and operations. Companies that need to speed up and simplify anything from accounting processes to workflows can develop applications that help them do this on SAP Cloud Platform. With the benefit of the BYOL (Bring Your Own Language), SAPCP’s framework lets developers use a wide variety of development languages to build their apps; this means less money spent on hiring experts or retraining your staff to adapt to a limited framework. SAP Cloud Platform’s Analytics Services and predictive insights will also prove beneficial in revealing both business advantages and opportunities to improve processes.
Further innovation can be applied with SAPCP’s machine learning and IoT (Internet of Things) capabilities. Decision Makers in the Industrial Sector, for example, will find these services especially useful as they can analyze real-time data from their manufacturing machines, transportation, and
storage facilities, to name a few examples. This data can then be used to fine-tune anything from production-line processes to resource consumption.
Using a Platform as a Service allows companies the capability to develop applications without the need for costly infrastructure to support and host them, with the added benefit of having a collection of useful services at their disposal. SAPCP is the ideal choice for a Cloud Platform not only for its cloud services and versatility, but also because it will provide Decision Makers with a wealth of knowledge about their business and their customers allowing them to make better-informed and more precise decisions. CEO’s, CFO’s, and other deciders can greatly empower their organizations and their own roles with the capabilities offered through SAP Cloud Platform.
Contact us and schedule a consultation to see how SAP Cloud Platform can help your business speed-up processes and deliver an exceptional customer-experience. You can also follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Michael Pytel is a certified SAP NetWeaver, SAP HANA, and SAP Solution Manager resource possessing over ten years of technical SAP implementation expertise and over thirteen years of overall ERP project experience. He has led numerous Business Transformation projects driven by the move to S/4HANA for both on-premise and cloud environments. Author of SAP Press’ ,”Implementing SAP Business Suite on SAP HANA”, Michael is a nationally recognized speaker on the migration to S/4HANA who frequently presents at SAP conferences across the country.
SAP Cloud Platform is quickly gaining momentum amongst companies as THE hassle-free way to run systems and processes in the cloud without having to maintain the hardware, software, and upgrades that are required for on-premise systems.
NIMBL is excited to announce our recent acquisition by Techedge S.p.A, an SAP recognized Center of Expertise and global provider of business solutions and services with nearly 1,700 professionals and more than 20 offices worldwide. NIMBL’s acquisition will be instrumental in strengthening Techedge’s operations in the United States by broadening the company’s offering portfolio by increasing both capacity and geographic footprint within the US market. In Techedge, NIMBL now possesses global reach and exceptional support in continuing to provide SAP business transformation consulting services both on premise and in the cloud.
“This acquisition allows Techedge to further accelerate on its strategy to support customers worldwide throughout their digital transformation with short iterative cycles of business-driven innovation” said Domenico Restuccia, Global CEO. “The Business ecosystem is running at such an incredible pace that companies need to act in a live-beta culture, where the ability to create digitally enhanced experiences – live now – determines survival”.
“We are truly ecstatic about this game changing acquisition within the SAP ecosystem. Creating value for companies today means being able to help implement new strategies on new technologies – its’ a double transformation” said Yosh Eisbart, CEO of NIMBL. “It is for this reason that we’ve focused on helping our customers adopt new technologies such as SAP S/4HANA – both on-premise and in the cloud – Analytics, and SAP Leonardo. Implementing these new business models leveraging the Industry 4.0 paradigms empower our customers to achieve business goals. As a collective, we have incredible capabilities strengthening our value to our customers, employees, partners, and SAP. Watch out.”
NIMBL’s entry to the Techedge Group solidifies the brand’s presence in North America bringing scale to its operations in the region and allowing the larger Techedge Group to deliver even more disruptive solutions and services to the marketplace.
ABOUT TECHEDGE
Techedge’s mission is to help organizations evolve into true digital companies through short iterative cycles of business-driven innovation. Techedge provides business solutions & services that combine business advisory, technology expertise and premium delivery capabilities, with a lean, trust-based approach. With nearly 1,700 professionals worldwide, Techedge offers clients the scalability of a global provider, the flexibility of a local partner, and the competence of a strategic, trusted advisor.
ABOUT NIMBL
Since inception in 2009, NIMBL has been recognized as a thought leader in the SAP ecosystem. Based in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, NIMBL is an award-winning SAP Lighthouse Partner and nationally recognized consultancy firm. Powered by years of countless successful initiatives, NIMBL provides functional and technical consulting services, as well as Denver-based application managed services (AMS), to both the midmarket and Fortune 1000.
The Universal Journal on SAP S/4HANA Cloud is a single source of truth for all your finance. Costco is a single source of purchasing for all your daily needs. But the similarities don’t end there…
