SAP S/4HANA migration fears are overblown - Approyo CEO Chris Carter interviewed by Tech Target

Approyo CEO Chris Carter was recently interviewed by Jim O'Donnell for Tech Target. Below is an excerpt from the interview, to read the full interview, please visit https://searchsap.techtarget.com/news/252467155/S-4HANA-migration-fears-are-overblown. 

Most SAP customers will eventually have to face the inevitable S/4HANA migration.

SAP has stated it will end support for the legacy SAP ECC platform by 2025. Although migration is a daunting prospect, the fear factor may be overblown, and customers could be missing out on the benefits of going to S/4HANA.

In this Q&A, Chris Carter, founder and CEO of Approyo LLC in Brookfield, Wis., comes at an SAP S/4HANA migration from a more hopeful place: The leap from ECC to S/4HANA may be inevitable, but it's also manageable.

Carter has been around since the SAP R/2 days, SAP's ERP software in the 90s and the predecessor of SAP HANA. Approyo, an SAP partner, provides managed services, hosting, migration and implementation services for more than 300 SAP cloud environments for customers around the world, according to Carter. It has also done just over 100 SAP migrations.

Where are SAP customers in their plans for S/4HANA migration with the 2025 deadline in mind?
Chris Carter: We've been working with SAP hand-in-hand on some of the migrations, but customers are very slow to migrate -- and understandably so. They're fed one line and then there's another real world thing that happens, but it's not as bleak as people think. You've got to work with a lot of Z data codes [non-standard data] and change activities, but there are so many tools that we can use that we can understand what is going on with their current environment in order to move into the new environment. You get a lot of integrators out there trying to get people scared, but it's really not that scary. This is a lot easier than what it was when it was R/2 to R/3, that's for sure.

What's the biggest fear SAP customers have about an S/4HANA migration?
Carter: Cost is No. 1, and change is No. 2. Everybody is worried about change -- is this going to change my job? Is it going to change what we do in FICO with the new [S/4HANA] finance tools? Every new SAP system has changes -- it's been that way since the R/2 days -- so they just have to understand that going in. You have to literally walk them through what those changes are and how they're going to benefit from them. You need strong change management and you've got to be very cognizant of what activities are going to happen.

What are the first things organizations need to do when starting a migration?
Carter: The first thing is always the plan. What is your plan and what's the plan for your SAP system, because they may not go hand in hand. An SAP system typically has had so many changes to it over the years that the individuals who are working on it today, and who may work on it tomorrow, may not know everything that has changed within that environment and what's going to happen starting tomorrow when the new system kicks in.

Read the full interview: https://searchsap.techtarget.com/news/252467155/S-4HANA-migration-fears-are-overblown

Cloud Computing 101 - Hexagonal Clustering

Hexagon clustering is a technique to process geospatial data for identifying and visualizing things such as escape routes that avoid hazards in emergency situations or the optimal paths for utility pipelines that avoid restricted areas.

Developers can use it easily in new applications and combine it with other SQL predicates. Nobody other solution besides SAP HANA offers this capability, and it is laborious to implement it in other relational databases using the basic geospatial functions.

Why supporting Hexagonal clustering is important for SAP HANA customers? It allows to represent curvatures and is ideal for showing path connectivity or movement. It is extremely useful for all spatial data processing in all industries.

Real-World Examples: 

• Rescue management: finding evacuation paths and identifying evacuation zones. For example in case of a wildfire, you need to guide people from A to B, avoiding fire zones
• Trafficability: moving a battalion of tanks from A to B, without crossing risky muddy areas and woods.
• Utility grid planning: finding the right path for a new gas pipe, but you can't go underneath building, need to avoid protected lands and going over costly roads or rails.

Hexagonal clustering is a better way of getting insights from relational spatial data.  It assign geometries within free definable area to the identified hexagonal pattern. Using hexagon grids reduce sampling bias due to edge effects of the grid shape.

How SAP HANA uniquely supports Hexagonal clustering?
SAP HANA is the only database that offers Hexagonal clustering out of the box. 

SAP HANA clusters geocoordinates in a free definable area in an over-spanning grid of clusters in one SQL query. This can be combined with many other SQL features without coding (e.g. count(*), ST_UnionAggr, ST_Centroid, ST_Enveloper, …)) and runs on millions of coordinates in seconds.
Hexagonal clustering leverages SAP HANA spatial and graph capabilities.

Other exciting innovations to SAP HANA core spatial capability include:

• Memory footprint reduction by a factor 2 - To innovate faster and at a lower cost
• Open source support - SAP expanded support for geotools and geoserver: customers can now use free GIS systems instead of commercial GIS systems, expanding to new markets & targeting open source community. This is important and many GIS users prefer open source rather than commercial systems

How can the Intelligent Enterprise impact Industrial Manufacturers

The digitalization of businesses across all industries is happening rapidly, and there is no turning back. Companies are looking for new ways to deliver value to their customers using digital channels and creating personalized, digitally-enabled products across all sectors, from consumer products to heavy equipment and machinery.

The industrial machinery and components (IM&C) industry is at the heart of this shift, providing the intelligent machines and equipment needed for this transformation, as well as spearheading innovative processes such as connected manufacturing and predictive maintenance and service.

Strategic Priorities in a Digital Economy
In this situation, where the opportunity is huge but at the same time new market entrants are threatening traditional IM&C companies, it is essential to focus on the right strategic priorities to drive digitalization across the business

Customer centricity
Putting the end customer’s point of view at the center of every decision is a key prerequisite for success in the digital age. This does not stop in the sales department but also applies to what products are built and what services are offered.

Serving the “segment of one”
Providing solutions that precisely fit the needs of one single customer has been commonplace in traditional engineer-to-order environments. Now, the ability to capture customer requirements effectively and drive mass customization is the key to giving customers exactly what they want.

Digital smart products
Differentiation and specificity in products stems from digital capabilities and value-added services that are bundled with physical products. Using digital capabilities such as self-awareness of technical health and operational status or business system connectivity helps industrial manufacturers differentiate.

Digital supply chain and smart factory
Digital technology on the shop floor and in the supply chain is not new. What is new is the way production and logistics are intelligently connected to the rest of the business and are able to deal with external impulses such as short-term demand and supply fluctuations or changes in the configuration of a customer order that require different materials, parts, and machining operations.

Servitization and new business models
As traditional products are commoditized, IM&C companies are shifting from selling physical products to providing complete solutions. Generating more than 50% of revenue from services is a common goal for manufacturers who are looking for higher profit margins and increased customer intimacy. The “digital twin for business” is a key requirement, representing the physical product over the entire lifecycle, including changing data points during manufacturing and installation as well as operational performance issues, the financial value created, and costs incurred up until the final phase of decommissioning.

View the full blog post on www.approyo.com 

How can the Intelligent Enterprise impact the hospitality industry?

Hospitality is changing rapidly. With evolving guest expectations and an unrelenting flood of data, hospitality’s digital horizon is disrupting classic distribution and guest stay models. Technology has become so interwoven with business strategies that the two are hardly distinguishable.

Technologies such as mobile devices and the Internet of Things (IoT) are
fundamentally redefining the way customers live, work, and play. Other innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and in-memory computing are opening up new playing fields and replacing traditional processes. For example, AI and machine learning are modernizing reservations, guest services, and operations. Meanwhile, consumer wearables, smart devices, virtual reality headsets, and online games are becoming points for brand interaction. It’s all happening at a breakneck pace.

Hospitality needs to act fast to stay ahead of the disruption curve. For example,
using the power of predictive analytics, hoteliers can now identify high-value guests, uncover profitable items and services to promote, anticipate demand, and manage inventory more effectively.

The Future: Priorities for Hospitality
Faced with a huge opportunity along with new market entrants, today’s hotel companies must focus on the right strategic priorities to drive digitalization across the business. By successfully embracing the opportunities offered by new technologies and addressing the following six strategic priorities, companies can lay the foundation for successful digitalization and stay ahead of the innovation curve.

• Own the Guest Journey with Enhanced Distribution and Shopping Models
• Transform the Guest Experience
• Digitalize the Workforce
• Unlock Business Value Across All Data Sources
• Enable Smart and Connected Hotels and Ships
• Drive Global Growth and Accelerate Brand Strategies with the Cloud 

Reimagine Hospitality
The digital economy offers infinite new opportunities.
In a connected world where every company is becoming a technology company, smarter products and services will refocus commerce on business outcomes and blur industry lines.

Own the Customer Journey

LOYAL CUSTOMERS WILL SHOP DIRECT - A digital and mobile world changes the way customers book travel. Based on changing behaviors, hoteliers are learning from retailers and adopting similar approaches with guests. Hotel companies that don’t adapt to digitalization risk being simply a supplier in the travel chain, leaving others, such as the Internet giants or new players entering this industry, to control the traveler conversation.

TRANSFORM THE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE - Offers have to be personal, contextual, relevant, and seamless, regardless of the touch point or device.
Hoteliers need to know their travelers and capture as much information as is available from internal interactions and social media data. They must use this data to create useful offers at the moment and location where they are most relevant. This retail approach is vital to have direct access to the traveler, expand reach in the guest journey, and increase revenues with ancillary products, partner products, and merchandising. Technological capabilities
enable this process.

BROADEN DISTRIBUTION MODELS - Distribution models are changing as the digital world requires new ways of selling. Powerful new digital players
are entering the travel market. Hoteliers want more control of the products and services they offer, whether they sell directly or indirectly. But mostly they want to own the guest journey and attract more travelers to buy directly from them. The ideal approach is to have a single view of available room inventory, amenities, promotions, descriptions, and rate plans across channels and third
parties while refining inventory to drive higher sales. This allows hotels to up-sell noninventory room items, meeting rooms, activities, and amenities. It’s a bit like supersizing a meal in a more personal way.

Drive Global Growth and accelerate brand strategy 

INCREASE BRAND VALUE - Build brand extensions by combining omnichannel commerce and digital technologies to move into new segment offerings. Configure and deploy new promotions and rate plans rapidly, and push distressed inventory to the direct channel of choice.

Unlock business value across all data sources 

ACCELERATE AND SIMPLIFY PROPERTY ACQUISITIONS -  To achieve a real-time view of data and system interoperability, your company needs a comprehensive platform approach. Cloud-based, standardized solutions enable hotel companies to innovate faster, manage master-data complexity efficiently, adhere to country regulations, and deliver quickly in the global economy. SAP can help you lead your organization’s digital journey and
address the challenges of data proliferation from enterprise data, Big Data, the IoT, and beyond. We can also help you transform all data – the foundation of a digital enterprise – into insight to drive innovation and create business value.

TRANSFORM ASSET MANAGEMENT - The platform approach enables real-time visibility into the condition of assets by measuring, predicting, and alerting when incidents occur. To do so, the platform links asset data to an intelligent asset network that provides performance benchmarking, up-to-date service documentation, and real-time visibility of spare-part replacements. The platform also connects asset data from OEMs, operations, and service providers – creating a collaborative solution for sharing asset information with business partners.

Read the full blog post on www.approyo.com

Approyo CEO Christopher M. Carter accepted into Forbes Technology Council

Christopher M. Carter, CEO of Approyo has been accepted into Forbes Technology Council, an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs, and technology executives.

Christopher was vetted and selected by a review committee based on the depth and diversity of his experience. Criteria for acceptance include a track record of successfully impacting business growth metrics, as well as personal and professional achievements and honors.

“We are honored to welcome Christopher M. Carter into the community,” said Scott Gerber, founder of Forbes Councils, the collective that includes Forbes Technology Council. “Our mission with Forbes Councils is to bring together proven leaders from every industry, creating a curated, social capital-driven network that helps every member grow professionally and make an even greater impact on the business world.”

As an accepted member of the Council, Christopher has access to a variety of exclusive opportunities designed to help him reach peak professional influence. He will connect and collaborate with other respected local leaders in a private forum. Christopher will also be invited to work with a professional editorial team to share his expert insights in original business articles on Forbes.com, and to contribute to published Q&A panels alongside other experts.

Finally, Christopher will benefit from exclusive access to vetted business service partners, membership-branded marketing collateral, and the high-touch support of the Forbes Councils member concierge team.

“I am thrilled to be joining this great community of technology leaders,” said Christopher M. Carter, CEO of Approyo. “The Forbes Technology Council gives great insight into the technology trends of today and into the future. I’m excited about my invitation to this community of innovative minds and looking forward to sharing my insights on the SAP ecosystem and the impact SAP can make.”

ABOUT FORBES COUNCILS
Forbes Councils is a collective of invitation-only communities created in partnership with Forbes and the expert community builders who founded Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC). In Forbes Councils, exceptional business owners and leaders come together with the people and resources that can help them thrive.

For more information about Forbes Technology Council, visit forbestechcouncil.com. To learn more about Forbes Councils, visit forbescouncils.com.

Approyo > Bacon

You've heard the phrase, "Bacon makes everything better". Approyo takes it one step further, we make your SAP Better!

We make it easy to manage, upgrade and migrate your SAP environments. With the upcoming 2025 deadline, it's more important than ever to understand all your options for your SAP environment. With over 300 managed SAP environments and over 100 migrations and upgrades to SAP S/4HANA, our team is here to support you!

Why is Approyo greater than Bacon?

• Certified SAP Partner
• Enterprise Ready
• Zero Calories
• Scalable and Reliable 
• Global Team of SAP Experts
• Never too crispy 
• Simple Cloud Migrations
• Fast Implementation
• Dependable Support

The Approyo team will be sharing more information and SAP content all summer long. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn to learn more about why Approyo is greater than bacon.

Learn more at: www.approyo.com/Approyo-vs-bacon

Approyo named one of the 10 Most Promising SAP Solution Providers by Insights Success

Approyo is excited to announce it has been named one of the 10 Most Promising SAP Solution Providers 2019 by Insights Success.

Insights Success is a platform that focuses distinctively on emerging as well as leading companies, their confrontational style of doing business and way of delivering effective and collaborative solutions to strengthen market share. This magazine talks about leaders and orators from the world of technology, which includes CEOs, CIOs, VPs, managers and other professionals who had set a benchmark in the revolution of the industry.

“We are honored to be part of this great list of companies," said Christopher M. Carter, CEO of Approyo. "This achievement continues to validate our success in the SAP and Cloud marketplace.”

View the full profile: https://www.insightssuccess.com/approyo-offering-simplified-sap-with-innovative-cloud-solutions/

The 10 Best Performing SAP Solution Providers list: https://www.insightssuccess.com/the-10-most-promising-sap-solution-providers-2019-june2019/

About Insights Success
Insights Success is a forum where top leaders and executives talk and share about their experiences, views, and mantra for success which will help the young and dynamic bloodline of professionals to learn, cater and deliver business needs for customers in order to become futuristic market leaders.