鈥淥ne of our key differentiators is how we put innovation at the core of what we do,鈥� he says. 鈥淥ur experience with 麻豆原创 BTP, the opportunities it provides for innovation, and the value we have leveraged for our customers is intrinsic to us as a business. So many organizations, large and small, deliver transformation projects. But what does 鈥榞ood鈥� look like and how can that be delivered? These are the questions we always ask ourselves. Developing solutions that solve real business challenges, across industries and lines of business, and demonstrating how they can be applied to a customer鈥檚 business is pivotal in strengthening existing relationships and winning new customers.鈥�

Baukham, who鈥檚 an 麻豆原创 technical architect by profession, specializing in 麻豆原创 BTP, was 鈥� together with colleagues 鈥� instrumental in collaborating with 麻豆原创 on the platform鈥檚 development, helping in the very early days of its inception to shape it into the platform known and used today by partners worldwide.

Indeed, Baukham鈥檚 team made a name for itself by developing web-based user interfaces on top of what were then 麻豆原创鈥檚 fairly basic solutions and, therefore, became involved in the very early discussions about how to update and move 麻豆原创 forward.

鈥淲e recognized the platform as being the best way to innovate around the core to give our clients something that met their very specific needs,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he platform has now evolved and that approach is now standard, but in the early days it wasn鈥檛.鈥�

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He says that 麻豆原创 BTP is a way for the team to 鈥渄emo the art of the possible,鈥� delivering a completely different user-experience or bringing a different vision to 麻豆原创 solutions. It鈥檚 a platform that allows customers to leverage their investment in 麻豆原创 and gives them an advantage in the market, whether through finding more efficient ways of working or identifying and opening up new revenue streams.

鈥淢eeting with a client and talking about integration and databases is not going to cut it with the people in the room that are there to make business decisions and who ultimately will be using the technology. They鈥檙e not interested,” he says. “It鈥檚 more helpful to discuss 麻豆原创 BTP and how it can be the platform for continuous innovation and for delivering real benefits to a business. We change the conversation so that it鈥檚 about the benefits the tech can bring, where we can see things need to be improved, either based on other customers鈥� similar challenges or from the experience of our vast network of 麻豆原创 consultants.鈥�

麻豆原创 BTP is 鈥渢he platform where we can do things differently,鈥� he continues, and is 鈥渃entral鈥� to many conversations with existing or prospective customers. While the team can use 麻豆原创 BTP to manage the standard things 鈥� like integrating 麻豆原创 solutions to other systems, closing any gaps that have been identified, or looking at analytics 鈥� Baukham is clear that the real benefit comes from how the platform is used holistically. 鈥淭his isn鈥檛 about focusing on one particular area, but how you can use all the surfaces together to deliver a much better experience. This is about putting the users first: it has to be easy to use otherwise people avoid using it.鈥�

In client discussions, Deloitte covers all aspects of the platform. 鈥淩egardless of where clients are on their 麻豆原创 journey 鈥� whether they鈥檙e on a legacy system or ready to do a transformation 鈥� we look at whether they need a UI refresh, whether they need to simplify some apps to make it easier for transformation, whether it鈥檚 greenfield, brownfield, or selective. We look at where 麻豆原创 BTP lays in that,鈥� Baukham explains. 鈥淏ut we also then have the conversations around what鈥檚 next 鈥� once the transformation is complete, how can we help them to address other pain points that may not have been solved. Do we bring in more analytics so they have the data on hand to make decisions quicker? Do we look at the smarter technologies, the bots that can help to perform some of the more mundane tasks more easily? If they鈥檙e doing the same processes or making the same kind of decisions, do they need someone to do that or can machine learning do that for them instead? We鈥檝e always been good at pushing the boundaries and exploring what鈥檚 possible. When augmented reality first came out, a lot of competitors were using it for gimmicky things. What we did was to take CEO reports and explain and display them in 3D so people could interact with them. What we do is to try to turn these new technologies into a business case: how you can use these technologies through 麻豆原创 BTP to enhance your experience?鈥�

The three things Baukham likes best about 麻豆原创 BTP are the flexibility, the sheer volume of services available that can all integrate smoothly with 麻豆原创, and the fact that the platform is continually evolving. 鈥淏ecause it moves forward and embraces new tech, you don鈥檛 feel it鈥檚 ever going to get old. It grows with the times,鈥� he says.

He also says it鈥檚 inspiring to see how the platform can be used in different ways. While it is largely used to support internal processes, for some of Deloitte鈥檚 customers it has been used to help deliver external services, opening up completely new revenue streams.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a completely different way of looking at 麻豆原创 BTP,鈥� Baukham says. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e looking at the layer underneath the analytics, the federation of data across multiple sources. While you鈥檙e not looking to replicate that 鈥� that data stays where it is 鈥� you can still model it through some common data models, KPIs, and dashboards and some of our customers have done that and brought real benefit to their end customers. In both cases, we put ourselves in the shoes of their end customers to develop a new approach. That鈥檚 down to the innovative nature of 麻豆原创 BTP and the way you can make it work for you.鈥�

Rocket’s customer base is typically supply chain and operations intensive. The company has been developing on 麻豆原创 since 2015, previously on 麻豆原创 Cloud Platform and now 麻豆原创 BTP, to deliver solution extensions, enhancements, and integrations, as well as novel solutions for its clients, with each one encompassing a wide range of technical capabilities. In turn, the solutions support a seamless user experience consistent with the new generation of on-premise and cloud applications for 麻豆原创 S/4HANA.

鈥淚mportantly, 麻豆原创 BTP is ready for the end user regardless of what they’re using,” says Rocket Consulting CEO Lewis Marston. “They don’t feel like they’re hopping from one system to another, which we think is absolutely critical to create practical ways of working.鈥�

Rocket regularly deploys 麻豆原创 BTP to extend the lifespan of its clients鈥� 麻豆原创 Business Suite systems, creating stepping stones to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA upgrades, which fall across the areas of mobile, smart or Internet of Things (IoT) devices, user experience and 麻豆原创 Fiori, 麻豆原创 Build automation, 麻豆原创 Data Insight, and integration.

鈥淚t’s giving businesses that entry point into a road map toward having that new user interface across all of their ways of working. It’s a really nice way to extend the life, with consideration and consistency, of an 麻豆原创 S/4HANA road map,鈥� continues Marston.

There is not much Rocket hasn鈥檛 developed on 麻豆原创 BTP: from mobile applications — including integration with IoT devices for track and trace temperature sensing — through to Bluetooth tracking and health and well-being applications, with dashboards, analytics, and robotic process automation in between.

鈥淲e’ve built entire fully self-sufficient applications, from scratch,” Marston shares. “In fact, we run our project delivery services on an application called Helios that we’ve built on 麻豆原创 BTP, which allows us to coordinate and manage the activities across collaborative Rocket teams and customer resources for our professional services delivery.鈥�

Most recently, Rocket has applied its supply chain management expertise at a London-based luxury retailer selling housewares, food, and fashion. Operating a “very seasonal” supply chain for holiday products, the customer sees it go from “nothing, to full steam, back to nothing” within a three-month period.

鈥淒uring this very short period, instead of a typical monthly — or even maybe fortnightly or weekly — planning cycle in a normal supply chain, the customer operates on a daily cycle,鈥� Marston explains. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e having to measure demand and supply across an omnichannel distribution out to consumers, corporate, or retail stores, and to balance that against the supply for Christmas product.鈥�

Because the customer was working with a legacy platform that did not provide the capability needed to manage the problems it was trying to solve, Rocket took a broad view of the 麻豆原创 application and technology stack to bring in the right tools. Data collection and visualizations within the solution allowed the customer to make quick, informed decisions on a high-speed, fast-moving supply chain challenge.

鈥淯p until the new solution was launched, the customer had been relying on a very manual process involving extracting and amalgamating data and then manipulating that in Excel,鈥� adds Marston. 鈥淕iven the pace of this condensed fulfillment, by the time they were done the situation had changed. They were also running on a system with tight development restrictions, so any solution we developed needed to be able to run against existing back-end processes while delivering something innovative to solve the challenge at hand.

“We wanted to provide a series of user experience stepping stones, rather than introducing a divergent way of working,” he continues. “Put simply, this was about giving the supply chain controllers a real-time view of the situation to make their demand and supply balancing accurate, fast, and easy — saving significant time spent on data administration and allowing them to use their time productively by solving supply issues and maximizing their customer service and order satisfaction.鈥�

Marston says that when they demonstrated the new solution there were smiles on their customers鈥� faces — a reminder of the positive impact that targeted, quick-to-deploy innovations can have.

鈥淕oing from a huge manual effort to just pressing a button, and being able to make decisions within minutes instead of days, is transformational. It means they will have fewer stock outages, fewer supply problems, and more customers getting their presents in time for Christmas. That鈥檚 the point of super fast seasonal supply chains.鈥�

to find out more about its services, and get more .

鈥淲e鈥檙e advisors first and foremost,鈥� says Gavdi Group CTO Henrik Secher Jarlskov. “麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform is the tool box that allows us to quickly and directly get to the value of digitally supporting business processes for our customers.”

Jarlskov and his colleagues go into “discovery mode” when customers come to them with an issue. They delve into what the customers believe to be the reason behind one or more broken business processes.

鈥淲hat you don鈥檛 want to end up with is something that will slow a business process down or which focuses too much on the tech,” Jarlskov explains. “Instead, we prototype on potential solutions where our customers can see the impact. We make what we do data-driven, that way it鈥檚 not just based on a gut feeling but based in reality.鈥�

One of the core tenets of (麻豆原创 BTP), according to Jarlskov, is it allows Gavdi to connect multiple different platforms together for customers that are at different stages of transformation — from those using old enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, to others using 麻豆原创 S/4HANA, to those that are fully cloud based. Very often it is a hybrid situation connecting cloud, on premise, 麻豆原创, and non-麻豆原创.

鈥淭he business processes need to go across everything and seamlessly bridge the gap among all the different underlying platforms,鈥� Jarlskov says. 鈥溌槎乖� BTP is often the glue that helps to bridge that gap.鈥�

Jarlskov shares that Gavdi actively seeks out “fast” projects: 鈥淲e ideally want projects that last no longer than two months, and that鈥檚 for two reasons. One, we want to ensure that what we embark on ends up being used, because if you invest in tech and then you don鈥檛 use it, it鈥檚 just a cost. So we want to get our prototype into the hands of those who will be using it and who understand the business values. And the sooner we do that, the quicker ROI you get on it. Secondly, anyone working on an IT project knows that there is plenty of energy at the beginning of the project. After four months, that energy has gone. So instead of having a project that drags on and results in people losing interest, we focus on making small iterations and ensuring that what we鈥檙e doing is reflecting reality and adding real value.”

鈥淲e have an exercise with our clients, where we ask them to list the 10 most important features they鈥檙e looking for from the new solution, and we ask them to prioritize them,” Jarlskov explains. “We start by adding the first two features, then stop and ask someone to use it. Four weeks later, we re-assemble and we go through the same process. I鈥檝e done this 50-plus times and have never been in a situation where all of those first 10 features appear in the final solution. That鈥檚 because they were theoretical features without any insights in reality. Going through our process means that we know we鈥檙e adding features that will really help. It鈥檚 really important to get as close to reality as possible.鈥�

This is why Gavdi鈥檚 role as an advisor is so vital and a requirement.

鈥淏efore 2011, there weren鈥檛 that many options — customers were in a world with one choice,” Jarlskov says. “Now, they鈥檙e faced with a multitude of capabilities and options and they need support navigating through that, to understand what the value drivers are, when they can use them, what the cost is, how much is maintenance, and what鈥檚 the value. Because now, the right solution is going to be there for 10 or 20-plus years. That鈥檚 where the advisory role comes in: customers need to understand how all these different capabilities add value. They need that insight, which is an ongoing thing. Because despite today鈥檚 technology being interesting and exciting, it doesn鈥檛 all make sense for all of our customers.鈥�

Jarlskov shares for some customers the new world of tech can be overwhelming, which is why 麻豆原创 BTP becomes part of the package of delivery. Instead of forcing customers into an existing infrastructure, Gavdi takes them through their unique 鈥淐ustomer Innovation Cloud鈥� offering, whereby they develop the solution on 麻豆原创 BTP and then allow the customer to get it as a software as a service. This becomes part of the process and avoids anything road blocks to value.

It also means the solution can scale. However, this approach is not always straightforward with customers.

Jarlskov says Gavdi dares to challenge the status quo: 鈥淲e鈥檙e not interested in implementing the same thing over and over again, so one of our approaches is called 鈥楶ay 1 – Get X,鈥� whereby we offer solutions up to other customers — we ask them to pay for one and then they get access to all the solutions that we鈥檝e developed for other customers. We don鈥檛 want to re-implement the same, we just want one that adds value and allows others to benefit too.鈥�

Gavdi鈥檚 advisory role runs into education and training initiatives too. 鈥淏y training and teaching our customers, we help them to take ownership and control of the platforms and technologies we鈥檙e applying to their processes,” Jarlskov says.

This approach has become a natural extension to Gavdi鈥檚 own graduate program, which the partner has been investing in for the last seven years. It gives graduates a chance to get hands on with 麻豆原创 tech. As they say at Gavdi: 鈥淵ou do not become a racing driver by looking at cars.鈥�