Sap: Expectations vs. Reality

 01

Sara Ali Khan Shares Various "Moods Of Mowgli"

Sara Ali Khan posted this (Courtesy: saraalikhan95)

New Delhi:

Sara Ali Khan is a palette of moods. At least, that's how she is on her Instagram page. And, we simply love it. So, what is Sara's current mood? She calls it, "Moods of Mowgli." Her caption also added some palm tree emojis. In the photos that the actress has shared on the platform, she is wearing a sap green dungaree. Sara's messy hair and laid back vibes suggest that her "Mowgli" mood must be quite a chilling one to be in. Sara's aunty Saba Pataudi has given a thumbs up to the mood. “Jungle vibes...Yet classy and cool,” she wrote.  A person said, "You are like Mowgli girl." 

Take a look at Sara's post:

Sara Ali Khan has also shared some pics on Instagram Stories. Apart from adding monkey and palm tree emojis, she gave us a reality check. Along with two photos of herself in her "Mowgli" mood, Sara made an "expectation vs reality" post. In the first photo, she is smiling ear to ear whereas in the second photo she looks a bit annoyed.

Photo Credit: Sara Ali Khan shared this

On the occasion of Siblings Day, which was on April 10, Sara Ali Khan entertained her fans with a super adorable banter with her brother Ibrahim Ali Khan. In the video, Sara asks her brother if they are similar. Ibrahim says, "No. You?". Just then their mother, actress Amrita Singh interrupts and says, "Both are nuisances, both are demanding nuisances." The brother-sister duo's fun banter continues. Sara captioned the video, "Happy Sibling's Day. Watch us laugh, sing and play. I know I'm annoying by the way. But as Iggy Potter knows- that's here to stay."

Earlier, Sara Ali Khan gave us a sneak peek into her secret talent. What's it? "Main bohot accha gaana gaati hoon (I sing very well)," says Sara when someone asks her to disclose  In the caption, the actress wrote "Eating or singing? Which is my real skill?"

Sara Ali Khan was last seen in Atrangi Re, co-starring Akshay Kumar and Dhanush. She will next feature in Laxman Utekar's untitled film with Vicky Kaushal and Gaslight alongside Vikrant Massey and Chitrangada Singh.

02

How SAP can humanise touchpoints for exceptional customer experiences

Customer expectations continue to rise and the last 18 months has shown that brands must create the best experience for customers without having an impact on trust.

Yet many brands still have some work to do, according to SAP research, which found up to a 50-point variance between what customers were expecting and what they experienced. In particular, privacy provisions need to improve to better match customer expectations and build trust through transparency around personal data.

“While it’s positive that brands have adapted quickly to the pandemic by embracing digital tools, the findings from our recent research highlight the concerns that Australians have around how brands are collecting and using their data,” says SAP global customer experience advisor, David Scribner.

Today’s consumers are digitally savvy and intentional about the information they share. As a result, they expect assurance that their data is secure. SAP always advises brands to ensure that they protect customer information and offer the ability to control how it’s used, if they are to gain the trust and the business of consumers.

“It's important that brands invest in customer data management and ensure they provide transparency for customers to make an impact on their own data,” Scribner adds.

Achieving a single customer view

SAP knows how a single view of the customer is integral to enabling brands to deliver exceptional customer experiences and at its core, it’s a relationship built around trust. This is the basis of loyalty and can only be earned if brands are transparent with their consumers.

To develop this single customer view a reality takes a mixture of three fundamental components. The first component will allow companies to identify what is the next best action, before the consumer chooses to provide first-party data.

After this relationship has started, the second part is that there's going to be an enticement to an interaction between the prospective customer and the brand, which might be an email to subscribe and stay in touch.

The third element is the ability to bring both of these elements together but in a way that is deterministic instead of probabilistic to learn rather than just try to predict the next customer action. “Now that you have both an experience that is being built and you have the identity, then start asking, don't guess what the customer may want next,” Bonilla says.

“At SAP we develop these solutions that embed these three components in a way that can be individually deployed, as well as deployed together, to optimise that customer experience,” he adds.

One of the things brands may struggle with is an uneven customer data picture. While they may already have certain elements, such as a customer identity or access management system in place, with SAP they only need to collect the preference and consent to then develop processes to understand what is the next best action for customers.

“SAP can take whatever elements a brand has and help build out those other parts so develop that single view of customer,” Bonilla says.

The recipe for humanising the brand using data

To deliver exceptional modern customer experiences, the customer must be at the centre of what a brand does. It’s providing a consistent and ‘human’ voice. “This is a critical step for organisations to manage across all platforms and cross-platforms. Providing the best service at each interaction/moment of truth,” says David Scribner.

A great experience is best delivered when the organisation has a clear understanding of each touchpoint, how it performs, how it competes and how it can get better. For brands that want to work towards narrowing the customer expectation-experience gap, there are three key components: 

Humanise a brand’s experience at every touchpoint.

Be open and transparent about the customer’s personal data, and let them have control of that data in an open and straightforward form.

Have the tools and systems in place to monitor and adjust your customer experience to continue to produce better experiences. 

Looking ahead, as brands embark on digital transformation, it’s vital they don’t overlook the importance of the human element and the humanisation of the customer touchpoints. Putting the customer at the centre and making it human is the key ingredient.

 “It's important that at each touchpoint, the brand understands its impact on the customer and how that can affect the overall business and the relationship with the customer,” Scribner says.

As organisations race to deliver on one experience, they need to ensure that their multi-channel experience meets the expectations of customers in other areas such as responsiveness, managing feedback. 

“By continuing to look for innovative ways to improve experiences, it can go a long way to making it great digital experiences,” he adds.

Click here to learn how SAP can help you to deliver personalised, trusted and connected customer experiences.

03

Yesterday´s ERP Future is Today´s Reality

Yesterday´s Future is Today´s Reality- why running SaaS ERP is a game changer in the Industry. In the area of Business applications, cloud seems to be all over the place. But it has many facets which all have its right to exist, though it´s a fatal misunderstanding to see cloud simply as an alternative technical deployment option.

From the new millennium SaaS models that have been adopted, initially with huge appetite in dedicated Line of Business areas. We would call them Cloud 1.0 solutions, mainly CRM, HCM, SRM, Travel Management. The hunger for faster innovation cycle and independence of corporate IT was huge and drove cloud to new heights. But moving into the cloud was not about a technological movement alone.

We would like explain via Customer Relationship Management: For CRM it was a fundamental mind shift towards tools supporting "The Salesman of the 21st century", a highly social, collaborative and cross-linked persona who is able to manage customer relations in the most comprehensive and collaborative way. Sales Force Automation was legacy before that inflection point and Innovations often left this highly critical group outside as it was focused on the back end, often COO-lead processes to control sales and operations. A sales rep simply wasn´t in focus and so not able to win the battle for the customer by ignoring new possibilities.

Now, as this LoB markets have been settled in favor of SaaS, we again see the world changing in time-lapse. In a fully digitized world, information can be measured and made available across the globe instantaneously. Sailing on the back-wind of new technologies, this is a key enabler for companies to rethink their market position and strategy - and redefining business processes. Fundamentally, it means that a digital business need to deliver on the ubiquitous promise to truly serve a segment of one: The end consumer. The whole value chain becomes a highly flexible organism to be run in real time - it becomes a LIVE Business.

At the same time became the definition of ERP volatile in the market space. From post-modern ERP definitions that stopped beyond core HR and Finance to an ERP definition, which is now maturing and looking at a federated suite transforming into a digitized core-to-edge definition. When customers consider moving their ERP to a SaaS solution, it is driven by the need to get far beyond a new deployment option. Cloud adoption is not a technological decision, it is transformation to re-invent core ERP applications like accounting and finance, procurement, manage stocks, production and materials management, R&D - serving the needs of the digital economy.

As a result it enables enterprises running more flexible and foster innovations faster - this is the corporate imperative today. SaaS customers always run on the latest innovation and clients can focus on core business rather than keeping track with upgrades - after all, it´s software as a service.

A Short History of ERP and SaaS ERP

Since the 80s, companies like SAP have successfully shaped and anticipated market trends and helped countless businesses run better. As new mega-trends emerged or were inspired by SAP, like ERP itself, we restlessly drove the industry to solve the next decade's needs. The achievements created during one megatrend became the status quo for the next, providing the building blocks to a new and even more innovative way of tackling the next generation´s problems, meeting new demands, and driving businesses to work increasingly in real-time.

ERP systems focused originally on automating back office functions. In the year 2000 ERP was coined the first time dead in an article. And re-invented within the same article again. Gartner described web-based software that provides real-time access to ERP systems to employees and partners including suppliers and customers. The new ERP expands traditional ERP resource optimization and transaction processing. Rather than just document the physical reality it became a connected platform to interact between Enterprises.

Later ERP was coined dead again many times (and for sure will be coined many times to come mostly by cloud 1.0 vendors that have no alternative), though the undisputed success of the business suite speaks for itself. Just look at the growth rates or talk to the leaders in companies that need to digitally transform. They know they need a new core - just innovate at the edges does not deliver the value they need. Additionally enterprises want to and can leverage on premise investments while growing into the next inflection point in global business. At the same time, business changed at an unprecedented pace.

Mid of last century, most companies could expect to last forever. In today's fast changing world, companies are chased by disrupted everywhere. A shrinking life expectancy of companies on the Fortune 500 index from 75 years to 15 years as reported by Steven Denning (Forbes) and the fact, that 4 "Start Ups" (Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, Alibaba.com) today equals 60% of the market cap of the German stock market DAX speaks a straight language: Fast Innovators - hungry for success - disrupt established markets.

Not necessarily fueled with better products but better customer service strategies - focusing even on the customers of their customers (B2B2C). Smart companies leapfrog industry borders and sell additional products and services into existing markets and leave established market leaders perplexed behind. We recognized many Blue Chips has fallen flat and became irrelevant in one single decade.

Modern ERP need to support this fast and dramatic shift without losing its capabilities to run like a clockwork.

The Demand for an Intelligent Enterprise

Charles Duell said in 1899 - "Everything that can be invented has been invented". No doubt, all established companies were truly entrepreneurs with tremendous achievements in their respective markets. They have each performed outstanding upon entering the market and they all had great advantages over the competition ... for the time being.

A new dilemma arises once companies become market leaders: to maintain their hard-won position, they now put themselves on the defensive. The most innovative companies start becoming conservative the moment they become successful. True, this helps their business position. Unfortunately, this also potentially signals the beginning of the end of their innovation leadership.

For too many companies Digital Transformation is an excuse to focus on yester-years growth rates, at the end loosing against others because they do not challenge themselves early and often enough.

The digital economy it about the End-to-end experience. You don´t book an UBER because they run better cars. You book an Uber because you can start your journey wherever you are. At your fingertips on your smartphone. Easy to use, once you are registered, the same experience everywhere for global travelers. And you know what you get. You can visualize your position against the next free ride, what car, how does the driver look like, no local cash required, invoices via email for your expense report, fair prices as all is tracked via GPS.

The new technical possibilities and customer behavior makes the digital storefront a MUST have to compete and ultimately survive in the digital economy. Companies want to be where the customers are. It is a logical consequence of the Segment of ONE. Customers want to be treated as individuals, not in a segments with others any more.

But what´s next after digitizing my storefront? It creates a huge new promise to the market.

"Dear Mr Customer, I am a service (oriented) company and I will treat you exceptional well".

This triggers an average invoice value decrease while the number of invoices is exploding - first of all no problem for a mature enterprise solution that thinks and acts end-to-end. Though similar impact you will have in your enterprise logistics, the average value and size of lots is going down while the number of lots is going significantly up. The direct consequence of this "UNIT of ONE driven order size" seeps throughout the entire organization. How can I keep my corporate functions working at scale in such an environment?

Also, think of adopting Big Data. How long have we been talking about Big Data in the Industry? Here is our question to you: How much has changed in the individual workplace of your employees since this term is socialized? How many better decisions have your employees made, because of smart insights? The standard answer we get, well....

At the end we would argue that Big Data is not the problem, the focus needs to be the "right" Data, leveraged in context of the adequate business process and brought to the attention of an end-user exactly at the moment he makes his business decisions.

The ability to ride through this digital storm requires adopting new perspectives and technologies.

To address this, customers need to automate repetitive tasks and decisions based on information available. It is time to rethink the core processes. With the combination of machine learning and predictive analytic´s, we are going to enter the decade of Intelligent Enterprise, automating standard business functions, and leaving room for differentiating activities to the individuals. It is about exception based handling and not filling the workdays with routine tasks any more.

Now, what defines a digitized core?

1. An architecture that delivers a scalable foundation to transact at highest possible automation

2. A system of intelligence that supports and steers the business using embedded analytic´s, simulation, prediction, and decision support to run LIVE business

3. An end-to-end experience that allows to be faster implemented, consumed, and adapted- with best information at the time decisions are made

4. An open architecture to allow connected-ness and adoption of micro-services

Key drivers for customers to move to the cloud

Driven by the subscription economy, the distance between the engineer and the end user of a product has been dramatically reduced - even more: the industry entered into a service business model. The result is an unmatched speed of innovation, simplicity and reduced time to value. This hits the companies´ core value, their brands. The currency of the past was a superior product; todays currency is a superior end-to-end-experience of a product. Bying a product bonded customers for some time, the minimum span was the financial depreciation of the investment. A subscription economy is a highly volatile service business with different rules, focused on the essence of things and needs.

Moving a "companies´ Core" to the Cloud enables a fast deployment and improves time to value. Additionally, it fosters rapid innovation cycles and reduces TCO and TCI, matching a fit2standard and enabling agility in consumption. The end2end experience is at the heart of it, not the product on its own.

But for customers and partners there are new rules of the game to adapt and digitally transform as well. Technology induced innovation change the market demand fundamentally goes along with business changing capabilities for each Line of Business. Enterprise customers expect to re-define, innovate and digitize its core asset - ERP, and consume it as a SaaS model. The SaaS model is fast becoming a de-facto standard for deploying ERP across the market space. New digital advances have caused this tectonic shift in the enterprise technology as described above.

The latest wave of technology innovations was effectively leveraged by consumer driven companies, IT in the cloud was mainly deployed for the sake of a better customer service.

Enterprises are now catching up to digitize the core. By leveraging new technological innovations, it is now possible to eliminate many technical limitations in enterprise applications, a journey which nearly every company embarked on, the TOP expectations to be mentioned:

Fast time to value: Adoption of SaaS for Line of Business cloud solutions is already a commodity. Customers are now beginning to deploy core ERP in the cloud to regain velocity and adopt new technologies.

Shifting CapEx to OpEx also for Core ERP: Companies prefer to gain flexibility and grow the solution with the company in a flexible model without locking in capital. Especially a highly volatile market with mergers, de-mergers and divestitures driven by the digital transformation is in favor of highly flexible capital models.

Change to an Insight To Action driven model: Modern ERP systems are Systems of Intelligence", not "Systems of Records" anymore. The transactional workload of an individual needs to be reduced to 10% exception based handling to keep the increasing volume of digitized companies manageable.

Fast(er) adoption of latest technological innovation: Faster adopt new technologies such as consumer-grade UX, IoT, Big Data adoption, machine learning, blockchain - to just mention a few - without long or additional implementation cycles. Simply consuming new innovation with the latest version every quarter.

Freeing up IT resources for strategic innovation topics and differentiating processes, like enabling the Enterprise for digital transformation and drive Innovations according to the Gartner Bimodal IT, while relying on the core to run like a clockwork in a federated environment.

Keep following for more examples when we lay out a step for step approach here at ÜberTech and @SDenecken and @BeSchulze