Expert interview with
Rick Felt
Three questions put to Rick Felt, President / Publisher - BTT & In-Memory Apps Institute
1. What are the greatest benefits BTT can offer to German/European customers?
Answer RF: Business Transformation Today’s (BTT) mission is to provide intelligence for management decisions in the digital economy, for SAP customers to gain competitive advantage. One of BTT’s greatest customer benefits is our partnership with West Trax for customer migrations to SAP HANA and S/4HANA. The partnership provides BTT’s West Trax intelligence for ERP system maturity KPI benchmarks in a customized Executive dashboard. C Suite, and their teams, use this to determine digital transformation needs to migrate and consider gaps to measured best practices to plan to budget.
BTT’s West Trax dashboard provides the richest set of independent KPI maturity benchmarks on the planet - built on 1,640 West Trax SAP ERP system migration assessments in 15 industries. This is not SAP marketing. The intelligence opens the door to decisions to run the automated migration assessment, West has proven to save up to 70% of money & time spent in face2face assessment workshops that run upwards of 12 months.
Customers gain consistent, reliable information, in the BTT West Trax dashboard. BTT proprietary algorithms provide reliability that powers West Trax benchmarks which are updated as new assessments are produced. “As Is” migration intelligence and BTT’s “What If” configurator reduce customer risk for cost-effective results.
When the executive level Future Readiness Assessment is run, the BTT dashboard reveals your ERP system landscape vs. measured best practices … where you are ahead, behind or exactly on target.
A terrific new BTT benefit emerges during SAP SAPPHIRE 2018 … one-of-a-kind BTT migration assessment problem solving Q&A innovation Forums, plus a Think Tank for thought leaders and doers. This is hosted in the digital IT Toolbox at Ziff Davis Tech (ZDT). Q&A covers 30 topic areas led by West Trax experts and SAP services business partners, for collaborative customer innovation. ZDT serves 47 million IT business decision-makers and technical professionals and the BTT section is designed for acceleration before customers are disrupted by competitors.
Red Hat is the Linux brand preferred by enterprises and Linux is required to run SAP HANA. West Trax and Red Hat provide Red Hat Results2Advice (R2A) insights and knowledge in the West Trax automated migration assessment. The R2A is a vital customer benefit in the BTT intelligence subscription’s Forums and Think Tank.
All these benefits are wrapped in a remarkable value – the BTT intelligence subscription is sponsored by SAP business partners … thus, free of cost and customers can’t get this anywhere else. The result is a clear roadmap for significantly faster, highly economical migration assessments, for SAP HANA and S/4 decisions.
2. What do you tell/ how do you advise customers, who are reluctant to take the first steps on the journey to SAP HANA and S/4 HANA?
Answer RF: BTT advises SAP customers to move with simple, effective first steps today - before being disrupted by a competitor. These things are happening faster than ever. Whether a multinational enterprise, or vendor to large global enterprises, every business is becoming a software business. The dynamic is clear; SAP cites analysts who predict that 40% of the S&P 500 won’t exist by 2020.
West Trax-trained experts operate in BTT’s In-Memory Apps Institute, to help customers discover the first steps via the BTT intelligence subscription, to help Sr. Executives protect their sizable SAP investment. Steps we recommend – below - enable SAP customers to evaluate an economical Future Readiness Assessment which can be completed in less than 1 week.
This Readiness assessment is simplified via the West Trax cloud app. It runs right on your smart phone and opens the door to business value realization with apps & services designed for SAP’s Digital Business Framework, on SAP HANA. The Framework enables reduced business costs with greater productivity in primal cost centers of a business, via integration of the right API’s with governance, risk and compliance.
We advise customers to use the Institute’s first steps which are free of cost through the BTT intelligence subscription sponsored by an SAP business partner – to assess a migration to SAP HANA and S/4…
Step 1 – Educate Sr. Executives who define the business need. Use BTT’s West Trax dashboard “As Is” simulator and examine the dashboard’s “What If” configurator to reduce migration risks.
Step 2 – This June, collaborate in BTT’s exclusive West Trax IT Toolbox Forums & Think Tank. Invite your System Integrator to join the conversation. Discover the Red Hat Results2Advice to run SAP HANA.
Step 3 – Join a private Web meeting with a BTT Institute West Trax pre-sales expert. Explore details about your needs and your system maturity landscape. Receive a proposal to run the affordable exec level Future Readiness Assessment on your smart phone cloud app. Include your services integrator.
Step 4 – Watch the Assessment results pump into your BTT dashboard. Evaluate your system’s maturity status vs. KPI measured best practices. Plan a budget to run the 4 weeks automated technical “deep dive” assessment.
Step 5 – Then, explore more innovation Forums Q&A and Think Tank discussions. Run the “deep dive” assessment with its rules engine Results2Advice. Include your migration services provider, too. Evaluate SAP Solution Extension apps in SAP Expert Series, and ISV partner apps, to justify migration benefits.
3. What are major differences in approaching this subject (SAP HANA / S/4 HANA) in the USA / EMEA?
Answer RF: SAP HANA, whether in Europe or the USA, is simply one of two cornerstones in the SAP Digital Framework. The other cornerstone - SAP Cloud Platform (SCP) - provides all the API’s to efficiently integrate SAP solutions and apps that extend solutions functionality to enhance business productivity.
That said … S/4HANA contains processes for specific industries, and can be customized with rules and financial requirements for countries in Europe vs. the USA.
This opens the door to quickly accelerate savings and productivity in the largest cost centers of an enterprise … HR, Purchasing, Business Travel, Supply Chain, and eCommerce, plus S/4HANA is required to run SAP Leonardo. Leonardo addresses SAP’s entire cloud footprint and drives the Internet of Things in the 4th Industrial Revolution.
Cloud apps change an enterprise’s accounting practices which can differ country to country. Cloud enables the move from Capital expenditure (CapEx) to Operational Expenditure (OpEx), which impacts out of pocket costs for apps and services that are customized for countries e.g. HR apps, Finance apps.
Throughout 2018, BTT will release a Business Value Realization (BVR) intelligence dashboard for each business cost center on SAP’s Framework. HR and Finance S/4HANA are first up. Each BVR dashboard runs on algorithms that power valuable independent 3rd party benchmarks, such as the West Trax benchmarks for migration assessments. Dashboard benchmarks accommodate applicable global views.
The result …
- First, discover intelligence for rapid cost-effective migration assessments to move to SAP HANA & S/4HANA, and assess the FACTS about data customized for your country in your ERP landscape.
- Then, migrate and use business challenges intelligence for apps and services on the SAP Framework, to enable Sr. Executives to define their business gaps vs. competitors` best practices.