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Identifying Solution Areas of SAP and Business Processes

Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

Identify Solution Areas of SAP and SAP Partners.
Illustrate Business Processes.

SAP Solutions Portfolio

Illustration, of how many cloud solutions are already created by SAP and SAP Partners.

The solutions of SAP cover the areas of enterprise resource management, spend management, human capital management, customer relationship management, and more. The whole solution layer of SAP has the Cloud ERP - SAP S/4HANA Cloud as a central core surrounded by other SAP solutions and maybe even third party applications. These solutions are, for example:

SAP Ariba
SAP SuccessFactors
SAP Concur
SAP Customer Experience
And more

SAP SuccessFactors: HXM Suite

Human Experience Management (HXM) represents an evolution of human capital management (HCM), placing emphasis on enhancing employee experiences rather than just managing transactional HR processes. The SAP SuccessFactors HCM integrates the strengths of traditional HCM with extra features designed to provide actionable insights. SAP SuccessFactors is a cloud-based HR software that encompasses core HR functions, payroll, and people analytics, along with four key areas of talent management: recruiting, learning and development, compensation, and performance management.

For more information, see https://www.sap.com/products/human-resources-hcm.html.

SAP Ariba

Businesses can achieve digital transformation by collaborating with suppliers and trading partners on the SAP Business Network. SAP Ariba offers cloud-based solutions for effective collaboration.

These solutions cover the entire purchasing process, allowing control over spending, identification of new savings opportunities, and maintenance of a healthy supply chain. Automation, network connections, and data-driven insights enhance partnerships. With SAP Ariba's spend management solutions and SAP Business Network, organizations can manage all spending on a single, integrated cloud platform.

For more information, see https://www.ariba.com/.

SAP Concur

As part of spend management, SAP Concur provides businesses with cloud-based solutions for managing expenses, travel, and invoices. Concur Expense integrates with finance systems like ERP, CRM, HR, and accounting, centralizing spend data.

Concur Expense simplifies reimbursements with automated reports. Concur Travel streamlines bookings, ensuring policy compliance and administrative oversight of travel plans. Concur Invoice automates Accounts Payable, improving cash flow management or spending insights.

For more information, see https://www.concur.com/.

SAP Customer Experience

SAP Customer Experience is an integrated offering designed to update the traditional sales-focused approach of legacy CRM solutions. It supports various front-office functions, such as consumer data protection, marketing, commerce, sales, and customer service.

The goal is to place the customer at the center of business operations. Using interconnected technology, SAP Customer Experience assists in managing customer relationships throughout their lifecycle. The aim is to enhance satisfaction, automate campaigns, resolve issues efficiently, and streamline processes.

For more information, see https://www.sap.com/products/crm.html.

Note

In addition to SAP solutions, there are also numerous industry-specific applications available. These industry solutions support companies in sectors such as oil and gas, automotive, and healthcare in meeting their specific requirements and improving the efficiency of their operations. Many of these applications, developed by SAP and partners, are either built on SAP Business Technology Platform or integrated with it.

Each of these solutions along with numerous other solutions from SAP, partners, and third-party providers can be integrated with the SAP Business Technology Platform to create comprehensive end-to-end business processes. This integration helps organizations streamline operations across various departments, ensuring consistent data flow and better decision-making. As a result, businesses can achieve higher operational efficiency and gain a comprehensive view of their processes.

Business Processes

Intelligent enterprises, supported by AI functionalities, must excel across all their critical end-to-end business processes that span multiple applications and technologies such as:

Lead to Cash: CRM and Customer Experience - Managing all aspects of the customer experience is very difficult as customer and order data is spread across multiple order fulfillment and service delivery systems. The Lead to Cash process covers the entire business process chain from initial contact with a prospective customer, to order fulfillment and service delivery.
Design to Operate: Digital Supply Chain - A lack of insight into the supply chain increases risk and costs to your business. Supply chain and logistics issues can impact every phase of your business and negatively impact customer experience. The Design to Operate process represents the entire lifecycle of products in an end-to-end, connected, and interoperable supply chain process from how a product is designed, planned, manufactured, and delivered, to how it operates and is maintained.
Source to Pay: Network and Spend Management - Assuring compliance across all of the systems involved in operational procurement is challenging because all of the spend information is spread across many different systems. Intelligent spend analysis and governance is only possible when there is real-time visibility across all procurement categories. The Source to Pay process starts with finding, negotiating with, and contracting the supplier of goods, and culminates in final payment for those goods.
Recruit to Retire: HR and People Engagement - Understanding and managing all aspects of your workforce is increasingly challenging in our distributed and digital world. Your business processes must keep pace with your employees in order to keep them productive, engaged, and happy. The Recruit to Retire process focuses on the employee’s lifecycle in the organization. It begins with workforce planning and continues on to hiring and onboarding, workforce management such as employee and employment data, time recording, payroll, and ends with employee retiring.

Key Takeaways of this Lesson

The solution areas form another important key element of SAP's strategy. With SAP S/4HANA as the central Cloud ERP solution, and solutions from the industry cloud portfolio, customers are offered a wide range of functionalities. The end-to-end processes — lead-to-cash, design-to-operate, source-to-pay, and hire-to-retire — represent essential components for modern business operations.

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