Driving Hyperautomation Success Throughout SAP Master Data Processes  

Editor's Notes

• #2: Alternative Headlines: - Alternative Sub-Headlines: Hyperautomation for your digital transformation dreams Driving digital transformation success
• #4: What are we going to talk about today…
• #5: Why is automation such a hot topic in the IT world these days? The pandemic showed many of the shortcomings of our decades of digital transformation efforts. We have spent years and countless dollars digitizing our data and processes, but when the pandemic hot, many of us were caught flatfooted by it’s limitations. As a result, we are now seeing that for many of us, the next step on our digital transformation journey is automating our critical business processes. Many of these are centered on SAP ERP systems and involve creating and managing master data. Now, let’s look at the needs and wants that companies have coming out of the pandemic and how they can be addressed through automation.
• #6: Talk track: Coming out of the pandemic, many of the critical needs our companies have are the same as they were before the pandemic, but now there is a more urgent need to address them before we are faced with another sudden, existential disruption. Talking with our customers we believe the three core needs that companies have, which can be addressed by automation are: 1.) The need to be more agile, with the ability to pivot and adapt when our businesses or markets are disrupted. 2.) We continue to need to go faster to meet competitive threats and keep up with the ever-accelerating changes we see in the marketplace 3.) We need to do these first two while improving the quality and integrity of our most important data – our master data. Since data has become the fuel we use to make critical business decisions, we need to make sure that it is of the highest quality and that we can rely on it.
• #7: Talk track In addition to the critical needs our businesses have, we also want to achieve a number of objectives that will help us remain competitive, these include: 1.) The desire to optimize our staffs – We have spent the better part of the past two decades right sizing, down sizing, and scaling our organizations to be as efficient as possible for today’s business conditions. The problem is that the market keeps evolving, and we gather more business-critical data every day. We want to find ways to help make the staff we have today more efficient and effective. 2.) We want to reach ROI faster. One of the early struggles with automation has been that it can be difficult to measure, or has a return on investment horizon that is too long to justify the up-front cost.
• #8: Gartner – And growing at 12% CAGR KPMG KPMG ASUG Gartner
• #9: This quote does a great job of summing up the importance of data in executing digital transformation. It sets up our discussion for the interdependence of process and data and sets Precisely apart from many of the other process automation providers.
• #11: Why is automation such a hot topic in the IT world these days? The pandemic showed many of the shortcomings of our decades of digital transformation efforts. We have spent years and countless dollars digitizing our data and processes, but when the pandemic hot, many of us were caught flatfooted by it’s limitations. As a result, we are now seeing that for many of us, the next step on our digital transformation journey is automating our critical business processes. Many of these are centered on SAP ERP systems and involve creating and managing master data. Now, let’s look at the needs and wants that companies have coming out of the pandemic and how they can be addressed through automation.
• #12: Gartner coined this term to represent a broader set of technologies, solutions and capabilities that were increasingly converging into a newer market than what used to be called the business process automation market.  Hyperautomation is a business-driven, disciplined approach that organizations use to rapidly identify, vet and automate as many business and IT processes as possible.   Note there is no single process automation technology that provides every capability required to deliver hyperautomation across an organization.  For instance process mining isn't the same as process automation yet both are a part of the hyper automation market. In many cases, selecting technologies is not about simply comparing one tool to another tool. Rather, customers are increasingly focused on determining the best combination of complementary technologies. Hyperautomation involves the orchestrated usage of multiple technologies.  This means customers have a toolbox for automation and we need to fight for the right to be not just one of the tools in their automation toolbox but the selected tool for a given business problem.
• #13: This quote is from a number of years ago, but it still remains true. In the context of Hyperautomation, Gartner continues to recommend that companies adopt a best-of-breed approach to automation. In their own words “It [Hyperautomation] involves the orchestrated use of multiple technologies, tools or platforms”. Adopting a Hyperautomation strategy means not getting locked into a single technology ecosystem or platform. Find the best, most flexible combination of technologies that are going to help you achieve your goals.
• #14: Remember what Gartner said about Hyperautomation: It involves the orchestrated use of multiple technologies, tools or platforms This is one of our customers that are currently using Precisely Automate as well as a generic RPA solution. In this case, it’s Blue Prism but there are other examples where customers have chosen at least 2 automation tools— Precisely Automate for SAP processes and an RPA bot provider for non-SAP processes. This was quoted during an RPA Automation Breakfast Hosted by PwC
• #17: 50-75% reduction in time to market (Monster) (Note: Cannot use Monster name in marketing or promotional materials) 90% reduction in cost to process materials changes (Dorman) 90% reduction in materials data collection time (Cooper Tires) $1.3M productivity savings in materials management (PACTIV)
• #18: 97% reduction in time to create new customer (Exxon Mobile) (NOTE: Cannot use EM name in marketing or promotions) 6 Days eliminated from customer create process (Multinational oil & Gas company – Not Exxon Mobile) 87% reduction in time needed to qualify vendors and materials (Ascend Performance Materials) (2 years to 3 months) 75% reduction in SAP data entry time (Multinational Oil and Gas company)
• #19: 9 months to realize full return on investment in Studio from improved accounting efficiency (Global logistics company) 1.4 million pricing-change records processed – no additional headcount needed (Home Meridian) (Note: Cannot use Home Meridian name in marketing or promotional materials) Replaced paper forms with online forms for processing customer refunds (RSA Insurance) (Note: Cannot use RSA name in marketing or promotional materials) 300 Journal entries per hour using Excel Workflow (McKesson) (Note: Cannot use McKesson name in marketing or promotional materials)
• #20: Note, these are common benefits that the Automate platform delivers across use cases and business functions Other features/benefits Ability to develop solutions that work across the entire SAP ERP landscape Studio template library Professional and Strategic Services available through Precisely Active and engaged online community
• #22: Buying in to the Automate Platform gives you the combined capabilities of Evolve and Studio to deliver end-to-end automation for complex, data-intensive SAP-centric processes. When you adopt a Hyperautomation strategy as the heart of your digital transformation efforts, the Precisely Automate platform gives you a solid foundation on which to achieve tangible, measurable digital transformation and business goals. In a few minutes we’ll talk more about the capabilities of the Precisely Automate platform and how they deliver on the promise of Hyperautomation.
• #23: Our Automate platform delivers a complete set of automation capabilities from data automation to complex process automation. Data automation enables you to automate mass data creation and management activities such as pricing or materials changes using Excel. On the process automation side Excel workflow enables you to manage the data automation files through a complex workflow. A prime example of Excel workflow is for journal entries in finance. There is a good chance that you are already managing your journal entries in Excel. Excel workflow allows you to manage these Excel files through a contingent review and approval process that uses your business rules to determine the routing and approval process. And once the final approval is received, the data is automatically posted to SAP. No manual data entry at the end of the process.
• #24: One of the core, defining characteristics of Hyperautomation is the broad set of capabilities to look for when adopting a hyperautomation strategy. Let’s look at some of the featured capabilities that the Precisely Automate platform has which help it form the center of yout Hyperautomate strategy: - Workflow is how we achieve flexible process automation and the workflow engine in the Precisely Automate platform has been specifically developed for complex, data-intensive SAP-centric processes Connectivity through APIs enables you to automate complex processes where your SAP ERP system is the heart of a process that includes coordinating data across multiple systems of record, or where the data needs further enhancing from third-party sources Self-Service capabilities help further enhance automated processes by allowing outside parties to contribute to the process. A great example of this are portals that allow constituents, such as vendors, to access, enhance or modify their SAP data through a secure web page. This can kick off a workflow to review and approve the data, or directly post data to your system. Data Management automate and streamlines mass-data processes Cloud Deployment to support your company’s move to the cloud activities and better connect to multiple SaaS platforms that are engaged in SAP-centric processes. Governance often presents one of the greatest challenges to manual data management processes and to automated processes that rely on multiple technologies to automate a single process. By adopting a centralized approach to automation, you can achieve end-to-end governance for improved visibility and auditability of complex, data-intensive processes Low-code development which is often referred to as “citizen development” enables business teams to develop and deploy automation solutions, relieving much of the burden from our often overworked IT teams. And, by moving the automation development process closer to the people who own the processes and data, it can significantly lower the time it takes to deploy automation across your business. Attended & unattended automation recognizes that while there are processes we can automate that do not require human intervention (unattended), many of the complex processes that are core to the success of our business are “human in the loop” meaning that people are required to input, review or modify data. Having the flexibility to develop solutions for both attended and unattended scenarios can give more flexibility than solutions centered on unattended processes. Forms are perfect for complex processes that require input from multiple parties across your organization. For example, creating a new vendor in your SAP system, often requires data or review from people in multiple departments either in parallel or sequentially. By deploying role-based forms, you are just requesting or displaying the information that an individual needs to see at a [particular stage of the process. The ability to quickly develop and deploy forms in an automated process can improves efficiency in multiple ways. Data Quality - Finally we get to improved data quality. We talked earlier about the interdependence of process and data in achieving automation success. With data stewardship integrated throughout a complex automated process, the Precisely Automate platform offers a more comprehensive set of data quality tools than automation tools that are only focused on process automation. As a complete set of capabilities, the Precisely Automate platform is the right combination of capabilities on which to center your Hyperautomation strategy and build for success.
• #25: Note to sales: Use this slide to highlight some of the key features of our workflow capabilities and how we can enable customers to dramatically reduce cycle times and improve compliance.
• #26: Note to sales: Use this slide to explain our key data stewardship capabilities for both web form and Excel front ends. This is a great way to set up or summarize a demo.
• #27: Note to sales: Use this slide to highlight the key aspects of our SAP integration capabilities. This is a big differentiator for us compared to generic BPA tools.
• #28: Note to sales: Use this slide to explain that Automate Evolve is designed to enable people without SAP programming skills to build solutions, enabling organizations to scale up their automation efforts while still maintaining tight controls of what users can do. This is a big differentiator against heavy-lift technical MDM products like SAP MDG.
• #29: Note to sales: Getting more visibility into these strategic data processes is one of the key reasons customers are looking for an automation solution. If customers are tackling these processes with spreadsheets and email it’s really tough and time consuming to find out where a request is in the process.
• #30: [Note to sales:] The main point we want to get across in this slide is that our flexible, extensible architecture enables organizations to become more agile—a key requirement in today’s fast-paced marketplace. Being able to create and modify automation solutions quickly and without big IT budgets is one of the main reasons customers replace homegrown or inflexible third-party solutions. Below are some points to clarify the bullets Support different process and data needs in one solution – examples: A vendor onboarding solution that applies different workflow logic depending on the country where products will be sold An NPI solution that supports different launch types and processes by plant or region Start small and expand your automation footprint over time – this ties back into our dynamic process linking capabilities. You can build a solution today that involves one or a few data objects and then add on over time. The classic use case for this is NPI, but it applies across the different business areas and data domains. Modify solutions easily without technical IT resources or expensive SI engagement – this enables organizations to keep up with changes in the business
• #31: Note to sales: You don’t need to go through each of these features on the slide. There are corresponding slides to each of these in section 2 of the slide library. The key message to get across here is that we’ve assembled a unique combination of features based on many years of experience. This feature set is specifically designed to solve the challenges around automating the creation and maintenance of strategic data assets.
• #33: Agility to quickly adapt to changes in your business environment through flexible workflow automation Also – Low code/no code environment enables faster solution development through citizen development Speed for faster, more efficient processes Improved initial data quality through elimination of manual data entry and integrated data stewardship capabilities Visibility throughout a complex process for: Reporting Process Intelligence Process linking - real-time process tracking (Does this get called out separately?) Audit support Historical comparison/analysis Business team focus – Low code/no code environment enables business teams and those closest to a process to develop automation solutions Automation flexibility - to determine best automation route (attended vs unattended, form or Excel interface, connection to other systems of record through APIs for end-to-end process automation) Scalability to process almost any amount of SAP data as needed by a process step Proven track record – Nearly twenty years of SAP ERP process automation success has demonstrated why Evolve is the leading process automation platform/solution for thousands of customers world-wide.
• #34: Mention citizen development and our history of enabling business teams to develop and deploy automation