The Need for an Intelligent ERP System in the Utilities Industry

A radical change in the utility industry is occurring at a rapid pace. Changes in technologies, business models, standards, and the makeup of utility companies themselves require constant adaptation. Utilities must be able to respond to rapidly changing conditions, yet still comply with all standards. How does a digital core with a true single source of truth help?

Agility
A digital core is an IT architecture that offers stability and long-term reliability for core enterprise processes, yet also provides the flexibility to adapt quickly to new opportunities, challenges, and regulations. This solid foundation gives you a single source of truth, which in turn enables flexibility for innovation to accommodate things like new business models, new regulations, and business events, such as mergers or acquisitions.

Managing Big Data
Every utility company needs the computing capability to carry out complex algorithms with large data sets to support timely, real-time analysis. Everyone in the company must have access to data they need, whenever and wherever they need it. This is also true for the rest of the utility ecosystem so that suppliers can stay up to date with a company’s orders; customer service
agents can see customer history for billing, service, and consumption information; and maintenance teams can accurately monitor asset performance.

Innovation
Utilities must transform to grow profits and reduce costs by simplifying their operations. The value of the digital economy is based on how the consumer or “prosumer” (producer and consumer of energy) is served. Value creation often comes from edge solutions that are based on and coordinated by digital core solutions. It is the framework for innovation and business process optimization, connecting the workforce, suppliers, customers, assets, and the supply network.

Analysis
It is crucial to get the right information at the right time on the right device. Plant processes are supported or controlled by predictive and self-learning systems that interact with machines and business processes. Predictive analytics and machine learning (ML) accelerate the delegation of business processes and decisions from people to machines. People who need the knowledge have digital access on demand and in real time, regardless of whether they are part of the core or the extended workforce.

Stand apart in a world that never stands still – with SAP S/4HANA powered by Approyo
Your business isn't generic. Your ERP shouldn't be either. SAP S/4HANA powered by Approyo provides utility companies with industry best practices built from decades of experience – and allows them to bring cutting-edge innovation in the cloud to their core processes, be it customer engagement, predictive maintenance, or usage-based billing. So they can attain the operational excellence they need to deliver the ultimate customer experience.

• Industry Insight - A world of rapid technological change – distributed energy resources, microgeneration, batteries, microgrids, and electrical mobility – and social media adoption is forcing providers of electricity to rethink how they work, the services they provide, and their business models. The most successful companies will flexibly manage demand, enabled by insights garnered from smart technologies.
• Customer Success - SAP S/4HANA provides re-engineered and simplified business activities transforming the execution from multistep, batch-driven processes with latency in terms of key performance indicators to real-time processes with actionable insights to accelerate invoice processing, increase cash flow, and protect revenue assurance.
• Productivity Improvement - SAP S/4HANA empowers call-center agents and field workers with an end-user centric, consumer-grade experience because, for utilities, it's the call-center agents that add value to customer engagements and field workers who deliver operational excellence.
• Cost Savings - SAP S/4HANA powered by Approyo allows for real-time monitoring of asset health and can predict failure before it happens. Maintenance orders are triggered just in time, avoiding unnecessary inspections and decreasing the cost and risk of unplanned failure.

Start your path to the Intelligent Enterprise with Approyo
Bringing SAP S/4HANA and SAP Leonardo technologies together as a digital core results in a more flexible and intelligent enterprise. Approyo provides full SAP service technology with extensive capabilities in consulting, solutions architecture, hosting and managed services, in order to develop the right solution for our customers. Get started today...

SAP and Microsoft Announce Project Embrace to accelerate adoption of SAP S/4HANA

Building on a joint commitment to simplify and modernize customers’ journeys to the cloud through project “Embrace,” SAP SE and Microsoft Corp. announced an extensive go-to-market partnership — from conceptualization to sales — to accelerate customer adoption of SAP S/4HANA and SAP Cloud Platform on Microsoft Azure.

Today’s new, preferred cloud partnership brings together SAP and Microsoft, along with a global network of system integrators, to offer holistic bundles that provide customers with unified reference architectures, road maps and market-approved journeys to illuminate a clear path toward the cloud. As part of this simplified customer journey, Microsoft will resell components of SAP Cloud Platform alongside Azure. This unique offering is aimed at more easily migrating SAP ERP application and SAP S/4HANA customers from on premise to public cloud.

Under the banner of project ‘Embrace’, SAP, Microsoft and a global ecosystem of system integrators including Approyo will combine to offer “holistic bundles” designed to provide customers with unified reference architectures and strategic roadmaps in the context of cloud.

SAP will lead with Microsoft Azure to move on-premise SAP ERP and SAP S/4HANA customers to the cloud through industry-specific best practices, reference architectures and cloud-delivered services. This includes future deployment and migration of existing direct SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud customers leveraging hyperscaler infrastructure. However, SAP continues with its long-standing policy of supporting choice for those customers who request alternatives based on business requirements.

"I am proud to have the Approyo team working with Microsoft Azure and SAP on Project Embrace" added Christopher M. Carter, CEO of Approyo. 

Specifically, project “Embrace” on Microsoft Azure will provide customers with:

• A simplified move from on-premise editions of SAP ERP to SAP S/4HANA for customers with integrated product and industry solutions. Industry market bundles will create a road map to the cloud for customers in focused industries, with a singular reference architecture and path to streamline implementation.
• Collaborative support model for simplified resolution. In response to customer feedback, a combined support model for Azure and SAP Cloud Platform will help ease migration and improve communication.
• Jointly developed market journeys to support customer needs. Designed in collaboration with SAP, Microsoft and system integrator partners will provide roadmaps to the digital enterprise with recommended solutions and reference architectures for customers. These offer a harmonized approach by industry for products, services and practices across Microsoft, SAP and system integrators like Approyo.

Read the Full Announcements:

From Microsoft:
https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2019/10/20/new-cloud-migration-pairing-offers-enhanced-customer-experience/

From SAP:
https://news.sap.com/2019/10/sap-microsoft-partnership-cloud-migration-offerings/

Approyo Welcomes New Client Services Manager Jason Hilderbrand

Approyo is proud to announce that after an extensive search Jason Hilderbrand has been selected to be the company’s next Client Services Manager. Jason brings an MBA from the University of Wisconsin and over 4 years of extensive SAP Basis experience across a host of support dependencies including managing projects, fixing any service issues, tracking service metrics, and helping lead the professionals responsible for getting services delivered to clients.

As the Client Services Manager, Jason’s role focuses on keeping clients satisfied with the Approyo's services, while working with businesses and end-users to help them resolve issues and answer questions. Jason is the liaison between an Approyo and its customers.

“The relationship with our customers is always our first priority,'' said CEO of Approyo Christopher Carter. “Jason’s appointment only bolsters our argument that great people build long term relationships, and that's how we do business with our customers.”

SAP Fiori 101 (Updated - 2019)

SAP Fiori is a framework that provides the porting of applications on mobile devices and was released in 2013. It enables applications to be used on desktop computers, tablets and smartphones. SAP Fiori supports HTML5. The initial release had few applications to start and gradually increased to complete the SAP Business Suite.

SAP Fiori is the UX of the Intelligent Enterprise that changes the way you work. It equips designers and developers with a set of tools and guidelines to create apps for any platform faster than ever – providing a consistent, innovative experience for both creators and users. SAP Fiori enables you to turn new ideas into great apps as quickly as the market demands.

Three types of Fiori apps:

• Transactional apps - which allow users to perform SAP transactions on mobile devices as well as desktops. For instance, there is a transactional app for creating a leave of absence request and another for approving a purchase order.
• Fact sheets - which display information about key business objects in SAP. For example, there is a fact-sheet app for viewing a central purchase contract; it allows users to also drill down into related entities, such as vendor contacts, items under contract, and terms.
• Analytical apps - which allow users to display key performance measures and other aggregate information about the business.

SAP Fiori 2.0
SAP Fiori 2.0 was released in October 2016 and is the leading design for all SAP applications providing a harmonized user experience across on premise and cloud solutions. A new visual theme – named Belize – comes along with light and dark flavors. Using SAP S/4HANA, the UI Theme Designer allows you to adapt the theme to your corporate identity.

SAP Fiori 3 - September 2019 update 
SAP has chosen to deliver the SAP Fiori 3 innovations in a stepwise approach. With SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1908 and SAP S/4HANA 1909, the very first step becomes available to end users: the new Quartz theme as a successor of the Belize theme used with SAP Fiori 2.0, and the new shell header bar, which also replaces the viewport introduced with SAP Fiori 2.0.

Designed and developed by all SAP product teams, SAP Fiori 3 offers a more consistent and integrated experience across the entire SAP portfolio. This helps decrease training time, increases application effectiveness and provides consistency of use across devices from anywhere. Embedded artificial intelligence in SAP Fiori 3 provides intelligent home pages that show everything a user needs to focus on, and supports proactive business situation handling, which offers explanations, insights and proposed actions.

The new SAP Fiori 3 theme “Quartz Light”
The new Quartz theme is lighter and more neutral, to blend more into the background, giving application content the center stage. It is simple and minimalistic, making it easy for customers to theme it to their brand.

Approyo Welcomes Brandon Paulos and Femi Shah

Approyo is proud to announce that we have expanded our team again, this time welcoming Brandon Paulos and Femi Shah to our headquarters in Wisconsin.

Both Brandon and Femi join the Approyo team after previously working in the summer internship program as members of the Approyo Service Delivery team. Brandon and Femi will now be Jr. SAP Basis Administrator, working with our customers and partners to manage and support their SAP needs.

Brandon says his big draw to Approyo was the opportunity to work with developing and new technologies in a fun work atmosphere.  And Femi added that she is excited to be part of a fantastic team and culture that supports learning and development.

 “We are pleased to add Brandon and Femi to our growing top-notch team in Wisconsin. We are proud to be based in Wisconsin, where there is an exponential amount of growth in the technology sector,” says Christopher M. Carter, CEO of Approyo.

Approyo Among “Best Entrepreneurial Companies in America” For Second Year in a Row According to Entrepreneur Magazine

Entrepreneur Magazine recognized Approyo, a leading enterprise SAP HANA Solutions Provider headquartered in Milwaukee, as one of the “Best Entrepreneurial Companies in America” on its 2019 Entrepreneur 360™ List, the most comprehensive analysis of private companies in America. This is the second year in a row that Approyo has been honored by Entrepreneur Magazine for its impact, innovation, growth, leadership, and value.

“It is an honor to be recognized by Entrepreneur Magazine for the second consecutive year,” says Christopher M. Carter, CEO of Approyo. “2019 has been a great year of growth for the team at Approyo and this recognition further validates our success in the SAP ecosystem. Thank you to our team, partners and customers.”

"Every entrepreneur knows that a healthy business isn't just about growth. It's about being well-rounded—growing your culture and your systems as strongly as you grow your revenue," says Jason Feifer, editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine. "That's why we're excited to celebrate these companies with our fifth annual Entrepreneur 360. The companies that make the ranking have pushed boundaries with their innovative ideas, fostered strong company cultures, impacted their communities for the better, strengthened their brand, and grown impressively as a result."

Honorees were identified based on the results from a comprehensive study of independently owned companies, using a proprietary algorithm and other advanced analytics. The algorithm was built on a balanced scorecard designed to measure five metrics reflecting major pillars of entrepreneurship — innovation, growth, leadership, impact and business valuation.

For additional details on the E360 List and the companies recognized, visit: entrepreneur.com/360

About Entrepreneur Media, Inc.
For 42 years, Entrepreneur Media Inc. has been serving the entrepreneurial community by providing comprehensive coverage of business and personal success through original content and events. Entrepreneur magazine, Entrepreneur.com, GreenEntrepreneur.com and publishing imprint Entrepreneur Press provide solutions, information, inspiration and education read by millions of entrepreneurs and small business owners worldwide. To learn more, visit entrepreneur.com.

SAP Releases SAP S/4HANA 1909

With the 1909 release of SAP S/4HANA, SAP continues to focus on delivering leading-edge value in three key areas: intelligent automation, insight and prediction, and next-generation best practices. Intelligent automation, insight and prediction, next-generation processes: SAP S/4HANA 1909 is the Intelligent Enterprise Foundation and brings many new and innovative capabilities to the market. View the complete announcement on www.SAP.com

Foundation of a Digital Core

• An architecture that delivers a scalable foundation to transact at the highest possible automation
• A system of intelligence that supports and steers the business using embedded analytics, simulation, prediction, and decision support to run LIVE business
• An end-to-end experience that can be faster implemented, consumed, and adapted
• An open architecture to allow connectivity and adoption of micro-services

What makes the Digital Core intelligent?

• A digital age UX: Conversational UI´s and natural language processing allows us to target a hands-free ERP by 2020.
• Automation of business processes: Automation mainly addresses companies´ bottom lines and helps to reduce costs. We strive for an automation of 50% of all ERP business processes within the next 3 years.
• The next generation of business processes: We provide a streamlined architecture and a technology that did not exist before. We aim to increase the top line by providing an infrastructure which allows us to completely rethink value creation and service tasks.

While the list of new capabilities in SAP S/4HANA 1909 is extensive, it is important and consider the big picture. In 2017, the number of SAP S/4HANA innovations was 966, in 2018 it was 2,389, and now, in 2019, it stands at 3,312: an increase of almost 3.5 times! User experience (UX) innovations have gone from 646 to 1,048, and to now 1,496 — up by more than double in three releases.

Major SAP S/4HANA 1909 Highlights from SAP

• In finance, improvements in the continuous closing process will drive increased process efficiency and faster insights into your business. Integration of SAP Analytics Cloud with financial planning provides quicker, clearer insight so you can run your business more effectively. 
• In manufacturing, intelligent robotic process automation (IRPA) helps deliver predictive material resource planning (pMRP) so you can better serve your customers while reducing inventory costs.
• Predictive analytics now helps improve sales forecasts and delivery performance. Added blockchain capabilities make supplier quotes more secure.
• Improved integration across all lines of business drives end-to-end processes that lead to improved customer-centricity.

View the complete announcement on www.SAP.com

Start your path to the Intelligent Enterprise and SAP S/4HANA with Approyo
Approyo provides full SAP service technology with extensive capabilities in consulting, solutions architecture, hosting and managed services, in order to develop the right solution for our customers. We are already helping our customers start the move the SAP S/4HANA 1909. Get started today...

SAP S/4HANA: The Speed and Power of Simplification

SAP S/4HANA eliminates the complexities of legacy ERP databases, giving organizations a vastly simplified digital core with access to business-critical data in real time. The “S” in SAP S/4HANA is a nod to SAP's legacy business suite. SAP S/4HANA is optimized for SAP HANA, which supports a data model that simplifies the business computing environment dramatically. To take full advantage of this design, SAP S/4HANA was created to reimagine and recode the business suite from the ground up.

REUNIFICATION
Traditionally, the typical enterprise computing environment has been split between online transactional processing (OLTP) and online analytical processing (OLAP). This split is a compromise made long ago: each system gets a copy of the original transactional data, commonly in a different data model, with each optimized for the type of workload (OLTP versus OLAP) in that system. This compromise, though, comes at the cost and complexity of managing two separate environments and moving data between them. Because SAP HANA can support performing analytical calculations and transformations on the fly, organizations can now bring OLTP and OLAP together again. Gone are the complex “helper structures” (indexes and data aggregate tables) that are used to overcome system performance issues running at the speed of disk. Now, with a simplified data model and the speed of in-memory processing, organizations can perform analytics on all data (live and historical) in a single environment – in the moment, as needed.

SIMPLICITY
By redesigning ERP for SAP HANA, the SAP S/4HANA reduces the number of tables dramatically across a wide range of functions. Take, for instance, finance and controlling. While in the past, data was structured in subledgers (accounts payable, accounts receivable, general ledger, asset accounting, cost center accounting, and so on), today they run on a single universal journal. This universal journal brings together postings related to finance (FI) and controlling (CO) in one single source table. The integrity of financial data is guaranteed by design, eliminating reconciliation effort between FI and CO and ensuring that every-one can always access the most current data. Teams are aligned and more effective because the complexity has been removed. Forecasting is faster and more accurate. Key performance indicators such as days sales outstanding (DSO) are avail-able in real time on a granular level. Profit center reporting, profitability analysis, and other real-time analytics performed on top of the universal journal become a reality.

As much as this simplification helps SAP, it also helps our customers. The SAP Tax Compliance application, for example, helps to streamline tax compliance through an automated tax control framework and now runs in SAP S/4HANA instead of a separate system that requires data replication. This application provides an enterprise-wide repository of compliance checks and enables corrections continuously during the current declaration period, freeing tax specialists from searching for anomalies. This simplification to a single source of truth supports new benefits – such as a comprehensive enterprise search. Now business users can search for master data and documents across different LoBs and across systems for a holistic view of the enterprise with zero latency in a modern user interface. At the same time, a built-in authorization framework helps to minimize administrative overhead and enable single sign-on so that users can work across LoBs in a secure fashion, without impediments.

INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGY FOR THE INTELLIGENT ENTERPRISE
A simplified data model is imperative for intelligent technologies, such as machine learning. Traditional database models that maintain acceptable performance only with added complexity simply cannot scale to meet the needs of machine learning deployments. To run simulations, train algorithms, and improve visibility into what’s coming next, technologies need a data model up to the task. SAP S/4HANA is leveraging machine learning technology in the solution itself. One example is accelerated accounts receivable. With legacy databases and complex data models, accounts receivable can be an error-prone process that crosses multiple systems to match purchase orders to invoices. With SAP Cash Application software on SAP S/4HANA, machine learning technology does the matching automatically – and gets better over time with the addition of new data.

THE DIGITAL CORE
With SAP HANA as its foundation, SAP S/4HANA serves as a digital core for the business – one that helps drive business agility, improve customer experiences, and increase business performance.

Start your path to the Intelligent Enterprise with Approyo
Approyo provides full SAP service technology with extensive capabilities in consulting, solutions architecture, hosting and managed services, in order to develop the right solution for our customers. Get started today... 

How can the Intelligent Enterprise Impact the Mining Industry?

The digital economy is disruptive. Mining companies need strategic priorities that drive transformation. SAP supports a reimagined set of E2E business scenarios to support the strategic priorities of working in a digital environment.

• Make the business more predictable, sustainable, and safer - Advanced predictive analytics and machine learning integrated with real-time information help make vast operational data more actionable. Predict outcomes or exceptions to support the right decision-making, making mining more predictable, sustainable, and safer for the workforce
• Collaborate with customers, suppliers, and workers - Transform interactions with all stakeholders into an interactive, collaborative, and responsive network to strengthen relationships, digitalize data exchanges, make the business more agile, increase profitability, and digitalize the worker.
• Enhance operational and commercial agility - Achieve real-time visibility into operations and run a mine like a factory based on advanced planning and execution to increase agility by combining IT and operational technology (OT) along the entire pit-to-customer process.
• Increase productivity through automation - Digitalize and automate manual processes and focus on value-added processes for employees while automating operations to keep workers out of hazardous environments.

Supporting next practices in mining with intelligent ERP
Transformation in the mining industry is occurring at a rapid pace. Changes in technologies, business environment standards, and the need for agility require constant adaptation. Mining companies must be able to respond to rapidly changing conditions yet still comply with all standards. How does a digital core with a true single source of truth help?

Mining companies must respond to rapid change
A digital core is an IT architecture that offers stability and long-term reliability for core enterprise processes yet also provides the flexibility to adapt quickly to new opportunities, challenges, and regulations. In today’s environment, mining companies cannot continue with old ways of working, so they need to change how they operate. This impacts the industry and its IT –the backbone of modern business –which has to be agile to ensure compliance. Support for mergers and acquisitions is also required to ensure swift adaptation to changing markets.

Mine smarter, not harder
The ability to respond quickly is an essential part of managing a mining business. To do this, simulation, prediction, and analytical capabilities are important components. For example, this can be the simulation of profitability scenarios to identify the best method of mining or to determine the best time to sell a mine.

Generate additional value from data
While overall processes in mining do not change much, the speed of business is disruptive. Mining companies need the computing capability to carry out complex algorithms with large data sets to support timely, real-time analysis. The base data comes from sensors that enable precise digital twins of equipment and processes. In a mine, data sets will be available that can be used by machine learning to improve equipment efficiency and availability. This provides more-reliable information for all related processes. For example, mine production output can be planned and executed more reliably.

Addressing innovative opportunities
In the commodity business, you have to differentiate yourself. Mining companies must improve customer interactions as well as increase operational efficiencies to gain a competitive edge. This impacts every facet of business, including end-to-end (E2E) processes across departments and even company borders. Collaboration and sharing of resources will be part of the new operating models –from customers to mine operations.

The Intelligent ERP
Bringing SAP S/4HANA and SAP Leonardo technologies together as a digital core will result in a more flexible and intelligent enterprise. To achieve next-generation business processes, mining companies need an intelligent ERP solution. For example, machine learning can help in daily business by helping ensure the correct spare part is ordered by using image recognition to identify the correct version. Early adopters have already begun this journey to gain the competitive edge for a top seat in the next-generation mining business.

Start your path to the Intelligent Enterprise with Approyo
Approyo provides full SAP service technology with extensive capabilities in consulting, solutions architecture, hosting and managed services, in order to develop the right solution for our customers. Get started today... 

Stay Connected with Intelligent Business Processes

An intelligent enterprise starts with a digital core. It is the foundation for flexible, connected, and intelligent business processes that enable your organization to keep the customer experience at the center of everything you do.

SAP S/4HANA is SAP's flagship enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. It is built on the power of SAP HANA – SAP's in-memory database management system that provides real-time analytics – to unite transactional systems, overcoming limitations imposed by legacy technologies.

With that, SAP S/4HANA allows you to connect across all your lines of business and, externally, across your ecosystem so you have seamless visibility and insights across your entire business.

Capabilities of an Intelligent Business

Simplify asset operations and maintenance - Maximize asset value, control risks, and help ensure safety with a holistic view of asset status to plan maintenance activities with the right person, tools, resources, and integrated documentation.

Manage environmental, health, and safety risks - Execute tasks in critical environments with a complete view of compliance and safety measures, so you can identify risks and regulations, define priorities, implement controls, and track incidents.

Maintain service agreements - Provide a single contract for all outcome-based services and reduce administrative burden by consolidating and maintaining task lists, catalogues, maintenance plans, and warranty information.

Provide customer-oriented services - Engage with customers across a multitude of channels to offer packaged service offerings; manage complaints, claims, returns, and refunds; and schedule and dispatch field services to fulfill service orders.

Streamline service parts management - Optimize parts logistics and inventory processes with real-time visibility across all supply locations to source service parts globally and ensure their availability.

Streamline Core HR and payroll processes - Integrate employee master data, organizational data, and cost-center-related information from the SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central solution to speed reorganizations and other end-to-end processes.

Start your path to the Intelligent Enterprise with Approyo
Approyo provides full SAP service technology with extensive capabilities in consulting, solutions architecture, hosting and managed services, in order to develop the right solution for our customers. Get started today...

How can the Intelligent Enterprise Impact Professional Services Companies?

In today’s digital economy, there is immense pressure on professional services firms to do more for less. Firms are facing new price pressures and competitive threats. New entrants into the marketplace have changed the way firms deliver services, forcing them to either adopt new approaches or face stagnant or declining revenue growth and margins. Firms must be able to respond rapidly to these challenges yet still comply with the pressure of new reporting standards. How does a digital core with a true single source of truth help?

Strategic Priorities in a Digital Economy
The digital economy is disruptive. Professional services firms must use market dynamics to create and capture new business opportunities and enable their strategic objective of nonlinear revenue growth.

Outcome-based engagements
The simple “time and materials” business model that proved highly profitable for professional services organizations in the past is being replaced by outcome-based models. Clients are increasingly focused on the business outcome of an engagement, rather than the effort involved, and are negotiating prices and relationships accordingly. The key lever for firms is to adopt a superior bidding process resulting inaccurate proposals that will ensure predictability and repeatability of outcomes and thus minimize delivery risks.

Knowledge as a service
Professional services firms are realizing that they have valuable expertise and content that can benefit their customers beyond the typical face-to-face engagement model. In the past, intellectual property (IP) was available for customers only in formal engagements and was a key point of differentia-tion. However, innovative service firms continue to productize their service lines, create knowledge “vaults,” and monetize their institutional expertise. To keep pace, the quote-to-cash “process infrastructure” must be adapted to the emerging business models and address the full lifecycle of the new delivery models for digital expertise and IP services.

Leverage talent networks
Digitalization of talent has made new business models possible by identifying, classifying, and attracting talent on an as-needed basis outside the boundaries of a firm and effectively integrating talent into one team based on powerful virtual learning and collaboration platforms.

Professional Services Capabilities with the Intelligent Enterprise

• Understand and optimize engagement profitability - Reduce service costs with full, real-time insight and automated accounting, time and expense processes, while recognizing more revenue through integrated project delivery and billing processes.
• Assess staffing levels anytime, anywhere - Onboard critical resources in time for upcoming projects, track resources continuously, and access contact details quickly to support collaboration between teams, organizations, and partners.
• Simplify time entry in the cloud - Streamline time-entry processing to notify employees when their time entries are rejected and allow them to correct their timesheets and resubmit them – anytime, anywhere, and on any device.
• Enforce limits on time and expense billing - Boost your clients’ confidence in your services by staying within the defined limit for time and expense with the addition of an upper cap amount to your sales agreements and service contracts.
• Reimagine bid management - Speed bid creation dramatically and improve project margin, with more effective planning, then move smoothly into project execution with consolidated real-time and historical insights. 
• Streamline quote-to-cash - Create customer contracts with competitive pricing, personalized payment plans, and multiple methods of billing, while simplifying billing through consolidated invoicing across all engagement types. 

The intelligent ERP
Bringing SAP S/4HANA and SAP Leonardo technologies together as a digital core will result in a more flexible and intelligent enterprise. To achieve next-generation business processes and business models, companies need an intelligent ERP solution that can be continuously enhanced and extended with innovative business services and applications built on emerging technologies, including machine learning, blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT).

View the full blog post: https://www.approyo.com/single-post/2019/08/08/How-can-the-Intelligent-Enterprise-impact-Professional-Services-Companies

Approyo recognized as an SAP Industry Leader in Three Categories of the 2019 ACQ5 Global Awards

Approyo, a leading enterprise SAP HANA Solutions Provider, announced today it has been recognized in three categories of the 2019 ACQ5 Global Awards by ACQ5. This is the second consecutive year that Approyo has been honored by ACQ5.

• US - SCALE-UP COMPANY OF THE YEAR (IT SERVICES), APPROYO
• US - SAP SOLUTION PROVIDER OF THE YEAR, APPROYO
• US - GAMECHANGER OF THE YEAR, CHRIS CARTER, APPROYO

The ACQ5 Global Awards honor the leading deal teams, firms and professionals whose activities set the standard for our markets. This year, companies and individuals, representing every major market in the world, became finalists for the awards.

"It is an honor to be recognized by ACQ5 for the second year in a row," says Christopher M. Carter CEO of Approyo. "Thank you to the folks at ACQ5 and all of our customers, partners and staff. This achievement continues to validate our success in the SAP ecosystem."

“Experts whose intimate knowledge and expertise in the corporate, cultural, financial and legal arenas are redefining our industry,” says Jake Robson, Group Editor of The ACQ5. “The 2019 ACQ5 Global Award winners represent the best of breed in all industry sectors and have earned these honours by standing out in a group of very impressive finalists. We are lucky enough to work with some of the most influential and enterprising private organizations in the world and are proud to share their message with our readers. Relying on reader insight and experience to provide nominations to the panel remains the cornerstone of our program and to identify industry leaders, individuals, teams and organizations that represent the benchmark of achievement and best practice in the business world.”

View Approyo's full profile: https://www.acq5.com/magazines/29_932

About the ACQ5 Global Awards:
ACQ Global Awards’ Objective as Always: To gather quantitative and qualitative information from and about the sector to be able to give a set of “Best of” awards. One of the industry's favorite awards events was right to anticipate another record-breaking number of votes! The total number of nominations received stood at an amazing 97,416 our highest ever.

The poll was not only designed to reflect actual performance in any particular area of expertise, it was also aimed to reflect direct market share based on a number of criteria. Voters were encouraged to base their decisions on addressing professionalism: experience, value for money & responsiveness in order for ACQ to derive a numerical rating from 1 – 5. In that sense, this poll should be considered a reflection of how professionals view any practice, individual or related sector supplier in terms of overall quality of service.

About ACQ5:
Serving the finance sector since 2003, we provide our Global audience of over 168,000 subscribers with the information behind the headlines.

ACQ5, the English-language magazine news portal is read exclusively by senior executives holding power and authority at major organizations. Our readership are the people who will select and authorize the purchase of your products and services. The magazine is intended for CEO's & CFO's as well as other corporate finance and private equity executives from all corners of the globe.

The SAP Intelligent Enterprise and the Experience Economy

Last year, SAP unveiled its strategy to deliver the Intelligent Enterprise. At the core of our strategy was SAP’s strong belief that every company needs to address three key challenge in today’s economy:

1. Intelligent Suite
An integrated, yet modular suite of line-of-business (LoB) applications that enables SAP customers to share insights across functions to better manage stakeholders and their day-to-day operations.

2. Digital Platforms
Data management and cloud platform technologies to dynamically orchestrate the growing volume of data and business processes across an intelligent enterprise, so that customers can make sense of their data in real-time. The digital platform forms the foundation of all intelligent activities.

3. Intelligent Technology
Tools and technologies that turn intelligence into business outcome such as analytics, machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and blockchain. They are delivered through the digital platform, embedded within intelligent suite applications, and applied to processes that integrate both SAP and third-party data and applications.

Enter 2019 - The Experience Company powered by the Intelligent Enterprise
In an era in which data plays a vital role in all decision-making and in every business process, having the ability to manage big X-data and O-data, gaining new levels of business insights, and turning them into impactful actions is an absolute key to customer success. As business data volume grows exponentially, and as enterprises have access to an abundance of new intelligent technologies, customers have countless opportunities to influence experiences and reimagine their business processes through data-driven innovation.

The following outlines two examples for the opportunities in reimagining business processes:

1. Drive a step-change in productivity: a global clothes retailer collects big and diverse data from SAP C/4HANA including X-data from Qualtrics software and from third-party sources such as comments on social media.

This data is streamed into a data lake integrated with SAP HANA and dedicated to a customer behavior analysis project where intelligence is applied by building ML models to predict changes in customers’ buying preferences. The results are streamed in real-time to SAP C/4HANA marketing campaigns, where a new campaign is automatically triggered via SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation whenever a change in customer preference is identified, significantly increasing marketing productivity leading to additional revenue.

2. Build new business models: a lighting hardware company uses SAP Leonardo IoT, SAP Analytics and SAP Cloud Platform Integration to deliver a light-as-a-service business model. By connecting the lighting hardware to sensors, and orchestrating and analyzing its data streams, customers can receive a variable bill based on usage instead of paying for lighting upfront. In addition, customers can gain insight into costs and usage with an intelligent solution that is able to predict future costs. This solution helps users to make better informed and confident decisions drives operational efficiency and saves energy.

Technology & Innovation Overview and Outlook
The role of technology and innovation in the evolving Experience Economy has never been more important for the success of our customers. As customers’ and employees’ demand for better experiences increases, enterprises must focus on their businesses and adapt to change, rather than concentrating on technical building blocks. SAP believes that these needs can be addressed with a “business technology platform that provides the required platform services combined with the business semantics, content and context which are key to turn data into meaningful business outcomes. The winners will be intelligent enterprises that utilize this platform to get the most out of their experience and operational data and processes. This is the goal of SAP’s digital platform where the business-centric technologies of SAP HANA, SAP Analytics, and SAP Leonardo power the intelligent suite, enable new data-driven innovation scenarios and together with Qualtrics help SAP customers to turn into Experience Companies.

Therefore, SAP’s vision for the digital platform is to be the business technology platform that provides the required technologies for intelligent enterprises to power the intelligent suite, deliver the next-generation experience management, and offer the necessary technologies standalone to our customers and partners for unlocking new types data-driven innovation.

Read the full blog post on www.approyo.com

How can the Intelligent Enterprise impact the hospitality industry?

Hospitality is changing rapidly. With evolving guest expectations and an unrelenting flood of data, hospitality’s digital horizon is disrupting classic distribution and guest stay models. Technology has become so interwoven with business strategies that the two are hardly distinguishable.

Technologies such as mobile devices and the Internet of Things (IoT) are
fundamentally redefining the way customers live, work, and play. Other innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and in-memory computing are opening up new playing fields and replacing traditional processes. For example, AI and machine learning are modernizing reservations, guest services, and operations. Meanwhile, consumer wearables, smart devices, virtual reality headsets, and online games are becoming points for brand interaction. It’s all happening at a breakneck pace.

Hospitality needs to act fast to stay ahead of the disruption curve. For example,
using the power of predictive analytics, hoteliers can now identify high-value guests, uncover profitable items and services to promote, anticipate demand, and manage inventory more effectively.

The Future: Priorities for Hospitality
Faced with a huge opportunity along with new market entrants, today’s hotel companies must focus on the right strategic priorities to drive digitalization across the business. By successfully embracing the opportunities offered by new technologies and addressing the following six strategic priorities, companies can lay the foundation for successful digitalization and stay ahead of the innovation curve.

• Own the Guest Journey with Enhanced Distribution and Shopping Models
• Transform the Guest Experience
• Digitalize the Workforce
• Unlock Business Value Across All Data Sources
• Enable Smart and Connected Hotels and Ships
• Drive Global Growth and Accelerate Brand Strategies with the Cloud 

Reimagine Hospitality
The digital economy offers infinite new opportunities.
In a connected world where every company is becoming a technology company, smarter products and services will refocus commerce on business outcomes and blur industry lines.

Own the Customer Journey

LOYAL CUSTOMERS WILL SHOP DIRECT - A digital and mobile world changes the way customers book travel. Based on changing behaviors, hoteliers are learning from retailers and adopting similar approaches with guests. Hotel companies that don’t adapt to digitalization risk being simply a supplier in the travel chain, leaving others, such as the Internet giants or new players entering this industry, to control the traveler conversation.

TRANSFORM THE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE - Offers have to be personal, contextual, relevant, and seamless, regardless of the touch point or device.
Hoteliers need to know their travelers and capture as much information as is available from internal interactions and social media data. They must use this data to create useful offers at the moment and location where they are most relevant. This retail approach is vital to have direct access to the traveler, expand reach in the guest journey, and increase revenues with ancillary products, partner products, and merchandising. Technological capabilities
enable this process.

BROADEN DISTRIBUTION MODELS - Distribution models are changing as the digital world requires new ways of selling. Powerful new digital players
are entering the travel market. Hoteliers want more control of the products and services they offer, whether they sell directly or indirectly. But mostly they want to own the guest journey and attract more travelers to buy directly from them. The ideal approach is to have a single view of available room inventory, amenities, promotions, descriptions, and rate plans across channels and third
parties while refining inventory to drive higher sales. This allows hotels to up-sell noninventory room items, meeting rooms, activities, and amenities. It’s a bit like supersizing a meal in a more personal way.

Drive Global Growth and accelerate brand strategy 

INCREASE BRAND VALUE - Build brand extensions by combining omnichannel commerce and digital technologies to move into new segment offerings. Configure and deploy new promotions and rate plans rapidly, and push distressed inventory to the direct channel of choice.

Unlock business value across all data sources 

ACCELERATE AND SIMPLIFY PROPERTY ACQUISITIONS -  To achieve a real-time view of data and system interoperability, your company needs a comprehensive platform approach. Cloud-based, standardized solutions enable hotel companies to innovate faster, manage master-data complexity efficiently, adhere to country regulations, and deliver quickly in the global economy. SAP can help you lead your organization’s digital journey and
address the challenges of data proliferation from enterprise data, Big Data, the IoT, and beyond. We can also help you transform all data – the foundation of a digital enterprise – into insight to drive innovation and create business value.

TRANSFORM ASSET MANAGEMENT - The platform approach enables real-time visibility into the condition of assets by measuring, predicting, and alerting when incidents occur. To do so, the platform links asset data to an intelligent asset network that provides performance benchmarking, up-to-date service documentation, and real-time visibility of spare-part replacements. The platform also connects asset data from OEMs, operations, and service providers – creating a collaborative solution for sharing asset information with business partners.

Read the full blog post on www.approyo.com

Approyo CEO Christopher M. Carter accepted into Forbes Technology Council

Christopher M. Carter, CEO of Approyo has been accepted into Forbes Technology Council, an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs, and technology executives.

Christopher was vetted and selected by a review committee based on the depth and diversity of his experience. Criteria for acceptance include a track record of successfully impacting business growth metrics, as well as personal and professional achievements and honors.

“We are honored to welcome Christopher M. Carter into the community,” said Scott Gerber, founder of Forbes Councils, the collective that includes Forbes Technology Council. “Our mission with Forbes Councils is to bring together proven leaders from every industry, creating a curated, social capital-driven network that helps every member grow professionally and make an even greater impact on the business world.”

As an accepted member of the Council, Christopher has access to a variety of exclusive opportunities designed to help him reach peak professional influence. He will connect and collaborate with other respected local leaders in a private forum. Christopher will also be invited to work with a professional editorial team to share his expert insights in original business articles on Forbes.com, and to contribute to published Q&A panels alongside other experts.

Finally, Christopher will benefit from exclusive access to vetted business service partners, membership-branded marketing collateral, and the high-touch support of the Forbes Councils member concierge team.

“I am thrilled to be joining this great community of technology leaders,” said Christopher M. Carter, CEO of Approyo. “The Forbes Technology Council gives great insight into the technology trends of today and into the future. I’m excited about my invitation to this community of innovative minds and looking forward to sharing my insights on the SAP ecosystem and the impact SAP can make.”

ABOUT FORBES COUNCILS
Forbes Councils is a collective of invitation-only communities created in partnership with Forbes and the expert community builders who founded Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC). In Forbes Councils, exceptional business owners and leaders come together with the people and resources that can help them thrive.

For more information about Forbes Technology Council, visit forbestechcouncil.com. To learn more about Forbes Councils, visit forbescouncils.com.

Approyo named one of the 10 Most Promising SAP Solution Providers by Insights Success

Approyo is excited to announce it has been named one of the 10 Most Promising SAP Solution Providers 2019 by Insights Success.

Insights Success is a platform that focuses distinctively on emerging as well as leading companies, their confrontational style of doing business and way of delivering effective and collaborative solutions to strengthen market share. This magazine talks about leaders and orators from the world of technology, which includes CEOs, CIOs, VPs, managers and other professionals who had set a benchmark in the revolution of the industry.

“We are honored to be part of this great list of companies," said Christopher M. Carter, CEO of Approyo. "This achievement continues to validate our success in the SAP and Cloud marketplace.”

View the full profile: https://www.insightssuccess.com/approyo-offering-simplified-sap-with-innovative-cloud-solutions/

The 10 Best Performing SAP Solution Providers list: https://www.insightssuccess.com/the-10-most-promising-sap-solution-providers-2019-june2019/

About Insights Success
Insights Success is a forum where top leaders and executives talk and share about their experiences, views, and mantra for success which will help the young and dynamic bloodline of professionals to learn, cater and deliver business needs for customers in order to become futuristic market leaders.

Three principles that define intelligent ERP

In an age when the incumbent status is no defense against the competition, maintaining a sustained advantage requires you to meet customers where they are and provide services that will delight them. A strategy built on Intelligent ERP solutions serves this purpose by enhancing your efficiency, effectiveness, and agility. Intelligent ERP solutions provide business capabilities that will help you surpass current capabilities.

The Intelligent ERP Difference:

• Hands-free UX, digital assistance and instant insights deliver value-adding experiences
• Machine learning, AI and predictive analytics for increased automation and efficiency
• Reinvent and redefine processes with applied best practices built on the latest innovations

3 principles that define intelligent ERP

Digital age user experience
An award-winning user experience across the entire organization including a context-aware, business savvy digital assistant.

Automation
Intelligence and learning capabilities powered by AI, machine learning, NPL, predictive analytics and more, combined with real-time insight to action helps add automation to key functions, signal users when input is required and enable smarter and faster decisions.

Next-generation processes
Rethinking the way business gets done through the smart application of technology and innovation.

Start your path to the Intelligent Enterprise with Approyo
Approyo provides full SAP service technology with extensive capabilities in consulting, solutions architecture, hosting and managed services, in order to develop the right solution for our customers. Get started today... 

How can the Intelligent Enterprise impact the Manufacturing Industry

The market is experiencing a disruptive shift in customer demand for new, extensive, smart, and personalized products. Sellers are constantly reducing buffer inventory with obsolescence risk in mind. Manufacturers are competing to meet this challenge and provide individualized products in similar lead times and cost as off-the shelf products. This creates tremendous complexity for the manufacturing operations team, yet at the same time, companies are looking for growth and profitability while maintaining high quality and sustainability.

To meet these demands, manufacturing is being used as a strategic pillar, becoming more collaborative, localized, automated, integrated, and highly adaptive. Companies are adopting digital manufacturing strategies and solutions to seamlessly connect relevant business stakeholders, information and operational processes in real time. Digital manufacturing simultaneously improves responsiveness and efficiency which drives growth, while decreasing cycle time and cost. Leveraging technologies like 3D printing, cloud, machine learning, and the Internet of Things (IoT) is increasing agility and extending the manufacturing network. Digital manufacturing has become a strategic differentiator.

SAP solutions powered by Approyo enable companies to integrate and embed intelligence in manufacturing processes facilitating Industry 4.0 principles with one source of live information. They provide an optimal coordination of planning and execution processes, covering all aspects of the manufacturing cycle from planning to shop floor and beyond.

Reduce manufacturing cost by increasing output and gaining real-time visibility into quality and costs
Increase plant output with improved planning and visibility into equipment utilization while also reducing the inventory held for manufacturing. Have a real-time and drillable view of the performance metrics of all the production facilities globally. This enables identifying and implementing global manufacturing best practices.

Reduce revenue loss due to plant fulfillment issues by agile planning and production orchestration
Gain the ability to respond to demand and confirmed order changes. Live inventory data and drastically reduced material requirements planning (MRP) processing time improve transparency and responsiveness. The planning system simplifies constraint based capacity planning by bringing together material and capacity constraints. Improve production tracking, labor shortage, first pass yield, and equipment availability to ensure on-time delivery.

Increase revenue growth by mass manufacturing of individualized products and 3D printing
Produce personalized products ordered by customers with minimal human intervention. Product genealogy for every unit is maintained in the system for service and compliance needs. Collaboration with Origin Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and contract service providers enables fulfilment of custom orders faster, while reducing inventory levels, time to market, and
waste.

Reduce scrap and rework cost by empowering the workforce to take informed decisions
Gain immediate insights on planning, execution, quality, with analysis at the finest level of granularity available on mobile devices. Supervisors can analyze and take immediate actions on their mobile devices.

Protect people and the environment and reduce manufacturing downtime by proactively managing operational risk
Provide critical safety information to all employees – top floor to shop floor – to create an effective safety culture. Establish a holistic approach to embed safety and operational risk management into all of your operations.

Reduce manufacturing-related IT cost by using an integrated set of solutions
With SAP S/4HANA as the digital core, integrate seamlessly with the manufacturing execution suite and manufacturing network solutions (digital manufacturing insights, distributed manufacturing). This reduces the cost to develop and maintain digital manufacturing capabilities.

Read the full blog post on www.approyo.com 

Digital Supply Chain - New innovations with SAP S/4HANA

Supply chains are now a competitive differentiator based on their speed, agility, and insight. Customers’ unique needs must be met with personalized products, new business models, greater intimacy through Internet of Things insights and deeper real-time prediction and intelligence across the enterprise.

Intelligent enterprises across all industries are focused on business outcomes and innovation by leveraging an intelligent suite of applications, intelligent technologies, and digital platforms. Discover how SAP S/4HANA and other supply chain solutions from SAP can help your business turn digital innovation into a competitive advantage.

Prediction of stock-in-transit arrival
The ability for warehouse managers to predict the arrival date of a shipment and manage delivery delays. Prebuilt set of KPIs supports robust analytics for the business scenarios. Early and efficient visibility for stock transport orders that leads to reliable processes for planning and scheduling of goods in transit.

Real-time Inventory
Live inventory management that enables unlimited simultaneous material movements and true transparency on inventory and material flows. Decreased stock buffers due to better transparency and insights.

Advanced ATP
Intelligent, real-time product availability check for sales, planned, and production orders. Includes scalable available-to-promise (ATP) for managing large transaction volumes and flexible allocation management capabilities. Provides back-order processing with intuitive priority classification and interactive exception handling.

Improve production planning
Coordinate manufacturing operations across your organization including material requirements, logistics, and receipts for proper material handling, work in process, and inventory. You can also make plan adjustments based on real-time information from the enterprise, suppliers, and the plant floor.

Accelerate manufacturing workflows
Plan and schedule maintenance tasks synchronizing labor, material, equipment and schedules. Execute planned and unplanned maintenance to ensure optimal operations including improved safety and environmental impact.

Single platform for warehouse management
Reduced TCO by landscape simplification through native warehouse management with SAP S/4HANA; a single warehousing platform for all warehousing operations, including optimization, automation, and labor management.

Single platform for transportation management
Reduced TCO by landscape simplification through native Transportation Management with SAP S/4HANA; a single platform for transportation management with basic and advanced shipping functionality and real-time embedded analytics.

Demand-Driven MRP (DDMRP)
Dynamic planning of replenishments with demand-driven MRP (DDMRP) that is fully integrated into existing MRP concept. Replenishment only for real demand and introduction of buffers at strategically important points.

How can the Intelligent Enterprise impact the Retail Industry

The digital economy is disruptive. Retailers need strategic priorities that drive transformation. SAP powered by Approyo supports a reimagined set of end-to -end business scenarios to support the strategic priorities of serving the digital consumer of today.

Radical change in the retail industry is occurring at a rapid pace. Changes in technologies, in business models, and in standards and with the ever-evolving customers require constant adaptation. Retail companies must be able to respond to rapidly changing conditions and offer targeted customer engagement at scale. How does a digital core with a true single source of truth help?

Stability and flexibility
A digital core is an IT architecture that offers stability and long-term reliability for core enterprise processes, yet also provides the flexibility to adapt quickly to new opportunities, challenges, and regulations. This solid foundation gives you a single source of truth with tailored real-time views delivering customer and business insights and enables flexibility for innovation to accommodate new business models, new regulations, and business events, such as mergers or acquisitions.

Immediate response
The ability to respond quickly is an essential part of managing a retail company. To do this, simulation, prediction, and analytical capabilities are important components. Data is critical for gaining the insight to make decisions. This insight must be at a granular level, so that decision-makers have the detail they need to understand trends, opportunities, and risks and quickly carry out what-if analysis using predictive algorithms.

Embedded intelligence
Innovative retailers leverage new technologies to support their digital transformation strategies and respond effectively to both encroaching competitors and new demands of the digitally empowered customer. Improved processing power is making machine learning applicable in more and more retail areas, enabling further optimization and automation of business processes as well as more impactful, personalized, and contextual consumer experiences.

Integrated and connected to the outside world
To take advantage of new opportunities and better meet individual needs, retailers must address end-to -end (E2E) processes across departments and lines of business to deliver on new customer experiences, products, and services. The Internet of Things (IoT) lets them connect to the outside world, driving unprecedented efficiency and optimization as well as new levels of customer connectivity and new retail business models.

Enhance and Extend Next-Generation Processes with Intelligent ERP
Bringing SAP S/4HANA and the SAP Leonardo technologies together as a digital core results in a more flexible and intelligent enterprise. To achieve next-generation business processes, retailers need an intelligent ERP solution that can be continuously enhanced and extended with innovative business services and applications built on emerging technologies, including machine learning, block chain, and IoT. Intelligent ERP is immediate– empowering business users with insights to act in the moment; it is intelligent– going beyond automation to predictive suggestion; and it is integrated– not only between your departments, but for consumers and suppliers alike.