Create Business Opportunities with Machine Learning

Machine learning technology teaches computers how to perform tasks by learning from data – instead of being explicitly programmed. Machine learning uses sophisticated algorithms to “learn” from massive volumes of Big Data. The more data the algorithms can access, the more they can learn.

Benefits of Machine Learning:

• Faster decisions - Machine learning algorithms can prioritize and automate decision making. They can also flag opportunities and smart actions that should be taken immediately – so you can achieve the best results.
• Adaptability - Artificial intelligence doesn’t just look at historical data. It can process real-time inputs – so you can adjust on the fly. Think of cars that can automatically stop before rear-ending another vehicle.
• Algorithmic business - An “algorithmic business” uses advanced machine learning algorithms to achieve a high level of automation. Making the shift can pave the way for innovative new business models, products, and services.
• Deeper insights - Machine learning can analyze big, complex, and streaming data, and find insights – including predictive insights – that are beyond human capabilities. It can then trigger actions based on those insights.
• Efficiency - With smart, machine learning-supported business processes, you can dramatically improve efficiency. Plan and forecast accurately, automate tasks, reduce costs, and even eliminate human error.
• Better outcomes - From triggering smart actions based on new opportunities and risks, to accurately predicting the results of a decision before it is made – machine learning can help you drive better business outcomes

Empower Your Digital Core with Machine Learning Powered by SAP and Approyo

• SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service - Optimize the entire maintenance program with real-time insights into current and future asset conditions.
• Remittance Advice Extractor - Extract payment information from unstructured documents.
• SAP Cash Application - Next-generation intelligent invoice matching powered by machine learning.
• Predictive Analytics for Contract Consumption - Proactively renew contracts by predicting their expiration and consumption.
• Predictive Analytics for Stock in Transit - Predict shipment dates and manage stock in transit.

Read the full blog post on www.approyo.com

What's new in SAP S/4HANA 1809

SAP S/4HANA® is a real-time enterprise resource management suite for digital business. It is built on advanced in-memory platform, SAP HANA, and offers personalized, consumer-grade user experience with SAP Fiori. Deployable in the cloud or on premise, SAP S/4HANA can drive instant value across all lines of business – no matter your industry or business size.

SAP S/4HANA is the digital core – the nerve center – of your entire business. It consolidates internal and external elements into a single, living structure that goes beyond traditional ERP software. In other words, it connects all of your processes, provides you with live information and insights, and seamlessly integrates your enterprise with the digital world at large.

The Intelligent Enterprise
Intelligent enterprises effectively use their data assets to achieve their desired outcomes faster – and with less risk. SAP is committed to helping every customer become a smart, best-run business and make the world run better.

Intelligent Technologies will help SAP Applications differentiate while at the same time natively comprehending the context of the business application. This includes higher-order intelligence with many scenarios oriented along business outcomes and relevant to lines of business, feedback mechanisms leveraging IoT and business networks as data sources for training feedback, as well as actionable insights in order to derive connecting insights to strategic decisions via a consistent User Experience (UX).

SAP HANA 1809 - The Intelligent ERP
SAP S/4HANA 1809, released in late 2018, significantly increases the possibilities for digital transformation across all lines of business. Imagine giving voice commands to your SAP ERP system and obtaining instant analytics. Or automating a large portion of your business processes, freeing employees for value-added activities. The streamlined architecture of the 1809 release is also scalable, enabling you to drive growth and profitability.

Industry innovations:

• Finance with Goods and Invoice Receipt Reconciliation leveraging machine learning, and the new SAP S/4HANA for Accruals Management, which is designed to support customers along the entire process of accruals
• Central Procurement, a big step in ERP landscape simplification and a functionality that will help you increase transparency across the procurement systems
• R&D innovation with the new Recipe Finder App and portfolio and project management analytics
• Manufacturing and Demand-Driven Replenishment, the game changer that helps you plan and manage supply chains based on customer demand, and not only via the traditional MRP procedures
• Retail and Fashion with new business scenarios including new planning strategies enhanced with segmentation functionality
• Banking, coming this release with and Loans Management / Deposits Management enhancements
• Public Sector, including major architecture simplifications
• Utilities with a new Analysis of meter reading, supported by an extended virtual data model
• Insurance, providing in that 1809 version a new Product configuration for insurance and digital products

Download our new Whitepaper: What's new in SAP S/4HANA today to learn more about the benefits and features of SAP S/HANA 1809.

Approyo Recognized as SAP Industry Expert

Approyo, a leading enterprise SAP HANA Solutions Provider, closed out 2018 by being recognized by multiple industry and international publications. The Wisconsin based company received six awards and recognitions in December focused on Approyo’s growth and expertise in the SAP marketplace throughout the year.

• Approyo named one of the "Best Entrepreneurial Companies in America" by Entrepreneur Magazine's Entrepreneur360 List
• ACQ5 2018 Global Awards
• US - SCALE-UP COMPANY OF THE YEAR (IT SERVICES) 
• US - SAP SOLUTION PROVIDER OF THE YEAR 
• US - GAMECHANGER OF THE YEAR, CHRIS CARTER, APPROYO
• Approyo named a SB100 Winner in the 2018 Best of Small Business Awards
• Approyo named one of the 20 Best Companies to Watch by Insights Success

“It is honor to be recognized by so many different publications for our SAP expertise,” says Chris Carter, CEO of Approyo. “2018 was been a great year of growth for the team at Approyo. Thank you to our team, partners and customers. These awards set the tone for the next year and being recognized as the SAP Solution Provider of the year is an accomplishment that showcases what we bring to the SAP ecosystem and how we can truly help!”

Honorees for the "Best Entrepreneurial Companies in America" by Entrepreneur Magazine 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.

The Best of Small Business Awards ™ is America’s most prestigious honor that recognizes and celebrates the BEST Small to Mid-Sized Business Visionaries. With over twenty-five notable “Best of Small Business” categories to choose from, The Best of Small Business Awards ™ is the largest Annual Business Recognition Program in the US.

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.

Read the full announcement on www.approyo.com

Approyo named a SB100 Winner in the 2018 Best of Small Business Awards

Approyo was recently named a SB100 winner in the 2018 Best of Small Business Awards. The company ranked No. 62 in the SB100 category, which recognizes the top 100 small-to-mid-sized businesses in the US for their growth & accomplishments in the previous year. The Best of Small Business Awards is a competitive and prestigious award that ranks Approyo as one of the most elite businesses in the country!

“It is honor to be recognized as one of the top small businesses by the Small Business awards” says Chris Carter, CEO of Approyo. “2018 has been a great year of growth for the team at Approyo and this recognition further validities our success in the SAP ecosystem. Thank you to our team, partners and customers.”

See the full list of winners in each category and learn more about the awards here.

About the Small Business Awards
The Best of Small Business Awards ™ is America’s most prestigious honor that recognizes and celebrates the BEST Small to Mid-Sized Business Visionaries.  With over twenty-five notable “Best of Small Business” categories to choose from, The Best of Small Business Awards ™ is the largest Annual Business Recognition Program in the US.

The Best of Small Business Awards ™ is presented by Small Business Expo (celebrating its 10 Year Anniversary with nearly 100 Successful Business Shows Produced), the Nation’s BIGGEST and most attended Business-to-Business Networking Event, Trade Show & Conference, hosted in 17 major US cities.  Small Business Owners and Entrepreneurs attend our nation-wide events to attend cutting-edge business-critical workshops, shop for vendors that can help their business grow & network with thousands of attendees.

2018 year in review: Top Awards and Recognitions

It's hard to believe by 2019 is almost here. As we head into the final few weeks of 2018, the Approyo team wanted a chance to look back at some of the important moments of the past year. Over the next few weeks, we will publish a series of 2018 year in review blog posts, looking back at the top stories of the year. This post will focus on all of our top awards and recognitions from the year. 

• Approyo Honored 3 Years in a Row as an Inc. 5000 Company, Ranking No. 895. It’s Approyo’s third straight year on the list, driven by several years of strong revenue growth. Only 20% of all companies on the list have been honored 3 or more times. Read the full announcement...
• Approyo Featured in “10 Cloud Providers to Watch in 2018” on CRN.com. The editorial, written by CRN Senior Associate Editor Gina Narcisi, highlights cloud technology vendors that “have made a name for themselves by carving out a niche in the market in 2017” and which “solution providers should keep their eyes on.” The 10 companies were singled out for their innovative cloud offerings and for the “aggressive goals” they set for 2018. Read the full announcement...
• Approyo Named Among 10 Fastest Growing SAP Solution Providers of the Year 2018 by The Silicon Review Magazine. Read the full announcement...
• Mirror Review recognizes Chris Carter, CEO at Approyo, as one of The 10 Most Inspiring Business Leaders, 2018. Read the full announcement...
• Approyo Named Among ‘Silicon 70’ by The Silicon Review Magazine 2018. Read the full announcement...
• Approyo named one of the 30 Most Valuable Tech Titans of 2018 by Insights Success. Read the full announcement...
• Mirror Review Recognizes Approyo as one of the 10 Best SAP Solution Providers of 2018. Read the full announcement...
• Approyo recognized as an Industry Leader in Three Categories of the 2018 ACQ5 Global Awards. Read the full announcement...
• Approyo named one of the "Best Entrepreneurial Companies In America" by Entrepreneur Magazine's Entrepreneur360 List. Read the full announcement...

Check out all of our awards and recognitions, as well as other company news on our "press" page. 

Approyo named one of the "Best Entrepreneurial Companies In America" by Entrepreneur Magazine's Entrepreneur360 List

Approyo was recently recognized as one of the “Best Entrepreneurial Companies in America” by Entrepreneur magazine’s Entrepreneur360™ List, a premier study delivering the most comprehensive analysis of private companies in America. Based on this study forged by Entrepreneur, Approyo is recognized as a well-rounded company that has mastered a balance of impact, innovation, growth leadership and value.

“It is honor to be recognized by Entrepreneur magazine,” says Chris Carter, CEO of Approyo. “2018 has been a great year of growth for the team at Approyo and this recognition further validities our success in the SAP ecosystem. Thank you to our team, partners and customers.”

“Our annual evaluation of vetted data offers a 360-degree analysis of top privately-held companies across a multitude of industries,” explains Jason Feifer, editor in chief of Entrepreneur Magazine. “They are deemed successful not only by revenue numbers, but by how well-rounded they are. The companies that make the list have pushed boundaries with their innovative ideas, fostered strong company cultures, impacted their communities for the better, and increased their brand awareness.”

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 41 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.

View the full announcement on www.approyo.com

Digital Transformation for Asset Management with SAP powered by Approyo

Digital technologies are having a profound impact on asset management operations. Internet of things, real -time analytics, machine learning, and enterprise mobility are enabling entirely new outcome based business models such as asset - as - a - service and are revolutionizing existing maintenance processes.

These technologies can help organizations optimize return on assets by helping them identify the right maintenance strategies, by prediction and simulation of operational problems, by ensuring safe operations, and by empowering field workforce with all the information required to execute maintenance activities. They are also making it easier for organizations to effectively manage projects that involve operations and maintenance of different types of assets.

With SAP S/4HANA as the digital core and SAP Leonardo solutions, organizations can build a strong foundation for operational excellence with a real-time integration between information and operational technologies. The SAP S/4HANA Asset Management solution enables organizations to manage their asset-related cost, risk, and performance holistically. It helps them plan, schedule, and execute all types of maintenance strategies from reactive to predictive maintenance. The solution also provides the ability to systematically reduce risk and improve worker safety with one common view of process risks related to workers, assets, or environment.

SAP Leonardo solutions, such as SAP Asset Intelligence Network, SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service and SAP Mobile Asset Management redefine asset management in the digital world. These solutions enable an organization to use sensor technologies and predictive analytics to improve asset health. The extensions also allow an organization to collaborate effectively with business partners by providing the ability to share asset information and insight with the ecosystem.

With the solutions, organizations can also leverage digital twin to accelerate innovation, optimize operating performance conditions, and enhance decision making, SAP Capital Portfolio and Project Management solutions extend the asset management operations by providing organizations the ability to strategize capital investments in new assets, evaluate the performance of their existing capital portfolio, and manage the entire lifecycle of projects from planning to execution with real-time monitoring.

SAP solutions support organizations to efficiently and sustainably manage the entire lifecycle of physical assets, resulting in better utilization of assets and reduction in costs.

Optimize capital expenditure with comprehensive portfolio 
evaluation capabilities - Prioritize asset intensive projects that align with company strategy. Increase the percentage of capital projects that are completed on time and within budget by identifying project related issues in time and efficiently planning resources.

Reduce capital project administration cost with complete visibility into ongoing projects - Manage scope, timeline, and budget of capital projects in an integrated way. Track and report project-related data in an efficient manner.

Reduce asset service and maintenance cost with efficient maintenance planning and execution - Enable maintenance planners and technicians to effectively plan, schedule, and implement maintenance activities. Analyze maintenance activities in real time.

Reduce environment, health and safety risks with efficient handling of regulatory compliance and incidents - Develop one common view of process risks related to workers, assets, and the environment. Provide EH&S practitioners access to real-time data on compliance and safety. Efficiently record and analyze incidents.

Maximize return on assets with right maintenance strategy and higher asset reliability - Drive maximum value from field assets by identifying the optimal maintenance strategy, by transitioning from interval based maintenance strategy to predictive maintenance, and by closely
collaborating with partners throughout the asset lifecycle.

Reduce unplanned downtime or outages with integration of IoT technologies with asset management - Establish connection with field assets to remotely capture operational data, gain real-time visibility on asset health, and predict anomalies  based on machine learning algorithms.

Improve maintenance team efficiency with work order  management through mobile applications - Empower maintenance technicians with the right data at the right  time. Provide access to information on asset location, repair histories, work order details, and material required through mobile applications.

Improve asset data accuracy and completeness with central management of asset master data governance - Maintain a single version of truth for all asset related data by integrating structured and unstructured data and  by effective master data governance.

Read the full blog post on www.approyo.com 

Innovation powered by the intelligent enterprise

An intelligent enterprise is a smart, best-run business. It is an organization that capitalizes on intelligent technologies to automate complex business processes, anticipates new customer needs and invents new business models.

To build an intelligent enterprise, you need to be equipped with the tools of the future.  Only SAP solutions have the depth of experience combined with the breadth of industry knowledge to offer innovative solutions that can effectively streamline your business from end to end. SAP solutions powered by Approyo are committed to delivering continuous innovations to our customers to ensure they continually have access to the latest innovations and best-of-breed technologies to deliver the visibility, focus and agility they need.

• Award-winning digital-age user experience (UI): SAP has delivered the world’s first hands-free ERP. It’s built on an award-winning UI including a context-aware, business-savvy digital assistant for the enterprise.
• AI-powered automation: Combining learning capabilities, predictive analytics, and real-time insight adds automation to key functions, notifies users when input is needed, and enables faster and smarter decisions.
• Next-generation business processes: SAP helps you rethink how business is done by reinventing and redefining processes with applied best practices built on the latest innovations. 

Get the most out of your data
To get the most out of your digital journey, you need to utilize data from multiple sources, including core data from your business processes, as well as external data sources such as connected sensors, weather information, satellite pictures, road conditions, market data, and social media.

Digitization is creating tons of data every day, much of which is unstructured, such as images and videos. This data by itself is of little use. Insights from data are essential for today ́s business, but they’re useless if you can’t make sense of them. Intelligent enterprises are driven by data and insights. It’s not just about having the right data at your fingertips but having the analytical insights from that data linked to your core business processes. This is where machine learning can help, as it unlocks knowledge from structured and unstructured
data to enable the intelligent enterprise.

Be intelligent – use machine learning
Machine learning lets you make sense of raw data and unlock new insights by learning from data, rather than programming explicit rules. Deploying machine learning capabilities across relevant business processes can help identify untapped opportunities, expose hidden risks, and automate repetitive tasks or knowledge-based work.

Unlock the value of IoT
Internet of Things (IoT) technology has been around for decades, but now it tops the agenda for many companies. That’s because the evolution of connectivity, Big Data management, analytics, and cloud technology are presenting new opportunities for IoT in business. Initially, IoT applications focused on operational activities on shop floors because downtime or system failure could result in significant losses. Aside from the benefit of uptime, the data collected from IoT technology wasn’t generally used. Now customers are using SAP powered by Approyo to leverage that data to shift from reactive maintenance practices to proactive endeavors to work smarter, get better insights, and provide new services to their customers based on IoT data.

Read the full blog post on www.approyo.com

Digital Transformation for Life Sciences with SAP powered by Approyo

In today’s digital economy, patients are more accountable for their care and have greater access to their personal health information. Patients and payers are seeking personalized treatments with superior outcomes, but cost-effectively. Increasingly, value-based and outcome-based reimbursement are being floated as reforms to healthcare systems, primarily in the United States.

There is immense pressure on life sciences companies to do more for less. They are facing new price pressures and competitive threats. New entrants into the marketplace have changed the way they deliver products, forcing them to adopt new approaches or face stagnant or declining revenue growth and margins. Digitalization is forcing life sciences companies to rethink their business models and restructure the value chain. New value will come from the ability to digitalize the model and accelerate innovation.

To execute on their digital strategy, life sciences companies will need to reengineer their business processes. Life sciences companies with a global presence must have lean processes that are consistently executed. They must get away from siloed processes that are implemented and executed differently at different sites. This will help ensure that the support systems (process and technology) can scale up quickly to match the company’s growth. Life science companies must also evaluate if they have the right technology platform that can deliver on the vision. The winning platform will require an IT architecture that provides both stability and long-term reliability for core enterprise processes, while allowing flexibility in areas of frequent change.

The digital core is the foundation for the core processes that need to run consistently and in a flexible manner. It provides uninterrupted, real-time transactions and analytics, the ability to work with extraordinary large volumes of data, and connectivity to line-of-business extensions that enable supporting processes, such as talent sourcing and networks. To succeed, firms will need to put in place a coherent digital vision with clearly articulated offensive and defensive strategies. They will need to address emerging business models to drive outcome-based engagements and achieve connected health. They must satisfy new and evolving compliance regulations, outsource manufacturing, and drive operations based on the Internet of Things (IoT). Increasingly patients are adopting a connected health system by resorting to wearables. Life science companies can leverage such devices and build apps that enable the physicians and the manufacturers to understand patient behavior in order to provide the right guidance and treatment as well as improve products for enhanced wellness.

To comply with newer regulations such as serialization and identification of medicinal products (IDMP), companies must have high-performing databases with close integration to their inventory management systems. For global pharmaceutical companies, serialization can easily add a few billion records into their databases. Furthermore, such data must be stored for long periods, retrieved quickly, and reported to various entities. The right technology platform, along with niche compliance solutions, will enable companies to comply with these evolving regulations effectively.

The right technology platform that delivers streamlined integration to supply chain partners and outsource manufacturers can help companies get their products manufactured on time, efficiently, and at much lower cost. For product visibility across the extended supply chain, optimal equipment maintenance, and effective distribution of specialized products, IoT device-based data and a rich analytics platform become the new imperatives. By leveraging IoT, life science companies can significantly cut costs on equipment maintenance, react in real time to exceptions while products are being delivered, and gain better insights into their product distribution.
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SAP S/4HANA was specifically developed to represent the digital core in this bimodal IT architecture. It provides life sciences companies with a proven framework to adopt industry best practices while attaining operational excellence – specifically, but not exclusively, across core industry capabilities,such as real-time supply chain and digitalized sales.

A comprehensive solution for life science companies
Life science companies need to manage their product shipments very carefully. Some products, such as blood derivatives, plasma products, and biologics, must be shipped in a temperature-controlled environment. Other products, such as medical devices, must be guarded against exposure to light, shock, and other factors. SAP S/4HANA with other SAP solutions can monitor such parameters in real time during shipment. In combination with transportation management and event management modules, the software provides functions to send out real-time alerts. Such alerts can save shipments if product is not yet damaged. The software also helps reduce costs and time in aborting shipments when the product is damaged. The analytics provided by the SAP Leonardo digital innovation system can help predict which shipping lines are best and safe for continued engagement. The process below illustrates how temperature-controlled distribution is tracked.

Read the full blog post on www.approyo.com

Digital Transformation for the Technology Industry with SAP powered by Approyo

Although high tech is finding itself in nearly every product and service across all industries, high-tech companies are not themselves immune to disruption. Factors such as new entrants, blatant IP theft, and knowledge leakage due to key employee turnover accelerate the rate of disruption.

Strategic Priorities in a Digital Economy
The digital economy is disruptive. High-tech 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.

• Subscribing to outcomes -  High-tech companies are shifting from selling products and services to selling measurable results that are relevant to their customers. Becoming an outcome provider requires a different business model –one where customers can pay for the outcome. As high-tech companies realize this, they are increasingly acquiring, building, and joining the platforms and ecosystems that are needed for the outcome economy
• Realizing a digital supply chain - Transform your supply chain into a responsive network. Companies everywhere face volatile customer demand and heightened expectations of responsiveness. Innovative technologies can help resolve these issues by providing vital business information across the network, improving real-time analysis, and enabling better collaboration across departments and trading partners –thus making the supply chain more responsive.
• Providing digital smart products - Digitally connect your products and transform them into solutions. Enabling products to provide intelligence about their usage and to be upgraded remotely any time with the latest features required by customers allows for differentiation in an industry where products get rapidly commoditized. Data-based services can be monetized, and individualized offerings can be provided cost-effectively. Leverage IoT technology to connect products to R&D and sales processes.
• Achieving customer intimacy - Putting the end customers‘ point of view at the center of every decision is a key prerequisite for success in the digital age. This does not stop in the sales department but also applies to what products are built and what services are offered

So, how does the incumbent not only defend itself but also become the disrupter? 

Plan less, experiment more
Many refer to the high-tech industry as dynamic, however, it is better characterized as frenetic. Product launch delays, yield losses, and IP disputes can all lead to unexpected events that can throw off a perfectly crafted plan. However, for some, this also represents an advantage. Those who can leverage their data and incorporate more simulation and other sophisticated analytic techniques to model their environment will respond much faster to unforeseen events.

Harness the intelligence of the network
High-tech companies have a long-standing history of developing complex supply chain networks to enable high efficiency, which keeps prices down and quality high. These networks have evolved to handle more than just physical goods; they are now conducting commerce, distributing IP, and contain component pricing awareness. The data required for sophisticated decision-making has now shifted to the network, providing the next frontier for data exploration.

Make every meeting a decision making meeting
Most meetings are best described as information-sharing sessions. Participants often spend most of their time preparing and reconciling reports yet often end up with poor meeting outcomes due to a lack of current information. With the unprecedented speed of competition within the industry, executives need real-time information to make prompt decisions. Adopting innovative solutions to support rapid and informed decision-making can shift the focus from reporting to achieving outcomes.

Recognize the Knowledge Worker
Arguably, the most valuable asset for a technology company is the productivity of the knowledge worker. Far too often, these employees are straddled with excessive data preparation tasks involving spreadsheets and must spend precious time filtering through extraneous data. This leaves little time to focus on business outcomes. Decision support tools have evolved to take the burden of data preparation off individuals and provide them with predictive capabilities –accelerating productivity.

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, 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). High-tech organizations that have big innovation appetites or prefer to be early adopters have already begun this journey.

Read the full blog post on www.approyo.com

Five Technologies Impacting Healthcare

Leading healthcare organizations investing in digital capabilities require a framework designed for change –one that supports new business strategies and ensures agility while delivering value-added patient services.

We are witnessing an unmatched era of digitally driven innovation. Breakthrough technologies have matured and hit scale together, which will change how we provide healthcare. A digital network solution is arising that blurs the lines between patient, professional, and provider for more responsive, patient-centric care. Five defining technology trends have already emerged which are powering this digital healthcare network according to SAP:

• CLOUD COMPUTING - Technology adoption and business innovation now move at lightning speed. Technology infrastructure can be rented to eliminate barriers to entry, and transactions among healthcare players are moving to new cloud-based collaboration platforms that can connect millions of users.
• SMARTER DEVICES - “Smart” devices, wearables, sensors, robotics, 3D printing, and artificial intelligence are the new normal. This technology can turn Big Data in healthcare into smart data, resulting in insights for clinical decisions relevant to each patient’s specific situation.
• HYPERCONNECTIVITY - Every patient, healthcare organization, and machine is connected –changing all the established rules for healthcare channels. Connectivity drives the collaboration of patients, providers, and supporting businesses and assets in the digital healthcare network.
• SUPER COMPUTING - Networking and in-memory computing allow for the creation of an infinite number of new business opportunities for the healthcare industry. For example, genome sequencing costs decrease even faster than Moore’s law.
• SECURITY - The digital healthcare network is a prime target for digital attacks and sabotage. Because trust remains the ultimate business currency, healthcare organizations must make cybersecurity a top priority in designing and operating a digital business network.

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...

Read the full blog post at www.approyo.com

Digital Transformation for the Oil and Gas Industry with SAP

We are at the dawn of the next monumental technology change, where everything is connected and software is embedded in our lives. This technology change is bringing new opportunities and new threats. Cycle time for innovation is 5 to 10 times faster, and oil and gas companies can compete only if they reduce complexity, reinvent business, and use data as the fuel for value creation for customers and shareholders. The Intelligent Enterprise builds upon the promise of digital transformation by applying data-driven intelligence to power automated actions and decisions based on superior insights. With SAP S/4HANA, your oil and gas company can now enable your digital enterprise and drive this value creation.

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

Beyond the barrel - Energy outcome providers
Consumers are more empowered than ever and are demanding simplicity and service quality. Energy providers are extending “beyond the barrel” to master consumer energy usage analytics to offer services that optimize delivery of transportation, heating and cooling, and power. Examples include delivering the outcomes of transportation, climate control, or a powered device –not just the traditional fuel inputs

Products and service digitization
Logistics providers are disrupting the entire value chain by managing physical deliveries across the network, often without owning or operating any of the necessary inventory or assets or hiring the necessary employees.

Competing as an ecosystem
In an increasingly volatile energy market with a broadening range of asset types and energy sources, the success of energy operators is largely determined by three variables: safety, cost, and agility. Operators are pushing the boundaries of augmented reality and use of robotics in operations activities to improve safety and productivity, and they are seamlessly sharing data and calling on ecosystem partners to work together to ensure production, profitability, and safety targets are met.

Digital platform
Continued investment and ingenuity are expanding the energy network infrastructure. Digital leaders are delivering operationally ready assets, often on a performance or revenue-share basis, by using the power of supercomputing for more accurate exploration and effective asset design and constructability. Others are using a networked platform for collaborative project management that will orchestrate work and logistics across multiple trades and disciplines.


The Need for an Intelligent ERP System

Agility to respond to market conditions
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.

Predictive analytics and services
The ability to respond quickly is an essential part of managing an oil and gas 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.

Real-time access to information
Every oil and gas 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 ecosystem so that suppliers can stay up to date with a company’s orders, traders can see inventory history information, and accurate delivery schedules can be provided.

Ability to innovate
Customers in every industry are demanding innovation. Companies are responding with new products and services that better meet individual needs. These new offerings impact every facet of business, not just the front office. Companies must address end-to-end (E2E) processes across departments and lines of business to deliver on new customer experiences, products, and services.

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, 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). Oil and gas companies that have big innovation appetites or prefer to be early adopters have already begun this journey.

Approyo achieves significant growth and adds new team members

Approyo, a leading enterprise SAP HANA Solutions Provider headquartered in Milwaukee has seen significant growth in a state that is also seeing substantial development in the technology sector.

The Wisconsin based company has added to its team with three new employees. Alfred Wedding, Tim Reiss and William Sean Beasley join the Approyo team and will be working hand in hand with its customers and partners to manage and support SAP environments.

• Tim Reiss joins the team as Senior Director of SAP. Reiss brings more than 20 years industry of experience to the Approyo team.
• William Beasley, Director of SAP has more than a dozen years of cloud migration and experience working with SAP.
• Alfred Wedding comes to Approyo as an SAP Basis Coordinator with multiple years of experience with supporting SAP. Wedding is a Naval Veteran and resides in Wisconsin.

 “We have a top-notch team and we will continue to grow our organization. We are proud to be based in Wisconsin, where there is an exponential amount of growth in the technology sector,” says Chris Carter, CEO of Approyo.  “It’s an exciting time to be part of the SAP ecosystem and we can’t wait to see continued growth over the next several years.

Approyo was recently ranked #895 in the Inc Magazine 5000 for the third year in a row. It is very rare for companies to achieve this recognition for three years in a row. In addition, Mirror Review has listed Approyo among the top SAP solution providers in its latest magazine, “The 10 Best SAP Solution Providers of 2018.”  The technology company was also named one of “The 10 Best Performing SAP Solution Providers, 2018” by Insights Success.

Approyo is one of many technology companies in Milwaukee that is adding to the economy.

Milwaukee is making significant progress developing as a technology-based employment cluster. A report titled, Milwaukee's Tech Talent Impact, was compiled in June by several key employers in southeastern Wisconsin and identified 76,000 technology workers in 89 distinct occupations, contributing more than $27.6 billion in economic impact.

3 Major Business Benefits of SAP HANA

SAP HANA provides a single in-memory data platform that supports both transactions and analytics on diverse data, a key requirement for applications supporting a modern, real-time digital business. In today’s digital economy, businesses cannot take action on stale insights, thus a true in-memory data platform should support real-time processing for transactions and analytics for all of a company’s data. This is a key differentiator of the SAP HANA platform against other traditional database vendors. Here are the top three benefits of deploying SAP HANA according to SAP.

In-Memory First
SAP achieved a true transaction and analytical (i.e. translytical) platform by designing SAP HANA from the ground up with a new data processing architecture in mind.  This architecture greatly simplifies applications built on this platform removing many of the legacy overhead required to optimize applications on traditional disk-based database solutions.

SAP HANA is the only true in-memory columnar data store optimized for both high-speed transactional scenarios and also very fast query performance optimally supporting both OLTP and OLAP application scenarios. With SAP HANA, there is a single copy of data as there is no need to move data to external systems to offload analytic workloads or populate materialized views and in-memory caches to achieve acceptable performance.  This allows applications built on SAP HANA to process transactional and analytical workloads at high speed without any data duplication enabling businesses to have accurate insights based on the latest data.

Other solutions in the market typically provide an in-memory “option” to existing disk-based, row-oriented solutions, requiring a copy of data to be made into in-memory storage.  Row-based storages don’t yield the same level of data compression as columnar storages leading to higher costs and inefficiencies. These solutions may provide some performance improvements in certain use-cases, but they do not deliver the overall value that SAP HANA does by truly reducing the data footprint, increasing overall performance for all data and reducing management costs of the solution.

Managing Data of All Sizes
Does it always make sense to have all data in-memory?  Realistically, this is not necessary. SAP HANA provides an innovative way to manage hot and warm data storage in an optimal way to strike the right balance between price and performance.

SAP HANA Dynamic Data Tiering provides multistore table partitions which easily allow a single table to span across memory and disk.  This greatly simplifies access to hot and warm data in consuming applications and greatly reduces the administrative effort to manage large data volumes. This provides for much lower total cost of ownership by reducing the amount of hardware needed, lower administration costs, and more efficient IT operations overall.

Foundation for a Modern Data Platform and the Intelligent Enterprise
SAP HANA is a modern multi-tenant in-memory platform to build next-generation Big Data, IoT, translytical, and advanced analytics applications. SAP HANA allows advanced analytics using a single data platform.  How is this done?

SAP HANA natively provides capabilities for machine learning, spatial processing, graph, streaming analytics, time series, text analytics/search, and cognitive services all within the same platform.  Applications on SAP HANA can provide real-time actionable insights from a wide-variety of data types.

Combining these innovative technologies with SAP HANA’s advanced application development, modeling and custom algorithm support inside the database layer, more business logic can be executed close to the data.   Specifically, SAP HANA’s support technology like stored procedures, business functions, core data services, rules framework, calculation views, and the application function library provide developers with a way to easily model complex data-intensive operations as close to the data as possible.  Most competitive solutions require that you copy the data between core data storage and other technology stacks to perform these advanced analytics on the data.

View the full post on www.approyo.com

Migrating your company to the intelligent enterprise

We are entering the era of intelligent mega ­processes, which start by combining the right data sets and converting them into intelligent insights. These insights then trigger automated transactions across the process. Leading companies that are making digital transformation a reality are putting data and intelligence at the center of their future. They are building new capabilities, skills, and technology, and evolving their culture to transform into an 'Intelligent Enterprise' and achieve the aforementioned outcomes. These companies are not only delivering short-term value to shareholders, but are also positioned to thrive and transform their industry.

No company has the appetite to replace their systems, as every company has a very different landscape and a different level of focus based on their business priorities. Everyone has to also see the value. Moving to the Intelligent Enterprise is not just a technical upgrade. The real value comes when companies adopt a customer-first, purpose-driven mindset, leverage innovative approaches such as design thinking and agile methodologies to reimagine business processes and business models.

From SAP and Approyo's experience, there are the top three paths to migrating your company architecture to the intelligent enterprise. These paths have one thing in common - a lean enterprise architecture that is low cost and is data driven and ultimately provides you with the architectural agility in the new economy. The path that is right for you should be based on value and strategic alignment. There is no one way to get there, but early adopters are finding success based on the scenarios below:

REIMAGINE BUSINESS PROCESS: 
Many companies are focused on end-to-end business process transformation (such as supply chain, procurement), landscape simplification, and reduction in customization. The goal is to migrate core ERP processes to S/4HANA +Cloud/ LoB with full transformation in mind. These companies are looking to change the front office, supply chain, and more to truly address customer experience. They are looking to drive the next-generation of processes across the value chain. This requires a fresh greenfield approach, and a detailed review of which standard best practices in S/4HANA meet your business requirements. These companies are ready to move their ERP into private / public cloud environments. While a major effort across business processes, it is paying off with a TCO reduction of 20 - 30% and tremendous business value as next practices are adopted.

REIMAGINE BUSINESS MODEL: 
There are also companies that are looking at business model innovation or M&A and are taking advantage of the ability to have many industry solutions in one box. With industry lines blurring, the ability to take business capabilities from one industry and leverage them for a new business model in another industry is tremendous (for example, bringing retail to telco). This requires a fresh greenfield approach.

START WITH MIGRATING LOBS TO BEST-IN-CLASS CLOUD SOLUTIONS:
While some companies are planning and executing the move to S/4HANA they start in parallel to innovate on the edge. These companies are taking 1 LoB at a time - HR, Procurement, Supply Chain, Manufacturing and are focusing on driving value short-term with ECC + LoB cloud portfolio. Once moved to S/4HANA these companies will fully benefit from the latest innovative solutions end-to-end.

Read the full blog post on www.approyo.com 

Three game-changing technologies impacting Digital Transformation

Business leaders say they need three things from their data systems to help them compete effectively and embrace digital transformation: reliable data to empower their workers, deep insight from all their data, and access to the latest analytics and machine learning techniques to amplify their insights and apply them to their business.

In addition to new business demands, technology advances are creating new strategic opportunities for data management and analytics. The three key technologies that are having the most impact are:

• In-memory computing delivers real-time performance that obviates the need to have separate solutions for transaction processing and analytics. This has the added advantage of removing the need for multiple copies of data and eliminating latency between transaction systems and data warehouses introduced by batch or overnight replication.
• Storage for large data sets is dramatically lower in cost allowing almost unlimited data sets to be created. Coupled with in-memory performance that can handle these massive data sets, business can see insights into their business in real time.
• Cloud computing has reduced the need for huge capital investments and made powerful advanced computing more accessible. New applications can be deployed quickly to capture opportunities without waiting for data centers to be built and systems readied. 

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... 

Read the full post on www.approyo.com

Accelerate your digital transformation with SAP Leonardo

The world is becoming increasingly digital, presenting limitless opportunities. But the paths to innovation are many. Which path can deliver the best outcome for your business? Whether it’s accessing decision-making insights, reducing manual labor, or delivering more personalized services, SAP Leonardo is here to help you determine the right innovation answer. You already know you need to take a digital approach to your business. The challenge is knowing where to begin. With SAP Leonardo powered by Approyo, you have a team of experts to work directly with you, contributing their guidance, skills, and expertise to help you produce market-ready solutions to your business challenges. SAP Leonardo leverages technology such as analytics, Big Data, blockchain, data intelligence, machine learning, and IoT, together with industry expertise in enterprise software to rapidly unlock breakthrough innovation at scale

SAP Leonardo is a systematic approach to digitally transform businesses, focused on repeatable solutions to well-understood business problems across many industries. SAP Leonardo accelerates and de-risks digital transformation using proven methodologies and pre-integrated software components. It brings together award-winning design services, an industry-leading cloud platform and applications, deep expertise in business processes, and the most innovative new technologies, such as analytics, Big Data, blockchain, data intelligence, machine learning, and IoT.

Innovate – With proven SAP Design Thinking methodology and Industry Value Network experts, the Approyo team focus on understanding your business priorities, processes, and people. We then work with you to build a business case, prototype, and blueprint that address your greatest opportunity or top challenge first. There’s no technology-first approach nor massive-scale projects without a clearly achievable mandate.

Integrate – We help you implement your project with next-generation technologies – including analytics, Big Data, blockchain, data intelligence, machine learning, and IoT – that infuse exponential transformation into your day-to-day operations. These technologies are built upon and integrated into the digital core of your business using SAP Solutions powered by Approyo.

Scale – Through SAP Leonardo, we enable you to scale digital transformation across your entire organization in a step-wise, systematic way. You can implement tactical projects knowing they build upon a broader organizational strategy and a united, integrated platform. You can begin your journey with applications optimized for SAP Leonardo as well as industry and IoT accelerator packages with a fixed price or open innovation services.

Read the full blog post at www.approyo.com 

Ignite your Business - SAP HANA Sandbox as a Service

A sandbox is a type of software testing  environment that enables the isolated execution of software or programs for independent  evaluation, monitoring or testing. In an implementation, a sandbox also may be  known as a test server, development server or working directory.

Additionally, the sandbox technique is implemented in information security to evaluate suspicious software or files containing malicious code. Typically, the source code of sandboxed software is not tested prior to isolation, which reduces unexpected behavior.

Cloud Sandbox as a Service

Cloud Sandboxing are self-contained  infrastructure environments that can be
configured to look exactly like the final target deployment environment but can be created and run anywhere. For example, developers can create a sandbox that looks like the production environment - from network and hardware to OS versions and software to cloud APIs. They do their development in that sandbox for a short period of time and when they are done they tear down the sandbox.

Benefits of Cloud Sandbox as a Service 

• Enable frequent and comprehensive testing - Whether you’re developing modern applications involving multiple layers of interdependent components or practicing test driven  development, you need to test earlier and more comprehensively.
• Accelerate delivery - You’re building mobile apps, and they’re  connected to enterprise backend services.  During development most teams need to build new backend services, connect to existing  services, or create ‘front-end facades’ for  existing services. However, it might not be  possible to access those services, or they may not even be complete.
• Continuous everything - A critical component of continuous delivery and continuous integration is fully automated testing. You must be able to continually and automatically run test suites when your application changes in order to realize continuous delivery. If your app depends on other services those services must be available and setup with the correct test data each run to ensure the test suite runs the same way every time.
• Streamline test environment provisioning - Development, Test, QA and Performance Test teams all need full environments to complete their tasks. Ideally, they should be able to work in parallel however this requires an environment per team. Some systems in your environment might not be yours or even be associated with a cost per transaction to use. This can be very painful during testing and especially during  performance and load testing.
• Reduce risk and cost - Eliminate much of the concurrent demand for development and test environments and  pay-per-use service charges from third parties by using virtual services to create simulated environments.

Approyo Cloud Ignite: SAP HANA Sandbox-as-a-Service

Ignite delivers your team the solution you need and the services to enable continuous and  effective use of SAP HANA to meet strategic and daily needs of business operations. The cloud solution provides the services and tools that enable you to minimize the cost and risk  associated with having the SAP HANA systems up and running.

Developing a project? Our Cloud Ignite sandbox-as-a-service provides a hosted SAP HANA sandbox, for as long as your team needs it, for a fixed monthly fee.

Download the Whitepaper today...

Transform Consumer Products with SAP Powered by Approyo

The retail and consumer goods industries will change more in the next 10 years than they have over the past 40. One primary force is responsible—digitalization—and it has already begun.

• Consumers demand more than just a product – they expect an outcome.
• Consumers change buying decisions in the moment based on newly received information.
• Only real-time, collaborative networks have the ability to deliver meaningful consumer experiences.

These trends have one major thing common: They pose a threat and open new opportunity. The decisive movers will take advantage of these opportunities and turn them into competitive advantage.

SAP Solutions powered by Approyo
SAP HANA powered by Approyo is at the center of what makes digital transformation possible, and let’s you thrive in this unprecedented era of digital transformation. It is by far the best enterprise platform-as-a-service option for SAP customers. 

SAP HANA can help consumer products companies’ knowledge about consumers and aids in creating a 360 degree picture of what motivates consumers, and what will help them on the buying journey. It helps extend the user experience to multiple devices and easier interfaces. SAP HANA extends your existing analytics into something more powerful and meaningful on a one-to-one level. It can help you extend your existing business into the exciting new world of Internet-of-things and leveraging new technology like beacon and sensor data. And SAP HANA extends the collaboration possible at every link of the value chain.

SAP HANA intigrates your cosnumer products and related systems into one cohesive system allowing you to leverage the resulting synergies.  With SuccessFactors and Fieldglass you can staff up contingent workforce as needed for that busy holiday season. Directly tie your existing inventory management solutions with SAP Ariba and so on.

Finally, with the velocity of change now possible in the digital era, you can build new solutions and business models in a rapid manner.  You can quickly build solutions and efficiently combine them such that they will not impact existing business models.  And this can be done in weeks and days instead of years or months. 

Once you understand how you customers want to be treated,  make sure your systems and process allow exactly that: Extending your Cloud and On-Premises Apps let you tailor your current applications to differentiate your customer engagement.

• Extend your current cloud apps to add new features and personalization unique to your brand, its people and goals
• Easily modernize your current on-premises applications into beautiful, mobile-ready assets your team and customers can use right now
• Deploy pre-built app extensions created by SAP and our partners to quickly and easily achieve results in new outlets, markets and geographies

REIMAGINE CONSUMER ENGAGEMENT 
Nowhere is the impact of digital more profound than in processes and technologies that directly touch consumers. A great omnicommerce consumer engagement must include:

• Knowledgeable store associates armed with as much or more information than consumers 
• Social engagement involving brand, employees, and consumers 
• In-store technologies to augment shopping experience 
• “Segment of one” merchandising, marketing, and loyalty 

REIMAGINE BUSINESS MODELS
If technology was not a limitation, how would you fundamentally change business models based on real-time and complete consumer and business data? Many possibilities exist, such as:

• Automated, dynamic, and contextual pricing based on a consumer’s digital footprint 
• Flexible supply networks enabling short lead times and “make-to-order” assortments 
• Tracking and tracing along the supply chain with connected warehouses 

REIMAGINE PROCESSES
With digital playing a larger role in commerce, it’s easy to envision new processes that help create and capture new sources of value. Examples include:

• Data and insights help not only in growing the core business but also in creating new businesses that directly monetize data 
• Business networks and marketplaces are enabling agile fulfillment
• The ability to activate hyper-local execution 

Read the full blog post on www.approyo.com

SAP SAPPHIRE NOW 2018 After Party

We are pleased to announce that we will once again be hosting our annual SAP SAPPHIRE NOW 2018 After Party at the SAP SAPPHIRE NOW and ASUG Annual Conference. The SAP SAPPHIRE NOW 2018 After Party will be on June 5 at Cuba Libre Restaurant from 8:00pm - 10:00pm. Register today.

Approyo, Abreon, PCM and Ley-Line Advisory invite you to join us at the SAP SAPPHIRE NOW 2018 After Party at Cuba Libre Orlando.

Join us for the one-of-a-kind experience and a fun night of networking, drinks, and food. Plus, learn about our unique partnerships and get to know our teams.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Party Details: 
Date: Tuesday, June 5
Time: 8:00 – 10:00pm

Location:
Cuba Libre
9101 International Dr,
Orlando, FL 32819

Regsiter now - Space is limited