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.

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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.

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Digital Transformation for Research and Development with SAP powered by Approyo

The market is experiencing a disruptive shift in customer demand for new, extensive, smart, and personalized products. The journey of a new product initiates from the research and development (R&D) department, where significant difference can be made to improve features and reduce cost. A successful R&D department brings new formulations and designs to life with speed and accuracy based on inputs from the marketplace, customers, and latest technologies. R&D integrates with downstream departments to manufacture, sell, and service products with higher quality and lower cost while continuously iterating formulations and designs to create more profitable, desirable, and reliable products.

SAP's industry-leading portfolio of cloud and industry-specific solutions is uniquely positioned to enable our customers’ digital transformation across all key aspects of their business value chain. SAP Leonardo capabilities combined with SAP S/4HANA as the digital core provide an intelligent, integrated, fast, and visual product innovation platform with built-in compliance. The SAP S/4HANA R&D/Engineering solution enables informed decision-making in ideation and concept development, portfolio and project management, product development, and compliance management. Smarter products are brought to the market faster and with full compliance.

With the new Industry 4.0 capabilities, customers can now personalize the product design in real time to meet their needs through the variant configuration engine. The production order moves with minimal human intervention through downstream processes such as product engineering, production engineering, and manufacturing to serve a “lot size of one” to the customers. Another paradigm shift is the capability to deliver consumer-centric business models so that you can “uberize” your business before someone else does.

SAP solutions powered by Approyo enable companies to substantially enhance, simplify, and visualize the entire R&D process from idea to product.

Increase revenue from new products by offering wider variants and personalized and smart products  - Run design and development processes on live insights into product performance and customer needs. Enable individualized products with flexible and high-performing configuration, formulation, and classification capabilities.

Accelerate time to market with real-time project control, informed product decisions, and streamlined compliance - Analyze live performance of the project portfolio with predictive insights at any stage of the innovation process. Reuse designs and recipes, work in an integrated development environment, handover to manufacturing seamlessly, and leverage embedded compliance to launch new products faster.

Reduce R&D expense by informed product decisions, integration of formulation and design tools, and efficient supplier collaboration
For discrete industries: Design and simulate in an integrated development environment (supporting mechanical, electrical, electronics, and software disciplines). Synchronize all downstream processes internally and externally with harmonized and consistent integration of different design tools.

For process industries: Streamline development of recipes with full process support from first trials to definition-of-process parameters, efficient reuse of existing formulations and specifications, and synchronization of all downstream product development needs internally and externally.

Improve profitability by having insights on cost of new products early on and across the lifecycle - Reduce existing product cost and launch new products with competitive pricing by simulating the impact of design decisions. Calculate cost and other dimensions for new products in the early stage of the product lifecycle to quickly identify cost drivers and compare alternatives.

Improve profitability of customer projects, such as engineer to order - Detailed project cost controlling and forecasting, including issue and change management.

Reduce compliance costs and recalls through embedded compliance in the R&D processes - Compliance checks are embedded in the system for R&D processes. The coverage extends to markets, industry, materials, and downstream processes.

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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.

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Digital Transformation for the Insurance Industry with SAP powered by Approyo

Radical change in the insurance industry is occurring at a rapid pace. Changes in technologies, in business models, in standards, and in the makeup of insurance companies themselves require constant adaptation. Insurers 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?

Responding to rapid changes
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 new business models, new regulations, and new business events, such as mergers or acquisitions.

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

Keeping data under control
Every insurance company needs the computing capability for carrying out complex risk assessments 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. They must also manage the enormous amount of data generated by connected networks to develop and deliver leading-edge products and services.

Addressing innovative opportunities
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). Insurance companies that have big innovation appetites or prefer to be early adopters have already begun this journey.

An End-to-End Intelligent Enterprise for Insurance
Insurance companies need to constantly innovate across their company value chain to drive profitable growth and adapt to how customers want to apply and pay for their policies and services. The capabilities delivered with SAP S/4HANA and the preconfigured, native integration with LoB solutions from SAP help ensure processes run smoothly and efficiently across the engagement lifecycle, allowing companies to drive sustainable revenue growth and maintain margins.

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The Journey to the Intelligent Enterprise with SAP powered by Approyo

In a consumer-driven digital economy, the pace of innovation is relentless. Change has never been this fast, but it will never be this slow again. Companies are beyond the stage of awareness when it comes to digital technologies. They already understand the power of Al, loT, cloud, robotics, and mobile, while others like blockchain and augmented reality are just appearing on the radar.

All of this innovation will be fueled by data, from having the right intelligence to execution. 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.

However, executives are concerned about the path to digital transformation. Early adopters failed to understand their digital ambition and the complexity associated with transformation and are struggling on their journey. Successful companies that are engaged with SAP powered by Approyo are focusing on these five common capabilities:

• Reimagine end-to-end mega-processes - For example, customer experience is not just omni­channel, it's about orchestrating the entire value chain to deliver the best customer experience.
• Enhance enterprise intelligence through smart use of data and Al technologies.
• Run the world economy in real time by connecting industry value chains. For example, leverage end-to-end industry best practices, digital technologies, and SAP HANA to run in real-time
• Manage complexity by simplifying IT's operating model- Focus on clear IT strategy aligned to business priorities and a customer-first mindset.
• Accelerate innovation by moving to the cloud.

Why should your company start the path to digital transformation?

RUN VS. INNOVATE 
Executives struggle to strike a balance between the need to keep running a current profitable business and investing for future innovations. Quite often these two goals conflict, and most executives mistakenly focus only on the former and ignore the latter.

CORPORATE CHOLESTEROL 
The older the company is, the more stuck they are with policies, procedures, layers of management and risk aversion. Their own processes get in the way of change.

INNOVATION CULTURE 
Digital transformation is a journey without a destination. Companies need to build the right talent, skills, and partnerships to capitalize on digital opportunities.

COMPLEX IT INFRASTRUCTURE 
For an average organization with 30+ applications per billion of revenue, 70-80% of the IT budget is spent on keeping the lights on. It is difficult to manage data as a strategic asset and enforce master data governance across a fragmented portfolio. This means considerable value potential is untapped as companies cannot even use 1 % of the available data. Also, executives do not have the necessary visibility into operational and financial performance to manage quick course corrections.

These are complex issues and navigating through them requires change in attitude, mindset, as well as time. Companies that start now will have more time to address these challenges at their own pace.

Given the current speed of change, digital innovations have a short shelf life - today's breakthrough will become a 'me too' in a couple of years. Therefore, it is important to start now, build a foundation and realize value in a step-by-step manner instead of waiting for a proven stack of solutions and proven technologies with which to innovate.

With multiple mature solutions and design thinking led approach to innovation, SAP powered by Approyo is strongly positioned to help companies on their digital transformation journey, so they can become an intelligent enterprise. With the SAP HANA platform and our investments in Al technologies, we will exponentially increase the number of intelligent apps embedded in the Intelligent Suite over the next few years. These new innovations can be consumed at any time through the cloud, but will deliver value much faster if the modern foundation is in place right now.

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