2018 year in review: Top SAP News

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.

Top SAP news of 2018
What's new in SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 03 - March 28, 2018
SAP HANA 2 is the business data platform for the intelligent enterprise. Leveraging state-of-the-art database and data management technology, advanced analytical capabilities and intuitive application development tools in the only all-in-one, in-memory-first data platform – SAP HANA 2 frees up valuable resources and human capital for new and innovative application development to meet your business’s strategic objectives.

SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 03 includes a mix of new and continuous innovations across the themes of database management, data management, analytical intelligence and application development. Read the full blog post...

SAP Acquires Callidus Software Inc. - April 11, 2018
SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) announced that it has completed its acquisition of Callidus Software Inc. (Nasdaq: CALD), a market leader known for its lead to money applications, including sales performance management and configure-price-quote (CPQ).

Here is the official announcement from SAP. These applications, marketed under the brand CallidusCloud, will provide SAP and its customers a differentiated, cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) solution, putting SAP in a leading position to compete in the US$46 billion CRM market. SAP plans to consolidate CallidusCloud product assets within the SAP Hybris cloud portfolio, which is part of SAP’s Cloud Business Group. Read the full blog post...

SAP Announces SAP C/4HANA - June 5, 2018
Major news from the first morning at the 2018 SAP SAPPHIRE NOW Conference. SAP CEO Bill McDermott announced a new suite of applications, SAP C/4HANA, to help businesses serve and retain customers. SAP also announced the SAP HANA Data Management Suite, the industry’s first comprehensive data management solution that enables companies to turn data sprawl into business value. Read the full blog post...

SAP Announces new SAP HANA Data Management Suite - June 6, 2018
The SAP HANA Data Management Suite is based on the latest versions of the SAP HANA business data platform. It allows for secure, governed enterprise-class applications and analytics by providing an open, hybrid and multicloud-enabled solution suite that orchestrates all the data needed into a trusted, unified landscape. SAP HANA Data Management Suite is the foundation for building agile, data-driven applications that are always tapping into live data. With one query, SAP HANA Data Management Suite can deliver results from a single logical data set that covers the whole enterprise — turning the concept of universal data into a reality. Read the full blog post...

SAP Releases SAP S/4HANA 1809 - October 2, 2018
SAP announced the latest version of SAP S/4HANA; SAP S/4HANA 1809. The latest release promises to continue on with SAP's commitment to both converting existing ECC functionality into S/4, as well as, introducing newer functions and features. Read the full blog post...

Key Takeaways from SAP TechEd 2018 - October 10, 2018
Another SAP TechEd 2018 Las Vegas is in the books and it delivered five days of education, training, networking, and fun. Topics included SAP HANA Data Management Suite, SAP Cloud Platform, SAP Leonardo, SAP Analytics Cloud, and how real customers are building intelligent enterprises. Following up the SAP SAPPHIRE NOW Conference earlier this year, the main focus was the "Intelligent Enterprise". Expect to continue to hear this term from SAP and it's partners for the next several months and years.  Read the full blog post...

SAP Acquires Contextor to Augment Robotic Process Automation Capabilities
- November 20, 2018
SAP announced on November 19 that it has acquired a company called Contexter to boost robotic process automation in SAP S/4HANA and SAP Leonardo. SAP is expected to start integrated this into its products in 2019. Read the full blog post...

Check out the Approyo blog for more information.

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 

Approyo CEO Chris Carter featured on Game Changers Crystal Ball 2019 Predictions Part 1 with Game-Changers Radio, Presented by SAP

Approyo CEO Chris Carter was recently featured as a guest on Game Changers Crystal Ball 2019 Predictions Part 1 with Game-Changers Radio, Presented by SAP. During this episode, Chris along with many other guests talk about Big Data, Machine Learning, AI and more technology trends that will impact 2019 and beyond.

Listen on-demand: https://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/110891/gamechangers-crystal-ball-2019-predictions-part-1 

The buzz: “It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future” (K.K. Steincke). Good news! If your #1 business wish this holiday season is knowing what 2019 holds for your company, industry and the world, we’ve got the next best thing. Coffee Break with Game-Changers Radio is bringing you six weeks of predictions from 80 thought leaders about the technologies, strategies, and trends that can help you grow and compete in 2019 and beyond. Pour a cup of Joe, Earl, or Dom, and join us for SAP Game-Changers Radio 2019 Predictions–Part 1 live. You’ll hear from Shaun Syvertsen, Convergent IS; Brian Kalish. Kalish Consulting; Gerard Das, SAP; Christian K. Kugelmeier, VORSPRUNGatwork; Maggie Goralska, SAP; Ellen Sasson, SAP; Jim Harris, JimHarris.com; Julio Viskovich, NexLevel Sales; Christopher Carter, Approyo; Richard Mooney, SAP; Sam Smith, Stellar One Consulting; Gray Scott, GrayScott.com; Praful Karanth; SAP; David Jonker, SAP. Happy holidays from Game-Changers Radio!

Approyo CEO Chris Carter named one of the Successful Leaders in Tech by CIOLook

Approyo is proud to announce that CEO and Founder Chris Carter has been named one of the Successful Leaders in Tech by CIOLook Magazine. The publication sheds light on th most admired tech leaders and their journeys to success, it also provides insights on their mission and vision, their backgrounds, and the traits that make a resilient leader.

"In our edition titled "Successful Leader in Tech," we envision exhibiting the vital contribution of emerging tech leaders who have brought about a disruptive change in their respective industries. With three decades of executive experience in the SAP Industry, the Founder and CEO of Approyo, Christopher Carter has marked his presence in the industry by aiding the commendable provision of optimal SAP solutions. CIO Look recognizes and appreciates his efforts and takes pride to feature him in our very first edition," Pooja M. Bansal, Editor-in-Chief of CIOLook.

“I am extremely honored to be named one of the Successful Leaders in Tech by CIOLook,” said Christopher Carter, CEO of Approyo. “I personally think the entire team at Approyo made this award possible, not just me alone. This achievement continues to validate our success in the SAP marketplace.”

Web Profile: http://ciolook.com/christopher-carter-enabling-customers-to-embrace-sap/
Magazine: Digital Link: http://magazines.ciolook.com/Successful-Leader-in-Tech-2018/

About CIOLook
CIOLook is Global business authority platform where you can explore the perspective of Entrepreneurs, business owners, and innovators who drive business around the globe. CIOLook has unvaryingly been at the front line for its honesty and genuineness acquiring acknowledgment from Business pioneers universally. Alongside, it focuses on showcasing world changing business concepts to help readers get a deeper understanding of the progressive business world.

Consistent updates to our online journals, internet based life and master sentiment give a substance rich perusing knowledge loaded up with fascinating perspectives and remark on the issues of the worldwide business .CIOLook Magazine inspires readers and users to think beyond traditional boundaries, lead conversations and create the future of business.

2019 Technology and IT Predictions

Every year, the team at Approyo gathers a few predictions for the upcoming year. This year we decided to make two lists, one focused on the IT and business world and the other focused on consumer technology.

Top IT predictions for 2019

• Intelligent Data – Businesses are now understanding the impact of big data in the marketplace. The next step is using all that data in intelligent ways to be able to grow your business. In 2018, SAP introduced the concept of “Intelligent Enterprise”. This gives businesses the technology solutions needed to use all the data and make intelligent decisions to improve business, 
• AI and Machine Learning - Creating systems that learn, adapt and potentially act autonomously. In 2019 and beyond, these systems will work with people to create better business processes and improve the bottom line. SAP continues to innovate with SAP Leonardo. It has many features for AI and Machine Learning that can help companies today. 
• Security – As we mentioned in our first bullet point, data is one of the most important aspects of your business. Cloud and hosting partners will need to continue to adapt security measures to protect this valuable information. 

Top Consumer Technology predictions for 2019

• AI in every part of our lives – AI is impacting every part of our lives in ways we probably don’t think about. Digital assistants are becoming widespread, your email is not writing sentences for you and more companies are utilizing AI in everyday business practices. You probably are interacting with chat-bots online or on the phone and you might now even know it. 
• Faster Internet – The Internet is a part of every minute of our lives. Between phones, cameras, voice enabled home systems, computers and even refrigerators, more and more devices require an internet connection. Because of this new reality, 5g and faster Wi-Fi internet will continue to grow. 
• Digital Assistants become the norm – Since the introduction of Apple’s Suri, Google Assistant and Amazon's Alexa, the digital assistant has started to be part of our daily lives. Now and in the future, more and more devices will have a digital assistant built in. Everything from speakers, to cars and even appliances will now be enables with digital assistants to help you with daily tasks. 
• Security - We mentioned this on our IT list and it is here as well. More people than ever are online and use cloud services to store pictures, passwords, data and more. This means more phishing scams and hackers. People need to be aware of their security at home and at the office. Make sure you change your passwords on your online accounts and home devices. 

Are you ready 2019?
Planning your technology budget can be difficult. Let us make your process easier with a complimentary SAP assessment!  Sign up today...

Approyo Welcomes Christopher Scattaglia

We are proud to announce that we have expanded our team again, this time welcoming Christopher Scattaglia.

Christopher joins Approyo with 4 years SAP experience and a focus on Unix Operating Systems.  His previous work includes migrations, upgrades, installations, & support packs, mainly on older ECC systems. Christopher says his big draw to Approyo was the opportunity to work more closely with developing technologies. 

 “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.

Approyo has been providing solutions powered by SAP HANA®, such as the latest version of SAP S/4HANA®, in the cloud for the last three years. Approyo built an entire platform using the best solutions in the market, helping companies move to SAP HANA quickly and benefit immediately.

SAP Demystified: Why is SAP HANA better than other traditional databases?

SAP HANA is an application that uses in-memory database technology that allows the processing of massive amounts of real-time data in a short time. The in-memory computing engine allows HANA to process data stored in RAM as opposed to reading it from a disk. This allows the application to provide instantaneous results from customer transactions and data analyses.

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.

Scalability and Speed 
Based on the functionality of data being stored in a RAM chip instead of a hard disk, SAP HANA makes high speed processing a practical reality. Unlike the traditional process of data being read from the hard-disk and subsequently moved into RAM for data processing, the agility of SAP HANA allows organizations to achieve more with their data. For instance, an HR team could run real-time jobs in different batches without having to wait for the jobs to get completed before starting another. The fantastic capability of running multiple jobs at the same time and run them several times, if need be, gives SAP HANA an edge above the rest.

Simplicity
The biggest problem of traditional databases was their limitation of supporting and managing one business load at a given point in time. So, if a customer runs multiple businesses or has more than one line of operations such as marketing, customer support, logistics, manufacturing, finance, and more; the data in each of these systems will tend to get duplicated thus, increasing the complexity of the system manifolds. The process gets further complicated if the customer wants to view multiple kinds of data at one time. With SAP HANA integration, the simplicity of having one system for different business applications and its real-time access makes the operations extremely simple and user-friendly.

Predictive analytics and machine learning
Predictive analysis with SAP HANA includes native high-performance predictive algorithms for both expert and automated modes. Additionally, you can run open-source R scripts on SAP HANA through integration with R server and build machine learning applications with integration to TensorFlow. Some of the predictive algorithms run on streaming, spatial, and series data and are self-improving. The ability to perform predictive analytics on an entire body of transactional data lets you develop modern applications that forecast outcomes and help your business adapt processes in real time. Machine learning helps you build applications that can adapt and automate some of the manual business process step.

Read the full blog post on www.approyo.com