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CIO Feature, Digital TransformationBy Mukesh Gupta

Digital Transformation is about Reimagining the Business for the Digital Age – Vijay Sethi, CIO – Hero Moto Corp

Premise:

I had the opportunity to host Mr. Vijay Sethi (CIO, CHRO and head of CSR at the world’s largest two wheeler manufacturer – Hero Moto Corp) on a meeting and request him to share his his insights and learnings about digital transformation. He also busts some of the myths about digital transformation. If digital transformation is a topic of interest for you, I highly recommend that you watch the entire session here.  

Once upon a time:

The CIO had a very peaceful life and were very happy running the applications that they were responsible for (SAP, networks, security, email, etc). But in the last 10 – 12 years, things have changed and that too significantly. There has been an avalanche of buzzwords taking the world by storm.

  1. SCAM – Social Media, Cloud, Analytics and mobility.
  2. BAR – Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics.

These buzzwords move from just being buzzwords to becoming a reality of our lives. Digital is pervading the entire organisations from top floor to the shop floor.

Add to this, the generation of people that have joined the workforce are the internet native generation. Given the current situation of the pandemic, children are attending school on a mobile device from the comfort of their homes. Imagine the kind of expectations these citizens will have when they enter the workforce.

Digital Transformation:

What this has all done is to bring the conversation around digital transformation to the forefront of all the businesses. If you are not thinking and working towards digital transformation in your organisation, you might already be missing the bus.

Digital transformation is when you enable a non-digital native business to leverage digital technologies to transform themselves such that they are able to not only compete but also thrive in the new business environment.

Why should one care of digital transformation:

  1. Digital transformation programs have the potential to provide disproportional return on investments to the business.
  2. Enabling growth in the business by enabling new business models or channels or capabilities.
  3. In many cases, survival of the business will depend on how well digital transformation efforts play out in the market. The current pandemic has clearly shown that being digital is not just a nice to have side project for businesses but in many cases, has become the core of the business model.  
  4. When customers experience digital native businesses, their expectations from all businesses change, which means that if a business wants to survive or even thrive, digital transformation of business is inevitable.

What is Digital transformation:

Before we understand what digital transformation is, it is important to understand what it is not.

  1. Automation of business processes is not Digital transformation.
  2. When asked for examples of digital transformation, the common names that come up are that of Uber, Ola, Oyo and AirBnB. They are not examples of digital transformation but are examples of digital disruption. They are born digital and enabled new business models leading to disrupting entire industries.

Too often, Digital transformation, feels like a buzzword. As companies rush to streamline operational efficiency and impress end users with slick new interfaces, without a focused approach to solve the real challenge at hand, which is, how to deliver a superior customer experience in the digital age.

So, what is Digital Transformation?

Digital transformation involves defining a roadmap with a sequence of capabilities that should be developed, with the specific purpose of leveraging digital technologies to drive business to a different level!

Digital Transformation is about using digital technologies to create new – or modify existing – business processes, culture and customer experiences to meet changing business and market requirements!!

Digital transformation is a process and a journey and not a destination. One can’t say that now I am digitally transformed. So, how do we embark on this journey?

Defining a roadmap:

Every business needs to develop a clear vision of what would it be like to do business with them. Based on this vision, the team then needs to come up with a roadmap of what new capabilities will this vision need to come alive and by when do we need these capabilities and in what sequence.

Leveraging Digital Technologies:

Once we have the roadmap, we then go looking for the best technologies available in order to bring the roadmap and the capabilities alive and not the other way around, as a lot of businesses attempt.  

Business models, Culture & Customer experiences

The move from status quo to the vision laid out at the start usually requires the digital transformation program to address atleast two of these three areas. The result of the digital transformation effort should either

  • Create or enable new business processes and business models, which can lead to outsized increase in efficiencies and profits or enable the business to target new markets or customer segments.
  • Create a new kind of culture or modify the existing culture within the organisation. Culture of the organisation is like the operating system on a computer. All other programs will need to work within the limitations of the operating system. Just like the operating system is always working behind the curtains, culture of an organisation is also always working behind the scenes and controls what can be done and what can’t be done.
  • Create new or modify existing customer experiences. The reason for a business to exist is to create and satisfy a customer and her needs/wants/desires. So, digital transformation programs need to significantly change (hopefully make it better) the customer experiences in order to provide the disproportionate returns on the investment.  

All of this is now possible as the convergence and the maturity of digital technologies has significantly evolved over the years.

In conclusion:

If a digital transformation project has to have any chance of the impact that it can have, customer experience has to be at the center of digital transformation programs.

Most digital technologies provide possibilities for efficiency gains and customer intimacy – but if people lack the right mindset to change and the current organizational practices are flawed, digital transformation will simply magnify those flaws.

So, if you really want to run digital transformation, you need to start with the mindset and culture change.  

This post was originally published on “Leading Transformations” blog and has been republished here with permission.

Defeat the Hacker, UncategorizedBy Mukesh Gupta

Best Practices to Secure your SAP Custom Code

In the July edition of their monthly webinar Defeat the Hackers, INDUS Security Special Interest group hosted Natascha Lalor from SAP Ireland. She shared the importance of having Secure Software Development LiveCycle for custom code applications.

The session provided an overview of the various tools at SAP that can be used to secure custom code. In the session Natascha also explained the processes that should be in place to make sure your custom applications are secure. She also shared best practices that will help to secure custom applications right from the start.

The session gave an overview on:

  • Software security vulnerability situation today
  • Application security testing solutions at SAP
  • ABAP Test Cockpit
  • SAP Code Vulnerability Analyzer
  • Custom Code Management Tools
  • Threat Modelling

You can find the recording here.

You can find the slides here.

Join the Defeat the Hackers WhatsApp group
Register for the Monthly Special Interest Group Meetings

ES SIG, S4HANABy Mukesh Gupta

Realize the Power of SAP S/4HANA with the New Guides Program

The first edition of the monthly INDUS Enterprise Support Special Interest group meeting, SAP launched the SAP Enterprise Guides program that can help you in your SAP S4HANA Project on June 30th, 2020.

You can watch the replay of the session below:

Here is a brief summary of the program, how you can participate and where to find more information to get started.

The GUIDES program is offered to accompany SAP Enterprise Support direct customers on the journey to SAP S/4HANA, it provides prescriptive and proactive SAP S/4HANA guidance in an efficient and programmatic approach for the full project life cycle.

1. What are the key new features and benefits in GUIDES?

Besides the well-known and proven SAP Enterprise Support services, assets, and SAP Enterprise Support Value Maps, the new GUIDES program will have additional innovative content and assets, which will be further enhanced and optimized in 2020. 

2. How can SAP’s GUIDES program support you?

The new GUIDES program has some key pillars, as illustrated in the below picture: 

The engagement starts with an Onboarding session, followed by delivery of selected Journey Checks. The tailored Engagement Plan builds the foundation for the collaboration between the SAP Enterprise Support Advisory and customers. 

Engagement Points are designed to be delivered throughout the project. They can be touch points between SAP Enterprise Support and customer’s project team on specific topics like the results and follow-up activities of a Continuous Quality Check service.

The well-known SAP Enterprise Support Value Maps will remain an important collaboration foundation and methodology between SAP Enterprise Support customers and SAP Enterprise Support Advisory team.

*Note: Not every Journey Check will be available at the start of GUIDES. Number of Journey Checks varies depending on deployment options and transition paths. 

3. How does an Engagement Plan of GUIDES program look like?

Let’s have a look at a high level Engagement Plan example to get detailed insights on the GUIDES program. We will share more details on these activities from PREPARE to EXPLORE phase. 

The Engagement Plan can be adjusted after each SAP Activate phase or in case of significant changes to your project planning. For instance, a first Engagement Point could be scheduled during your starting activities while you convert your sandbox, the supporting empowerment offerings and documents on how to perform this conversion would be provided. Further, a Journey Check will be provided, where typical questions with relevance to sandbox conversion and next steps will be raised. We would guide you through this exercise based on SAP’s Best Practices. 

In case there is an unplanned change in the project, an ad-hoc Engagement Point can be scheduled to align on required Engagement Plan modifications.

4. What are NEXT STEPs?

As a customer, you may ask, so when is the right time that SAP Enterprise Support direct customers can join the new GUIDES program? The ideal and recommended starting point is at the end of the SAP Activate DISCOVER Phase or at the beginning of the PREPARE phase. It is also possible to join our program at a later phase of the implementation.

So if you are already in such a phase, kindly join us through the activities below.

Register for the SAP Enterprise support Guides program via SAP Enterprise Support Advisory Council landing page.

Let SAP Enterprise Support be your guide in your SAP S/4HANA journey!

Register for the Monthly ES SIG Calls

Register for the ES SIG WhatsApp group

Build a Business Case for SAP S/4HANA by playing the SAP S/4HANA Virtual Board Game
Procurement, S4HANABy Mukesh Gupta

Build a Business Case for SAP S/4HANA by playing the SAP S/4HANA Virtual Board Game

In their July edition, the INDUS S/4HANA Special Interest group hosted Saurabh Chaudhri who explained in detail about the SAP S/4HANA Board game. He and his team also hosted two groups of SIG members to play the game virtually.

This game helps if

  • You struggling to grasp all the different innovations in S/4 and how it applies to their business?
  • You interested in a new and engaging way to convey the business value of S/4HANA to your business leaders?
  • You and your teams suffering from powerpoint fatigue?

SAP’s S/4HANA Solution Management team has GAMIFIED this learning process through the introduction of:

SAP S/4HANA Virtual Board Game:

SAP S/4HANA Virtual Board Game is a fun, interactive way to help you discover how SAP S/4HANA solution capabilities can add value to your business. The game can be played by business executives with a specific business objective in mind and by operational team members with curiosity to learn more about their LoB functionalities.

Apart from learning aspect, game has tangible outputs for you, which can be referenced after the game for future meetings.

You can find the recording of the session below:

You can find more information about the game as below:

We will get back to you with more information about the next session shortly.

Procurement, S4HANABy Mukesh Gupta

INDUS Procurement SIG Meeting July – Intelligent Procure to Pay in SAP S/4HANA

In the July edition of their monthly meetings, INDUS Procurement Special Interest group hosted HS Shiva Kumar, where he shared the capabilities of SAP S/4HANA when it comes to the procure to Pay end-to-end processes.

This session provided a detailed overview about all intelligent capabilities available within SAP S/4HANA in the context of “End to End Procure-to-Pay process”.

In the session, Shiva also covered the different Intelligent Procure-to-Pay capabilities relevant from two different perspectives

Business Roles

  • Employee and Consulting Manager,
  • Operational Purchaser,
  • Strategic Purchaser,
  • Accounts Payable Accountant

Technologies

  • Intelligent RPA,
  • Machine Learning,
  • Conversational AI,
  • Analytics,
  • Situations Handling

He also showcased demos of these capabilities and also Introduced  pre-configured content and Best practices available for Procure-to-Pay process.

You can access the recording of the session here.

You can access the slides used in the session here.

You can also join the Procurement SIG WhatsApp Group here.

Customer Connection, InfluenceBy Mukesh Gupta

Calling all customers using SAP Master Data Governance to influence the development of SAP Master Data Governance 2020

One of the key pillars of focus for INDUS is the ability for our members to influence SAP product development. In order to enable that, we work with the SAP development teams on two different programs:

  • Customer Connection (improving existing products)
  • Customer Engagement (influencing new products or functionality)

In this regard, we are pleased to inform and invite you to participate in the project kickoff call for the SAP Customer Connection project  to influence “SAP Master Data Governance 2020”.

Please find below the registration link to this webinar which provides with dial-in information as well as an MS Outlook calendar entry file specifically. Feel free to communicate this accordingly into your organization, who use SAP MDG so that they can participate and influence the product development.

The agenda for this call is as below:

  • Project timeline and scope
  • Introduction to the SAP Customer Connection program
  • How to participate: process and tools

SAP Customer Connection works in projects with a fixed product scope and timeline. In these projects, SAP customers collect improvement requests for SAP products in mainstream maintenance. The SAP team will consider requests with a minimum of 8 supporting customers (by votes) for a review and deliver accepted requests via SAP Notes and Support Packages.

Webinar Title Date Time/Timezones Language Registration Link
Project kickoff call for
“SAP Master Data Governance 2020“		 July 29, 2020 (Wednesday) 7:30 pm India English
(1 hour)		 Register and get calendar entry and dial-in information


To participation, please register via the link above and you will get all information at the end of the registration process. The session will be recorded and  the team can share the same afterwards for a later review within the project web spaces mentioned.