Archives October 2020

Robots entered industrial processes to automate activities more than a decade ago. Computerising the manual process was considered as automation until recently.  Now it is time for Robots to enter the computerized processes to relieve repetitive human efforts involved. 

SAP is a process-centric solution. Even in this, manual tasks which are repetitive & high volume, continue to exist and SAP has brought in “Intelligent Robotic Process Automation (RPA)” as a solution to mitigate this challenge.  Many times, such manual tasks are repeatedly performed by different groups of people, also in different systems at times, within an organisation. This blog outlines RPA, at a high level, to enable any SAP Consultant to get an understanding of this solution. 

RPA consists of “Bots”, designed and created by an SAP Consultant or an “expert user” for performing certain repetitive tasks in a chosen process. “Bots” can work as a “Digital Assistant” to the user which are classified as “Attended Bots”. Bots can also work in an “unattended mode”, just as a “Digital Worker”, to perform certain tasks in the background. These Bots can be orchestrated and monitored from a supervisor console. This is explained graphically below in Exhibit-1. 

SAP Intelligent RPA is a single unified Cloud based solution. It includes “on-premise” automation tools as well. This is an end-to-end solution to automate steps. Most of us are familiar with “Macros and VBA Scripts” to automate certain tasks in Microsoft (MS) applications such as Excel. However, it can work only within the single application and cannot work across other Non-MS applications. This is where RPA overcomes such limitations. It can work with Non-SAP Systems and Legacy applications, as well as SAP’s solutions such as SAP Digital Core, Ariba, Concur etc…. In addition, RPA does not need any programming skills to build a “Bot”. See exhibit-2 below to understand, how RPA integrates seamlessly across solutions. 

SAP Intelligent RPA has three components as mentioned below. Let’s look at them in detail in the following sections: 

1. Desktop Agent
2. Cloud Factory
3. Desktop Studio 

Desktop Agent-

This component is installed by a cloud administrator in an end user’s computer. Once installed, the administrator privileges are not required by the Agent on the machine. The Agent will adopt the user profile and its Windows credentials for operations. 

Cloud Factory–

Cloud Factory is a dedicated Bot Management Central component that orchestrates all process automations. It monitors and controls jobs and agents in the landscape and presents them in the form of a dashboard. It consists of three different sub-components named Hierarchies, Environments, Packages and Configurations.

Desktop Studio 

Desktop Studio is the component (we will go into more detail later in where the bots are developed. The desktop studio combines all the relevant information of a bot and delivers what is known as the “package”. This package needs to be imported into Cloud Factory.  

Summary:

SAP Intelligent RPA is a very interesting tool. SAP has articulated a great roadmap ahead for Intelligent RPA. RPA creates a layer that sits on top of existing systems and processes without having a need to rewrite thousands of lines of codes. The automation covers end-to-end steps of the process, spanning across a multitude of systems, including SAP and Non-SAP solutions. These create great advantages for every organization. Any organisation can spend minimal amounts of time to review the existing processes and come up with areas of optimization using RPA. It is really a great opportunity for any SAP consultant to review and produce RPA implementations in many areas and it will add great value to every customer.  

SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation – The Future of Automation – a Sneak peak

We have seen many automation tools in the market that helps humans in automating some repetitive tasks called as Test Automation tools. More recently we have been hearing about Robotic Process Automation tool. RPA is not to be confused with other test automation tools as RPA consists of software bots (Software Code) that comprehends user actions and it has a flavor of AI or Artificial Intelligence and one of the examples is SAP Intelligent RPA.

When compared to ROI – Return on Investment RPA is the tool that is boosting the ROI and reducing costs. RPA should and must be used if the customer wants to accelerate the business process by replicating the actions and mundane back office end users’ tasks thus enabling the users to focus on more value driven innovative activities.

RPA can replicate many human actions, such as open and close excel files, launch FIORI apps, key in data, modify data and much more.

Attended bot:- This is deployed on a User workstation mimicked by user action

Unattended Bot:- This is deployed on a virtual machine and triggered by a scheduled job

• Bots can be used for Automating Business Process in production, system migration or upgrades
• SAP Intelligent RPA’s core for automation is to Create/develop bots, Run, Monitor
• SAP Intelligent RPA’s components or the main pillars of RPA
• Cloud Factory – This is responsible for Monitoring this is just a web Brower which is used for monitoring bots, provides status of jobs.

Cloud Factory (Hierarchy)

Define set of users (hierarchy)

Environments

Configure

Package (consists of automation script)

Benefits of RPA

• It relies on the Workflow that is created by the bot developer.
• Time to implement RPA compared to traditional automation tools is very fast though we require proper strategy and planning
• Unlike traditional test automation tools that is product specific, RPA automates Products and Business Process that is the core of digital transformation.

Finally, SAP Intelligent RPA is used to create automation scripts for Business processes that can run in attended or unattended mode. The scripts can run in a production environment and can automate processes such as creating a PO, creating an Invoice, etc. This is offered as a cloud service on subscription.

SAP is one of these digital transformation ‘consultants’, helping organisations in their pursuit of becoming an intelligent enterprise digital transformation journey. And, this journey is just as important as the destination — the destination is to become an intelligent enterprise that satisfies customers and employees. A lot of organisations have decided they’re going to do digitally transform, but often, they struggle with it.

SAP’s view (and others) is that digital transformation should have a much more profound affect on an organisation’s assets; it impacts data but most importantly, it also impacts people, both as consumers of things that have been digitally transformed, but also as creators, constructors and builders of digital transformation.

We are digital transformation consultants; we have journeys and roadmaps and customer pathways that capture digital transformations for particular industries, or for organisations that have particular constraints.

But for us we also want people to think about the goal. Don’t digitally transform just for digital transformation’s sake. You want to transform digitally so that your enterprise is more agile, it’s faster, it’s more nimble, it’s more optimised. And these are all examples of intelligence.

Are they any cross-industry trends?

What we tend to find is that the majority of industries want to start on digital transformations that are people facing [user experience, APIs, customer experience, employee experience, partner experience]. That can be relatively straightforward or consistent, in terms of cross-industry demand.

But we’re also cognisant that a lot of industries have a lot of constraints when it comes to reaching out to people, interacting with people, and trying to be intelligent with their interaction with people; things like GDPR for example, make that potentially more complicated in some industries.

The long and the short of it would be yes, we do digital transformation across a range of industries: financial services, retail, telecommunications, energy, public sector, local authorities etcetera. All of these sectors — and the organisations within them — are transforming themselves in different ways and at different speeds to become more digital and become more intelligent. We can provide a range of solutions, technologies and answers to help them choose how and where they want to start that.

 A recently spoke with Francis Carden, VP of digital automation and robotics at Pega. It was a lively and animated conversation in which we discussed where we’re at in terms of robotic process automation (RPA) and the much-vaunted but almost always missing outcomes of digital transformation. It’s a conversation some will find disturbing because at its heart we’re trying to understand what is driving continued interest in RPA while the digital transformation moniker continues to be plastered on (almost) every enterprise software pitch. 

In my view, much of this comes down to the reality that the dream of integrated end to end processes as originally promised in the early 1990s with SAP R/3 but also aped by other vendors never truly materialized. If you buy into that you then understand why IT investments never showed through on financial results in any material way. 

In order for that end-to-end dream to be reality, you’d have to believe that all systems are capable of talking to one another in a seamless fashion. That doesn’t happen in the real world and when it does, it’s often and quite rightly seen as incredibly difficult, hugely expensive and of limited value. And that’s largely because of the following.

Processes exist in all kinds of database and in all kinds of code including UIs and disparate applications. It’s also a fact that the last 20 years have seen an explosion of technology. In the RPA world alone, there are literally hundreds of offerings. So the enterprise software market is both expanding and fragmented. And nothing talks natively to anything else. It is one of the unique characteristics of software that two different developers working on the same codeline can build applications that on the surface look similar but are in fact different. 

Then around 2012, along comes RPA, aided and abetted by certain analyst firms, who were suckered into believing they’d seen the Second Coming but which as most vendors will quietly admit, is really screen scraping UIs. The promise of automation, pitched as a way of removing inefficiencies using RPA looked good.

In terms that buyers will understand, RPA made promises its technology could not keep. While promising that bots would be a cure-all, it turned out that wasn’t the case. Instead of eliminating manual processes and tasks, much of what we’ve seen was really augmented manual processes. There were wins for sure but they were transient. And then along came the pandemic. 

SAP Logistics Business Network is a cloud-based network platform designed to easily connect SAP customers’ back-end systems to their freight collaboration, tracking, order fulfillment and material traceability networks. It provides a central entry point to manage logistics transactions, exchange documents with key business partners and gain a better understanding and visibility across the entire value chain.

The release offers the next step in the strategy to allow end-to-end visibility, increased efficiency and seamless collaboration through a unified business network that includes:

• Sales order fulfillment tracking based on the next-generation global track-and-trace capability in SAP Logistics Business Network. This connects to milestone and live tracking services across transportation modes for global coverage.
• Enhanced freight collaboration capabilities, which includes multimodal freight order tracking that extends visibility across road and ocean events.
• Standard APIs to connect partners and networks, allowing new road and ocean partner collaborations.

SAP Logistics Business Network allows for enhanced coverages for a number of modes of transport through new and existing partners, such as:

 that provides business-to-business connectivity for freight contracting and visibility capabilities for real-time road shipment tracking and global live ocean tracking.

It offers in-transit container and shipment tracking with machine learning to cross-reference inputs to accelerate ocean-tracking choice to customers.

A European market specialist, offers its carrier network, regulatory expertise, and data intelligence to connect carriers and the truck telematics systems of millions of trucks for road shipment tracking.

Through these relationships, licensed members of SAP Logistics Business Network can now access actual shipment location, status changes and anticipated time of arrival during transportation by road and ocean carriers. The new connectivity to ocean carriers and ports, in addition to satellite systems that allows visibility across all global ocean freight.

SAP’s Logistics Business Network is a key component of SAP Business Network, which leverages insights from real-time ERP and advanced analytics while providing synergies with successful network solutions such as the Ariba Network – which connects over 5 million companies worldwide and where over US$3.4trn in commerce is transacted every year.

Uncertain times usually bring a level of fear, permeating deeply down into the core of the business and spreading across the outer edges of the customer experience. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Just imagine: what opportunities are you missing now by not allowing your company to follow its true direction?

With preparedness and precision, many organizations embrace today’s chaos by innovating new products and services, opening a new sales channel, creating new customer experiences, or rethinking their business model. They are not only finding new strategies to survive a challenging economy, but also emerging more resilient and ready when better times come.

However, such an edge can prove to be difficult to achieve for more than half of companies. According to IDC market spotlight, “Digital Transformation in Times of Change: What Intelligent Enterprises Need from Their ERP Systems,” only 48.3% of surveyed executives believe they can drive new levels of efficiency and effectiveness and enable transformational business models.

Emerge stronger with a model of intelligence

For all the effort devoted to improving organizational processes and front-office operations, companies that embrace intelligent technology to improve productivity, cost efficiencies, and process cycle times are the ones with the most significant advantage. IDC states that digitally transformed enterprises have 8x more revenue and 2x more profitability, while small and midsize businesses are more likely to report double-digit growth and higher profitability.

• Modern: Take advantage of on-demand access to agile, configurable, quick-to-implement, and scalable technology to help your employees work anywhere and anytime.
• Connected: Unify end-to-end processes with accurate data to gain transparency and make your business more resilient. By coupling ERP data with other enterprise applications, you can create strategies that are more effective and make a significant impact across the company.
• Agile: Gain visibility into what’s happening throughout your organization by providing in-depth insight into different lines of business. Leveraging simple, interactive, and intuitive technology enables mobile workflows that add flexibility to your employees’ lives.
• Compliant: Follow corporate and statutory policies to the letter with solutions that are updated regularly, helping you stay in front of evolving requirements in every area of business, including manufacturing, production, and the supply chain.
• Capable: Unlock value everywhere by focusing on industry-specific requirements with proven best practices, enabling new business models as your marketplace evolves.
• Cognitive: Turn analytics into insights and bring value in real time by analyzing substantial amounts of data using machine learning, deep learning, and robotic process automation. The result: clearer overviews and added value.
• Collaborative: Empower your workforce with a single source of real-time information to make strategic and operational decisions faster – fostering a collaborative culture of seamless insight sharing and intelligent, forward-thinking analysis.
• Innovative: Optimize the impact of core business processes by combining the benefits of the cloud with your corporate data sets, leading to new insights and quicker breakthroughs.

Months before the pandemic ignited a global business crisis, industry analysts ranked robotic process automation (RPA) among the leading ingredients of digital transformation.

IDC predicted that by 2021, the contribution of “digital coworkers” would increase by 35 percent. RPA also made Gartner’s top 10 strategic technology trends in 2020 as an important part of hyperautomation.

Now, with all eyes on recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, RPA is even more important for its ability to automate processes and augment people. Nowhere is this more apparent than in procurement, which is increasingly charged with bolstering business resiliency in an unpredictable world.

Tumultuous Times Demand Intelligent Procurement

Unlike most humans, RPA not only relishes, but excels at repetitive tasks. The more tedious and mundane they are, the better. For example, RPA can make short work of procurement processes like quickly finding out which of your suppliers are at risk during a pandemic.

Not Yesterday’s Automation

Injecting RPA capabilities into an employee’s daily procurement processes can dramatically speed up rote tasks, many of which have far greater urgency these days.

“Maybe some of your suppliers are at risk, and they’re small and could take advantage of the government support programs in the United States,” Brown said. “You need to find out if they’re financially strapped or in difficult straits. Using RPA, you could quickly look at your smaller size suppliers, see if they’ve acquired one of those loans indicating they may be at risk, apply that data into your supply chain, and find another supplier to reduce your risk.”

Pandemic or not, RPA can be tremendously useful in tackling time-consuming procurement processes. These could be common tasks such as updating supplier certification information from a third-party site or changing cost center data on a large batch of purchase orders. Accomplishing these activities in minutes instead of hours frees up employees to make more strategic contributions while delivering massive productivity gains to the company.

AI Boosts Intelligent Procurement

Brown was particularly excited about the business results from combining artificial intelligence (AI) with RPA, something he described as an ongoing learning process for both people and machines.

“Adding AI into an automated process is a natural extension…[because] you can start providing recommendations to shorten processes,” he said. “The algorithm starts learning based on how you’ve selected items. It makes decisions for you, then asks if it got it right. You can also look at the data afterwards and change the strategy, if needed, over time.”

RPA Drives Supply Chain Agility

Both experts predicted an uptick in RPA across procurement as companies weather supply and demand fluctuations through a long recovery period. Kavanagh saw RPA helping companies reengineer supply chains for more dynamic and globally friendly sourcing strategies. Brown expected a significant increase in the number of SAP Ariba customers incorporating RPA into daily procurement activities.