Transformation Every Day
00:13:15 · JP Haas
[00:13:15] S0: We took a very user centric approach partly because of our backgrounds working in enterprise software and in in the Palantir ecosystem. The... One of the things that Palantir does well is that they are very, very user and outcome driven, and that that always starts with understanding what is the day to day of that person that... Whose job I want to make better, what does that actually look like? And what tools do they need in order to work 10 x, a 100 x better? And that's why we also started from just looking at what exactly is the workflow in transformations as well as an ongoing SAP operations. And then we try to come up with a workflow that really meets all of the different personas in the in the life cycle, in the workflow life cycle where they are. And the way we then approached that was we think the missing piece was always, can you can you derive context about how the current system actually works and runs from from the reality of the system? Let's make this a bit more concrete. Can we actually read out all of the custom code in the configuration in a way that that explains how this particular SAP instance for a company like, you know, random example, BMW, how that differs from the SAP system of Mercedes. Right? What is what is the difference between all of the different plants between... Within within BMW, and how does it deviate from the standard? Importantly, we don't compare Mercedes and BMW. Right? Everyone's data remains in, of course, their own instance of conduct, and there's there's no there's no comparison between those. But the key point is this insight of what makes the BMW system unique, that is not possible today. And the existing SAP tooling also doesn't offer that. It's not it's not based on the specific context of the system that is that is contained in the custom code and configuration. We started out with this with this guideline or the the tagline, the truth is in your code. Right?
00:15:30 · Johannes Langguth, JP Haas, Alexander Greb
[00:15:30] S1: Uh-huh. [00:15:32] S0: There are also limitations of that, and we should talk about that. But it is the most important starting point in order to unlock all of these other workflows. [00:15:45] S3: Hi there. Quick break for a short message before we go right back to the episode. Enjoying the insights and stories on transformation every day? Want to make sure you never miss an episode packed with practical tips and best practices from the SAP world featuring conversations with some of the most interesting people in the SAP universe? Then hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcast platform, whether it is Apple, Spotify, or any other you use. And if our podcast brings you value, [00:16:15] S0: we would be [00:16:16] S3: incredibly grateful if you could leave us a five star review and share it with your friends and colleagues. Your support means the world to us. Thanks so much, and happy listening.
00:16:16 · Alexander Greb, Johannes Langguth
[00:16:16] S3: incredibly grateful if you could leave us a five star review and share it with your friends and colleagues. Your support means the world to us. Thanks so much, and happy listening. [00:16:36] S1: I fully agree with that because although when you look at, and I've seen in the past very, very, very commonly, you have some set coding somewhere. You have a modification somewhere and so on, or some some add on where you deviate from standard going to the add on. And quite often, nobody can tell you why or can remember why. They they just say, yeah, probably there is a reason because it exists. So the pure existence of something is the reason to clinch on that and to keep on that. And to break this kind of, let's say, circle, yeah, open, that that has always been one of the biggest challenges. And with the capability you bring into that and to unlock this kind of knowledge of what is happening there, why do you use it, do you use it at all and so on. It it can bring a lot of transparency with... Which is missing. And I think from my background, the lack of transparency in exactly what you meant about this context, which is not even known to the user themselves anymore. Why did anybody do that? It's one of the biggest problems in transformation at all. Because if you do not understand yourself, [00:17:44] S3: how can you transform? [00:17:45] S1: How can you unlock any strengths? It's just not possible. I fully agree with you. Let me
00:17:45 · Johannes Langguth, JP Haas
[00:17:45] S1: How can you unlock any strengths? It's just not possible. I fully agree with you. Let me [00:17:49] S0: give you one example that I thought was really, really beautiful. There was some custom code in one of our customers that said something along the lines of if the truck that is delivering something for your production line is over two meters in height, then it needs to go to gate b and not to gate a. Now if you read that in the custom code, how do you know whether you should... Whether you need to keep that and whether that exception should remain in place in in a cleaned up environment going forward? Because there could be a 100 different reasons why you have that exception. Right? It could be because The gate is too low, [00:18:32] S1: something like this. Yeah. [00:18:33] S0: Exactly. Or it could be because on a on a... In the next downstream step of that, you can't deal with a with a truck that's that's that's over two meters high. Or it could be because they found out that if you only fill a truck to a certain to a certain degree, that actually leads to higher throughput in your production line, and they've optimized the the flow of the of the production line in some way. Now all of these are the the why and the business intent behind that custom code, which ultimately just encapsulates and encodes your operational learnings and your operational identity as a company. And that needs to be that needs to be figured out. And that needs to be captured in order to accelerate transformations.
00:18:33 · JP Haas, Johannes Langguth
[00:18:33] S0: Exactly. Or it could be because on a on a... In the next downstream step of that, you can't deal with a with a truck that's that's that's over two meters high. Or it could be because they found out that if you only fill a truck to a certain to a certain degree, that actually leads to higher throughput in your production line, and they've optimized the the flow of the of the production line in some way. Now all of these are the the why and the business intent behind that custom code, which ultimately just encapsulates and encodes your operational learnings and your operational identity as a company. And that needs to be that needs to be figured out. And that needs to be captured in order to accelerate transformations. [00:19:20] S1: So so how do you guide users to these kinds of new knowledge? Is it something like an you list everything and then you then you you go through this? Or how does this kind of logic works? Does it find out that there's something extremely strange? Let's go deeper into that. Or does it go through the okay, let's step one, take step two, take step three approach in that way?
00:19:20 · Johannes Langguth, JP Haas
[00:19:20] S1: So so how do you guide users to these kinds of new knowledge? Is it something like an you list everything and then you then you you go through this? Or how does this kind of logic works? Does it find out that there's something extremely strange? Let's go deeper into that. Or does it go through the okay, let's step one, take step two, take step three approach in that way? [00:19:41] S0: Let's talk a bit about how we how we approach and how we think about this this wider problem of of fit gap analysis, we we kind of bucket it under that, right, which is in order to figure out how the new system should be set up, the best indicator is you need to understand how you're how you're running today and which of these operating steps are actually business critical for you and which of them are not. And most companies today don't have that visibility. And so the way they they approach that is by speaking to the end users and mapping out all of the different steps in the applications they're using today in a in a qualitative way. Right? They they just have user interviews, and then they build up these manual lists, and then they go through each of the steps in order to try and figure out what's going on. We do it the other way around. We we can generate a list of all of the business capabilities of your system by just reading out the custom coding configuration of the system. And we then give the IT and business teams a list of all of these requirements that they can then work through almost in a checkbox kind [00:20:53] S1: of way.