As companies rely on fast organizational shifts and technology adoption, the more critical the role of enterprise architects becomes. Asking questions and figuring out the “why” behind every change is a valuable exercise as technical skills and the digital landscape evolve exponentially.
“Jeff Schwartz was right when he wrote [in his book, Work Disrupted] that the world has ‘entered into a time machine in the future.’ This is a critical moment in which businesses must choose how to pivot and move forward,” Michael Weingartner, president of SAP Business Technology Platform at SAP, stated during his session at ASUG Next-Generation SAP Enterprise Architect Virtual Conference.
This wide-angle view on business transformation inspired many companies to consider SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), which has been available for nearly two years and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. As an infrastructure and set of solutions, the platform provides capabilities enterprise architects need to create, reimagine, and fuel a living network of relevant and future-thinking processes, data, and applications.
It All Begins with a Secure Data Foundation
SAP BTP can be broken down into four fundamental components: database and data management, application development and integration, analytics, and intelligent technologies. Each one plays a distinct role in how enterprise architects can evolve their technology landscapes. However, no degree of change is possible without the proper use of data.
“From storage, processing, and integration to orchestration, governance, and analytics, data is always key. But these data sets are not only helping businesses jump into intelligent capabilities, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and process automation,” Weingartner shared. “They are also setting the foundation for one extensible domain model to run an ecosystem of SAP and third-party applications and internal and external insight.”
This wealth of actionable insights, algorithms, and operational efficiency opens tremendous opportunities. For example, forming a business network of multiple tiers of connected suppliers, logistics partners, service groups, and assets brings collective intelligence to increase insights and visibility and extend data sets beyond the supply chain.
Extensibility of content through low-code or no-code environments, workflows, rule systems, and user interface consistency no longer needs to be a mystery. With SAP BTP, organizations can quickly access the capabilities and tools necessary to integrate and extend their content to improve and provide repeatable services and platform-based products and services that their customers want.
More importantly, security remains at the center of the entire platform. SAP BTP provides a single identity system, authentication process, and a policy-based authorization system with exceptional granularity. Organizations can achieve access control to products, interactions between services, and data sets, which are vital when enforcing policies that apply to a given role or event.
“Some of our customers that had teams that just managed roles across their SAP and third-party applications, roles, and responsibilities now have a strategy around an aligned, policy-based authorization system across their stack. This transformation is simplifying the lives of their business leaders and employees significantly,” Weingartner observed.
And Continues with Consistent Innovation
At the core of SAP BTP is the focused attention to consistent evolution. And the reason is quite simple: SAP wants to build an ecosystem that takes customers on that journey.
While SAP innovates new standard services and capabilities and aligns them with business needs, enterprise architects can further optimize their business architecture as the platform evolves. Ultimately, the platform is less about the runtime and more about productive transformation through services, searchability, identity access, authentication, and authorization.
Experience the full tour of SAP Business Technology Platform. Watch Michael Weingartner’s on-demand session “SAP's Technology Strategy ‒ The Foundation for the Intelligent Enterprise,” from ASUG Next-Generation SAP Enterprise Architect Virtual Conference.