A vision of next-generation Business Suite (The Process Suite)

Next-generation Business Suite

1) Name of next-generation Business Suite should be changed to Process Suite to clearly reflect that it

    offers process applications that cover the process execution requirements of a business.

    Its purpose should be:

               “To automate, integrate and streamline business processes of an organization to help

                                               it run more effectively and efficiently.”

2) It should consist of re-thought, re-designed and re-developed set of process-based applications*

    structured as building blocks/component that are extremely easy to configure and re-configure.

   Next-generation Process Suite should deliver more functionality in same or (ideally) less cost to bring

    the total cost of ownership down.

* process-based instead of functional-based applications like Fiori is role-based instead

  of functionality-based

Next-generation Process

The next-generation process should be a higher-order process that is intelligent (smart), streamlined

(more effective and efficient) and delivers more functionality in same or (ideally) less cost. Characteristics

of next generation process should be:

1)   Modern / Cutting Edge

      Re-thought and re-designed digital process having native (in-built) capabilities of latest

     technological concepts of E-Commerce/E-Business, Networked Economy and

     Internet of Things (IoT).

2)   Standardized

      Process should be designed and streamlined (improved/optimized) based on certain business,

    industry or technology standards/best-practices*. These standards should be linked /

    communicated for reference purposes to increase user satisfaction. Like Fiori is based on certain

    industry UI standards i.e SAPUI5 or HTML5.

     * Current SAP Best Practices content need a complete review/overhaul to make them more effective

       and relevant for user community and implementer alike, else concept of RDS would only be like

       changing the packing but keeping the same old inner content.

3)   Complete

      Fully developed (mature) process covering following aspects:

  a) Automation and Integration of end-to-end process steps/activities

  b) Workflow and Communication between all process participants

  c) Reporting Comprehensive end-to-end visibility (operational reporting) on the data generated

    after process run.

4)   Coverage

      Provides functionality/capabilities of end-to-end process life cycle management spanning

      phases of process Definition, Implementation, Execution and Monitoring:

Definition:

Complete (comprehensive) end-to-end process definition based on open / industry standards

e.g. BPMN made available in a Process Library that is tightly integrated with an Application Library.

Implementation:

Process should be extremely easy / flexible to configure and program.

Execution:

Usability: Process should be extremely easy to use / execute by process participants.

Smart / Intelligent: A thinking process with a Run-time engine / Execution environment with

                            following capabilities:

• Self-aware of its ID, Variant and current Status.

• Context-sensitive about current process participant / stakeholder view and

                                                                                gathers and displays relevant information for better process

                                                                                execution.

• Self-Manager proactively manages itself during run-time and performs

                                                           predictive-maintenance and is resilient in nature.

Monitoring:

End-to-end process monitoring (measurement / observation) capabilities delivered for

process owners’ use.

I hope SAP is working on the concepts mentioned above in the upcoming Simple Business Suite software.