The investments in SAP Business ByDesign made by SAP since end of the last year are now showing success. It is noticeable that the product picks up speed. Therefore, in this blog post I will give an overview of the current status of the product and further development. ________________________________________
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Current speed factors
The news regarding Business ByDesign before and during the SAP Partner Summit 2017 were more intense and positive than ever before. You feel a mood of invigoration and motivation. One example is the following blog post of SAP:
https://news.sap.com/sap-business-bydesign-soars-on-customer-and-partner-momentum
https://news.sap.com/sap-business-bydesign-public-sector-functionality-us
And this is not reasonless because SAP has invested massively in all areas of the product life cycle since end of the last year. Sales and as well the management of existing customer were strengthened by creating own, new departments. The goal is more support of Reseller partners and increasing customer satisfaction. In addition, marketing was intensified. SAP is creating more leads through own campaigns and supports partners to establish or expand industry focuses. The last piece in this positive environment is the enhanced development team and the newly re-established product management. In discussions with the responsible employees, it becomes visible that the backlog has been extended with important, still missing functionalities and improvements of product weaknesses.
DSAG Working Groups
How I wrote in my previous blog post at the beginning of the year, we have founded dedicated working group within the DSAG work group itself for SAP Business ByDesign (
https://www.dsag.de/arbeitsgremien/ak-business-bydesign/details).These are currently focusing on the following points: - Industry Manufacturing companies - Industry Professional Service Providers and Service Companies - Architecture of the software The goal of the groups was and is, together with SAP product management, to analyze product weaknesses in the specifc industry or area and to develop possible solutions. The current state is that the weaknesses have been described and prioritized as well as discussed with SAP product management. The next step is the development of possible solutions. All customers are cordially invited to join us in these working groups. You are welcome to contact directly the speakers of the DSAG work group, or I can also forward requests. From my point of view, this is the best way to find the right audiences for your business requirements. At the same time you can participate constructively in improvement / further development of the product.
Product development and strategy
As described above the enhancement of the development team and the newly re-established product management have had a positive effect on the development as well as the further roadmap of SAP Business ByDesign.
Technology
In the field of technology, the migration to HTML5 is slowly turning to the target line. An excerpt from the release notes of 1705 shows that there is not much more to do (currently not working):
- Mashup Authoring view, Mashup Web Services view, under Application and User Management work center
- Design Key Figures view under Business Analytics work center
- TextPool Definition view, TextPoolExecution RunView under Customer Language Adaptation workCenter
SAP also actively works on the enhancement / improvement of reporting functionality. For example with 1705 the functionality of background processes for generating more complex reports or reports with a large number of data sets is now delivered.
Here you can find further information regarding new release highlights:
https://blogs.sap.com/2017/05/22/sap-business-bydesign-1705-release-highlights/
Concretely in planning or partly in implementation are further improvements as well as an integration into SAP Business Objects Cloud. General strategic goals are to continue improve performance and improve availability of missing data in reporting.
Functionality
Regarding functionality, from my point of view, there are currently two main topics in planning / partial in implementation which are required by customers for a long time and which are important to remain competitive in the respective industries:
- Enhancement of serial number functionality for manufacturing companies
- Enhancement of resource planning facilities for project service providers
For the second topic is also a Customer Engagement Initiave project available to which interested persons can register. Further information about this project and two further projects (authorization management and usability of the new mobile apps) can be found here (S-user required):
https://influence.sap.com/ct/c_ent_homex.bix?level_id=B9090C7F-5407-49EC-8FA2-4D043E6F1763&a=OD5979
In addition SAP is continuing to invest massively in the expansion of available country versions and the ability of its customers and partners to create their own country versions. Here I have intentionally used the word “created” not “develop” because with the tools provided by SAP, it is possible to create new country versions without development by simple configuration steps.
As an example of such self-made country versions, SAP is often mentioning Hilti who do this very consistently. More information can be found in these articles:
https://blogs.sap.com/2017/02/10/sap-byd-localization-toolkit-and-language-adaptation-tool-services....
https://blogs.sap.com/2017/03/20/sap-byd-provides-support-to-the-business-of-our-customers-wherever-...
Ideas Place
The adjustment of the Ideas Place is also slowly picking up. One year ago we could not really recommend this place for ideas. But now, the promised investments are noticeable. I am now getting daily information about status changes or new comments on my own ideas or ideas which I support.
Of course, the time will tell whether the needed quality can be reached again or not. Currently I am looking positively in the future. Last but not least, it is now finally made transparent which ideas are delivered in the respective release upgrades.
Click here for the Ideas Place of SAP Business ByDesign:
https://ideas.sap.com/SAPByDesign
