SAP BTP for Business Partner Onboarding – where to start & how to derive value
When looking at the SAP marketplace, you may notice some of the traditional SAP Products, like Business Objects, BW and HANA are all shifting. These same products that we are all familiar with have been given shiny new names like SAP Analytics Cloud, Data Warehouse Cloud and HANA Cloud as part of the SAP Rise digital accelerations for the modern business era. In short, rising to the cloud amounts to one underlying fact- SAP BTP is going to be everywhere for SAP customers.
This includes delicate areas which rely on individual complexities and a constant exchange of data to be effective, like business partner onboarding. Combining these recent innovations with supply chain instabilities and external issues affecting vendor relationships, many organisations have been left wondering where to start & how to derive value from business partners. It’s these concerns we addressed in the webinar below.
What is SAP BTP made up of?
A good starting point for modern business partner onboarding in SAP is looking at what SAP BTP is made up of. For all the SAP applications in an intelligent enterprise, SAP BTP creates a technological foundation to unlock business agility and innovations to drive more value. There are four main areas within BTP that work towards this goal. These are:
There are multiple ways to consume SAP BTP, similar to any software purchasing there are a few familiar options available like pay-as-you-go, subscription-based and credit based. Purchasing cloud credits is probably the most common and these cloud credits give organisations a pre-paid investment in BTP but with the freedom to pick and choose applications as they are needed. This gives users the flexibility to turn services off and on as is needed, but is paid in advance.
However, another method most people are not familiar with is Partner Managed Cloud (PMC). This is a hybrid between the purchasing options but with the addition of an SAP partner assisting in onboarding, support, application build as well as training and development. PMC gives users more flexibility around how they derive value from SAP BTP but also shifts the responsibilities of managing and monitoring to the SAP Partner. The added experience from the Partner creates a low cost/low risk option ideal for organisations starting out, or looking to improve with SAP BTP.
BTP Innovative technologies we use
When it comes to the technology available on the Business Technology Platform, there are a few standout tools which we like to utilise as much as possible when creating vendor onboarding automation. These include:
SAP Build Process Automation
SAP Build Process Automation contains RPA functionality that allows you to build, deploy and manage software robots that mimic human actions interacting with digital systems and software.
Document information Extraction
SAP Document Information Extraction (DIE) uses machine learning to help quickly and accurately extract information from various types of documents.
An example of business process automation in SAP
The aforementioned innovative technologies are fantastic for creating automation within the partner onboarding process, however, these need a foundation of governance to review or approve documents or data before they are introduced to the SAP landscape.
Making partner onboarding easier using Handshake
We decided to take some of the principles of Maextro onto BTP to make sure suppliers and partner onboarding was easier and protected with that level of master data governance. This resulted in Handshake being born, which is now an SAP endorsed Industry Cloud application.
Employing a self-service portal, partner information sharing becomes easy. Automatic validations from API’s are in place for company reg, IBAN, VAT Postcode, D&B and more. Handshake boasts seamless integration to SAP systems like SAP MDG or Maextro. The suite utilises the best of SAP BTP innovations like IRPA and DIE. Handshake compliments the SAP industry Cloud Portfolio.
The results of Handshake are unlike anything in the marketplace, transforming partner onboarding times by as much as 88% (from days to minutes). Ultimately, this protects supply chains from allowing data to flow and be exchanged as regularly as required. Organisations can move forward with their business processes and decisions with the peace of mind that the data they are using to underpin these processes are of high quality.
Watch the full webinar below to see a full demo of partner onboarding, the portal, where to start and how to begin deriving value from partners.
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