Access to vital SAP data

Founded in Germany in 1881, the luxury department store Breuninger is one of Germany’s most successful fashion and lifestyle businesses. With 5,500 employees, it offers 1,200 brands across 13 department stores in Germany and Luxembourg and an online storefront in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

Breuninger’s primary aim is to preserve and expand its market share by delivering excellent customer service. However, identifying customer needs and acting quickly with marketing campaigns relies on gaining real-time access to large amounts of data tied up in its SAP systems. The data access was problematic because traditional Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) processes require a lot of labor-intensive manual scripting and are prone to human error. Inaccurate and untrusted data is delivered when engineers add new data sources to brittle ETL pipelines.

Breuninger’s fragmented technology stack further complicated access to vital data, with many silos such as CRM, ERP, billing, inventory and POS, all with their sources and requirements. “SAP holds data on many corporate functions and also our 60-year-old Breuninger Card – a loyalty program built around an SAP sub-module,” says Matthias Krenzel, Head of Data Platform Services, Breuninger.

“One of our unique challenges was to get that data out of SAP faster because our CRM team needs close to real-time data to drive its campaigns. The key was how quickly after purchase we could enable customers to share their insights on what they had just bought, and that meant getting the data out of SAP as fast as possible.”

Quicker data pipeline builds

Breuninger decided to use BigQuery, Google Cloud’s fully managed enterprise data warehouse. BigQuery’s data security features make it ideal for the sensitive datasets held in SAP systems; it can accommodate both SAP and non-SAP data and easily integrates with SAP.

The missing component for near real-time data access was a tool to transfer data from SAP to BigQuery efficiently. Already a satisfied user of Qlik analytics software, Breuninger chose the open, end-to-end Qlik Data Integration platform featuring Qlik Replicate.

“Having our warehouse based on BigQuery, we wanted tight integration with the existing stack,” adds Matthias. “We did not want to start from scratch and needed a solution that would leave us free to concentrate on our core competency of serving the customer.”

For a proof of concept (POC), Breuninger set up SAP as the data source, and the initial target was a PostgreSQL database in Google Cloud and from there on to BigQuery. In the POC Qlik’s engineers set up the pipelines in just a few hours, and the POC revealed that data delivery was as near real-time as possible. Qlik Replicate allows Breuninger to integrate SAP data with other data from various sources across the company then consolidate it all in BigQuery.

Near real-time data for sound decisions

Continuous end-to-end availability of analysis data, automated processes and Qlik’s Change Data Capture (CDC) technology enables the company to deliver faster data for decision-makers. Decreasing daily SAP demands also means it can reduce money spent on external SAP contractors.

“The Qlik solution automatically carries over any schema changes at the source to the target and is nearly maintenance-free, to the point that I would say it’s the least maintenance-intensive pipeline we run,” says Matthias. “When I didn’t get any error messages, I had to keep checking that Replicate was still working. It was!”

Looking to the future, Breuninger plans to add new SAP data sources for new use cases and is now looking to extend the use of the Qlik Data Integration platform to other source systems beyond SAP. It is also looking at CDC for other on-prem relational databases.

“Effective use of data analytics in real-time to address customer needs is a critical part of our business as a modern retailer,” concludes Matthias. “With Qlik Data Integration automating the flow of data from SAP and various other systems into BigQuery, we’re confidently able to respond to market changes with the timely data we need for good business decisions.”

This article is sponsored by Qlik

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The Partnership that Accelerates Delivery of Insights

You may be aware that the Qlik Data Integration Platform is now available on Google Cloud Marketplace and can accelerate the integration of data from SAP with other data sets in real-time into Google Cloud BigQuery for modern cloud data warehousing at scale.

Recently, Qlik also became a foundational partner for Google Cloud Cortex Framework which helps support SAP customers in delivering innovation and business outcomes faster with a rich set of data foundation building blocks including predefined operational data marts, change data processing, and machine learning templates for common business scenarios. With this partnership, the powerful combination of Qlik and Google Cloud solutions help take the guesswork out of delivering analytics and insights at scale, and accelerates time to value.

The Problem to be Solved

SAP is the core to many enterprises and the data that resides in ERP is highly useful for making strategic decisions. Although approximately 70% of the content in SAP ERP implementations is standard reusable content since SAP ERP implementations have baseline business modules to everyday business processes such as Financials, Inventory Management, Procure to Pay, and Order to Cash, access to this data to combine it with other cross enterprise data sets for advanced insights can be difficult.

By leveraging repeatable analytics solution accelerators from Qlik and Google Cloud, customers can kick start the process of delivering real time data from SAP and other data sets into a consolidated enterprise data warehouse with built in data cataloging capability for faster analytical insights that help drive competitive advantage.

Extracting Value from SAP data with Qlik and Google Cloud

With Qlik as a preferred Google Cloud Cortex Framework partner, you get complete end-to-end SAP source to insight solution accelerators running on Google Cloud. By leveraging Qlik Replicate, customers can quickly move data from SAP ERP (ECC or S4/HANA) and other datasets in real time to BigQuery for fast and fresh insights.

With Qlik Compose, customers can automate data warehouse modeling, creation, deployment, updates and documentation to accelerate time to value of the data within BigQuery as well as take advantage of the analytics-ready data marts and content available for standard business processes provided by both Qlik and Google Cloud. Finally, customers can leverage Qlik Sense for advanced analytics and plug and play reporting templates.

Learn More

Together, Qlik and Google Cloud, drive value and innovation for SAP enterprises that helps you get the most out of your SAP investment. To learn more, download the “Qlik and the Google Cloud Cortex Framework” whitepaper. For more on Qlik and Google Cloud visit the Google Cloud Marketplace or the Google Cloud Migration & Data Transfer – Google Cloud Platform | Qlik page.

This article is sponsored by Qlik

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Cloud Comrade, part of leading public cloud solutions provider across Asia-Pacific ST Telemedia Cloud, has been strengthening its market presence since 2014 in Singapore and Southeast Asia as a trusted partner of tech giants such as SAP, Microsoft, and AWS. The consulting company’s recent innovation projects across industries in the region have earned Cloud Comrade various partner awards namely SAP Recognized Expertise designation in SAP HANA, Microsoft Singapore’s Customer Experience – Business Excellence, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) Singapore Partner of the Year 2021.

Specific to the consultancy’s SAP expertise, Cloud Comrade has recently earned the SAP Gold Partner status in the SAP PartnerEdge programme, demonstrating that the company has a proven track record of customer success, received SAP certifications, met stringent qualifications, and is recognised internationally. The enterprise-focussed firm enables forward-thinking enterprises in South East Asia to move their SAP workloads to the cloud by offering turnkey project services, which include SAP system assessments, strategy consulting and implementation as well as language services support.

Achieving the SAP Service Partner Gold Status

Commenting on the latest SAP stamp, Andy Waroma, Co-Founder and Co-Managing Director, Cloud Comrade said:

“Achieving SAP gold partner status, shortly after being awarded an SAP Recognized Expertise designation in SAP HANA, is a testament to our technical competence and commitment to the highest standards of excellence in cloud solutions and cloud managed services. We take the responsibility that comes with this elevated status very seriously. We will continually strive to be the most trusted collaborative cloud solutions’ partner that is committed to delivering desired business outcomes.”

The regional SAP Gold partner has offices in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia helping customers across the SEA region accelerate their cloud transformation by providing industry-leading, quality consulting services. Earning the SAP Gold status strengthens Cloud Comrade’s position as a trusted SAP solutions provider and cloud migration partner. This accreditation is on top of the company’s award “SAP Recognized Expertise designation in SAP HANA in Singapore” in December 2021, which demonstrates Cloud Comrade’s expertise and skills in SAP HANA and the successful completion of the requirements for SAP Recognized Expertise in the SAP PartnerEdge programme. 

Moving SAP Workloads to the Cloud

As a cloud solutions specialist, Cloud Comrade is in a unique position to offer a variety of cloud options for organisations when migrating and managing their SAP systems because the SAP Gold partner has established premier partnerships with hyperscalers Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.

“Over the years we have helped our customers to migrate and implement their SAP systems on AWS, Microsoft, Azure, and Google Cloud. We have been building expertise around SAP HANA and SAP managed services to enable our customers to run their SAP workloads safely and securely on Cloud,” Waroma wrote in LinkedIn.

Malaysia’s Baba Products and Indonesia’s Viva Health are some of the companies that have tapped Cloud Comrade to support their SAP systems cloud migration.

The SAP partner led the first phase of spice manufacturer Baba’s IT infrastructure migration that involved SAP S/4HANA on AWS implementation and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications. Cloud Comrade supported the integrated health service provider Viva Health’s e-commerce and teleconsultation expansion by successfully moving its SAP Business Suite on HANA to AWS Cloud. The SAP expert now runs Viva Health’s infrastructure on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) and deploys Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) for SAP storage and backup, respectively.

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As one of the leading global providers of next-generation digital consultancy services, Infosys helps customers navigate digital transformation in today’s economy. The Bengaluru-headquartered IT firm has a pool of XM consultants, architects, and industry experts that intend to provide end-to-end Qualtrics services across a diverse range of industries. In a bid to better represent employees and customers, Infosys strives to provide organisations with relevant performance indicators for an enhanced user experience (UX).

Recently, the company expanded its collaboration with the Utah-based software technology company through the establishment of a Qualtrics CoE aimed at delivering Qualtrics XM solutions, which are included in the Infosys Cobalt cloud offerings. Aside from making these solutions available in the market, the main goal of the partnership is to support organisations in improving the customer experience (CX), employee experience (EX), as well as the supplier experience.

RJ Filipski, Global Head of Ecosystem at Qualtrics, said in a joint announcement:

“Experience management has become key to business success. Customers and employees have higher expectations than ever. Qualtrics’ collaboration with Infosys will help organisations around the world deliver great experiences at scale. By understanding their customers, employees, and suppliers and taking action on their feedback.”

Delivering Qualtrics Experience Management Solutions

In order to assist procurement, finance, and supply chain leaders in ensuring the efficiency of their operations, Infosys stated that it intends to utilise XM for Suppliers to integrate operational data from an organisation’s SAP systems. On top of increasing buyer productivity and improving relationships with suppliers, this solution also aims to increase the satisfaction of the procurement function’s internal clients.

Meanwhile, Infosys offerings based on Qualtrics’ EmployeeXM for IT and XM for Suppliers enable companies to provide personalised experiences by collecting and evaluating experience data from the two groups — employees and suppliers. 

Commenting on the latest development for the company, Dinesh Rao, Executive Vice President and Global Head of Enterprise Application Services at Infosys, stated:

“Companies are increasingly focused on making data-driven decisions. These decisions need to be based on real-time customer and employee insights. We are delighted to engage with Qualtrics, and together help organisations develop and implement experience management solutions and capabilities. These solutions improve process effectiveness and deliver better business outcomes.”

Infosys’ Contribution as an SAP Partner

Aside from being a Qualtrics Partner, Infosys is also an SAP Global Strategic Services Partner that works closely with the German tech giant to leverage its expertise with SAP Industry Cloud and other advanced infrastructure for accelerating digital transformation processes. The company recently helped Syngenta, one of the world’s leading science-based agri-tech enterprises, to deploy numerous Qualtrics technologies and integrate them with the company’s current SAP ERP system. The Qualtrics XM Platform was integrated with the firm’s SAP solution to improve the business-to-business (B2B) customer experience, according to Syngenta’s Global Head of Customer Services and Customer Master Data Guillaume Manchelle.

Moreover, Infosys and Google Cloud have also teamed up this month to facilitate the adoption of the Google Cloud Cortex Framework, which enables new insights and business models to be powered by SAP and non-SAP data. With the addition of the Google Cloud Cortex Framework to Infosys Cobalt offerings, the company is bringing together its data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), SAP and cloud capabilities to help customers maximise their return on digital investments.

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Information management solutions provider OpenText has strengthened its partnership with Google Cloud and SAP by expanding its local support for OpenText solution extensions for SAP applications in the Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) region. The strategic development will enable OpenText to offer increased choice and flexibility for customers’ in-region deployment of information management solutions for the SAP ecosystem by leveraging Google Cloud’s regional data centers in Singapore, India, and Japan.

Muhi Majzoub, EVP and Chief Product Officer at OpenText, highlighted that OpenText and SAP’s deep and long-term partnership is focused on delivering information management technologies in the cloud to create more intelligent, connected, and secure businesses. He explained:

“With regional data center support from our strategic partner Google Cloud, OpenText now offers these solutions for SAP applications across Asia. Together, we are supporting our customers’ regional compliance needs and data sovereignty requirements under a unified service level commitment from OpenText.”

Solution Extensions for SAP Applications in APJ

By expanding the availability of solution extensions for SAP applications as a managed service in APJ, OpenText will be able to capture the increasing demand for cloud-delivered information management in the region. The OpenText Suite for SAP supports many organisations’ Enterprise Information Management (EIM) strategy towards digital transformation, offering customers access to key business content within the context of an SAP business process. Having a single interface that contains all information provides users a seamless experience, better efficiencies, and reduced risk. The suite supports SAP S/4HANA, SAP SuccessFactors, and SAP Customer Experience.

Sharn Gamman, Commercial Operations Process and Training Manager at Foodstuffs North Island (FSNI), New Zealand’s largest grocery cooperative, shared how OpenText Suite for SAP delivered efficiency in their operations. She said:

“The integrated OpenText Suite for SAP solutions helped us extract even more value from our SAP implementation. When we started, there was an expectation that we would have cost savings from efficiency gains and shift staff to more value-added tasks. This is definitely the case. With less manual processing, we have been able to reinvest and focus on working more closely with our vendors.”

Here are the OpenText solution extensions for SAP applications available in APJ:

• OpenText Extended ECM for SAP Solutions Cloud Edition 
• OpenText Extended ECM for SAP SuccessFactors 
• OpenText Core Archive for SAP Solutions, 
• OpenText Extended ECM for Engineering  

Reinforcing Synergistic Partnerships

OpenText is an SAP Platinum Partner and the German software company’s largest solution extension partner that offers highly integrated solutions to businesses using SAP technology. This latest co-innovation reinforces OpenText and SAP’s 25-year-old alliance in co-developing solutions that offer information advantage to more than 5,000 customers in over 130 countries.

In 2020, OpenText launched OpenText Digital Zone, an interactive online resource for businesses using SAP technology featuring practical strategies to help customers better understand the powerful solution extensions available to connect their digital business. The program supports customers to run resiliently, accelerate the path to SAP S/4HANA, digitise the finance process, and deliver exceptional workplace experiences through SAP SuccessFactors solutions.

Similarly, OpenText’s synergistic partnership with Google Cloud is also centered on delivering on the commitment to customer choice. Google Cloud is OpenText’s preferred public cloud platform that enables customers to deploy Information Management workloads on the Google Cloud Platform. Reciprocally, OpenText is Google Cloud’s preferred provider of Information Management solutions on Google Cloud. As a testimony of their partnership, the two companies developed an Enterprise Managed Services (EMS) offering specifically designed to help customers realise the full potential of OpenText Anywhere.

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In January, oXya, an independent provider of cloud services, has received a global certification from Google Cloud as a Managed Service Provider (MSP). This has expanded the company’s market footprint to a global scale coming from its 2018 Google Cloud certification as an MSP in North America. Having operations and local support teams in the US, Canada, UK, France, Belgium, Spain, China, and Japan, this Google Cloud certification strengthens oXya’s capabilities in handling additional workloads and activities aside from specializing in SAP migration.

This month, oXya has achieved another recognition from Google Cloud as an SAP Specialization Partner– a solid confirmation of the firms’ comprehensive expertise on SAP systems.

Making a Mark as an SAP Cloud Solutions Specialist

oXya, founded in 1998 in France and acquired by Hitachi Group in 2015, houses around 800 employees– most of whom are technical SAP experts and IT specialists– and provides technical services for SAP to over 1,000 enterprise customers worldwide. In recent years, the company has been helping corporations and mid-size businesses migrate to SAP’s next-generation, intelligent ERP business suite SAP S/4HANA. As of June 2020, a quarter of oXya customers are running on SAP S/4HANA.

Sevag Mekhsian, Americas CTO of oXya, shared about the company’s long-standing partnership with SAP, helping customers become intelligent enterprises.

“We’ve been doing that by providing SAP customers with a range of technical SAP services, managed services, and cloud solutions. oXya has been a managed cloud service partner to hundreds of enterprise customers, who give us a 99{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} satisfaction rating. It is an honor to also be recognized by Google Cloud for our SAP expertise, an area in which we have been a global leader for many years. We have already migrated multiple SAP customers to Google Cloud, from industries that include Manufacturing, Retail, Oil & Gas, Media & Entertainment, and more,” Mekhsian stressed.

oXya recognises the public cloud as one of its significant offerings that have been helping customers achieve increased agility, advanced analytics, and meet business goals. Sharing about the company’s huge investment to improve its public cloud capabilities and the recognition by Google Cloud, Mekhsian said:

“This also includes our recent certification as a Google Cloud Managed Service Provider (MSP) globally, an enhancement to oXya’s MSP certification from Google Cloud that we earned in 2018, which only covered North America. Having earned both of these certifications, we are proud to have Google Cloud recognize oXya’s abilities and professionalism to migrate customer workloads to the public cloud and manage them.”

Bringing Efficiency and Flexibility 

According to Snehanshu Shah, Managing Director for SAP at Google Cloud, the SAP, Google Cloud, and oXya alliance can be traced back to 2018 when oXya migrated fashion retailer Tory Burch’s global applications and systems infrastructure to Google Cloud to support over 150 retail stores. Tory Burch was their first customer to run SAP S/4HANA on Google Cloud. 

“Since then we have expanded our relationship with oXya. Many oXya customers are currently running their workloads on Google Cloud, enjoying our services and products, the latest addition was Rémy Cointreau. We appreciate the commitment and investment that oXya has been putting into partnering with us, resulting in them earning our SAP Specialization Partner certification. We look forward to many more joint customers with oXya,” Shah highlighted.

A French, family-owned business group and a global leader in spirits Rémy Cointreau, has tapped oXya in its Bluefield conversion project to SAP S/4HANA, with Google Cloud hosting. The project streamlined production and distribution under a single CAP ONE target system, with 37 systems supporting activities in the USA, China, and Europe. The strategic collaboration with oXya and Google Cloud has significantly improved customer experience and increased the agility and responsiveness of Rémy Cointreau.

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Singapore-based Cloud4C has been expanding its market footprint in the Asia Pacific region not only as an end-to-end cloud-managed services provider but also as an SAP technology partner. As a cloud evolution partner, the cloud solutions expert even developed an SAP ERP specific Cloud Framework benchmarked against SAP metrics on multi-cloud platforms including Google Cloud Platform (GCP) to help enterprises accelerate digitalisation while managing compliance.

As a natural progression for Cloud4C’s mission to deliver ‘Total Control of Cloud’ to enterprise customers embarking on digital transformation, the company has partnered with Google Cloud to build a Center of Excellence (CoE) underpinned by SAP and Anthos technologies. The new venture adds to Cloud4C’s 21 CoEs spread across 25 countries supported by over 2,000 cloud experts.

Sharing about the Google Cloud collaboration, Sridhar Pinnapureddy, Founder and CEO of Cloud4C said:

“Our customers can leverage the best of Google Cloud’s offerings in a secure manner with reduced capital investment and improved value delivery,” said Sridhar Pinnapureddy, founder and CEO of Cloud4C.

The CoE will serve as a multi-disciplinary customer showcase hub, developing and delivering solutions for high efficiency and reliability. Rapid deployment of SAP applications through Anthos by Google Cloud will additionally contribute to lowering carbon footprint.”

Expanding Cloud4C Services in India

SAP technologies and Anthos by Google Cloud are expected to further Cloud4C’s cloud capabilities through the CoE, which will address enterprises’ challenges in transitioning from deployment to implementation and adoption. Mainly focused on India, the CoE will harness the provider’s expanded SAP services portfolio as businesses modernise mission-critical IT infrastructure and applications. Furthermore, Google Cloud’s open platform Anthos will help customers as they modernise apps while building cloud-native apps within a Google Cloud environment.

Emphasising the extensive impact of the Cloud4C-Google Cloud partnership for enterprises in India, Amitabh Jacob, Head of Partners and Alliances across India at Google Cloud said:

“Together with Cloud4C, we will offer organisations a clear path to build, run, and manage their critical SAP workloads on hybrid and multi-cloud environments with full flexibility, agility, and security.” 

The collaboration combines Cloud4C’s expertise on SAP applications including SAP S/4HANA implementation and Google Cloud’s Anthos’ hybrid functionality as an open platform. Based on the Cloud Services Platform, Anthos allows enterprises to run their applications unmodified, on existing on-prem hardware investments or in the public cloud. 

With multi-cloud SAP support and centralised policy management, the CoE will also enable customers to deploy artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and analytics solutions at scale.

Delivering SAP on Cloud

As a global premium supplier of SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, Cloud4C has SAP certifications in SAP HANA Operations Services, Cloud Services, Hosting Services, and Application Management Services.

Cloud4C offers the following SAP services:

• Migration and Advisory Services
• Application and DB security Audits
• Security and Compliance
• Complex SAP and 3rd party Application support
• Managed Services up to SAP Basis Support
• HANA Private Cloud

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Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud announced their plans to launch cloud in Indonesia, as reported by Data Center Dynamics. However, Alibaba Cloud was already a step ahead as it put up its second data center in the country this year.

At present, Indonesia is entering a phase where they openly welcome the digital age and is preparing the grounds for startups who would like considering to establish their IT systems on the cloud due to factors such as affordability and scalability. As for larger organisations, they are most likely to build data centres. 

Sutedjo Tjahjadi, PT Datacomm Diangraha’s managing director for cloud business, explained that startups could utilise cloud systems to create prototypes and get started on their companies quickly. Meanwhile, large companies that are already in operations are adopting cloud to meet their requirements and resource needs with consideration to the readiness of the market for cloud tech.

Additionally, Fanky Christian, the director and co-founder of PT Daya Cipta Mandiri Solus (DCM) shared that companies will not move to the cloud at the beginning; however, they will migrate standalone systems, such as its HR systems.

Despite the existence of regulations such as the Government Regulation 82 of 2012, which may impact data locality, Christian and Tjahjadi said that this is not a significant barrier to the adoption of the cloud.

Tjahjadi said that the operation of enterprise systems on an overseas cloud isn’t appealing. He noted that running SAP on a public cloud in another country, like Singapore, is going to be a challenge due to the required amount of expensive international bandwidth. He explained that it would depend on the type of applications and deployment.

Tjahjadi warned of hidden costs that may be impacted by the increase of cloud deployments and encouraged businesses to do their share in ensuring that cloud deployments are secured from cyber intrusions. Additionally, he explained:

“Putting the data in the cloud is a lot safer than an on-premises deployment…Protecting their data is the joint responsibility of both the cloud provider and the cloud user.”

Christian also explained that businesses must adopt a multi-cloud strategy, meaning cloud deployments are not limited to a single provider. He also added why human resources is an essential factor in successful digital transformation. He said:

“If you deploy in a data center, you will need the right talent to manage the facilities in the data center.”

He added that the same concept applies to the cloud, where the right expertise is needed to maintain a cloud deployment.

Ultimately, innovation is the key to Indonesian businesses. Tjahjadi concluded that companies should look beyond shifting to digital transformation as a way to reduce costs and consider how it can be used to encourage creativity and innovation using technologies.

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