The consumption-based commercial model provides customers with flexible and metered access to SAP Cloud Platform services, enabling simpler access and use of the services. The commercial model provides customers with usage information for each service, through metering, reporting, and detailed accounting analytics. On one site, customers can explore, test, price, and estimate SAP Cloud Platform usage for any project.

“The new consumption-based commercial model for SAP Cloud Platform makes it even easier for our customers and partners to build and extend innovative solutions utilising our increasing portfolio of platform and business services,” said Björn Goerke, president and chief technology officer, SAP Cloud Platform.

The SAP Cloud Platform SDK for iOS enables customers to extend enterprise apps and processes to mobile devices, providing new controls and tighter integration with the development environment. The platform also enables mobile app users to access SAP Leonardo services such as image recognition as well as to take advantage of real-time data analytics and visualisations from SAP S/4HANA, SAP Cloud Platform Big Data Services, and the SAP HANA business data platform.

The SAP Insurance Sales Assistant and SAP Asset Manager extend mobile access to two new areas. The Assistant app provides insurance agents with access to a 360-degree customer view and an overview of performance KPIs to manage all sales activities, while the Manager app enables customers to leverage the digital core with SAP S/4HANA and SAP Cloud Platform as the Internet of Things (IoT) platform for managing work orders, notifications, condition monitoring, material consumption, time management, and failure analysis.

“Innovations in mobile delivery with consumer-grade experiences via our new SAP Cloud Platform SDK for iOS give organisations more freedom and agility to create and reinvent their businesses,” said Goerke.

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The new suite of iOS tools and services will combine the latest Apple technologies with Accenture’s digital and analytics capabilities. At the same time, they will leverage Accenture’s systems integration expertise along with the iOS advantages built by Apple with key partners such as SAP to help enterprise clients connect iOS apps to their existing back-end systems and migrate smoothly from legacy applications.

The two companies expect that new tools, templates and predesigned code will help clients gain greater advantage from the data collected by their Internet of Things (IoT) platforms by providing more employees with better access to the data using familiar iOS devices.

“Starting 10 years ago with iPhone, and then with iPad, Apple has been transforming how work gets done, yet we believe that businesses have only just begun to scratch the surface of what they can do with our products,” said Tim Cook, CEO, Apple.

He said that by combining forces Apple and Accenture will continue to modernise how businesses operate, while creating “incredible user experiences”.

“Based on our experience in developing mobile apps, we believe that iOS is the superior mobile platform for businesses and are excited to be partnering with Apple,” said Pierre Nanterme, chairman and CEO, Accenture.

“By combining Accenture’s vast digital capabilities and industry expertise with Apple’s market leadership in creating products that delight customers, we are in a perfect position to help our clients transform the way they work,” he said.

Accenture will create a dedicated iOS team within select Accenture Digital Studios around the world. Apple experts including visual and experience designers, programmers, data architects and scientist, and hardware and software designers will be located with each team.

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The platform will provide customers with the ability to engage with their learners on a daily basis, using gamification and feedback to drive high levels of engagement.

“We see great importance in becoming an SAP partner,” said Gal Rimon, founder and CEO, GamEffective. “Many learning and development organisations understand that the future of learning is evolving from course completion to continuous learning, with on-demand knowledge available to learners as they need it.

“Leaders in learning and development see great importance in driving learning and measuring knowledge growth, through a model of daily engagement with micro learning. They also would like to direct learning to learners, based on what learners actually do and on their real-time on-the-job performance.

“Gamification platforms enable just that, and content can be created for them. But they also need to connect to the organisation’s underlying learning management system, or LMS, to ‘feed’ its content to users, and to both push and pull information into the LMS. The gamification platform serves as a ‘system of engagement’ on top of the LMS, which serves as a ‘system of record’.”

The platform can tap into real-time performance metrics, assessing who needs learning reinforcement, spaced learning or repetition and when, and can then offer this learning automatically.

GamEffective for SAP SuccessFactors Learning is now available on the SAP App Center.

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The move comes in response to an increase and acceleration of subscriber demand in LTE and a broader range of mobile services, requiring service providers to adapt to the rapidly increasing rate of growth in data traffic.

By merging their services, PCCW and SAP will be better equipped to help mobile operators meet these challenges, with the offer of new services such as ENUM capabilities for cost-efficient routing of VoLTE traffic.

“By combining the strength of SAP Digital Interconnect, an industry leader in global roaming services, with PCCW Global’s voice footprint and extensive MPLS backbone, we aim to deliver customers unrivalled scale, quality and flexibility in mobile services. This collaboration has extensive future potential globally and is intended to benefit operators both in the short- and mid-term,” said Sethu Meenakshisundaram, president, SAP Digital Interconnect.

The new single IPX offering will enable the delivery of new and advanced services such as high-quality GRX, LTE data roaming, diameter, SCCP, Flex IPX (bandwidth on-demand), VoIPX, VoLTE and Globalview for advanced analytics and reporting.

Leading Hong Kong mobile network operator and an operating division of HKT, CSL, will use the combined IPX domain.

“We are delighted to be one of the first to benefit from this latest development. With PCCW Global and SAP Digital Interconnect, we can now access a broad range of services that support both our current and future needs,” said Richard Midgett, managing director, wireless business, HKT.

PCCW Global is headquartered in headquartered in Hong Kong, with regional centres in Belgium, China, France, Greece, Japan, Korea, Singapore, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

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The application, which integrates with the SAP Enterprise Asset Management solution, enables field technicians to access and update orders and obtain directions and other important information on multiple devices online or offline in case of a weak or no wireless signal. It also enables technicians to interact with other employees in real time and to track time spent on orders more accurately.

“Utegration is pleased to offer our customers a solution that will allow their employees to work more easily and efficiently, while reducing costs and improving customer service,” said Bin Yu, president and CEO, Utegration.

Part of Utegration’s digital asset and work management practice, the Mobius field order app is the Houston-based company’s second application on the SAP Cloud Platform, the first being Mobius Customer Self-Service, which enables customers to view their balance, pay their bill and make a service request. The field order app is also available in an on-premise version. Using SAPUI5 design, it provides a user-friendly interface that can be customised to meet a utility’s individual requirements.

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With its global operations centre in Shenzen, China and more than 800 service centres spread across India, Celkon Mobiles selected a set of applications created by 2iSolutions Consulting Services, headquartered in Toronto with its Indian operations centre in Noida.

“In today’s competitive environment, highly optimised distribution networks are crucial for OEMs and can have a significant impact on the business itself,” said Murali Retineni, director, Celkon Impex.

Describing the SAP Cloud Platform as the right solution for “mission critical” areas of his business, Retineni said, “The agility of the platform promises faster ways of implementing technology.” He said the platform has enabled Celkon Mobiles to improve accuracy levels in visibility of stock in channel, status and tracing of goods.

The platform is expected to reduce manual data loading and duplicate transactions while improving data capture capabilities, accuracy and timeliness of data flow from backend systems to its diverse channels.

“By choosing SAP Cloud Platform, Celkon Mobiles will have the capability to extend and integrate their business-critical applications in a simpler fashion,” said Kaushik Bagchi, vice president and head, digital enterprise platform group, SAP India.

“Thousands of companies across the world are choosing SAP Cloud Platform to innovate and Celkon Mobiles presents a roadmap for others to develop real-time applications to compete and win in this digital economy,” said Bagchi.

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SAP announced the development at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week.

The SDK will also offer a library of prebuilt user experience components and easier access to device capabilities such as Touch ID, location services and notifications, to accelerate app development and increase adoption.

Susan Prescott, vice president of Product Marketing, Apple, said: “When we set out on this partnership with SAP, we knew we had an incredible opportunity to transform how people around the world work by combining the innovation and security of iOS with SAP’s leadership in enterprise software. We’re already seeing the impact that the combination of iOS and SAP brings to businesses to enable better, more efficient and effective processes across industries. Now even more developers will be able to take advantage of the new SDK, and we can’t wait to see how they transform their businesses.”

The new SDK will enable developers to leverage mobile services and other features of SAP Cloud Platform to provide enterprise features such as single sign-on, offline data synchronisation and enhanced supportability.

“As promised, SAP is delivering real-time enterprise software to iOS devices, transforming core work processes for companies of all sizes with powerful native apps built specifically for iPhone and iPad,” said Bernd Leukert, member of the Executive Board, SAP SE, Products and Innovation.

“Customers, partners and SAP can now quickly develop apps that deliver data with the cutting-edge capabilities of SAP Cloud Platform and SAP S/4HANA. The partnership comes at the right time for our customers as more and more companies build their mobile strategies around iOS.”

Apple and SAP have now also opened their SAP Academy for iOS to provide initial training and workshops, with a global rollout planned for later this year. The courses aim to provide mobile developers and designers with knowledge, tools, education and training needed to build a new class of mobile apps that take full advantage of the new SDK, SAP Cloud Platform, SAP Fiori for iOS, and Apple hardware and software features.

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Customers, partners and employees can now interact and collaborate, using chat, voice, video, and remote screen sharing with simple access via an embedded icon or link within the mobile app on their iPad. With real-time contextual communications, customers can gain access to customer support or technical assistance exactly when they need it, partners can close deals efficiently and employees from various departments can work together instantly and productively.

“Mobile is crucial to business today, and the iPad has evolved into a powerful business tool,” said Paul Pluschkell, executive vice president, GENBAND and founder & CEO, Kandy, GENBAND’s communications-platform-as-a-service (cPaaS).

Based on the Kandy cPaaS, GENBAND Extensions for SAP Hybris solutions are available on Hybris Extend Marketplace, an online integration marketplace that provides access to applications, extensions and network services developed by SAP Hybris partners and optimised to work with the SAP Hybris Commerce solution.

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Rail transportation is Union Pacific’s bread and butter, but with supply chains mixing multiple modes of transport for an optimal freight solution, intermodal now makes up 20 per cent of Union Pacific’s business – and as such, is critical for its success.

Intermodal enables goods manufactured overseas to be transported in containers via different means of transport, including shipping, rail and road trucking, direct to their final destination.

With more than 100,000 containers and chassis that must be inspected and repaired across the Union Pacific network and customers relying on on-time delivery, the task of plant maintenance is both complex and critical.

Going mobile with maintenance

While Union Pacific’s SAP landscape included Financials, HR and Payroll, and Plant Maintenance, the many millions of dollars in maintenance and repair costs for intermodal equipment was being tracked through an external system.

Union Pacific Railroad senior manager – IT, Laura Pham, who will be presenting at the Mastering SAP event in Melbourne in October, said the company needed better control over the work that was being carried out and the vendors responsible for completing these repairs and maintenance.

Union Pacific embarked on a major project to build an in-house UI5 solution that sits on top of its SAP system, interfacing with Plant Maintenance, Materials Management, Sales and Distribution and Financials and Controlling modules. Union Pacific started with a desktop version of the solution in June 2014, but with very mobile assets and vendors that are themselves working on the move, the next step was a mobile app, which was deployed in 2015.

Vendors are now able to use their own Android devices to run the app, which they use during inspection of intermodal containers and chassis and record any issues in the app, which connects through the SAP Gateway to the company’s back-end ECC system.

Union Pacific’s IT team kept the solution simple by using standard functionality with simple enhancements via Z-tables, user statuses and custom fields. The user experience also needed to be straightforward.

“The app needed to be easy to use – our users shouldn’t even know that there is this thing called SAP under the covers,” said Pham. “We wanted to make it very intuitive like an ATM; nobody needs training on how to use an ATM.”

Through the one application, there are several workflows for different groups that use the applications, such as work order reviews, in which reviewers check inspection and repair orders submitted by contractors; photo reviews, to check photographs taken as containers leave and enter facilities to determine who is responsible for damage; and rebilling of vendors who have damaged containers in transit.

“We did a lot of development in UI5 to make different queues for the different groups that are accessing it,” Pham said.

By enabling contractors to provide photographs of any issues – or a clean bill of health for inspected equipment – immediately and directly via the mobile app, Union Pacific has achieved better tracking of maintenance work, faster turnaround and utilisation of the assets, and improved controls – for example, by including an approval workflow for new vendors.

Adding to the app’s efficiency benefits, its ongoing support requirements are fairly limited – requiring one developer to support the UI5 front-end, and one to maintain ABAP and back-end interfaces.

Preventing equipment failure

Union Pacific’s Operating Department manages a large fleet of machinery and equipment across its network for maintaining its track, locomotives and railcars. Ensuring this equipment is ready when needed is a critical part of keeping operations running smoothly.  Preventive maintenance and the ability to respond quickly with corrective repairs drive equipment reliability and availability which help to ensure customer’s expectations are met in a cost efficient way.

“The biggest cost is not necessarily the people that are standing by, waiting for that piece to be repaired; it’s more that we have closed down that line of track and we can no longer get our business moving,” Pham said. “We’re holding customers’ goods that we’re trying to deliver while we’re doing that. So it’s critical as a business that good preventive maintenance keeps those assets available as long as we can and that we prevent that downtime.”

Previously some of the shops were keeping maintenance information on spreadsheets or non-integrated spreadsheets, but Union Pacific has now been working on getting all its field equipment (apart from its locomotives, which are tracked via a different process) into one coherent system, with preventative maintenance plans in place for all high-value or critical assets.

In order to monitor how well its mechanical teams are using the system, Union Pacific has created a dashboard via SAP Business Intelligence to provide full visibility of the status of preventive orders, highlighting orders that are out of compliance.

“This dashboard is really cool, because it shows how many of the work orders we’re creating are the preventive orders, and how many are unplanned orders, so that we can compare,” said Pham. “Over time, we want to see those unplanned orders as a percentage come down, because you are finding issues during preventive maintenance. It gets at what’s proactive versus what’s reactive.”

The dashboards also allow users to drill down to the shop level, and understand how each shop is performing, as well as see any orders that are well overdue.

“Anybody across the system, including those in the management side, can see if shop A is struggling to get their preventive work done. A lot of times, they know what is going on. But having that visibility helps in that people have accountability when they know everybody can see it,” Pham said.

While she admits it is still early days on the preventive management project, a strong focus on return on investment and tangible cost savings resulting from individual initiatives such as this within its SAP landscape has made it easier to continue to gain funding and continue along its enterprise asset management roadmap.

Laura Pham will be presenting on these projects and demonstrating Union Pacific’s solutions at Mastering SAP, to be held October 23-26 at the Crown Promenade, Melbourne. This year, four communities will come together under one roof – Business Analytics, Customer Engagement, Supply Chain and Enterprise Asset Management. To find out more and to register, visit masteringsapconference.com/aus/spring/.

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David Willis, Gartner vice president and distinguished analyst, presented on this topic at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo running this week in Cape Town.

“The future of mobile will provide ubiquitous services delivered anywhere, by any person or thing, to any person or thing,” said Willis.

“While users are constantly looking for new and compelling app experiences, the importance of apps in delivering services will diminish and the emergence of virtual personal assistants (VPAs) and bots will replace some of the functions performed by apps today. Alternative approaches to interaction and service delivery will arise, and code will move from traditional mobile devices and apps to the cloud.”

Mobile has shifted to ‘business as usual’, with 2.38 billion devices (including PC, tablets, ultramobiles, and mobile phones) forecast to be shipped in 2017 and 342 million wearables sold.

Bring your own device (BYOD) and bring your own application (BYOA) will continue to grow, and become the norm for most organisations.

“Moreover, the arrival of wearables and bring your own ‘thing’ (such as smart kettles, smart power sockets or smart light bulbs) in the workplace will introduce new interaction techniques and new platforms, diluting the need for specific mobile app experiences,” said Willis.

Innovation is occurring not inside the smartphones themselves, but in the way they communicate with other things. Gartner predicts that by 2018, 25 per cent of new mobile apps will talk to Internet of Things (IoT) devices. And this may also drive a longer-term change in delivery mechanisms.

“Through 2018, the app will be the preferred mechanism, because it provides a better experience and allows more sophisticated interactions and data analysis, with low-level networking and background processing,” said Willis. “As new technologies grow in importance as a way to control and interact with things, app interfaces will fade.”

Among the new technologies that may come to the fore in the post-app era are artificial intelligence, natural-language processing and bots integrated into message apps.

Already organisations such as Kore are enabling businesses and consumers to “chat” with users on their messaging platform and evolving APIs so developers can create their own bots. This allows users to chat with organisations to get information, answer questions or transact through messaging or VPAs.

“This means that instead of going into a system and filling out complicated forms with checkboxes, users can ask a bot a question, and it will answer or negotiate on our behalf, based on rules and knowledge in the system,” said Willis. “It will then move to those systems that allow interactions with customers – from marketing to sales.”

Willis said that despite these changes, apps will not go away, but the post-app era will see more data and code stored in the could and less on the device.

“The post-app era will be an evolving process through 2020 and beyond,” he said. “It has, however, already begun, and organisations should prepare for it by being agile and tactical, planning for new skills, assessing the new opportunities created by the post-app era, and developing a digital business strategy that integrates many different technologies.”

Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is the world’s most important gathering of CIOs and senior IT leaders, uniting a global community of CIOs with the tools and strategies to help them lead the next generation of IT and achieve business outcomes. Upcoming dates and locations for Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2016 events include:
October 5-7, Tokyo, Japan
October 16-20, Orlando, Florida
October 24-27, Sao Paulo, Brazil
October 24-27, Gold Coast, Australia
November 6-10, Barcelona, Spain
November 15-18, Goa, India.

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