Why SAP Digital Transformation is going wrong

In my article back in March 2018 I asked the question ‘SAP Digital Transformation – Do you get it?‘ and since then, having seen many Fiori and S/4HANA implementations, I have to conclude that unfortunately many people don’t. The way I see things, Fiori offers so much potential, but so little is actually being realised. I see SAP customers replacing SAP transactions with like-for-like, or slightly simplified Fiori apps: They are providing tools to enable their users to do exactly the same thing as before, albeit through an improved user interface. This can’t be ‘Digital Transformation’ because it’s just not transformational.

It’s not digital transformation if it’s not transformational!

SAP must shoulder part of the blame because it is delivering library apps that in large part are a straight replacement for the SAPGUI transactions. SAP does provide lots of analytics capabilities through LaunchPad Tiles, Overview Page Cards and Analytical List Pages, particularly in support of Finance processes, but it is not offering new ‘best practice processes’ for the digital age.
The technical toolkit is strong and the direction of Fiori 3.0 with CoPilot is right. But the reality is that for the vast majority of SAP users SAP CoPilot is nothing more than a gimmick, at least for the next 3 years.

We can argue that SAP customers are also responsible. Rightly or wrongly, they rely on SAP to have done the thinking for them. They upgrade, they use tools for automation and simplification when they are easy, but they don’t look beyond what they’re handed on a plate. Instead of harnessing the potential they leave it on the table. Further, they are often uninformed: They think they understand SAP Digital Transformation but they don’t. At a fundamental level they just don’t get it. So we could say that SAP customers who are not taking realising the potential of digital transformation are lazy, ignorant, or both.

What I strongly believe is missing; where the potential of digital transformation is being missed, is in information-driven processes, in which system data supports users for process initiation and decision making.

Process Initiation
Automated processes are either event-triggered or time-triggered.

Event-triggered process examples:

  • A machine breaks down and triggers a service request
  • Each time a new sales order is placed full backorder rescheduling is triggered
  • A customer cancels an order and a notification is sent to the salesperson


Time-triggered process examples:

  • Notifications generated regarding progress against financial targets or KPIs
  • MRP to reorder stock based on safety stock and requirements
  • Generation of reminder letters for overdue payments

Robotics automation and chatbots are really just more of the above, the purpose of which is to automate simple and repetitive tasks. There is enormous value here through cost savings as more tasks are automated. And with more data available to us the triggers can become more complex: More business rules can be added so that more process scenarios can be handled.

If we consider event-triggered and time-triggered processes as making easy tasks easier, we can think of information-initiated processes as making complex tasks better. Information-initiated processes are those processes where we use information to drive manual process initiation: By providing meaningful information to users they are able to better prioritise their work, focusing on urgent requirements and things that require attention: Ideally they will intercept potential problems before they become problems. The result is in process improvement rather than cost saving.


Information-triggered process examples:

  • A Customer Service Agent sees blocked sales orders about to come due for delivery, sorted by criticality based on value and date. He takes steps to overcome blocking issues to prepare the orders for shipment.
  • A Purchasing Manager sees late inbound deliveries in an easy chart, sorted by criticality. She takes steps to expedite each with the supplier and/or finds a new source of supply.
  • A Marketing Manager sees that sales leads are reduced in a particular region. He takes steps to identify the root cause and/or increase local activity.

These kind of processes would traditionally involve scheduled reports to investigate where things have gone wrong: We think of reporting to be after the event rather than before. By shifting reporting to focus on what’s really important and bring it into the start of core business processes we can dramatically increase the effectiveness of those processes. So the analytical cards and tiles in Fiori LaunchPad can add enormous value when (and only when!) the business processes are redefined. Perhaps every user-initiated SAP process should be prompted in this way! Users should not need to run reports then slice and dice the data, but be provided with dashboards with clear ‘traffic lights’ to inform all their core process activity.

Intelligent Decisions
The problem with many SAP processes is that they are transactional rather than holistic. In order to make business decisions, users need to understand the impact of those decisions. Apps could be developed that show users the wider picture in order for them to make better-informed decisions. Intelligent decision-making is a largely untapped source of digital transformation.

Intelligent decision-making examples:

  • A manager receives a vacation request from a team member. What’s the impact of approval? Does this leave the team short at a critical time? What work will not be completed or what deadlines will be missed if the request is approved?
  • A budget holder receives a capital expenditure request for approval. What is the impact on the overall budget if this is approved? What other expenditure is planned or expected in the timeframe of the budget? By approving this request does this mean that other expenditure cannot be approved, or that budgets need to be reviewed?
  • An urgent service request is initiated and the nearest engineer is identified. What’s the impact on planned work if the work is allocated to the engineer? What other options are available and what’s the impact of each?

Process automation and simplification focuses on making easy things easier. But not everything is easy, and often the real value lies in getting the complex processes right. Users have to make real-time decisions about prioritising their work and make choices that are beyond the algorithms of automated bots.

The power of digital transformation is in making better decisions more quickly, and that requires new ways of working that are only partially addressed using Fiori library apps. This gap between the potential value and the value being realised is where SAP digital transformation is going wrong.

Organisations truly seeking real transformation need to reconsider their most basic business processes because the traditional sequential model will not deliver the results they desire, whether the user interface is Fiori, CoPilot or SAPGUI.

Chris Scott, January 2019