Automation, Integration and Quality as Pillars of Digitization

“Do IT yourself. Ways into the Cloud: Think Together, Act Individually” was the motto of this year’s DSAG Technology Days in Bonn. The clear focus of the user meeting continues on the path to digitization and the question of how digital transformation of companies can be successfully implemented.

Into the cloud, but not without on-premise

The keynote speech of DSAG board member Steffen Pietsch clarifies the approach with the apt words: “Cloud-first yes – Cloud-only no”. The path to the cloud is crucial for more agility, innovation and scalability. Despite all this, the users are justifiably demanding that the high investments in ERP software and special solutions continue to be worthwhile and will continue to be guaranteed and further developed in the future. The framework conditions in the cloud as well as in the on-premise world must also be guaranteed by law. A hybrid architecture is therefore a groundbreaking strategy for mastering the growing complexity. What are the most important factors here? For Steffen Pietsch, automation, integration and quality are the most important drivers in hybrid system architecture.

Automation for constant reduction of manual steps

SAP sees RPA (Robotic Process Automation) and AI (Artificial Intelligence) as the success factors in automation. SAP has announced that it will automate 50% of its business processes with RPA and AI within the next three years. Steffen Pietsch warns against false automation expectations: A process that is inherently faulty will still remain faulty even with automation. But automation is exactly what helps to replace manual steps and thus increase the efficiency of the company.

Automation is not a new topic in IT. However, the demands of architecture and applications are increasing immensely: addressing different system landscapes, in the cloud and on-premise, Rest APIs, etc.: all this must be controlled and networked in a uniform and comprehensive manner without losing track of things.

Our experience in HONICO customer projects has shown that landscape-wide control is necessary so that the mostly self-sufficient AI systems do not interfere with each other in their analyses and activities or even impair production. Tools such as BatchMan and File & DataManager make it possible to maintain an overall overview and control.

Integration of different technologies and interfaces

Behind a business process today there are usually many different applications, and thus a multitude of technologies. Uniform integration is therefore central to future interface management. With the “API First Strategy” (Application Programming Interface), this can be realized for cloud applications and on-premise, in order to successfully integrate all own applications and those of partners and third-party providers, Steffen Pietsch further highlights in his keynote speech.

Quality characteristics in transition

The quality requirements of the customers for on-premise can be summarized in the following three keywords: User friendliness, accuracy and completeness. With SAP’s new role as a cloud provider, companies need additional quality assurance such as scalability, stability, automation, and self-service. In addition, users need more agile releases and training concepts that are adapted to the speed of development today.

Here you can find the complete opening keynote of the DSAG Technology Days in Bonn.

We support your transition to the cloud

Our product BatchMan controls background processing of your hybrid system architecture: the cross-system control by the software enables full automation and clear monitoring. Find out more about Hybrid and S/4HANA automation