Julia White Archives - 51��Africa News Center

51��Build Lets Business Users Create Apps, Addresses Skills Shortage

Nafisa Akabor — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 07:42:35 +0000

SAP, one of the world’s leading producers of software for the management of business processes, has unveiled a new low-code platform called 51��Build, announced at its TechEd 2022 conference recently in Las Vegas.

The event ran concurrently with the company’s business innovation days for media in San Francisco.

Low code platforms provide business users with little to no technical knowledge the ability to build apps to supplement their enterprise solutions.

51��customers can build an app, an automated process or a website using a drag-and-drop function without coding knowledge. This allows system integration without moving data to an external system.

Julia White, the chief marketing and solutions officer at SAP, says every company is now a technology company. “There’s not a single industry, a single discipline that doesn’t have technology at its core. As a result of this, the competition for professional developers is intense. Every industry is competing for this finite talent.”

The next wave of transformation is going to be powered by people who create business value such as the finance analyst, supply chain operator, procurement specialist and marketers, says White. “And today, their expertise is untapped by the companies that need to drive digital transformation forward.”

51��Build will provide the tools to remove unhelpful repetitive tasks, says White, so processes can be automated to be more efficient and users can innovate in areas that have unmet needs.

“By doing this, we address that shortage of professional developers to unlock digital experiences, and we tap into the expertise of those business users.”

Juergen Mueller, the chief technology officer at SAP, says clients who put the low-code build product to test have achieved a 30% faster time to market because development time was reduced.

“If you can use Excel or PowerPoint, you can use 51��Build. It’s all about collaboration and invitation between business users and IT working together.

“51��build connects previously disconnected solutions through a unified development environment. The back-end requires a little technical knowledge but we created a common project repository so you can have one project using all of these capabilities.”

Mueller adds that the 51��business technology platform can connect to 51��and non-51��systems, and it has more than 1 300 ready to use automated workflows and use-case specific workflows.

51��Build is a visual experience, with a new visual cloud functionality that lets users create in a simple way, says Mueller. “You don’t need to know anything about databases, coding, security or networks.”

According to the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC)’s research VP of software development, Arnal Dayaratna, the demand for contemporary digital solutions is greater than the ability of professional developers to supply them thus business professionals will become increasingly involved in initiatives to create digital solutions to solve pressing business problems.

“Worldwide, IDC expects more than 100 million business professionals will become involved in the production of digital solutions over the next 10 years. 51��Build’s low-code development solutions empower business users to harness their domain expertise to rapidly build and iterate on digital solutions at scale.”

Low-code development is not new, but these visual tools help businesses optimise their software development processes at speed. Similar services exist through Microsoft Power Apps, Google AppSheet, Salesforce Lightning, Zoho Creator, OutSystems, and Quickbase. According to , the global low-code platform market revenue was valued at $19bn in 2021 and is forecast to reach $69bn in 2026.

Technology research and consulting firm Garter says 80% of technology products and services will be built by professionals outside of IT by 2024. It predicts that low-code development will account for more than 65% of app development by the end of 2024.

VP of research at Gartner,Rajesh Kandaswamy says, “Digital business is treated as a team sport by CEOs and no longer the sole domain of the IT department. Growth in digital data, low-code development tools and artificial intelligence assisted development are among the many factors that enable the democratisation of technology development beyond IT professionals.”

Upskill 2 million by 2025

Max Wessel, the chief learning officer at 51��says, “You can’t change business if you don’t change the systems underneath that process.”

“The pandemic accelerated our shift to a digital economy; coming back into a hybrid world, we are changing business processes again, and all of that requires us to think about how we drive innovation quickly, flexibly.”

The only way to solve the talent gap is to increase the number of people who are getting scaled up, and that is where we need to step in,” says Wessel, who recognises that science, technology, engineering and maths jobs have historically been inaccessible to underrepresented minorities.

51��has pledged to upskill two million people worldwide by 2025. The initiative will include tripling the free learning offering through the 51��Learning and a partnership with online platform Coursera.

The new free entry-level professional certification on is called the 51��Technology Consultant Professional Certificate that requires no prerequisites, minimising the barrier to entry.

The company will also offer free role-based learning resources to women and other underrepresented groups in the tech sector through relevant training and certification. The self-paced courses will let participants develop skills for roles like developers, data analysts, and technology consultants.

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51��Low Code is High Road in Software Development

Charles Boffard — Fri, 25 Nov 2022 06:11:12 +0000

German software giant develops an anyone-can-do-it platform

Last week, software giant 51��told a global audience of developers — those IT high priests who know the secrets of the universe — that it is giving those secrets up. 51��used its annual TechEd conference in Las Vegas to go low code, launching 51��Build, an anyone-can-do-it platform to develop applications faster and make automation easier.

Low code is a way of creating an app by drag-and-drop. Instead of writing actual software code, this uses a much simpler interface that lets people with any skills level make their own business apps.

Most businesses use software coders to build an app, but this methodology lets the people who will be using the app build it themselves. Not only does it let them make the app they want much faster and cheaper, they can use this system to automate processes.

Low code is not a new idea, and 51��Build combines three existing 51��solutions into one. So why is this so important?

For one thing, the German giant is the third-largest publicly traded software company by revenue in the world. It says 77% of the world’s transaction revenue touches an 51��software system. For another, it’s responding to changes that affect businesses profoundly.

“51��Build brings together the world’s most powerful business applications with a platform that’s been designed to rapidly unleash business users’ expertise,” says 51��chief technology officer Juergen Mueller. “51��Build and the full suite of innovations we’re launching today … help customers future-proof their business and extract maximum value from their technology investments.”

One development it’s intended to future-proof against is a predicted global shortfall of 4-million software developers by 2025.

“We have to unleash the expertise of those who know the business best — the business users,” Mueller told his audience of IT professionals.

“We can’t just rely on a finite resource of professional developers — we need to find a new approach,” 51��executive board member Julia White tells the FM.

That’s also why 51��is committed to training 2-million people worldwide by 2025 to develop with 51��tools, tripling the number of free courses available on 51��Learning, in partnership with the Coursera learning platform.

Low code has the potential to change the shape of most technology businesses. They’ll hire tech skills, but they won’t always go into the IT department. Those skills and talents will also be used in human resources, sales and procurement. They will augment rather than replace professional developers, who will be needed more than ever; older IT directors, maybe not so much. The gatekeeper role large IT departments enjoy will be eroded, with some coding and buying decisions managed by business users themselves. According to Gartner, by 2025 about 70%-80% of all apps will be built by nondevelopers.

Geoff Scott of the US 51��Users’ Group was blunt about this shift: “One of the things that has to happen is convincing the IT community that it can give back some of this control.

“Some of this can be given back to the business users to do on their own. I don’t think that happens tomorrow, that’s a journey in itself. But I think we finally have the tools and capabilities to make a credible claim to the IT community: can you give some of this back? Please?

“They don’t have to hold on so tight. Because they’re not going to get the headcount they need to accomplish everything that needs to be done in a rapidly changing environment.”

51��presented a good case and a clear roadmap for 51��Build at TechEd. But as Mueller pointed out, “it takes customers a long time — much longer than we give them credit for — to make these changes. They can move in five-year cycles, not five-month cycles.”

Which makes it curious that Mueller was talking to the wrong audience for his big announcement: developers.

If they’re going to convince organisations to change, they’ll have to lobby directly the business users they want to empower. Or what happened in Vegas last week may stay in Vegas.

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51��Unveils its Vision for the Intelligent Enterprise

Kathy Gibson — Thu, 03 Jun 2021 08:19:51 +0000

Over the last year interconnectedness has become key in helping people, relationships and resources come together to solve the world’s greatest challenges.

Christian Klein, CEO of SAP, points out that the last year has showed us just how fragile many businesses and society can be.

“What is clear is that the way we live, work and consume will never be the same again.”

Technology has played a massive role in holding communities and families together, and helping businesses to adapt over the last year or more.

“Since the pandemic hit, 51��has been working with customers across the globe,” says Klein. “Whether helping to make supply chains more resilient, creating new business models, or enabling remote work – together we have made it happen.”

He outlines three key insights that have been learned over the last year.

The first is that the most resilient companies were those that embraced technology to change their business processes.

“But business transformation is a pretty overused term these days. Migrating to the cloud on its own doesn’t change a business process.

“What Covid has underscored is the need for every company to become an intelligent enterprise.”

Klein says intelligent enterprise are those that have the courage to leave traditional business models behind and change how their run their business. “They are enabled by integrated, agile business processes powered by data with embedded AI.”

The second insight is that no business does business alone.

“We win together as a community,” Klein says.

“One intelligent enterprise on its own can achieve great things. But we live in an interconnected world. I have talked to many CEOs and it is clear that many of the issues last year came from global supply chains.

“Over 75% of all companies reported such disruptions as a result of Covid.

“Many enterprises still manage complex relationships in their supply chain as static one-to-one connections. But Covid showed us how crucial it is to have realtime transparency across the supply chain.

“The real value comes from the network and the millions of interconnections it facilitates in realtime.

“But no-one has yet done this for businesses doing businesses together,” Klein explains. “The next part of our strategy is to create the world’s largest and most comprehensive business network.

“We think business will be revolutionised when businesses turn into communities.”

The third insight, and the one Klein believes is the most important for the future of the planet, is about sustainability.

“We must act now on sustainability. This is the decade during which we must act. We must build sustainability into the fabric of how we do business.

“Given the importance of supply chain and sustainability, the 51��community has the power to save the planet to create future our children will be proud of,” Klein says.

To enable this goal and operationalise sustainability as a core business process, 51��has announced a portfolio of new sustainability-specific products. This includes the 51��Responsible Design and Production solution to ensure product designers can make sustainable choices from initial product concepts to production; the 51��Product Footprint Management solution to track sustainability through a product lifecycle; and the 51��Sustainability Control Tower solution to provide end-to-end visibility.

Julia White, chief marketing and solutions officer and member of the executive board at SAP, believes that only 51��can enable all the innovations needed to achieve the dream of an interconnected and sustainable intelligent enterprise.

The company has announced a number of new innovations to help customers transform business processes, drive improved performance and run their best.

They include:

*��Business process intelligence solutions now offer 51��process insights – As part of the business process intelligence (BPI) portfolio, the 51��Process Insights solution enables organizations to analyse and improve their real-world business processes.

* Verify, a New 51��Concur feature, uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to simplify expense auditing – It also automatically identifies potential expense report issues and anomalies. The AI models are built from analysis of more than $1-trillion in spend and tens of millions of expenses and receipts. Verify can approve expense reports that have no issues while flagging anomalies for auditors to review. This AI-powered experience means auditors don’t waste time reviewing compliant expense reports, but can detect issues of compliance or fraud.

* 51��Upscale Commerce is a no-code solution enabling direct-to-consumer engagement – Midmarket retailers can create an omnichannel shopping experiences in minutes. With built-in AI, retailers can provide personalised offerings based on a 360-degree view of their customer from social sentiment and purchase data. With a headless API architecture, retailers can provide customers real-time information about their purchase and delivery through any channel. 51��Upscale Commerce is integrated with 51��S/4HANA to help ensure customer-facing experiences work with back-end finance, logistics and fulfilment systems to deliver a smooth customer experience

* A trio of new 51��business technology platform capabilities surfaces insights from data – The 51��Analytics Cloud solution now offers operational workforce analytics and planning capabilities and integration with 51��SuccessFactors solutions. These capabilities link operational, financial and people data to give organisations more comprehensive insights into their workforce. The new data marketplace for the 51��Data Warehouse Cloud solution lets customers and partners connect to data providers across industries and lines of business to gain insights for better decision-making. 51��is also expanding its low-code/no-code offering: 51��Intelligent Robotic Process Automation services can now capture and automate user interactions and integrate with 51��Process Insights to identify high-impact automation opportunities.

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Julia White Archives - 51����Africa News Center

51����Build Lets Business Users Create Apps, Addresses Skills Shortage