Unlike traditional software development with complex training and code writing requirements, low and no code tools mean that people can create software with minimal or no code writing required. With smart user interfaces, people can develop software processes without having any programming knowledge, typically using drag and drop style methods.

Moving beyond simple websites and apps, these tools have also become available for enterprise software, enabling rapid development of solutions such as document handling automations. Following the lead of IT functions, which rapidly adopted these tools, teams company-wide are now using them to quickly respond to business needs in a low cost manner.

For example, organisations worldwide are already using SAP’s low and no code tools including available via 51ˇçÁ÷. Feedback from citizen developers has been overwhelmingly positive about how these tools are helping their companies become intelligent enterprises. For example, business process owners at any APJ-based utility company can create and introduce dynamic forms for inspection processes on an as-needed basis. Producing the forms themselves has eliminated redevelopment work from IT, reducing deployment time from months to days.

Low and no code drives rapid innovation

Whether disruptive or evolutionary, successful software innovation demands speed, meaning the ability to prototype and gain real world and user feedback quickly. Rather than relying on the availability (and associated cost) of dedicated software developers, teams using low and no code platforms can rapidly develop and iterate their ideas, gathering feedback and prototyping new concepts to run faster innovation cycles.

Traditional software development projects often require a substantial time investment to discover the practical implications of different processes or market needs. Software architects and developers spend hours, days, and weeks or more in workshops and other discussions to fully explore and understand potential use cases and solve specific business problems. With low and no code tools, subject matter experts, be they process owners or market strategists, can embed their knowledge across the software development process – from ideation through prototype iteration, solution delivery, and beyond.

Improving the employee experience

Employees are often asked to provide their insights on a given topic as part of a software solutioning exercise, but their involvement ends there – until the final system is implemented and scaled. By using low and no code technologies, employees can experience the satisfaction of developing a solution from idea to implementation, providing input and guidance to the design and implementation, which in turn provides a sense of accomplishment and boosts productivity.

Low and no code tools are proving even more valuable productivity-wise as more employees work remotely during the pandemic. Rather than waiting for IT resources to become available, citizen developers – wherever they’re located – can solve business process and customer problems as they arise, quickly accessing low and no code tools through cloud computing platforms.

More strategically, as companies continue their digital transformation journeys, more people have access to the tools necessary to transforms all aspects of a business through software. Rather than relying on only large, top-down transformation programs, they can take a grassroots approach, with employees developing and implementing solutions as required based on the processes, customers and legacy technology that they know best. Organisations can address governance and security by embedding policies into the low and no code platform, guiding employees as they design new software.

Low and no code tools support digital government services

The opportunity provided by low and no code to pivot from technology interaction to technology innovation also applies to the public sector. Citizen developers can create new solutions in their respective area of expertise or interest, while also meeting quality and security standards. The public sector can develop more useful apps faster. When people with the greatest amount of experience and understanding of processes design and develop software, the organization ends up with systems that address the most important challenges.

Coupled with initiatives such as open data sharing, citizens can quickly bring about the change they’d like to see in government digital services, combining previously hidden information sources and community needs to develop scalable solutions. For example, citizen developers can plug no code tools into SAP’s to model different trends and correlations across private and public data sources.

In democratising software development beyond dedicated, specialised resources, low and no code tools are modernising not only how organisations operate daily, but also how industries will innovate for a stronger, more resilient future.

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But much of innovation stems from finding exciting new applications of existing, and in some cases ancient, concepts to provide new sources of value.

Take a product that (until 2020 and the decline in business travel) many of us used on a regular basis – the roller suitcase. We’ve all had to transport these up and downstairs or from the overhead bin, wondering how anyone managed to carry suitcases without wheels any reasonable distance – but that must have been a long time ago, right?

In fact, the “rollaboard” travel bag was only invented in 1987, by a pilot who saw the opportunity to improve luggage for airline staff & frequent flyers. The oldest “technology” – wheels, being added to a suitcase seems obvious now, but it was only a few decades ago that it was applied by someone who saw the design issue and business opportunity in adding these to luggage.

In a more recent example, technologies such as GPS location, first developed for military use, have been fused with power management technologies to now power mapping and exercise tracking applications for everyday consumers.

If we look at even older “technology” being applied to solve new design challenges, the topic of biomimicry emerges – the field of leveraging solutions that have evolved in the natural world and applying these to new design challenges. A famous example is modeling bullet train noses on the shape of bird beaks, reducing noise and potential damage at high speeds by borrowing aerodynamic designs which evolved over millions of years.

In the digital transformation space, the application of concepts from one industry to another is a great source of innovation.

In the case of SAP, our work with the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies in ensuring vaccine production is tracked throughout the cold chain is being considered for how grocery chains may track and communicate the source of different produce types to customers.

Innovations in the eXtended Reality space are leveraging smartphone technology to assist in industrial training processes, while our supply chain and business network solutions are being leveraged to help with bridging online product searches and bricks and mortar pickup locations.

Our Industry4.Now strategy supports the development of intelligent processes & products, initially for the discrete and process industries with respect to supply chains and manufacturing operations. Many of these concepts are also highly relevant to industries such as mining and power utilities, with 51ˇçÁ÷taking learnings and reapplying these to work with our customers to solve new business issues.

By having deep business process expertise across all major industries, 51ˇçÁ÷has developed solutions for specific business and technical challenges that can be applied in different contexts for our customers.

Through leveraging offerings such as the , companies can deploy these different solutions, tailored to their processes, incredibly quickly yet in a secure and compliant manner.

Our innovation teams are available and ready to work with your business to explore these exciting new applications, and how different technologies can be used to address different business issues.

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However, there are many hurdles towards automating various aspects of a business’ operations, due to some of the limitations found in last generation tools:

• Rather than streamlining tasks requiring human supervision, additional steps are added to existing processes, creating opportunities for errors and increases in processing times. Existing automation tools often focus on tasks being completed – but as we know, business processes are made up of many tasks and interdependencies, each of which need to be addressed and orchestrated to truly automate a process.
• Automations, that rather than being ‘set and forget’, require as much (or often more) time being spent in configuration as underlying processes or data structures change during the growth or transformation of a business
• Automation development still requiring relatively deep technical expertise. This has compounded the two issues above in the past – stretched development resources becoming compromised with respect to the time spent on overhauling existing automation deployments, architecting & implementing new automations and then having to discover how processes and related tasks / interdependencies actually work.

Three key developments are now being integrated within automation technology, to improve both the effectiveness and efficiency of automation initiatives.

Dubbed Hyperautomation, vast new opportunities for businesses to improve front and back end process are now being unlocked through the following developments:

• bringing intelligence to automations. By leveraging the insights from data generated through the conduct of different tasks, as well as underlying corporate data, automations can be made much for effective and efficient through automations being able to dynamically address different issues as they occur – for example, an unforeseen process change, that would otherwise need to be resolved with the assistance of a developer, can be sensed and solved by these new automation technologies. This improves the experience provided to business users, end customers and of course developers also.
• providing insights into how businesses really run. During projects to really explore different processes with customers, it’s often the case that the issue is ultimately decoupled from where people think the problem lies. Process mining allows for insights as to how the different steps within a process run with detailed metrics, providing transparency as to the “average” of a process, but also the extremes. It’s these insights that allow for the development of truly robust automations.

In conjunction with Machine Learning and Process Mining, the incorporation of Low/No-Code technology within automation tools will support this Highway to Hyperautomation across businesses. Low/No-Code technology, where people without any programming experience can develop software using simple interfaces, will allow those employees such as business process owners that know and operate business processes most closely to develop new automations as needed. This will supercharge the uptake of these technologies, assisting companies in their transformation initiatives.

51ˇçÁ÷has released exciting new solutions that address each of these hyperautomation drivers – from , available as part of the Business Technology Platform, to the innovative solution, allowing frontline workers to develop and deploy automated workflows using low-code functionality. In conjunction with our and recently acquired Process Mining technologies, the highway to hyperautomation is here!

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In a , the move from an operational to an outcome based focus was outlined as a critical mindset shift, paving the way to develop new business models rather than simply optimise existing processes.

As we’ve seen through the impact of Covid-19 lockdowns and solutions offered by 51ˇçÁ÷to check in on , we also need to consider how technology can improve the experience for staff, beyond simplifying existing business processes.

Looking at emerging technology solutions, such as and the major benefits that can be achieved applying this solution to enable time savings and quality improvements, we need to look at the problem being solved not just from a process perspective. We also need to consider the people element and more importantly, the experience being delivered to employees to the same extent we now look at the .

For many business processes, the insights and skillsets brought by employees with many years’ experience in a domain are critical in maintaining a competitive edge, or perhaps required for regulatory reasons. While medical images can be interpreted by algorithms, we still rely on the expertise of radiologists and other medical professionals to analyse these insights and communicate the results and meet required medical professional standards.

This is an important factor in the design phase of automating processes – understanding those parts of a process that can be completely automated, those that need to be “augmented” by people with skills and expertise (this could be in-process supervision, quality assurance or other review mechanisms) and finally those aspects that must be undertaken by employees due to regulatory reasons or scenario complexity e.g. when a specific scenario is presented that can’t be automated.

A lens needs to be applied beyond just this process view – taking a “people first” approach to a situation or automation scenario to understand what employees are both good at and also enjoy doing – be it social interaction through to the opportunity to apply their valuable skills across a range of operational issues or perhaps customer engagements. Solutions such as are perfect to be able to ascertain these sorts of views and ideas when changing from a process- to a people- mindset as part of becoming an Intelligent Enterprise.

One current focus for SAP’s Innovation Services & Services Ventures’ group is on enabling energy traders at – using the insights from Machine Learning applied across massive datasets to empower traders in applying their expertise to trading decisions.

Rather than completely automating the trading process, our research has shown the insights traders have built up in understanding all facets of the market are critical to the operational and financial success of utilities. There is a role for technology derived insights to inform these traders, however by taking a people-led view of trading, not just process-led, our solution will enable utilities to continue on the path of becoming Intelligent Enterprises.

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This was the message presented by the Hon Matt Kean, Minister for Energy & Environment in the New South Wales State Government, at the opening of the Pumped Hydro and Battery Storage conference held in Sydney recently. The conference attendees represented all facets of the energy industry, from consulting engineers through to the public sector, who were all there to discuss the latest developments in energy storage and sustainable power.

This view of the future – where seizing the opportunity presented by clean energy is an economic, not just environmental imperative – was echoed by many of the conference participants. One in particular, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, used his keynote to highlight the importance of preparing for change, which he said will be led by the “engineers and economists” in the room.

Practically, a proactive approach to sustainable energy presents a real economic opportunity. Not only from lower emissions and household power bills, but also through the ability to grow jobs and industry, with the potential for domestic manufacturing to be supplied by near zero marginal cost power in a clean energy future.

Solar energy technology has fallen in price by 90% in the past eight years and will be a key driver of a transition to low-carbon energy. However, reliable supply won’t be achieved without important investment and development of technologies such as hydro-electricity and battery storage to firm-up capacity.

To seize the economic opportunity and mitigate the risk of unreliable supply, many of the speakers drew attention to the need for better energy forecasting. They were calls for predictions on a ten year time-scale to enable investment decisions to be made, but also forecasts on different aspects of power supply on a much shorter scale – multiple times an hour to ensure sufficient supply to meet demand, from industrial activity through to the peaks and troughs of household consumers.

At the event, 51ˇçÁ÷presented on the possibilities provided by software to solve some fundamental aspects of the prediction problem. Our Trader’s Toolkit solution was presented by Angus McDonald, Venture Architect.

This solution comprises two tools critical to energy traders and hydro-electric operators: the ability to forecast energy prices, as well as determine the value of water for use in hydro-electric generation, with the technology able to provide real time accurate insights for both metrics.

By applying SAP’s deep Machine Learning expertise and experience in the power utilities sector, this technology greatly improves prediction, empowering employees while allowing utilities to operate intelligently, hedging price risk and ensuring efficient power generation through the insights gleaned from massive data sets.

This solution is one of many steps in ensuring a fruitful energy transition for Australia in the coming years. By empowering experts in the energy industry, we can all capitalise on the opportunities that renewable energy will bring while foreseeing and addressing potential disruptions through the power of data-driven, machine learning insights.

To find out more about the Trader’s Toolkit and SAP’s other predictive technology solutions, please contact Angus McDonald angus.mcdonald@sap.com or Eamon Fenwick eamon.fenwick@sap.com.

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In recent times we have seen the power that exciting bring to increasing this impact – concepts such as machine learning, Blockchain and IoT are enabling businesses to embed capabilities such as prediction, security, sensing and automation within their processes.

The current focus of many digital transformation programs is on increasing the efficiency of company operations by embedding these technologies into “business as usual” processes, including:

– The use of machine learning to increase the accuracy and speed of many finance functions.

– IoT lowering the labour required to inspect and manage assets.

– Analytics unveiling insights that lead to better informed company growth plans, enabling the development of new strategies and in turn driving revenue.

In other words, current digital transformation programs are enabling companies to move from performing business processes to predicting how best to operate their business. With the cost of hardware such as cameras rapidly dropping, further use cases involving machine vision are also emerging, providing ever-increasing amounts of data from which businesses can fuel the efficiency and effectiveness of their operations.

For businesses to become truly however, a comprehensive external view of company operations and place in the market needs to be considered.

In some cases, companies are taking a much more refined view of their regional and industry position and that of their customers, using analytics to discover opportunities to optimise their respective offerings.

The more powerful approach being taken by companies operating at the leading edge of digital is taking a real time to customers and encountered by employees. Whether these companies are operating in the B2B or B2C space, new approaches need to be taken to provide points of market differentiation and improved employee value propositions – the operational technology discussed earlier is now largely commoditised, being critical to the success of a company but not offering any major competitive advantage.

Solutions such as are being used by these digital pioneers to “close the loop” in terms of merging the successful operation of their business processes with the stellar delivery of meaningful experiences.

By being able to fuse the eXperience and Operational data being captured and deriving insights through predictive technology, these companies can become true by proactively managing the experiences enjoyed by customers and employees alike.

Coupled with the ability to gather in-depth feedback on products, services and brands, this fusion of operations, intelligence and experience fuels the much more effective digital transformation of businesses into Intelligent Enterprises with a focus on commercial and customer outcomes, rather than capabilities and processes.

You can learn more on how businesses are becoming Intelligent Enterprises by .

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