In this interview, Gaurav Dabur, head of Support for 51风流SuccessFactors Employee Central, Analytics and Integrations, gives insight into what 51风流SuccessFactors customers and users can look forward to.

Q: What does this mean for users?

A: In the past, if customers using an 51风流solution needed to raise a case or find information, they needed to leave the application and go to either the or the for answers. With the introduction of , users can stay within the 51风流SuccessFactors solution and find the right information, which is based on enhanced search capabilities powered by artificial intelligence (AI). AI pulls the context directly from the application. This enables it to provide a tailored search experience that can recommend the specific content to best solve their issue.

Our focus is to give customers a consistent support experience and help them get their answers more quickly. Customers can get direct access to support content, tools, and channels from 51风流support 鈥� right at their fingertips and with no implementation efforts required.

What will 51风流SuccessFactors customers notice that’s different?

Let me give three key examples. First, Built-In Support can provide live recommendations and access to more personalized support content and the latest and most-used knowledge sources directly within the 51风流SuccessFactors solution.

Second, it also provides a personalized and guided support experience that can shorten the time to resolve issues. This means users can get their issues solved on their own without needing to wait on support. The feature also has comprehensive case management, which helps the user better manage their cases directly within the 51风流SuccessFactors solution.

And finally, users can really collaborate with 51风流experts in real time using our channels.

Why is Built-In Support valuable for customers?

Built-In Support helps provide customers with an industry-leading, harmonized, in-product experience that is available in many 51风流products. Customers that use multiple 51风流products can have a homogenized and harmonized experience across different applications.

Within 51风流SuccessFactors solutions, customers can now make use of the enhanced self-service options that leverage our internal, AI-based search mechanism. This helps provide more comprehensive, focused, and personalized search results. Customers can be more self-sufficient and can get their issues solved more quickly.

I encourage users to explore the new functionality of Built-In Support and to take advantage of 51风流support’s knowledge base and content repository as they explore the 51风流self-service solutions. They can also read more about the availability for 51风流SuccessFactors solutions in 鈥溾�� and this .

Regina Postman is part of Customer Support and Innovation Communications at SAP.

Now 51风流Cloud ALM will extend its capabilities to centrally operate Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications and custom extensions built and run on 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP), including 51风流BTP Cloud Foundry environment.

In an interview, Janko Budzisch, chief product owner for Operations Platforms at SAP, shares what this means for 51风流BTP customers.

Q: 51风流Cloud ALM has been available to customers for many years now as a cloud-based tool for 51风流solutions. What is new with respect to support for 51风流BTP?

A: In 51风流BTP we saw a gap in particular for the custom-built applications on top of 51风流BTP, Cloud Foundry environment. This was mainly due to the fact that both the Cloud Foundry environment and the Kyma environments of 51风流BTP are being based on open-source technology. Thus, there was a strong wish to have 51风流BTP support for , an open-source standard for observability.

Therefore, we introduced an OpenTelemetry-based approach with 51风流Cloud ALM. This includes central tools to reduce the mean time to detect issues, plus local tools to debug and fix issues. These help reduce the mean time to resolve. The approach also comes with library support to enable observability for custom-built applications. We now take this approach for both customer-built applications and also 51风流BTP-based SaaS applications.

Could you explain some of the new capabilities of 51风流Cloud ALM for 51风流BTP customers?

In the end, our approach is to enable observability based on our central operations platforms. This doesn鈥檛 mean we replace all local tools. Instead, we concentrate on the things that should be unified across all the different products in SAP, including applications provided by 51风流BTP.

One of these capabilities is the alert management. We think it鈥檚 essential that customers have one central place to access integrated monitoring with their existing IT service management processes. As an example, customers typically have their own ticketing systems. The observability data coming out of the observability tooling generates events. For these events we prefer to have automatically generated tickets. Instead of doing this for every local tool, it鈥檚 a good idea to do this centrally with 51风流Cloud ALM.

A second example is interfacing. We expose with 51风流Cloud ALM raw data interfaces based on the OpenTelemetry standard, also with a centralized approach. Otherwise, if every tool would get handled in an isolated way, the target infrastructure of the customer would need to adapt to all the different application programming interfaces (APIs). We are really driving the strategy of centralizing problem detection and analysis. Plus, the integration with the local tools help to debug and to resolve problems.

Could you summarize what other capabilities are available in 51风流Cloud ALM for 51风流BTP services?

A major target of 51风流Cloud ALM is to provide so-called end-to-end monitoring. One of the most interesting and known use cases here is . Here we safeguard reliable data exchange for instance via 51风流Integration Suite. We collect data from all the involved components — whether these are consumer or producer systems, or even integration components, so-called integration artefacts. Here we have the integration with 51风流Integration Suite, the cloud integration, where we retrieve message artefacts. Examples are master data integration and the 51风流Event Broker for 51风流cloud applications service.

A second use case I鈥檇 like to stress is . This provides transparency regarding the monitoring of automation created using 51风流Build Process Automation. These are processes or process steps that are executed automatically, like workflow management. We need to make sure, with our monitoring capabilities, that the processes are not interrupted and all is working.

A third use case is . It checks the technical health of 51风流BTP, such as for 51风流BTP Neo environment, 51风流S/4HANA Cloud, 51风流BTP Cloud Foundry environment, and 51风流Integration Suite. We have several technical KPIs the customer needs to know about so they can react appropriately. Also integrated in health monitoring is the monitoring of all applications built by the customer.

Some 51风流BTP customers may already have application performance management tools which they would like to use or want integrated. How do we help them to integrate into our operations platform?

51风流Cloud ALM is an open platform. This means it鈥檚 clearly our target to expose via APIs all data to third-party tools. There are examples where customers are using third-party analysis capabilities, or we have customers that want to work with their own data lake across all the platforms. 51风流Cloud ALM provides an OpenTelemetry-based approach to expose data to third-party APMs. The nice thing here is that we are not just doing this at the outbound side, it also includes the inbound side. So, if a customer has data somewhere else, they can import this data into 51风流Cloud ALM.

There certainly is a lot of functionality for 51风流BTP customers in 51风流Cloud ALM. What would be the next steps for customers or partners that want to leverage 51风流Cloud ALM for 51风流BTP?

We should distinguish two use cases. The first is those who want to monitor their own built applications. Here you would use our . This library helps to accelerate the whole instrumentation process. Let鈥檚 say you bind your application to this library and make the instrumentation visible in your application. Most of this is done via auto instrumentation. You don鈥檛 need to do something to your source code. It鈥檚 pure configuration that more or less gets the data from your own applications into 51风流Cloud ALM.

The second use case is if you want to connect SaaS applications from 51风流built on 51风流BTP with 51风流Cloud ALM. Here, we have descriptions in our expert portal on how to connect an 51风流BTP-based SaaS offering with 51风流Cloud ALM. With this you can send the data directly. This is also pre-configured and pre-instrumented. You only need to connect your SaaS service based on 51风流BTP with the 51风流Cloud ALM tenant. Then you get the data.

So, if you are a customer, go ahead and today. It鈥檚 available as part of your subscription and support contract. Configure it and then you have all the functionality needed for monitoring 51风流BTP.

鈥淐ustomers undergo a cloud transformation because they want to accelerate their time to realize business value and they want to take advantage of innovations faster,鈥� says Rohan Patel, global vice president, Customer Support and Innovation, Product Support 鈥� Procurement, SAP. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 what helps them maintain a competitive edge. And they want to do this while decreasing overall cost and minimizing risk.鈥�

This is where from 51风流can add real value. In this conversation, Patel gives insight into how 51风流support can benefit procurement customers.

Q: How are you supporting procurement customers on their journey to the cloud?

A: Support in the old, on-premise world is what I like to call 鈥榖reak-fix鈥� support. When something failed, the IT department submitted a ticket for support, the problem was fixed, and communication ended until another issue arose. Being a break-fix support provider doesn鈥檛 work in the cloud environment. Support requires speed and foresight. Support today identifies problems and optimizes products before customers even notice something鈥檚 not working as it should.

SAP鈥檚 strategy is predictive and proactive. We want continuous dialogue with customers to provide insights and guidance that are a value-add so we鈥檙e there long before something breaks. Success in the cloud requires adoption outside of the traditional IT environment. Business end users and lines of business, like procurement, supply chain, and HR, expect easy-to-use support portals that are intuitive and quickly anticipate user needs.

Can you share some examples of how 51风流is using data to enhance predictive support?

The tools we use not only help us deliver a great experience to our customers, they also continue to improve the 51风流solution itself. Consider the cloud health monitoring tools within , our application lifecycle management solution that helps streamline the way our customers implement and operate their cloud and hybrid environments across the entire business.

These tools can analyze what鈥檚 happening at the customer experience layer 鈥� for example, how long it takes a specific page to load, how long a user needs to complete a task, and any delays that could frustrate users, hinder adoption, and slow business outcomes. We act proactively at the engineering and cloud operations layer to help continuously improve that user experience.

We also use knowledge and data to improve the support experience, such as with , which has millions of active trading partners. This business-to-business network of companies connecting, transacting, and partnering with numerous shared processes and information expands the 51风流footprint well beyond the four walls of traditional operations.

Equally important is that our consumers today aren鈥檛 just IT support users, but rather work in departments throughout the clients鈥� operations. We鈥檝e taken steps to help meet the needs of all those different user types. We can provide quick, easy-to-understand guidance and answers to their questions using intuitive, personalized, and real-time channels driven by both humans and artificial intelligence (AI). This recommendation engine can provide guided answers based on who the users are, what they鈥檙e doing in the application, or what questions they ask. Users can quickly get useful and relevant content for answering their questions. The data from those guided-answer experiences is then fed into the product road map to help make the entire user experience more optimal and eliminate problems before they happen.

What have procurement customers seen in 2023 from 51风流support?

Our procurement coverage in 2023 hits two themes: harmonization and Real-Time Support. Let me begin with the harmonization perspective. We鈥檙e taking significant steps to create a customer support experience that鈥檚 consistent across all 51风流solutions 鈥� most notably a single entry point to 51风流support with . 51风流Fieldglass solutions went live on 51风流for Me case management in March 2023, and 51风流Ariba solutions and 51风流Business Network will soon follow. The 51风流for Me portal can give users the information and answers they need, specific to the solution they鈥檙e using. Earlier this year, procurement support went live on , where our business and IT users can access blog posts, tips, and connect with experts. Even customers and partners can provide an additional layer of insights and guidance, especially to a specific industry.

This year we have been working to bring our Real-Time Support concept to reality for procurement. When I talk about Real-Time Support, I mean support that is always on, continuously evolves, and adapts to customer needs. This can be direct access to support experts for business-critical processes when and where customers need it. It鈥檚 the live support channels such as , Ask an Expert Peer, context-sensitive help, , and AI-driven self-service access to a vast knowledge base and user community.

What do you see in the future of support for procurement?

I envision a day when customers don鈥檛 need to see or hear from us because we鈥檙e already working behind the scenes to give our customers a seamless, reliable, and delightful experience. The ultimate vision is preventative support with the help of AI and machine learning 鈥� in other words, self-healing IT systems.

Of course, there will always be times when customers need us. In those times, 51风流is prepared to offer as simple of a support experience as possible, such as with and direct access to experts or a quick call to solve an issue the moment it occurs. We also continuously look to disrupt ourselves by using new technologies such as ChatGPT to enable self-help or self-guidance and provide the best possible customer experience.

What sets the 51风流support experience apart in the industry?

51风流mindfully takes steps that help give customers the best support experience possible. We can provide a cohesive array of support channels, self-service tools, and cloud health and integration monitoring. Even with these successes in hand, 51风流will continuously push the boundaries of customer support with new innovations, help ensure support interactions are delightful, and offer Real-Time Support that can bring ambition to life.

Follow Rohan Patel on .

Regina Postman is part of Customer Support and Innovation Communications at SAP.

鈥淚n the past, users first selected the communication channel to raise a case before describing their issue. This was not always the most efficient way to solve their issues,鈥� states John Bowley, product manager, 51风流for Me Support Applications. 鈥淭o better direct the case to the supporting organization, it makes more sense to have customers first describe their issue and then be recommended the communication channel that would help solve it quickly.鈥�

In this interview, Bowley gives more insight into how the latest usage improvement of 51风流for Me is doing just that.

Q: What has been improved within 51风流for Me?

A: Our focus is to continuously find ways to minimize customer effort when contacting 51风流for help and that customers can quickly get the support they need. One important milestone is to simplify and streamline the end-to-end case creation and management process. 51风流users can now engage with 51风流support through the new application in and its use of artificial intelligence (AI). The focus is to provide suggestions, such as how to fill in values on the screen or how to best contact 51风流for help and support. AI helps predict all these values based on the system that鈥檚 been selected.

This new flow means we鈥檝e altered the order of how we route a support issue to the most appropriate place for quick answering. AI analyzes the information received and then gives the customer suggested values for the product information and product function. This means the customer鈥檚 issue is narrowed down to which product it relates to and then within what area of the product the issue is actually occurring. AI also suggests how the connection to 51风流support should best be made and to which channel 鈥� whether that鈥檚 , , or maybe opening a question in . This is what we call the channel recommender. The issue is then routed to the correct support engineer or team of support engineers.

What type of simplification does the get support application provide?

We鈥檝e rearranged the accessibility to existing Real-Time Support channels. On the previous platform, 51风流ONE Support Launchpad, customers were first asked to choose the support channel before describing the issue. For instance, the customer might have decided to do an Expert Chat and then started to describe the issue. What sometimes happened was the customer changed their mind, got pulled away, or any other circumstance. This caused a delay or break in the momentum of solving their issue.

The new get support application first asks customers to describe their issue. The system then recommends the best channel to take. Customers can choose to use this channel or decide that another channel may be a better fit.

In the future of get support there will be enhancements to help drive the AI to provide better and clearer support or assistance to customers. Our ongoing focus is to reduce customer effort and provide them with the information they need.

How does the get support application within 51风流for Me relate to Built-In Support?

Both the get support application and work in harmony with each other. Customers can create a support case within Built-In Support and they will also see it listed in 51风流for Me. The same for the reverse as well. The convenience of Built-In Support is to be able to post an issue from directly inside the application in use. Alternatively, there may be times where an issue may need to be raised or a question asked outside of Built-In Support; 51风流for Me would be ideal then.

Customers working within 51风流for Me will see the convenience of first telling us their issue and then being recommended the best channel to get it resolved. There are offered regularly to introduce customers to the get support application on 51风流for Me.

Regina Postman is part of Customer Support and Innovation Communications at SAP.

鈥淚t鈥檚 important we provide customers with a true feeling of being supported on their journey,鈥� states , senior vice president and global head of Product Support, 51风流Concur. 鈥淟ive interactions between our customers and our support engineers not only get cases solved faster, but they also work to build better relationships and understanding of how customers use our 51风流solutions.鈥�

In this interview, Vollan provides insight into the live, Real-Time Support interactions customers should tap into.

Q: When would Real-Time Support make sense for customers and SAP?

A: Most support-related questions can be more effectively resolved through . Whether customers have an urgent issue or even an easier, quick question, Real-Time Support can give customers an opportunity to reach out to 51风流in real time, right in the moment needed, or later through a portal case, depending on what is most convenient for them. Real-Time Support can be especially useful for very urgent issues. In those instances, customers might feel the need to connect with a person on the other end through a live support channel to make sure their issue is heard and acted on right then.

Let鈥檚 take a priority one issue, for example. The customer might have anxiety around when they鈥檒l hear from somebody. With Real-Time Support and its live channels, they can reach out to an 51风流support engineer immediately. Whether in or by using the service for some solution areas, these real-time channels can give customers the comfort in knowing they鈥檙e being helped quickly. This direct interaction can avoid the back-and-forth that is common in a portal case interaction. When you have a chat or a phone call, you can get to the heart of the matter a lot more quickly. This applies to any support-related issue.

What鈥檚 so special about Real-Time Support?

In our live support channels, the issue might get resolved immediately if the support engineer can see what鈥檚 going on through a screen share while speaking with the customer. This form of interaction helps build empathy between the customer and support engineer. The customer can feel and hear that we really care. The customer is at the heart of 51风流support. Our focus is to build up the connection through such conversations. It helps build loyalty and trust with the customer.

One of the most important things to customers is time. It鈥檚 essential for the support engineer to quickly understand the issue with as little effort as possible from our customers.

There are different ways customers can have that Real-Time Support experience. Could you touch on a few of those?

Yes, absolutely. The Expert Chat service can be extremely powerful. It can be very quick to access a support engineer live. Should the issue turn out to be very complex, the support engineer can create a case to pull in another team, if needed. Customers can also schedule a set time to connect live with a support engineer at their convenience.

51风流support is also investing in technology that will anticipate customer needs before they ask. Within the tool, when we notice customers are having problems, we鈥檒l be able to suggest knowledge content from within the product to help. Our ambition is to proactively notify customers before they notice an issue.

Finally, we also have another way for customers to find an answer very quickly on their own, without needing to connect with a support engineer: our self-service engagement, which is also part of Real-Time Support. We鈥檙e investing to make searches engaging, contextual, and relevant through our knowledge enablement platform and search engine in 51风流for Me. Its underlying technology uses analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning to help make the experience for customers personal. When they do a search, it should contain the answer they鈥檙e looking for within the first three to five results.

Why do you feel this Real-Time Support interaction is so important?

Three words come to mind: easier, faster, and personal.

It鈥檚 easier: customers can get most of their concerns resolved with less effort, and reducing customer effort is one of our top priorities.

It鈥檚 faster: customers can see a more rapid resolution or response time for most of their concerns, especially on urgent or critical issues.

It鈥檚 personal: customers can speak with a support engineer to discuss and explore issues. Conversation creates better context and understanding, both of which are particularly useful when issues are complex.

Real-Time Support helps customers and support engineers quickly find out what the issue is and what the impact and the urgency of the issue are.

What should customers remember about Real-Time Support?

Customers have many ways to interact with 51风流support in real time and support is always available 24/7. We offer relevant, contextual, personalized support though our knowledge base and Built-In Support to help speed case resolution for many issues. For complex issues, having opportunities for customers and our support engineers to interact in real time is the best way to build a connection and to resolve an issue. Holding a real conversation about an issue often leads to a much faster and better understanding of the challenges customers are facing. This can all lead to shorter resolution times.  

If we can give customers a positive experience with us every single time, show them we care about their issues, and do our best to resolve them, that can make a huge difference. Real-Time Support can give that great experience. Support is, at its heart, a people business.

Regina Postman is part of Customer Support and Innovation Communications at SAP.

鈥淎s part of the evolution in providing customers an even better 51风流experience, 51风流ONE Support Launchpad is now fully part of the 51风流for Me portal,鈥� says Peter Kappelmann, 51风流for Me product manager. 鈥淲e鈥檙e excited that customers can get even better insights into their 51风流product portfolio from within 51风流for Me,鈥� adds Anna Withum, 51风流for Me customer collaboration manager.

In this interview, Kappelmann and Withum give more details on what the replacement of 51风流ONE Support Launchpad means for customers.

Q: What鈥檚 the major difference between the old and new portal?

Kappelmann: 51风流ONE Support Launchpad was the single entry-point for the services and support world. Its main target audience was system administrators with a technical focus. With more and more applications being offered in the cloud, we鈥檙e also serving new target groups: the end users.

For some years now, has been reaching the end users. Thus, now was the right time to enhance the scope of 51风流for Me to also cover what鈥檚 been known in 51风流ONE Support Launchpad. 51风流for Me is designed to provide a holistic view of the customer鈥檚 51风流landscape, from products, orders, and licenses to provisioning, maintenance, and optimization. It made perfect sense to now include the support-related tools. Everything that was offered in the launchpad continues to be available in 51风流for Me. We have expanded the coverage for the needs of the end users. In 51风流for Me, we offer so-called dashboards that can give both technical and non-technical users the details they need. One dashboard is labeled 鈥�.鈥�

The newly developed tools on 51风流for Me make use of artificial intelligence (AI) features, which can simplify the user鈥檚 interaction with SAP. Examples include the support knowledge search or the channel recommender in the .

How were customers involved along this journey?

Withum: We already had a good relationship with our pilot group that was established on 51风流ONE Support Launchpad. From the very beginning we involved customers in the move to 51风流for Me. They received early prototypes and beta features to give us direct feedback on usability.

We had 51风流ONE Support Launchpad and 51风流for Me running at the same time. This gave us the opportunity to gather early insights and get feedback from the beginning. It also enabled us to tweak a few details and further improve the overall experience. Customers were at our side during the development, so we could build out the 51风流for Me portal together. They felt involved and heard.

Program participants helped define important aspects of 51风流for Me, such as the first-visit experience, navigation search, integration of applications, and more. Their insights helped us identify any shortcomings and design the final product. They also revealed potential deficits in the early stages, when they could be easily corrected. This type of collaboration will be extended and built upon in future projects.

What was key to the success of this large-scale migration?

Kappelmann: As mentioned, customer involvement was our key component in the migration. Not only were we building something new for our support customers, this was also new for SAP. We combined the service and support world, which included a lot of tools, Web sites, and services to offer our customers.

The key ingredient to success was considering the needs of the great number of users who would be touched by the move. For many customers, 51风流ONE Support Launchpad was their daily work environment. Having the launchpad and 51风流for Me run in parallel helped them get used to the new environment at their own pace. This also helped ensure the necessary acceptance.

What can customers look forward to in the future?

Withum: We will transition more and more 51风流line-of-business customer portals to 51风流for Me. The portal reduction will help simplify operation complexity and associated costs. More importantly, it will improve our customers鈥� user experience by replacing fragmented Web site landscapes with a central entry point across all 51风流solutions.

As it could get a bit overwhelming when a lot of services and tools are offered in one place, these will be enriched with new self-services and artificial intelligence. Add on top of that the diverse focus of users, and personalization and intuitive customization features will help the users see what鈥檚 really important for them. The addition of new self-service scenarios will help make transactions and the interaction with 51风流for Me more efficient and less time-consuming.

How can one get started with 51风流for Me?

Kappelmann: Explore and try out . Join our regular or quarterly rollout sessions where we share the latest news, features, and upcoming releases. 51风流for Me also has a vast knowledge library of information that fits each user鈥檚 level of need.

Regina Postman is part of Customer Support and Innovation Communications at SAP.

鈥淎t 51风流and our Real-Time Support channels, support engineers are in the driver鈥檚 seat to provide this experience,鈥� states Becky Doyle, global vice president and head of Product Support 鈥� People at SAP, the organization that supports human experience management (HXM) solutions from SAP, including 51风流SuccessFactors solutions. 鈥淧utting the 鈥榬eal鈥� in Real-Time Support is key as we continue to move into the future of how we help our customers, especially in the cloud solution world.鈥�

In this interview, Doyle explains the 鈥渞eal鈥� aspect of Real-Time Support and how it influences the possibilities behind always-on.

Q: Can you tell us a bit more about what you mean by the 鈥渞eal鈥� aspect?

A: Our approach offers an always-on support experience. This means that our customers can contact 51风流support experts for any problem they have. Sure, we use some cool technology to help make sure we have the answers in the best possible way. But at the heart, it鈥檚 a real and human interaction. Anytime a customer gets to work with a real person to solve an issue it creates a feeling of connection. This interaction could be a live voice call with the service, through a , or any other Real-Time Support channel. Embedded into the 51风流solution with , this real-time interaction can create a fantastic connection between customers and our support experts.

This connection is important and is sometimes a missed opportunity. We need to think of both our customers and support experts as people who work together to solve any problems and make sure the customer鈥檚 business runs as smoothly as possible. This feeling of connection through the live channels is valuable for both. My colleague, Mohammed Ajouz, described the criticality of in a Forbes article.

Partnering in real time gives our support experts an increased sense of purpose. It also connects them to what the customer wants to get accomplished. It鈥檚 different from having to submit a ticket to then walk through the problem and get the questions answered. The support experts can help a person, a human, with whatever they need to get done and the process can be faster as it solves the problem within a conversation. This is really powerful.

You mentioned the human side of the Real-Time Support approach. Is there data to show its benefits to the customer experience?

There鈥檚 a significant story to tell when we look at the experience our customers have with Real-Time Support. I already talked about the human aspect and the human element of it. When we look at the data, our customers typically get their cases solved faster through Real-Time Support and have a better overall experience. These also often get solved in a single interaction.

Imagine you have an issue and get your interaction solved as soon as you reach out to somebody. You get your answer in real time, when you need it. We can, of course, tie this time to money. Real-Time Support helps make sure our customers鈥� business continues to transact and flow the way they need it to. We believe the time-to-value of getting a problem solved helps reduce costs for the customer.

One key indicator we look at is the overall customer effort. As described in an , customer effort score is defined as the ease with which customers can use a product or service, resolve a support issue, or find the information they need. When we talk about Real-Time Support, we typically see the customer effort score really improve overall. Customers feel they need to put less effort into their overall support experience or work with our solutions to meet their business needs. This is a powerful human connection to the way we measure how good we are as an organization.

Real-Time Support holds particular importance for our customers in the HR world. What does this human interaction mean from a human experience management perspective?

I am excited about where things are headed for HXM customers. That 鈥淴鈥� in the abbreviation really brings out that experience 鈥� our human experience management. This is such a powerful shift in the HR space. As our HR solution suite becomes more digital and customers submit cases, more often it鈥檚 HR professionals that submit them. These are business users and not necessarily technical contacts. The experience goes beyond fixing the product from a technical perspective; it gets down to how customers use our 51风流solutions and what they need to best run their business. Real-Time Support can play a perfect part in bringing that experience home for our customers and our support experts. Being able to support them in real time helps make the overall experience simpler and more personal.

Real-Time Support helps us be more effective and helps our customers with that human and real interaction. When I talk about it from an HXM perspective, our 51风流products and solutions are interconnected to the world鈥檚 most important resources 鈥� the people using them. We help people get hired faster, trained better, and help them more effectively manage their performance. More importantly, we help provide for their families when our 51风流solutions facilitate their pay or can help them make smart decisions on their own career path. When it comes to support, there鈥檚 nothing more real than to enable our people to help our customers help their people.

Where do you see the future direction of Real-Time Support?

In the cloud space, support can鈥檛 simply be an island of helping customers when they come to us. We have the responsibility to work with product management, development, and operations teams across 51风流solutions. This close collaboration lets us influence 51风流product innovations to make our support more real and to provide that seamless support experience.

One focus of Real-Time Support is to embed artificial intelligence-driven self-service knowledge capabilities into our 51风流products as part of Built-In Support. Not only will customers have that true human interaction, they鈥檒l also be able to receive support information relevant to the 51风流solution in use.

Another future direction in our support transformation goals is to make support more personal for customers and to open a two-way channel of communication from within the 51风流product. The goal is to implement resolutions before business disruption can occur and proactively make customers aware of things before they happen. We want to directly connect them with information that鈥檚 relevant to the application in use or provide access to a real-time channel directly from within the 51风流solution. Both of these capabilities are pretty cool.

What do you feel is important to remember?

I encourage our customers to get 鈥渞eal鈥� with us through Real-Time Support. Try out Real-Time Support channels, especially when the topic could use that human touch. See how it feels to connect with us. Get real information and immediate answers to help you on your way faster.

Learn more about .

Regina Postman is part of Customer Support and Innovation Communications at SAP.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed or uncertain about this transformation process is normal. Those feelings are the reason tools and guidance are available to help you plan and execute a smooth transition to 51风流S/4HANA Cloud. Get the best possible support in understanding your data and visualizing the ways you can transform it.

Simulate How You Would Transform to the Future State

An important step in any transformation is to understand all the data and data objects that are underneath. This is where the new, cloud-based solution comes into play. This solution helps guide you through the relevant steps required for your business transformation and data migration.

51风流Business Transformation Center also helps make sense of the data that鈥檚 in your systems, so you understand your transformation needs. You can look at the existing data, analyze the data objects, and then scope your business and data transformation project. The first feature of 51风流Business Transformation Center is the digital blueprint, available as of March 2023. Based on data-driven guidance, it can enable you to define the migration and transformation scope from 51风流ERP Central Component (51风流ECC) to 51风流S/4HANA Cloud, private edition or on premise. Next steps would be the transformation of the data and finally the verification.

51风流Business Transformation Center can give you a streamlined and holistic approach to help manage your data transformation challenges with less effort and more satisfaction. It helps simplify, accelerate, and safeguard the project鈥檚 data stream with ready-to-use content, data-driven insights, and recommendations. It鈥檚 a software-as-a-service (SaaS) cloud solution powered by , the strategic cloud-based solution helping customers manage their entire application lifecycle. 51风流Business Transformation Center is included in 51风流Cloud service subscriptions and the 51风流Enterprise Support services.

Have Confidence in Your Decision

51风流Business Transformation Center comes with content and methodologies that can guide you through the necessary steps of data transformation 鈥� and guidance means quicker decisions with reduced complexity, effort, and risk. Overall, there can be an efficiency gain, which can translate into a shortened timeline of your transformation project. You should now feel confident in your decision and move to 51风流S/4HANA Cloud.

Read more about how to plan your 51风流S/4HANA Cloud transformation with .

Regina Postman is part of Customer Support and Innovation Communications at SAP.

Introducing the idea of bi-directional support.

Two-Way Support Communication with Bi-Directional Support

The vision behind bi-directional support is to provide proactive, two-way support communication. This means actively informing about support-critical information and potential issues related to the 51风流solution in use and well before you recognize that a problem might arise. Bi-directional support no longer waits until you reach out to us; it changes the way we interact with you.

Consider an example of what you may experience in daily life. Think of the times when something wasn鈥檛 working right on your cell phone. You likely preferred to search the Internet to fix the problem and avoid a call center with waiting times and back-and-forth. Even better is when you were made aware of what might affect your phone鈥檚 performance 鈥� such as bad reception, low memory, or a restart required to avoid an issue. This is the aim of bi-directional support within Built-In Support.

Live Recommendations Help Avoid System Interruptions

One of the key features to make Built-In Support bi-directional will be to provide live recommendations within the application or page in use. Live recommendations are pushed into Built-In Support to provide targeted information, support knowledge documents, and even hot support alerts. They鈥檒l inform users about critical 51风流solution issues that others may be experiencing. The information will also be relevant to the user鈥檚 role, such as for the key user or end user.

Live recommendations within Built-In Support are curated, published, and updated by 51风流in real time and supported by predictive artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms. The news and alerts can be pushed out immediately to all screens and can be pulled back or exchanged at any point in time.

Continuing the real-life example, live recommendations are like the “breaking news鈥� section of a news portal app on your cell phone, only for your 51风流solution. Don鈥檛 want to miss critical information? Want it at your fingertips and, if needed, just a click away? Then you might like the new live recommendations.

The live recommendations are application-focused and only visible where needed. We鈥檙e not distracting you with news or content unrelated to what you鈥檙e working on. It keeps troubleshooting efforts to a minimum while giving you the latest and most relevant support updates. Currently, bi-directional support is being tried out for 51风流S/4HANA Cloud. Over time, it will be expanded for all 51风流solutions that are integrated with Built-In Support.

Customer Effort Score, a Driver behind Bi-Directional Support

Happy customers are those that need little support interaction because their 51风流solutions run fine. Low interaction means low customer effort. As described in an , the customer effort score is defined as the ease with which customers can use a product or service, resolve a support issue, or find the information they need.

51风流uses the customer effort score as a customer satisfaction measurement. When answering tickets, we ask customers what their effort was behind their interaction with us to get the problem solved. Our focus is to solve any problems fast and to give customers an effortless support experience.

Additional Support Convenience with Bi-Directional Support

Bi-directional support builds on the existing Built-In Support features, such as initiating an , searching for knowledge, or creating a ticket for 51风流support. No changes need to be made to your 51风流applications and there鈥檚 nothing to install. Live recommendations are another convenient way of how 51风流support interacts with you. We continue to respond to the growing need for preventative and proactive support in the cloud to help shorten the time to solve your problems.

Built-In Support is the place to go should a problem arise in the application or on the page you鈥檙e using. It’s likely you鈥檒l find live recommendations already there to help you right away. Bi-directional support is taking another step forward in making Built-In Support more precise, accurate, and relevant about what鈥檚 affected and what you need to do. It鈥檚 convenient to get easy-to-access support information at the point of need and personalized to the application or page being used. That鈥檚 simple, that鈥檚 intuitive, that鈥檚 Built-In Support.

Learn more about .

Regina Postman is part of Customer Support and Innovation Communications at SAP.

鈥淭he support industry has been severely disrupted over the past decade, but much, much more in just the last few years since the pandemic started,鈥� stated Mohammed Ajouz, senior vice president and global head of at SAP. 鈥淲e have experienced more change in the last two years than we’ve had probably in two decades. We have watched support go from an afterthought to top of mind for CIOs, as they have seen how vulnerable their business could be with unforeseen or unpredicted crises.鈥�

The need to transform is further accelerated by the abundant availability of new technologies 鈥� such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, Big Data, in-memory computing, and hyperconnectivity, to name just a few. All these changes also have an impact on customer support. Having an outdated support model is no longer an option. In this interview, Ajouz describes why it鈥檚 key to give immediate support, why it鈥檚 important to predict potential issues before they could occur, and why an enterprise support organization needs to be more proactive in providing bidirectional support.

Q: Why is Real-Time Support valuable for customers?

A: Let me first provide some context around the disruption in the support industry. Technology is more complex and integrated. In the past, customers used to have a single mission-critical application. Today, most processes are mission critical and everything needs to be made available around the clock. What was once considered a luxury 鈥� such as offering 24×7 support 鈥� is now an expectation and customers are demanding their vendors take more responsibility for delivering business outcomes.

Customers today have much higher expectations of support, especially when it comes to real-time. Because expectations have changed so dramatically, creating a support case and waiting one or two days for a response is no longer an option. This is why 51风流created and fine-tuned with the basic objective of being available when the customer needs us most. That, in its simplest form, is the premise of what we鈥檙e doing with Real-Time Support.

Why is it important to strike the right balance between proactive and preventative versus real-time?

When a customer faces a problem, they expect 51风流to be there for them. Whether it鈥檚 through or , customers are working with the same pool of experts that typically process their cases. But we鈥檙e taking this one step further. What if we contacted customers before they even became aware of their problem? We are not only there in real time, but we are also pivoting from reactive support models to predictive and proactive support. The true value of those services lies in our ability to predict and solve customer problems before they cause any business interruption. This is the evolution of our Real-Time Support approach toward delivering better business outcomes.

We can tap into our vast repositories of information to analyze and understand the trends and patterns behind our customers鈥� system and software usage and drive differentiated customer experiences. The vast amounts of data about customer behavior and preferences previously collected but not effectively utilized is the foundation of our . The power behind the data lake, powered with AI, is our ability to incorporate this information into highly personalized customer experiences and learn from the past to predict the future. With access to this valuable knowledge, we will transform the support experience into one where support prevents an issue from becoming a business-impacting event.

Being proactive and preventative is our ultimate vision with Real-Time Support: not only to be there when you need us, but to be there before you even know you need us.

What will be the long-term impact of investing in real-time channels and in proactive, preventative support?

We expect our investments in Real-Time Support to improve our ability to better support the needs of our customers. Many market and industry studies have shown a direct correlation between customer loyalty and customer effort. As we reduce the amount of effort a customer experiences, the more loyal that customer is going to be. This relates to the as described by Gartner. This balance between effort and value becomes more critical with cloud customers. The reason? Cloud customers, unlike traditional IT departments, are business users and end users. We have simplified the interaction and made it easier and simpler for them to interact with support.

In the days of on-premise software, we communicated with IT power users who understood the technology and complications behind it. Those power users knew that a support case could take a few days to resolve. Our cloud customers鈥� expectations are significantly different and, as a result, our services have evolved to cater for these needs in the cloud. This is why Real-Time Support is so critical. It increases the value of solutions by lowering cloud customer effort to obtain them.

The premise of predictive and preventative support is a reduction in customer effort. And if there isn鈥檛 a problem because we resolved it ahead of time, that is the ultimate effortless experience we strive to deliver to our customers. Value and effort are directly correlated: more effort means less value, less effort means more value.

What are some recent enhancements of Real-Time Support?

Adding to the existing portfolio of Real-Time Support channels, we recently introduced . This service is supported by certified, external peers. This is ideal for asking non-critical questions and getting insights from experts outside of SAP. We initially started with 51风流SuccessFactors solutions and recently expanded it to include some of our core enterprise resource planning (ERP) and 51风流Business Technology Platform products. We are seeing a lot of momentum building among our customers.

Another enhancement is with . It has been expanded to also include medium-priority tickets for those times where customers need to speak with a manager. And finally, with our migration from our to 鈥�,鈥� the new single-entry point to 51风流support, the support case creation process can be much easier and powered by cutting-edge technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. This helps reduce the effort of our customers and ultimately provides them with an almost effortless experience.

Can you give us a sneak peek of what we can expect in the future of Real-Time Support?

Let me come back to the point that cloud customers expect a simpler, faster, and effortless experience in interacting with support. One of the key initiatives we鈥檙e working on is with . The basis of Built-In Support is to bring the entire support experience customers know from 51风流Support Portal or 51风流ONE Support Launchpad directly into the product. Rather than going to a portal to log a support case, query an existing case, initiate a chat, or search our knowledge base, we鈥檙e putting the power and full functionality of 51风流support within the product and at the customers鈥� fingertips.

Another aspect of our Real-Time Support approach is the move from the traditional unidirectional support 鈥� of customers reaching out to us when they need us 鈥� to bidirectional support. Not only can we communicate directly with customers, we can give them timely and relevant information about product issues or alerts, upcoming releases, product trainings, or any other information that enhances their experience with support at SAP. All this information would be relevant to the customer鈥檚 platform, product, or version and curated specifically to their personas. This is how we see 51风流support in the future: bidirectional, predictive, and effortless.

Follow Mohammed Ajouz on and .
Regina Postman is part of Customer Solution Support and Innovation Communications at SAP.

51风流is moving into the second year of its transformation of support. Andreas Heckmann, executive vice president and head of Customer Solution Support and Innovation at SAP, is excited about all that鈥檚 planned. 鈥淲e鈥檙e making great progress on our comprehensive vision to serve customers better along the entire lifecycle. We look forward to providing an even better experience around customer self-services,鈥� says Heckmann. 鈥淭his year is going to be a year of getting even more prescriptive and offering even more guidance to our customers. Functionality will be substantially expanded with a lot more content added for new products.鈥�

In this conversation, Heckmann gave more details on the goals and progress of this vision.

Q: 51风流Business Transformation Center will be introduced at this year鈥檚 51风流Sapphire, held in Orlando, Florida. Can you give details on what鈥檚 planned?

A: Customers will see a first version of what we call 51风流Business Transformation Center. This is part of the business transformation suite. The focus is to support customers in the planning stage of their 51风流S/4HANA software transformation. With this, customers can simulate their transformation and plan and anticipate what the transformation could look like when complete. Let me give an example. If a customer says, 鈥淲hat will it look like if we exclude certain company codes or business data?鈥� they will see in real time what this means to the amount of data and information needing to be transformed. The ultimate result is up-front insights that help customers shape and drive their transformation planning.

Can you share what鈥檚 planned around 51风流Cloud ALM?

We鈥檒l deeply embed business process modeling capabilities of the 51风流Signavio portfolio in 鈥� our strategic cloud-based platform for customers to manage their entire application lifecycle. Customers can get access to a world-leading business process management solution to discover and adapt 51风流best practices for accelerated solution delivery. Our focus is to give customers the best possible experience for their business users.

We鈥檙e also extending access to the to our 51风流Enterprise Support on-premise and cloud edition customers at no extra cost. Our customers can use the solution to help automate testing during their 51风流projects and validate their business processes when new 51风流releases are applied to the 51风流solution landscape. We expect to seamlessly integrate the Tricentis testing capabilities with a fully automated setup within 51风流Cloud ALM. These cloud-based test automation capabilities will help ease the testing of the 51风流solutions and help facilitate the adoption of 51风流cloud product releases.

In a world where we want to innovate and deliver value to end users and customers at an always higher speed, 51风流and Tricentis are significantly lowering the barrier to test automation. I鈥檓 very satisfied with the great partnership with Tricentis. This unique solution now brings test automation capabilities fully integrated in our business transformation suite for 51风流Enterprise Support customers.

You mentioned plans for new support functionality. Can you give some examples?

We are reshaping our content and knowledge management strategy to give customers a more robust search experience that leverages artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning optimizations, and analytics functionalities. This search index scans knowledge from many different data sources during a single search. “” will be the main entry point to 51风流support and for searches. Additional features help us understand and optimize the search and knowledge relevancy at every step of the support journey.

Within , we expect to see progress on the bidirectional dialogue in and 51风流for Me. This proactive, two-way communication will help keep customers informed about news related to the solutions they are using, alert them to potential issues to watch out for, and deliver support-critical information they need to know.

Furthermore, our focus for Built-In Support is to provide predictive and preventative support. Our biggest wins are when we resolve potential problems without customers even knowing a problem might exist or could have occurred. Our AI services help us continuously improve the quality of real-time recommendations for when customers search for a solution to an issue or create a case for support.

This year, Built-In Support will expand into more 51风流solutions and will grow the functionality and adoption across our cloud solutions.

There鈥檚 also a lot going on in 51风流internally as part of the transformation of support that indirectly benefits customers. Can you describe a few of these indirect benefits?

An important internal change is that we鈥檙e increasing our capability of cross-expert interaction. More and more cases require close collaboration of various experts with different knowledge, experience, perspectives, and so on. We鈥檝e introduced an internal framework and technology that lets experts dynamically assemble and quickly collaborate on the same problem. This reduces redundancy, eliminates handover delays, and collapses the time it takes to get experts aligned. That obviously accelerates the resolution substantially for our customers.

We鈥檝e greatly improved the predictive capabilities of our cloud solutions. These predictive capabilities will give us early indications when something isn鈥檛 right. This, in turn, prompts us to start analyzing the situation and take steps to mitigate and resolve issues before the customer even recognizes or experiences problems or service degradation on their end.

These capabilities have been successfully tested and applied to a set of our solutions. This year we鈥檒l extend the reach of these technologies and onboard increasingly more solutions. Plus, we鈥檒l also integrate this more closely into our processes so our experts can respond swiftly to evolving situations.

What suggestions do you have for customers in 2023?

While our focus is to be more prescriptive and provide more guidance to our customers, it鈥檚 important that they also make an effort to stay up to speed on the things we鈥檙e doing. Follow closely on what we鈥檙e doing, embrace the new ideas and improvements, and start consuming them. It鈥檚 my motto to 鈥渄elight customers always,鈥� and we鈥檝e had the customer in mind with all the improvements that we provide and whatever we do.

Customers should talk within their organizations about how they can use all of these improvements. If you have questions, reach out to us. Let鈥檚 explore together how you can make best use of them. At the end of the day, we can invent the best features and options, but if customers stick to their old ways and don鈥檛 embrace new approaches, they鈥檙e missing out on the many benefits that can make their work lives easier. That would be a shame.

Follow Andreas Heckmann on and .
Regina Postman is part of Customer Solution Support and Innovation Communications at SAP.

When we started to talk, Andreas Heckmann, executive vice president and head of Customer Solution Support & Innovation at SAP, stated, 鈥淎lthough it was one of the most challenging years in my professional history, it was still a year filled with opportunities. We are seeing traction in the transformation of customer support I described 11 months ago, and we delivered a great amount of product innovations to our customers.鈥�

In this interview, Heckmann gives insight into how the transformation is continuing.

Q: How has 2022 been going for you in the transformation?

A: I鈥檓 proud of the notable, award-winning product releases that are directly relevant to supporting economic needs and helping with sustainability. Take, for example, the solution. We鈥檙e enabling agribusinesses to tap into their vast source of farming data by leveraging data science and machine learning. This farming intelligence helps them leverage processes and services to better forecast and increase farming yields and quality. It will also help them use the right balance of water resources and help keep fertilizer and crop protection to a minimum. This will help agribusinesses play their part in becoming more sustainable and efficient.

Let me also point out the Hasso Plattner Founders鈥� Award-winning . It鈥檚 helping prevent pharmaceutical drug counterfeiting by enabling traceability and verification of products. With an estimated 50% or more of drugs in Africa being counterfeit, this product is definitely helping businesses to protect their intellectual property and, more importantly, people鈥檚 health and lives.

Another exciting sustainability-focused app release this year is the . In this project, we developed a solution extension to help neutralize carbon emissions. Our customers can access data collected from business travel and consider ways to watch their carbon footprint.

All of these solutions make me proud of our Customer Solution Support & Innovation organization and underscores the many ways we have our customers鈥� goals and priorities front of mind.

With 51风流Cloud ALM being available for a while now, how do you see it being taken up?

is the strategic platform to help customers manage their entire application lifecycle, both on premise and in the cloud. We will close out this year seeing quite an amazing uptake and increasingly more customers using the solution to help implement and operate their cloud and hybrid environments. There鈥檚 a big uptake on 51风流Cloud ALM, with functions being used more intensely for managing project teams and business processes. And it鈥檚 also getting third-party products integrated to give customers even more access to content such as guidance, tools, and checklists for their implementation projects and operations.

What progress are you making around Real-Time Support during this transformation?

We鈥檙e seeing momentum in continuously transforming the support experience for customers towards a more personalized and preventative experience. This could be when they search for a support answer in or , or when they report an issue. At the beginning of this year, we received a for the innovative way we鈥檙e capturing our customer problems in a structured and guided fashion. It鈥檚 what we call support assistant. This assistant guides customers through the process of logging an incident. Machine learning functionality suggests answers from our knowledge repositories along the way. Often the answer is found in the first bunch of suggestions and no incident needs to be created.

If no answer can be provided instantaneously, the incident information collected is packaged for a support engineer to process further during a or a scheduled appointment. We found that real-time interactions get completed on average within 30 minutes and two of every three issues are solved in the first chat. And these interactions support nine different languages, allowing for multi-language dialogues in real time. For either way the customer decides to go, the support assistant and help customers get their issues resolved much more quickly and efficiently.

Now imagine, we鈥檙e already working on the next generation of the entire support experience for customers to look forward to. With Built-In Support, we鈥檙e making significant progress as the tool for continuous two-way dialogue with customers. It鈥檚 our goal to proactively notify customers about critical issues or relevant new features and to take care of any potential problem before a customer becomes aware of it. We鈥檙e also eagerly awaiting the go-live of our new customer facing portal, 51风流for Me, with its completely redesigned user experience.

51风流is getting into customer-centric observability. What does this mean?

Customers trust us with their critical business processes. Service availability is the foundation of that trust and naturally a prime topic for us. We see it as a prerequisite for customer success. A focus of our transformation is to become more predictive and proactive. It鈥檚 what we鈥檙e calling customer-centric observability. This is a methodology that focuses on observing real user experience and outcomes to get advanced warnings ahead of customer-reported incidents and to quickly react upon them. By monitoring 1.5 billion system actions daily, we鈥檙e proactively watching for potential issues and preventing them from happening.

What can we expect for 2023?

Personally, I’m excited to see the launch of the bi-directional dialogue in Built-In Support and 51风流for Me. This means customers can look forward to getting an even better support experience in 2023. In addition, they should expect to get significantly improved results and optimized recommendations when searching for solutions or creating incident tickets for support. Plus, there will be more times when potential problems are resolved without customers even knowing any problems existed. While we will certainly not be done next year, given all we鈥檝e planned for our customers, I鈥檓 confident that we鈥檒l already begin reaping the harvest.

Follow Andreas Heckmann on and .
Regina Postman is part of Customer Solution Support & Innovation Communications at SAP.