RPA and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are essential for organizations that want to drive innovation and improve efficiencies across their business. Our solution, , was developed with the bold vision that business users and developers alike should be able to build automations and workflows. It is an AI-powered solution that combines workflow management, task automation, and decision management into one comprehensive, cloud-based solution running on (51风流BTP).

51风流is recognized in the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for RPA for our Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision. We believe this recognition exemplifies SAP鈥檚 strong product offering, continued investment in customer programs, and tight integration across 51风流S/4HANA, 51风流Signavio, and 51风流BTP.

Automate ERP and Other Business Applications with Confidence

Most business applications need to be adapted to meet customer specific requirements. Part of 51风流Build, 51风流Build Process Automation is uniquely designed to enable organizations to quickly increase the automation rate, extend, and customize business processes running in 51风流S/4HANA Cloud and other business applications.

In concert with other industry-leading solutions —聽,听, and聽聽—聽it enables customers to meet their specific requirements, quickly and easily connect any on-premise or cloud IT landscape, gain visibility into business processes and their performance, and then automate those processes seamlessly enabling end-to-end .

Gain a Competitive Edge with 51风流Build Process Automation

Since launching 51风流Build Process Automation, we have seen tremendous growth in customers embracing automation in impactful ways. , for example, increased its developer efficiency by 35% and accelerated back-order processing by 20%. automated data collection and entry tasks to increase the transaction volume in material logistics process for defective parts by over 40%. And has created over 60 bots to enhance process efficiency and accuracy across all business areas.

Next Steps

To learn how 51风流Build Process Automation adds value to your cloud ERP, you can that address specific challenges in your and processes. And, if you鈥檙e ready to unlock the full potential of automation and AI, take the next step with the following resources:

• and
• Activate your entitlements (existing RISE with 51风流and GROW with 51风流customers)

JG Chirapurath is chief marketing officer for 51风流BTP.

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner and Magic Quadrant is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from SAP. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of 骋补谤迟苍别谤鈥檚 research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

From streamlining financial operations to engaging with employees to customizing procurement processes, automation is becoming pervasive and transforming business models across industries. This technology is breathing new life into opportunities that go far beyond automating simple, rotary tasks. In fact, it鈥檚 crucial for customers to understand how their mission-critical business processes could flourish by implementing end-to-end automation solutions.  

Is it possible to streamline processes between existing 51风流and non-51风流applications? What about an ecosystem of on-premise and multi-cloud environments that needs integration between customers, employees, and partners? Can organizations assess the impact of their automations? Are there specialized insights to help drive business agility and respond effectively to market changes?  

The answer is yes. 

from 51风流uses best-in-class 51风流technologies 鈥� , , , and 鈥� to help connect and automate complex, end-to-end business processes. These technologies work in concert to enable customers to quickly and easily connect any on-premise or cloud IT landscape, gain visibility into business processes and their performance, and then automate those processes seamlessly. Since announcing this framework at 51风流Sapphire, we鈥檝e seen incredible customer adoption and momentum.  

Today, I鈥檓 excited to share recent examples.聽聽

, the world’s largest almond processing and marketing cooperative, has transformed its customer satisfaction and business process efficiency with 51风流solutions. It deployed 51风流Integration Suite and 51风流Build solutions to help reduce the amount of time to generate external content for its brokers, 51风流Signavio solutions to help identify and take action to improve critical business process gaps, and automation to help capture contract and pricing information that feeds directly into 51风流S/4HANA.聽

, which specializes in cloud communications and workstream collaboration services, has saved over 800 hours of manual efforts per quarter by leveraging an automated bot with built-in AI to validate over 25,000 invoices. This has resulted in delivering a 300% increase in productivity in the audit process and incident management tracking.

leveraged 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP) as a part of its transformation to 51风流S/4HANA. By implementing 51风流Integration Suite and 51风流Build solutions together alongside its ERP implementation, the company sped up innovation and reduced its customization footprint by 94% 鈥� all while automating mission-critical processes.  

Despite being in different industries, Blue Diamond Growers, Avaya Corporation, and Hitachi High-Tech all recognize the tremendous opportunity for enterprise automation and jump-started their digital transformation journeys with 51风流technology. No matter what your level of experience may be or where you鈥檙e at in your automation journey, ! 

JG Chirapurath is chief marketing and solutions officer for 51风流BTP and AI.

Contemporary businesses often grapple with the dual challenge of managing cost pressures while simultaneously driving innovation to maintain competitiveness. On one hand, business models must be further optimized to unlock efficiencies and margin potential through standardization and automation. On the other hand, the exploration of novel business models is critical, despite associated uncertainties and the potential need for extensive transformation efforts.

To manage and further optimize ongoing business operations, outsourcing entire business processes to external service providers rather than operating them in-house can prove beneficial. Similar to the software as a service (SaaS) business, there is an emerging market of service providers that use cloud-based technologies to assume responsibility for the execution of business processes.

BPaaS in Practice

BPaaS means entrusting the service provider to manage and maintain the defined business process. In contrast to business process outsourcing, BPaaS is an evolution in which the provider has automated the delivery of business process outcomes to a high degree using modern technologies such as machine learning and robotic process automation (RPA). Obvious areas of application include business processes with a high number of transactions that are highly repetitive and homogeneous, which includes invoice verification in procurement, receivables management in sales, and auditing of travel expense claims.

For instance, 51风流offers as part of the 51风流Concur portfolio. Intelligent Audit is a customized service for travel expense claim auditing, enabling customers to ensure compliance with their company travel policy. This helps ensure that the amounts entered match the receipt data, that the correct tax rates are applied, and that the costs being charged are within company-specific limits. Moreover, employees are given direct and specific instructions about what to do to correct any incomplete or incorrect claims for travel expenses.

51风流already provides this service to more than 4,000 customers and has continuously increased process automation over more than 10 years. At the same time, 51风流cooperates with experienced third-party service providers that perform some of the audits that still need to be carried out manually. Last but not least, it is necessary to fulfill country-specific tax laws as well as other compliance requirements.

Advantages for Customers

The BPaaS model improves customers鈥� ability to accurately predict costs because the services are usually billed based on usage. In the example of travel expense auditing, a fixed amount is paid for each audited claim for travel expenses, regardless of how complex each individual audit actually is. Additionally, performance-based remuneration can be agreed upon with the respective provider. One study commissioned by 51风流revealed that 94% of all executives already believe that modern technologies can improve the quality of audits.

BPaaS generally results in the advantages for customers that include:

• Focusing on core competencies
• Outsourcing of repetitive operational activities
• Achieving process results that are only possible through cross-company best practices
• Predictable usage-based costs

Advantages for Providers

Providers use modern technologies to significantly reduce the volume of manual activities and, in turn, aim for a higher level of automation. Due to the increasing number of customers, the sheer amount of business process data being accumulated is giving rise to another growing asset: the ability to dynamically determine best practices and thus continuously improve and optimize the service. This increases the value of the service for each individual customer.

The emergence of federated learning has become its own field of research within machine learning because it enables providers to address the requirements relating to data security and data protection more effectively. In addition, the higher level of automation results in greater profitability for the provider.

BPaaS thus generally results in the following benefits for providers:

• A significant reduction of manual activities through modern technology utilization
• Dynamic determination and continuous further development of best practices based on business process data from a wide customer base
• Improved profitability 鈥� and competitiveness 鈥� due to the increasing level of process automation

Innovation at All Levels

Table 1: Process automation in cloud computing

The obvious areas of application for BPaaS include business processes with a high number of transactions and highly repetitive and homogeneous work聽steps that do not have many industry-specific or regional differences.

BPaaS can be viewed as the logical progression of the cloud service model because many BPaaS services will be implemented on the basis of familiar SaaS solutions. At the same time, today鈥檚 SaaS solutions can already facilitate integrated automation of certain process steps.

Finally, customer-specific requirements and enhancements can be implemented using tools for process automation from known platform-as-a-service (PaaS) environments. This means that the provider can also implement the necessary 鈥渓ast mile鈥� of process responsibility.

51风流itself will only offer a few selected business processes as BPaaS. In keeping with our corporate strategy as a global provider of cloud services, such an offering is only pursued if there is significant market demand and a high degree of automation can be achieved. Therefore, the large majority of BPaaS solutions are and will be offered via our partner ecosystem. In particular, our advisory partners have the in-depth expertise and extensive capacities required to offer BPaaS across larger business domains.

It is crucial for companies to remain in contact with their service providers to pursue the right strategy for their business regarding where they retain business process responsibility and where they hand over responsibility to service providers. When opting to use BPaaS, companies can redirect the saved time from operational process optimization toward innovation, ultimately achieving the entrepreneurial ambidexterity described above.

Claus von Riegen is head of Innovation Strategy and Services at SAP.

The aerospace and defense (A&D) industry is battling similar woes, with 70% of companies in the sector experiencing an turnover. The loss of skilled workers notwithstanding, delays in hiring, training, securing worker clearances, and rising costs translate to challenges in keeping production up to match demand. Much like the civil aviation workforce that moved on, 75% of the labor pool in A&D left for career advancement, while 31% departed for a better work location or for a remote-working opportunity.

While enticing the reluctant workforce to return with higher pay and perks remains an option, the industries are fast realizing that amid the labor and cost-surge crisis, innovations in production planning and creating efficiencies in throughput processes are now paramount.

Bridging Silos with Automation

Manufacturing efficiency isn鈥檛 always achieved until the production of the 100^th unit. To overcome this, intelligent software can be used to run recreations on simulation capability tools. Everything from the projected manufacturing assembly process, field capability and configuration process, flight operations, and maintenance performance can be simulated in a virtual world via a , even before the first cutting or bending of sheet metal. This way, any aircraft or engine part that is virtually simulated is manufactured efficiently right from the first unit produced.

Similarly, with robotic process automation (RPA), a digital thread can be created to bring information from the upstream engineering departments and auto-generate work instructions to provide seamless information routing to the downstream manufacturing departments. With , organizations have the power to design, simulate, and monitor processes to help ensure that transformation value is part of the company鈥檚 DNA. This intelligent enterprise philosophy helps in minimizing the handover time between processes. As a result, hitherto system silos can be negated to reduce the overall throughput time. Also, short-term planning involving supply chain, parts, and tools can be better optimized to match resource availability.

While RPA can create process efficiencies, robotic interventions are already improving the manufacturing process.

Replacing Skilled Labor with Technology Augmentation

With Industry 4.0, facilities across the industrial landscape are introducing a digital, end-to-end workflow with additive manufacturing. In Q2 last year, the Association for Advancing Automation the ordering of over US$580 million worth of robots, up 25% from 2021. In the aerospace industry, robots are mastering the drilling and fastening function with a higher degree of accuracy than a real person and saving time along the way.

Likewise, robotic systems applying sealant to aircraft structures is resulting in 20% time-savings. Robots are also being used for quality assurance during manufacturing, inspection of active-duty aircraft, welding, painting, and polishing. While robots have 95% time-savings in aircraft washing, welding automation is expected to fill the nearly 400,000 welding vacancies anticipated in the U.S. by 2024.

With organizations ready to embrace automation, the need of the hour is to simplify adoption. The solution can make integrating robots as easy as plug and play. So, whether it is cross-docking items on trolleys at goods receipt, put-away trolley activities, or even robot-enabled pick-pack-and-pass functions, 51风流Warehouse Robotics hands warehouse operators a shot in the arm by supporting an array of scenarios. Quick to implement and with no additional licensing required, the solution can give customers running warehouse management operations an easy, low-risk entry into agile warehouse robotics.

But with time- and cost-savings featuring prominently on the aviation industry鈥檚 agenda, how can customer experience stay optimum?

Boosting Customer Satisfaction with Technology Aids

For an industry where small margins contribute to survival, reliance on customer loyalty is huge. Variables like speed and convenience, therefore, play a major role in building customer loyalty. But with labor shortages wreaking havoc, digital transformation is emerging as a viable solution.

For instance, every manufacturer or supplier has their own portal to document their parts or assets, and this causes A&D companies to deploy a manual workforce to track every part coming from hundreds of manufacturer portals. can help overcome this challenge by provisioning for every asset to reside on a single platform. Now, A&D companies can simply connect their back-end systems to the network, fetch data directly into their systems, gain insight into the transactional data of an asset, and execute maintenance activities. This way, 51风流Business Network for Asset Intelligence 鈥� a cloud-based network 鈥� can limit the use of the workforce and create efficiencies by facilitating secured information exchange between various roles in asset-intensive industries comprising of equipment manufacturers, operators, maintenance providers, and others.

Also, A&D aftermarket providers process invoices from hundreds of airlines or aircraft operators. Their receival, approval, and logging could be automated to better utilize scare resources. Similarly, bots can read customer complaints, assess the degree of importance, categorize them, and automatically forward them to designated departments for speedy resolution.

If the pandemic taught us the importance of supply chain resilience, its aftermath and the evolving geopolitical crisis drives home the significance of innovation in manufacturing to combat sudden spikes in demand amid rising costs and a depleting workforce.

There will always be unpredicted situations. That said, the goal is to achieve a planning stability for all companies in the industry. Reducing risks through additional information and better planning will allow companies to establish a more stable environment with fewer uncertainties. And now, the industries can take heart from the fact that in automation, they have an ally that can turn organizations and the sector at large into intelligent and resilient enterprises.

Learn how automation can drive resilience in the aerospace and defense sector at .

Torsten Welte is global VP and head of Industrial Business Unit for Aerospace & Defense at SAP.

Every year, an increasing number of organizations leverage automation and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to drive innovation and improve efficiencies across their lines of business and business application processes. SAP鈥檚 solution, , is an AI-powered, no-code solution that combines workflow management, task automation, and decision management into one comprehensive, cloud-based solution running on (51风流BTP).

We believe this recognition serves as an acknowledgment of SAP鈥檚 continued leadership in these categories and commitment to providing world-class support for our customer鈥檚 mission-critical business processes and applications.

Gain a Competitive Edge with 51风流Process Automation

It鈥檚 clear that process automation technology is a game changer. Since launching 51风流Process Automation, we鈥檝e seen tremendous growth in customers embracing automation in impactful ways. , for example, developed multiple automation bots to execute routine tasks. One bot can successfully classify and process over 6,000 e-mail attachments per year, based on if the document is an invoice, auto-confirmation, or delivery note.

51风流Process Automation helps our customers:

Build with Simplicity
51风流Process Automation was developed on the bold vision that business users should be able to build and enhance automations and workflows by themselves with low-code/no-code technology, while IT retains governance and compliance. Unlike other RPA vendors, our enables customers to adapt, improve, and innovate business processes and operations without the complexities of using multiple tools.

Automate Faster
Backed by 50 years of running highly complex business processes and applications, 51风流is uniquely positioned to understand the opportunities of automation and AI. SAP鈥檚 domain expertise in lines of business, such as finance and HR, and related business processes like and enables us to provide customers with out-of-the-box content. Our prebuilt process content, RPA bots, and templates can make it easy for customers to jump-start innovation and accelerate their time-to-value. When paired with the , leading process analytics and modeling solutions, customers can quickly move from process insights into actions with tailored automation recommendations.

Operate Confidently
To automate and enhance business processes and applications, an organization needs a reliable and secure platform. 51风流customers can rest assured knowing the 51风流Process Automation solution is part of 51风流Business Technology Platform 鈥� SAP鈥檚 trusted, enterprise-grade, multi-cloud platform. This means customers can now focus on empowering their business users to automate processes without having to be concerned about security.

Next Steps

When leveraging RPA technology, the opportunities range from streamlining financial processes, HR onboarding, call center support, and much more. Consider what business outcomes your organization could achieve with this technology. And, if you鈥檙e ready to unlock the full potential automation and AI, take the next step with the following resources:

• Visit the .
• Get hands-on with or .
• Read the .
• Read for a historic perspective and road map updates.

JG Chirapurath is chief marketing and solutions officer for 51风流BTP.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of 骋补谤迟苍别谤鈥檚 research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from SAP.

51风流provides:

• An integrated suite of end-to-end business applications to run your business across all industries and lines of business
• A comprehensive business-centric platform, with a unified programming model and unified design system, bringing IT and business together to modernize processes and enable rapid innovation 鈥� now

The low-code/no-code offering services in 51风流BTP empower IT and citizen developers alike to quickly build enterprise-ready apps, automations, workflows, and chatbots no matter their skill level or coding expertise. Our customers can build enterprise apps fast with SAP鈥檚 unified development experience and an ever-growing array of pre-built business content for any line of business, all natively integrated with your 51风流applications.

Examples include to automate tasks in any line of business 鈥� be it finance, sourcing and procurement, manufacturing, sales, and services 鈥� and almost for the 51风流Workflow Management service.

Another example is 51风流SuccessFactors Work Zone, which offers a prepackaged experience specifically to address the needs of HR organizations based on 51风流Work Zone, with additional functionality such as workflow and mobile services. It has been recognized recently as a Top HR Product by and the . Additionally, 51风流Business Application Studio comes with pre-built components, wizards, and sample apps.

51风流unifies the developer experience with low-code and no-code enhancements on 51风流BTP to help:

• Maximize speed and agility and reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) through accelerated delivery
• Bridge the gap and increase adoption through co-development between business and IT
• Enhance return on investment (ROI) by leveraging existing investments through seamless integrations
• Accelerate time to value by implementing best practices with pre-built content packages

Our low-code/no-code offering covers three areas:

For process automation, we offer 51风流Workflow Management and 51风流Intelligent RPA, enabling citizen developers to easily build workflows and to automate tasks. On top of that, 51风流Process Automation can bring no-code process automation to the next level. 51风流Process Automation is currently available for co-innovation partners, with general availability planned for the first quarter of 2022.

For low-code/no-code application composition, we launched 51风流AppGyver and new functionalities in 51风流Business Application Studio to enable the entire developer continuum to accelerate application development. 51风流AppGyver allows citizen developers to build highly sophisticated standalone applications or extensions without writing a single line of code. With 51风流Business Application Studio, we also deliver a simplified application development journey to the professional developer with a low-code perspective.

In the area of digital experience, we are offering 51风流Work Zone, 51风流Launchpad, and 51风流Mobile Start to help drive employee productivity and make newly built apps available to everyone in the company.

What Else Is New at 51风流TechEd?

Let鈥檚 go into some specifics for each of the areas in our new unified low-code/no-code offering:

• 51风流Business Application Studio has seen a dramatic improvement in development productivity through the low-code/no-code experience now available.
• We鈥檝e also fully integrated the acquisition in the no-code space. 51风流AppGyver is now part of CPEA, available to all our customers as well as planned through the free tier model in the first quarter of 2022.
• We鈥檝e made significant improvements in our SAPUI5 technology performance, which can be of immediate benefit to 51风流S/4HANA and any other 51风流product built on top of the technology within 51风流BTP.
• Launching 51风流Process Automation brings an elevated user experience for citizen automation in a no-code development environment. To make citizen developers fully productive, the new solution provides end-to-end automation capabilities leveraging advanced workflow management and embedded RPA functionality in a simple drag-and-drop user interface.
• Last but not least, we鈥檝e delivered artificial intelligence (AI) into our workflow engine, so that the AI system monitors the context with which you approve or not on a given workflow, building up the relevant models of your approval process flow. Your workflow becomes more and more intelligent over time, out of the box.

I invite you to attend 51风流TechEd sessions to learn more about our low-code/no-code offering and how 51风流BTP is now accessible to anyone. You鈥檒l find a selection of personally recommended sessions below. Let鈥檚 explore together how 51风流BTP can help you rapidly integrate, automate, and extend business processes for security and performance at scale across your organization.

Michael Weingartner is president of 51风流Business Technology Platform Core at SAP.

But this is just a first step. Taken to the next level, intelligent RPA, also called 鈥渉yperautomation,鈥� offers even more valuable benefits by combining traditional RPA with artificial intelligence (AI) and low-code/no-code development.

As an example, repetitive tasks and routine activities in finance, purchasing, and customer service were preventing Villeroy & Boch, one of Europe鈥檚 oldest ceramic manufacturers, from improving operational efficiency and delivering great customer service. The German premium tableware and bathroom products company implemented 51风流Intelligent RPA for routine activities, helping streamline workflows and free up staff to focus on strategic activities.

Like other 51风流customers benefiting from hyperautomation, Villeroy & Boch started with automating simple, frequently occurring tasks, such as responding to standard e-mail inquiries with attended RPA bots. Previously known as robotic desktop automation, attended RPA is a software assistant for the human user and interacts with a desktop application while respecting applicable business logic.

Operating internationally in 125 countries demands smooth workflows and operational efficiency across several business functions, but the ceramics group always had a bigger vision. The company wanted to create a fully automated invoice error-handling process by combining 51风流Intelligent RPA and 51风流AI Business Services to handle unstructured data and documents.

Now advanced RPA bots autonomously trigger tasks and automate more complex work such as processing attachments from e-mails according to their type and predefined confidence thresholds. So far, the 10 digital assistants Villeroy & Boch has deployed are handling 66,000 documents a year.

鈥淎lthough we鈥檙e just at the beginning of our journey with 51风流Intelligent RPA, we are already realizing its potential to help us work more efficiently, serve customers better, and gain competitive advantage,鈥� said Daniel Neuhaeuser, head of ERP Core Solutions at Villeroy & Boch.

The advantages of going beyond traditional RPA and tapping the potential of hyperautomation are becoming more widely acknowledged. Industry analysts have forecast that the worldwide hyperautomation-enabling software market will reach nearly US$600 billion by 2022.

Hyperautomation services such as 51风流Intelligent RPA enable companies to quickly and easily create bots to emulate human users and automate tedious, repetitive, mundane tasks. For example, today鈥檚 office workers spend a lot of time moving between different applications and must often reenter or copy and paste data, such as a customer鈥檚 name and address details, from one application to another.

Earlier this year, 51风流Intelligent RPA was cited as a Strong Performer in . According to the report, 鈥淪AP鈥檚 RPA solution is a strong alternative for 51风流customers, particularly for enterprises concerned with bots disrupting core 51风流systems and those usually needing the central 51风流development team to design, develop, and maintain RPA for clear accountability, or for companies seeking a feature-rich RPA tool that comes with a broad ecosystem of partners.鈥�

Typically, customers report that 51风流Intelligent RPA deployments free up between 15 and 30% of employees鈥� time, which means they can focus on tasks that deliver greater value to the organization and improve the customer experience.

Specific benefits of using 51风流Intelligent RPA include being able to use tools such as , built-in integration and content for business process management, and fast, cost-effective deployment. By opening current tools to everyone in the enterprise, 51风流Intelligent RPA extends its reach beyond software developers. Business users who have no coding skills but have functional expertise and technical acumen can become citizen developers and build their own automations.

To support this mission and help automate tasks in business processes, 51风流Intelligent RPA offers a new bot-building and execution experience and a cloud-based design studio. This allows users to create and deploy software bots as digital assistants that automate repetitive tasks through a low-code approach.

This low-code tooling speeds up implementation time and offers a short time to value. More than 200 prebuilt bots are now available within 51风流Intelligent RPA to help automate tasks, improve productivity, and make work more interesting for employees.

2018-2020 — How 51风流Became an RPA Vendor

Let me tell you how 51风流started in the RPA market: Three years ago, after having been part of SAP鈥檚 machine learning initiative, I decided to focus on creating further value for 51风流customers by automating business processes. For this, we put together a strategy and a business case and built a development team. We merged 51风流technology with proven RPA technology from Contextor, acquired in 2018.

May 8, 2019, was a great day for us, with the launch of 51风流Intelligent RPA at SAPPHIRE NOW; our booth and our sessions were fully packed and we received a lot of positive feedback from 51风流customers and partners.

We rapidly closed our first customer deal with Villeroy and Boch, and the solution spread further. It received a lot of interest from more customers and partners that experienced our to experience the outcomes of our solution in their own IT landscape.

Via many interactions with our ecosystem and analysts, sharing our road map, and getting new ideas, we constantly improved 51风流Intelligent RPA. We enabled more than 50 partners worldwide, which helped us grow our customer base in any industry and any region of the world. End of 2020 we reached a major milestone with 1 million automations over the year:

According to a survey from another analyst firm in the fourth quarter of 2020, 51风流is already in the Top 3 Automation Product Suppliers across the Global 2000 companies. is an annual ranking of the top 2,000 public companies in the world created by Forbes magazine. Published since 2003, it is based on a mix of four metrics: sales, profit, assets, and market value. These very large companies are the core of 51风流customers, many of them having deployed 51风流ERP and other 51风流software for decades.

This survey shows that we have succeeded in providing these customers with an 51风流solution that fits their needs. Three months ago at , we unveiled 51风流Intelligent RPA 2.0, a major release of our product geared toward democratization of automation. It offers bot-building capabilities following a low-code or no-code approach, enabling non-technical business process experts to create customizable automations with clicks, not code. In addition, are available to automate and drive efficiencies in 12 lines of business for any industry, with about 60 prebuilt bots only for .

This new release of 51风流Intelligent RPA provides high flexibility while helping ensure IT governance. It received great feedback from the customers: 鈥淕reat job, we saw and experienced many steps that have become much easier during the robot creation process,” said Balbir Singh Dhillon, Associate Director Intelligent Solutions at Zuellig Pharma. “Just the email capabilities alone save a lot of time and places that functionality in the hands of the citizen user and no longer dependent on experienced developers. The look and feel and the user experience were really great, and I can only see the product getting richer with additional features.鈥�

2021 — 51风流Named a 鈥淪trong Performer鈥� in The Forrester Wave™: Robotic Process Automation, Q1 2021

At the end of last year, Forrester invited 51风流to participate in its evaluation, . The report is now published, and in this evaluation, 51风流was cited as a Strong Performer.

According to the Forrester report, 鈥淪AP鈥檚 RPA solution is a strong alternative for 51风流customers, particularly for enterprises concerned with bots disrupting core 51风流systems and those usually needing the central 51风流development team to design, develop, and maintain RPA for clear accountability, or for companies seeking a feature-rich RPA tool that comes with a broad ecosystem of partners.鈥�

We could not agree more. Creating an RPA solution for 51风流customers, our aim was to bring an automation tool that fits in their IT landscape and fulfills all of their governance requirements. Because their enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a key component of their daily operations, it is finely tuned by the IT department to run smoothly. For sure, our customers do not want any disruption in the way their ERP runs and need that any software robot interacting with the ERP to be fast and efficient, but without any risk of generating extra system load.

The prebuilt bot templates available in our 51风流Intelligent RPA store are directly created and maintained by major 51风流product teams, such as 51风流S/4HANA already and soon 51风流SuccessFactors and 51风流Ariba. This approach offers a strong cohesion among existing 51风流systems in place, increasing the bots’ performance. Our prebuilt bots are constantly updated and upgraded to support our customers’ latest ERP, HR, or releases.

We aim to provide the best RPA solution for 51风流customers and this will go far beyond robotic process automation. The portfolio is a strategic initiative from 51风流to deliver process excellence by analyzing, improving, and monitoring processes. Together with 51风流Workflow Management, 51风流Intelligent RPA turns process insights into actions to help drive digital transformation. It allows non-technical users to create automation scenarios without code, and to deliver outcomes quickly with predefined content.

Let us accelerate your business transformation journey — I would be very happy to welcome you as our customer or partner, to do this automation journey together.

Sebastian Schroetel is vice president and head of 51风流Intelligent RPA.

RPA does not stand for 鈥渞ecovery from pandemic aftermath,鈥� but it could serve as an alias for the technology during the current economic downturn.

RPA is defined by IDC as a class of software designed to automate or augment repetitive tasks that require a significant manual effort. RPA using software scripts or robots. Although not new, it has been catapulted into the limelight by the business-process vulnerabilities that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed.

鈥淐ompanies find themselves adapting faster and faster to new circumstances while trying to maintain seamless operations,鈥� says Sebastian Schroetel, vice president of Machine Learning and Intelligent Robotic Process Automation at SAP. 鈥淩PA provides a way to manage the demand peaks, cut costs, and free up employees for higher-value tasks.鈥�

Another example of RPA鈥檚 use during the pandemic is illustrated by the Swiss Canton of Z眉rich, which deployed a solution to cope with a deluge of short-time work requests. The number of requests per month exploded from around 10 to 30,000. By deploying an RPA solution, processing time per request was shortened from 25 minutes to 20 seconds.

But even beyond COVID-19 and the crisis, RPA is also viewed by some analysts as a means to counter the . According to David Vellante, chief analyst at Wikibon, global challenges like climate change, global competitiveness, aging populations and infrastructure, deficits, mass immigration, sustainable food sources and healthcare all will require — and RPA will be on the menu.

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Defying Cuts in IT Spending

Despite the for 2020, Vellante is bullish on RPA for this year and beyond. 鈥淩obotic process automation solutions remain one of the ,鈥� he wrote recently. And compared to other technology investments, he says RPA is 鈥渢he enterprise software sector with the highest spending momentum — .鈥�

Similarly, IDC identified RPA as a key investment technology for the post-COVID rebound in its recent . One of the use cases that will see the greatest growth in spending is RPA-based claims processing in insurance.

Enterprise software providers also expect an accelerated uptake of RPA projects. Worldwide according to San Francisco-based Grand View Research, and is expected to grow between 29 and 41 percent over the coming five to seven years.

鈥淭he coronavirus pandemic has increased demand in RPA,鈥� says Al Hilwa, senior director of AI, Machine Learning, and Platform Technology Research, SAP. 鈥淭he integration of machine learning into RPA is driving many of the new investments, including more funding and acquisitions.鈥�

Hilwa also sees a shift to RPA into the cloud on the horizon as players focus on “unattended” RPA, where robots work autonomously and predictively with human supervision only.

Rather than being applied as a standalone solution, RPA is increasingly seen as part of a spectrum of process automation tools best applied in unison, for example and process mining.

鈥�51风流is currently seeing major adoption of the combination of RPA and intelligent business process tools,鈥� says Flat Chen, head of 51风流Intelligent Enterprise Solutions in Asia-Pacific, and lead for the company鈥檚 RPA program in China. 鈥淭hey are two sides of the same coin. RPA augments BPM by letting customers combine system-to-system and human-to-system interactions within a single executable workflow.鈥�

鈥淚ntelligent document processing is a layer that most of the RPA vendors are beginning to offer as they extend capabilities to support AI use cases,鈥� shares Maureen Fleming, program vice president for Integration and Process Automation at IDC, who examines the products and processes used for building, integrating, and deploying applications within extended enterprise systems. 鈥�51风流has a document processing service that works with 51风流Intelligent RPA and also is callable by workflow, a form, or by an integration component 鈥� and it works really well for business documents that are managed by 51风流applications.鈥�

RPA can also be combined with conversational AI technologies, which apply natural language to communicate intent and trigger actions downstream. Under the new rules of COVID-19, wherein businesses are challenged to interact physically, the need for digital customer engagement and service has been amplified.

RPA Cloud ERP Co-Innovation Project in China

51风流views RPA as an essential technology in its goal to help customers realize the . With prescient foresight in 2019, Jan Gilg, president 51风流S/4HANA, called on development teams to make bot development a priority. 51风流employees based in China took on the challenge, and the fruits of their labor were recently rewarded when REHAU Polymer China went live in June with an RPA bot and machine learning. The application automated invoice processing and helped REHAU achieve higher process efficiencies.

REHAU is the first 51风流S/4HANA Cloud customer in Greater China, as well as the first reference customer for and intelligent technology packages that include machine learning, natural language understanding, and advanced analytics capabilities. The co-innovation project with REHAU brought together teams from across SAP: 51风流S/4HANA Finance & Risk, New Ventures & Technologies, and Intelligent Delivery Group of Greater China.

To streamline and automate the financial operational process in 51风流S/4HANA Cloud, project members trained a machine learning model that, when used in combination with the RPA bot, was able to achieve greater accuracy and seamless automation.

A machine learning model is only as good as the data it has been trained on and each method of training 鈥� isolated, centralized, or federated 鈥� has its own advantages and disadvantages. Certain types of data, such as transaction data, is highly sensitive and usually cannot be shared outside a company’s network for building a model, which makes it difficult to apply AI for RPA solutions.

鈥淲hile training the model, we were able to keep sensitive data on the customer鈥檚 system, aggregating it in anonymous form to build a federation of data,” shares Voga Li, data scientist at 51风流Labs China. “This method allowed us to achieve a higher prediction accuracy for the model.”

The REHAU project under the guidance of 51风流demonstrated that federated training can be applied to datasets related to enterprise resource planning (ERP) and achieve the same or better performance as isolated and centralized training models. 鈥淲e are now testing an out-of-the-box machine learning model for federated learning and are currently validating this work together with our co-innovation customers,鈥� Li says. He attributes the success of the co-innovation project to strong leadership and open environment provided by 51风流Labs China.

REHAU has been live on 51风流Intelligent RPA since January 2020, having already replaced two manual processes with the combination of AI and RPA. In one solution, the company was able to reduce its monthly manual processing time of about 1,000 financial accounting documents from four days to 10 minutes. In the other, a bot that combines 51风流Intelligent RPA and machine learning reads invoices, extracts the information from them, and then automatically generate payables in 51风流S/4HANA Cloud. It can currently process 3,000 product invoices in roughly two minutes.

Chengbo Yu, CIO of the Asia Pacific Region for REHAU Polymer China, is satisfied with the result: 鈥淲e used 51风流Intelligent RPA to automate use cases that required significant manual intervention and redundant work. This saves us time and cuts down on human error, and our employees are spending more time on innovative work.鈥�

Thanks to the following 51风流employees for their support: Akie Pan, Camile Zhou, Voga Li, and Cyrano Chen from 51风流Labs China; Claire Tseng and Pierre Col from New Ventures and Technologies; Sarah Harvey from Analyst Relations.

The , where nearly . This sent China鈥檚 economy into a nose dive, resulting in a record contraction in output of 34 percent in the first quarter of 2020, .

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While signals a rebound for China, manufacturing enterprises are aware that a return to 鈥渂usiness as usual鈥� is not an option. They need to address issues that will make them vulnerable to the next potential supply chain disruption.

Digitalization: Move Early and Decisively

If the , they should be by now.

Digitalization is widely viewed as one of the keys to a sustainable recovery from the pandemic. Studies show that companies that move early and decisively to digitalize their operations during challenging times can turn adversity into advantage. Boston Consulting Group , increasing both their sales and profit margins

Staying power is also key. Research by management consultant McKinsey found that during a downturn were able to accelerate faster coming out of it.

Some markets are benefitting from government stimulus packages that support investment in new technologies. 聽In China, a passed in March totaling $US4.8 trillion is aimed at softening the blow of current and future disruptions. It encourages investments in new data centers, artificial intelligence (AI), smart manufacturing, and 5G networks. The expectation is also that by rejuvenating legacy systems, China鈥檚 manufacturing will be able to reverse the productivity decline it has experienced since the global financial crisis of 2008.

The main applications for AI in manufacturing include value chain redundancy, remote operations, process automation, industrial robotics, predictive maintenance and machinery inspection, and autonomous materials movement. Machine learning .

51风流Promotes Integrated Development of AI and Industry in China

Companies that can scale up their AI use cases during the crisis will be better able to navigate uncertain supply and demand, adjust to disruptions in operations and supply chains, allocate their workforces, and adapt to sharp changes in consumer confidence and priorities, according to .

There is no shortage of automation experts touting the benefits of manufacturers investing in AI; (see below for more analyst predictions).

Sam Li, global senior vice president and general manager of 51风流China, is convinced that , and that AI shows the most promise in making companies resilient.

鈥淛ust as digitalization has enabled China鈥檚 consumers to access life-essential services and stem the deadly chain of infection, digitalization in the business-to-business sector to create intelligent and integrated enterprises will be the engine for economic recovery,鈥� Li said last month at the (WAIC) in Shanghai.

He sees huge potential for AI in China鈥檚 manufacturing industries, and believes 51风流is set up to become a main driver for AI in this sector: “As a global technology company with both business and R&D headquarters in Shanghai, 51风流will help build a world-leading AI co-innovation and technology center in Shanghai and actively promote the integrated development of AI and industry in China.”

From AI+ to +AI

Speaking at WAIC, Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, chairman and CEO of Innovation Works, traced the development of AI in China and forecast how it could reshape the economy. The application of AI has made a tremendous transition over the past few years, shifting from technology-driven AI to business-driven AI, Lee said. He termed this movement 鈥渇rom AI+ to +AI.” AI+, the first phase, has been focused on AI-centric business opportunities led by engineers and scientists. The second phase, +AI, will focus on value creation led by conventional companies in traditional industries.

“Leveraging AI to empower value creation will create an opportunity for overall economic development, and is the best investment option,” Lee said. 鈥�+AI will enable the one-step realization of datafication, ITnization, and cloudification, playing a pivotal role in reshaping and developing China鈥檚 economy.鈥�

According to Lee, the companies most likely to benefit from AI are those that have a strong motivation to expand their business or reduce cost, have availed themselves of the structured data needed to feed AI models, and exhibit leadership that fosters a culture of innovation and transformation.

AI in Manufacturing: Sleeping Giant?

There is no shortage of automation experts suggesting that manufacturers invest in AI, as indicated in . As a result of COVID-19, conservative estimates call for a moderate decline in AI investment of around 2.5 percent in 2020. But a turnaround is expected in 2021, .

In the global AI study, , PwC estimates that AI could contribute up to $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030, more than the current output of China and India combined. Of this, $6.6 trillion is likely to come from increased productivity.

The greatest economic gains from AI will be in China, with $7 trillion (26 percent boost to GDP in 2030), and North America, with $3.7 trillion, (14.5 percent boost), accounting for almost 70 percent of the global economic impact.

Despite this rising forecast, some analysts think AI investments are disappointingly underrepresented in the manufacturing sector. Of , less than one percent went into manufacturing-related AI applications, while 23 percent were put into commerce and retailing, and 18 percent into autonomous driving.

Helen Tian, Tina Chen, and Jungsong Peng contributed to this piece. Video by Renata Pompeu Pividal.

predicted that by 2021, the contribution of “digital coworkers” would increase by 35 percent. RPA also made top 10 strategic technology trends in 2020 as an important part of hyperautomation.

Now, with all eyes on recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, RPA is even more important for its ability to automate processes and augment people. Nowhere is this more apparent than in procurement, which is increasingly charged with bolstering business resiliency in an unpredictable world.

Tumultuous Times Demand Intelligent Procurement

Unlike most humans, RPA not only relishes, but excels at repetitive tasks. The more tedious and mundane they are, the better. For example, RPA can make short work of procurement processes like quickly finding out which of your suppliers are at risk during a pandemic.

鈥淪uppose your supply chain is disrupted for the ventilator you鈥檙e making because it involves a supplier in a country you can no longer do business with,鈥� said Eric Kavanagh, CEO of Bloor Group. 鈥淒oing these calculations manually to find an alternative supplier would take days or weeks. Using RPA, you could dynamically run through the list of other suppliers to see if they have a part in stock immediately.鈥�

Kavanagh鈥檚 conversation was part of a breakout session during the virtual event. The talk was hosted by Jo Peterson, vice president of Cloud and Security Services at Clarify 360, and also included Jason Brown, vice president of Solution Management, Technology, and Ecosystems for and .

Not Yesterday鈥檚 Automation

Injecting RPA capabilities into an employee鈥檚 daily procurement processes can dramatically speed up rote tasks, many of which have far greater urgency these days.

鈥淢aybe some of your suppliers are at risk, and they鈥檙e small and could take advantage of the government support programs in the United States,鈥� Brown said. 鈥淵ou need to find out if they鈥檙e financially strapped or in difficult straits. Using RPA, you could quickly look at your smaller size suppliers, see if they鈥檝e acquired one of those loans indicating they may be at risk, apply that data into your supply chain, and find another supplier to reduce your risk.鈥�

Pandemic or not, RPA can be tremendously useful in tackling time-consuming procurement processes. These could be common tasks such as updating supplier certification information from a third-party site or changing cost center data on a large batch of purchase orders. Accomplishing these activities in minutes instead of hours frees up employees to make more strategic contributions while delivering massive productivity gains to the company.

鈥淎s long as it鈥檚 something with the same repeatable steps for a process, any of those [procurement] steps can be automated,鈥� Brown explained. 鈥淩PA can also be taught to do simple bidding practices.鈥�

AI Boosts Intelligent Procurement

Brown was particularly excited about the business results from combining artificial intelligence (AI) with RPA, something he described as an ongoing learning process for both people and machines.

鈥淎dding AI into an automated process is a natural extension鈥because] you can start providing recommendations to shorten processes,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he algorithm starts learning based on how you鈥檝e selected items. It makes decisions for you, then asks if it got it right. You can also look at the data afterwards and change the strategy, if needed, over time.鈥�

People Will Never Go Away

Besides higher data quality and lower error rates, RPA鈥檚 big benefit is in improved employee morale. As automation eliminates tedious and repetitive activities, employees are happier because they are able to use their uniquely human traits such as creativity and ingenuity.

鈥淲hile we might use AI or RPA to load the data or handle tedious processes associated with [breakthroughs] we need human intelligence to map the journey, aligning technology to the business process,鈥� Kavanagh said. 鈥淧eople are going to have more fun, and they鈥檙e going to be more empowered because of technology like RPA.鈥�

RPA Drives Supply Chain Agility

Both experts predicted an uptick in RPA across procurement as companies weather supply and demand fluctuations through a long recovery period. Kavanagh saw RPA helping companies reengineer supply chains for more dynamic and globally friendly sourcing strategies. Brown expected a significant increase in the number of 51风流Ariba customers incorporating RPA into daily procurement activities.

鈥淧rocurement teams will analyze where they are spending a lot of time on the inefficient processes or the things that are just tactical in nature, try and replace those with an RPA, and then apply those people to more strategic items,鈥� Brown said.

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51风流was founded nearly 50 years ago with a very clear purpose: to help the world run better and improve people鈥檚 lives. Now more than ever, you can count on us to help. In fact, just last month 51风流supported the .

But this crisis is affecting all aspects of our lives — health, society, economy. To survive, companies will have to define and focus on their core competence, drive deeper customer relationships, develop new business models, adapt their supply chains, streamline their operations, and manage their finances. Those that have an intelligent backbone to support their business functions will be able to do this quickly and will emerge stronger.

I am proud to see how we are all working together as well as the care that 51风流customers are showing in this crisis. They are rapidly changing supply chains to cater for emergency supplies, changing production lines to produce products that are in need, altering work patterns, and doing whatever it takes to deliver the services and products that their customers need.聽 This means changing business focus quickly and includes a renewed reliance on data and business insights to rapidly take the pulse on business and react effectively. In short, we are helping our customers ensure business continuity and deliver results in these challenging times.

Business Continuity: Trust and Reliability

No matter what the situation, 51风流has always been trusted to keep business running. Above all, this means protecting operations and managing change safely and quickly. 51风流stands ready, by your side, to help as your business changes. We can help rapidly implement solutions, turn on existing functionality, and help ensure that it is all managed with long-term digital transformation in mind.

We understand the challenge of business disruption and remote work that all organizations are facing, and we support changes in business focus. This demands environments that are secure, accessible, and controlled to ensure business continues to run while also adapting to new needs.

As employees are asked to work from home, managing both internal processes and external customer and vendor relationships remotely presents a changed management structure that puts technology in the center. This is where 51风流can help; for example, with cloud deployments, access to free to stay informed. We have also to help buyers and suppliers connect amid the global supply chain disruption.

Keep Running and Adapt Quickly

Just as we see manufacturing companies take on new production lines to adapt to a changing landscape, others are refocusing on their core competence of design or innovation, using subcontract supply, production, and logistics to deliver product. This puts greater importance on being able to operate in a dynamic, virtual world with access to business networks and solutions such as Ariba Network for suppliers and 51风流Fieldglass solutions for contingent labor. These solutions can be turned on quickly as extension of an intelligent ERP solution.

And as organizations change, so too, do their employees. Using intelligent technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and robotic process automation (RPA) to act based on rapidly changing, data-driven insights allows organizations to continue to have operations run smoothly and allocate precious employee effort to more mission-critical tasks.

In addition, companies keep adopting new business models; for example, by offering value-added services in addition to products. This requires uniting business processes end-to-end with the real world and a deep domain expertise by line of business and industry.

51风流provides that scope of tools, the line-of-business coverage, and the industry expertise needed to carry you forward.

At the core of 51风流is 51风流S/4HANA, with 13,800 customers by the end of 2019. 聽51风流and partners are supporting the acceleration of the move to 51风流S/4HANA with rapid return on investment and high value returns in short times.

Together, Our Values Will Define the New Normal

I am proud to be part of 51风流and know we can play our role in helping ensure your business continues, adapts, and thrives in this challenging environment. Never has speed, agility, and depth of service been more important.

51风流is committed to partner with you as we work together to make the world run better and improve people鈥檚 lives.

Jan Gilg is president of 51风流S/4HANA.