Thinking Platform? Think Value!

⇨ Businesses are increasingly driven to find greater agility, flexibility, and resilience.

⇨ Platform technology can offer users a positive value proposition.

⇨ In addition to value, it can also offer a transformational effect for businesses.

I’ve spent much of my career extolling the virtues of software solutions, which primarily exist to address specific business requirements. They usually have very clear and recognizable business value propositions. These revolve around criteria like speed, efficiency, productivity, accuracy, or costs (i.e., savings!). And these are all superb, strong, and quantifiable measures of value. They would warm the heart of anyone scrutinizing the value gained from software investments.

But in today’s turbulent times businesses are increasingly driven to find greater agility, flexibility, and resilience. So, how do the new breeds of cloud technology platforms, such as SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) compare? In his recent blog, Dan Lahl considered three customer insights concerning how organizations might innovate and improve when adopting a Platform Thinking approach.

So, how do such improvements translate into business value? The answer to this question should impress even those with the coldest of (financial) hearts!

Value Creation with Platform Technology

With the potential to add over $195K annual benefit (per 100 users) and a six-month payback period, according to figures reported from a recent value study of SAP BTP customers, the ROI potential from SAP BTP appears very real and very significant. Four key areas of benefit were cited:

• Analytics and Data
• Integration and Development
• Intelligent Process and Automation
• Cost Infrastructure

In his blog article “Stronger Together: Supplier Relationships, Sustainability, and Profitability,” Mario Farag argues, “The key to achieving such progress is having a digital-first mindset. According to the IDC, this approach is the primary lever that CEOs and C-suites pull to focus on achieving outcomes that translate into business value. But the full benefit from digital-first strategies is best realized with a flexible, extensible, and open business technology platform.”

A Transformational Effect Bringing Value to Business

Two recent SAPinsider articles on platform technology, How BTP is transforming the enterprise and BTP’s integration capabilities allow faster innovation, offer additional insights to sources of potential value. These articles cite process improvements through automation and AI, speedier development cycles leading to faster rollout of innovations, and out-of-the-box capabilities for plug-and-play integrations. They also touch on faster data collection and reporting techniques that help replace slow, manual, error-prone processes. These are all areas delivering real value to businesses.

With such potential for improvements, how might a flexible, extensible, and open business technology platform help bring value to you and your business? To help answer this question, a report and infographic of the recent value study of SAP BTP customers is available. You can also use an assessment tool that you can use to assess the potential value that SAP Business Technology Platform could offer your business.

As you take the next steps on your own transformation journey with a technology platform, remember to monitor, manage, and optimize your outcomes. You can then share your heart-warming story of success with your industry peers. Your story could be inspirational to others seeking similar value from their own technology platform projects.