SAP’s new mobile experience puts people at the heart of business processes — anywhere and anytime.
Over the past years, working styles have been drastically changing in many industries with mobile becoming the prevailing experience and a critical driver of process innovation. In the coming years, business processes will become increasingly automated and decisions will be made even faster without being in an office or at a desk. Data generated by intelligent, connected devices will reshape the core processes of many industries. The COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated the transformation toward a digital and flexible way of working.
What does not change is that people need to be at the heart of processes and software alike, calling for experiences that truly matter to them and help them to get their job or tasks done anytime, anywhere, regardless of their work style. This is often overlooked when talking about business or IT processes in general. And that clearly needs to change.
SAP’s integrations and end-to-end processes are important enablers for creating business value. The Intelligent Enterprise, however, must be a people-centric system that adapts to business needs by providing contextually relevant insights to users, allowing them to make informed decisions in real time and from anywhere.
This year at SAPPHIRE NOW, we introduce SAP’s new mobile experience and share a glimpse of our new native entry point app: SAP Mobile Start.
Personal, Intuitive, Contextual, Delightful
Content, apps, and tasks need to be easily and intuitively accessible for users in one place so they can stay informed, take action, and dive into their work – no matter where they are or what time of the day it is. This experience needs to feel personal, relevant, and frictionless across all devices.
During the course of a workday, users encounter numerous so-called micro-experiences that differ based on their work and responsibilities. These individual interactions are the basis for completing daily tasks and can be repetitive or constantly changing. Think of situations like approving a requisition, helping customers, reviewing financial statements, submitting a leave request, or planning a trip.
To serve different role types best, SAP is using value engineering to define a mobile-first portfolio that combines similar functionality of different apps and helps ensure the right user experience, including desktop and web experiences for infrequent mobile users as needed. Each work context is being addressed with pre-built integration, on-device intelligence, and highly tuned workflows and collaboration capabilities.
Take a warehouse clerk as an example. In this role, mobile solutions need to support all daily tasks, ranging from unloading to picking, packing, and shipping. Optimized business processes and workflows should minimize unnecessary user interaction steps by leveraging the latest on-device technologies like a Matrixscan to scan multiple barcodes at once, real-time insights through augmented reality overlays, and optimized routes through the warehouse with indoor navigation.
Micro-Experiences
Over the course of the day, people interact with multiple business processes and need to access data and applications from various systems. The touchpoints where technology and processes intersect to enable people to be successful are the micro-experiences that are essential for a superior user experience.
Starting Point of SAP’s Mobile Experience
On-device intelligence in every business moment provides the best of cloud intelligence (composing end-to-end processes) and the best of edge intelligence (total experience for mobile users in their unique environment), extending the value and reach of the Intelligent Enterprise to everyone’s fingertips.
The app is planned to for availability for iOS in August 2021, with an Android version planned for later in the year.
At the end of the day, people run the software we build. Therefore, we envision the Intelligent Enterprise as a people-centric system that provides contextually relevant insights, so informed decisions can be made in real time and from anywhere. This is only the start of much more to come.
Embark with us on a user experience journey that puts people at the heart of business software and processes — from start to finish.
Philipp Herzig is head of Intelligent Enterprise and Cross Architecture for SAP Product Engineering.
