Sometimes you don’t need to be overly innovative to be creative. Sometimes true creativity comes through looking at what you already have and then finding ways to fit that to new problems.
The ability to solve complex problems using tried and tested processes is a skillset that has been honed over time by Chris Rae and his team at DalRae Solutions, a Brisbane based technology consultancy specialising in tools and services from the enterprise software maker SAP.
A developer by training, Rae’s exposure to SAP stretches back to the early 2000s, when he was working for a Queensland farming business called Mulgowie Farming Company. An SAP sales rep had approached Rae and won him over to the idea that an enterprise software company could improve the processes of even a small agricultural business like Mulgowie.
That was the beginning of Rae’s journey of learning the SAP system – a journey that was assisted by the owners of Mulgowie giving Rae latitude to change its business processes in line with SAP’s best practice guidelines.
“The only rule they had was if I want to change a process for the farm, I had to do the process first,” Rae says. “So I went out and I drove tractors and I picked corn and beans and packed it on produce lines. That gave me this amazing practical understanding of time in motion.”
Simply solving problems
Are’s interest in systems and processes led him to Super Retail Group, where in 2011 he implemented what might have been the first click-and-collect system to be deployed in Australia, in a project that took just three months to build.
The reason he says he was able to implement the service both quickly and cheaply was his realisation that SAP already contained the processes needed to bring it into being.
“You’ve just got to have a bit of a creative lens to be able to fill in the blanks,” Rae says. “In that case, it resembled sales order and delivery notes, which are standard processes. All you’re doing is just creating a user experience using the standard SAP features to move things around.”
Success on projects like this saw Rae asked to join the SAP Mentor team, which gave him inside access into the SAP’s product roadmap, including an early introduction to the Fiori application development system.
Then in May 2015 Rae formed DalRae Solutions as a standalone SAP services organisation.
One of DalRae’s earliest engagements was the development of support services for the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), a project that he and his team would work on for the next three and a half years. Through this project DalRae was able to use its advanced knowledge of SAP to create the world’s first end-to-end Fiori application.
“It was an amazing project,” Rae says. “Through that time we were building the DalRae team and building our business in Canberra. I built my team around public sector projects, solving some really large problems.
“A lot of this stuff isn’t actually that hard. There are complexities, but it is not really that hard.”
Bringing standardisation to complexity
Critical to DalRae’s success has been the experience he and his team have gained in being able to see standardised processes where seemingly none exist.
This skill proved especially valuable when DalRae was invited to build a system to manage the New Zealand Government’s gun buyback scheme.
“We looked through the client’s process and what they were trying to achieve, to determine if SAP had something to match,” Rae says. “And the answer was that the process to hand back and get paid for a firearm, and to ultimately have that firearm destroyed, is a return sales order.
“It’s a completely standard business process. It’s the equivalent of walking into a hardware store and returning something without a receipt. That asset of that firearm exists in SAP, and every other business process, including auditing and security and all those things that are critical, work completely out-of-the-box. It’s a completely standard finance process. ”
In March 2023 DalRae joined the SAP AppHaus network, which is a group of SAP locations and partners around the world dedicated to sustainable innovation.
“The AppHaus has been amazing because it’s put a brand and a formality on the creativity that that we’ve done forever,” Rae says. “It gives us the creative licence to really solve problems.”
In November last year Rae was also appointed to the SAP BTP Global Partner Advisory Council, alongside 11 other members, which has provided him with further insights into the development of the SAP product stream.
From rural Queensland to the world
Opportunities such as these have provided DalRae with the confidence to view itself as a global leader in the implementation of SAP tools such as BTP and Fiori, and to look for business opportunities beyond the APAC region. The company is now expanding into North America and has already found work with one of the US’ largest utility companies.
“We’re taking the same approach we’ve taking to solving problems in Australia, taking our style of creative thinking,” Rae says. “I don’t want to be all things to all people. I want to be a specialist, and provide that advice on how SAP can solve problems, not on how I can solve problems with any technology available in the world, because that doesn’t give you the best outcomes.”