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As com­pa­nies rely on fast orga­ni­za­tion­al shifts and tech­nol­o­gy adop­tion, the more crit­i­cal the role of enter­prise archi­tects becomes. Ask­ing ques­tions and fig­ur­ing out the ​“why” behind every change is a valu­able exer­cise as tech­ni­cal skills and the dig­i­tal land­scape evolve exponentially.

“Jeff Schwartz was right when he wrote [in his book, Work Dis­rupt­ed] that the world has ​‘entered into a time machine in the future.’ This is a crit­i­cal moment in which busi­ness­es must choose how to piv­ot and move for­ward,” Michael Wein­gart­ner, pres­i­dent of SAP Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Plat­form at SAP, stat­ed dur­ing his ses­sion at ASUG Next-Gen­er­a­tion SAP Enter­prise Archi­tect Vir­tu­al Con­fer­ence.

This wide-angle view on busi­ness trans­for­ma­tion inspired many com­pa­nies to con­sid­er SAP Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Plat­form (SAP BTP), which has been avail­able for near­ly two years and through­out the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. As an infra­struc­ture and set of solu­tions, the plat­form pro­vides capa­bil­i­ties enter­prise archi­tects need to cre­ate, reimag­ine, and fuel a liv­ing net­work of rel­e­vant and future-think­ing process­es, data, and applications.

It All Begins with a Secure Data Foundation

SAP BTP can be bro­ken down into four fun­da­men­tal com­po­nents: data­base and data man­age­ment, appli­ca­tion devel­op­ment and inte­gra­tion, ana­lyt­ics, and intel­li­gent tech­nolo­gies. Each one plays a dis­tinct role in how enter­prise archi­tects can evolve their tech­nol­o­gy land­scapes. How­ev­er, no degree of change is pos­si­ble with­out the prop­er use of data.

Data Pow­ers Intelligence

“From stor­age, pro­cess­ing, and inte­gra­tion to orches­tra­tion, gov­er­nance, and ana­lyt­ics, data is always key. But these data sets are not only help­ing busi­ness­es jump into intel­li­gent capa­bil­i­ties, such as arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, machine learn­ing, and process automa­tion,” Wein­gart­ner shared. ​“They are also set­ting the foun­da­tion for one exten­si­ble domain mod­el to run an ecosys­tem of SAP and third-par­ty appli­ca­tions and inter­nal and exter­nal insight.”

This wealth of action­able insights, algo­rithms, and oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy opens tremen­dous oppor­tu­ni­ties. For exam­ple, form­ing a busi­ness net­work of mul­ti­ple tiers of con­nect­ed sup­pli­ers, logis­tics part­ners, ser­vice groups, and assets brings col­lec­tive intel­li­gence to increase insights and vis­i­bil­i­ty and extend data sets beyond the sup­ply chain.

Easy Exten­si­bil­i­ty 

Exten­si­bil­i­ty of con­tent through low-code or no-code envi­ron­ments, work­flows, rule sys­tems, and user inter­face con­sis­ten­cy no longer needs to be a mys­tery. With SAP BTP, orga­ni­za­tions can quick­ly access the capa­bil­i­ties and tools nec­es­sary to inte­grate and extend their con­tent to improve and pro­vide repeat­able ser­vices and plat­form-based prod­ucts and ser­vices that their cus­tomers want.

Secu­ri­ty First

More impor­tant­ly, secu­ri­ty remains at the cen­ter of the entire plat­form. SAP BTP pro­vides a sin­gle iden­ti­ty sys­tem, authen­ti­ca­tion process, and a pol­i­cy-based autho­riza­tion sys­tem with excep­tion­al gran­u­lar­i­ty. Orga­ni­za­tions can achieve access con­trol to prod­ucts, inter­ac­tions between ser­vices, and data sets, which are vital when enforc­ing poli­cies that apply to a giv­en role or event.

“Some of our cus­tomers that had teams that just man­aged roles across their SAP and third-par­ty appli­ca­tions, roles, and respon­si­bil­i­ties now have a strat­e­gy around an aligned, pol­i­cy-based autho­riza­tion sys­tem across their stack. This trans­for­ma­tion is sim­pli­fy­ing the lives of their busi­ness lead­ers and employ­ees sig­nif­i­cant­ly,” Wein­gart­ner observed.

And Con­tin­ues with Con­sis­tent Innovation

At the core of SAP BTP is the focused atten­tion to con­sis­tent evo­lu­tion. And the rea­son is quite sim­ple: SAP wants to build an ecosys­tem that takes cus­tomers on that journey.

While SAP inno­vates new stan­dard ser­vices and capa­bil­i­ties and aligns them with busi­ness needs, enter­prise archi­tects can fur­ther opti­mize their busi­ness archi­tec­ture as the plat­form evolves. Ulti­mate­ly, the plat­form is less about the run­time and more about pro­duc­tive trans­for­ma­tion through ser­vices, search­a­bil­i­ty, iden­ti­ty access, authen­ti­ca­tion, and authorization.

Expe­ri­ence the full tour of SAP Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Plat­form. Watch Michael Weingartner’s on-demand ses­sion ​“SAP’s Tech­nol­o­gy Strat­e­gy ‒ The Foun­da­tion for the Intel­li­gent Enter­prise,” from ASUG Next-Gen­er­a­tion SAP Enter­prise Archi­tect Vir­tu­al Conference.