SAP is expanding the SAP Signavio brand and increasing resources behind the portfolio. ASUG discussed what the solution set delivers and how it acts as a business transformation accelerator with Wassilios Lolas, Global VP and Head of the Center of Excellence, SAP Signavio. SAP Signavio will be a focus topic at our upcoming ASUG Best Practices: SAP Center of Excellence conference. Learn more information about the event here.
The following is an edited version of our conversation.
Q: What currently comprises the SAP Signavio portfolio?
A: The SAP Signavio Business Process Transformation Suite includes:
- SAP Signavio Process Insights
- SAP Signavio Process Intelligence
- SAP Signavio Process Manager
- SAP Signavio Journey Modeler
- SAP Signavio Process Collaboration Hub
- SAP Signavio Process Governance
There is also a set of related SAP services that helps customers along the life cycle of their business process transformation activities, from setting up the SAP Signavio Suite via an analysis of the current processes and the identification of improvement potentials, to the assessment of best practices and new process designs, and more.
Q: How does the portfolio relate to other key SAP business and technology strategies and platforms, including RISE with SAP, SAP S/4HANA, SAP Cloud, and the SAP Business Transformation Platform?
A: SAP Signavio is an integral part of the SAP strategy for and connected to all other components of the SAP intelligent, sustainable enterprise. It represents the top layer, which is about Business Process Management and industry-specific end-to-end processes.
RISE with SAP provides a clear, flexible path to becoming an intelligent enterprise. As a “business transformation as a service,” it brings the right products and tools in one package and one contract to speed the cloud journey regardless of organizational size, industry, cloud readiness, customization, volume, or departure point.
RISE with SAP allows customers to adapt to fast-changing conditions; helps customers become more resilient, more efficient, and more agile; and makes innovation easier and faster. Because any business or digital transformation requires process transformation, SAP Signavio is a key element of RISE with SAP.
SAP Signavio business process transformation solutions help customers understand, improve, and transform business processes—fast and at scale—with a cloud-based process management platform. Transformations are faster and less risky because companies can quickly identify which processes are running poorly; evaluate whether the SAP best-practice processes apply to the specific situation; include end user (customer, partner, and/or employee) experience data; and get early buy in from stakeholders through collaboration.
RISE with SAP includes the SAP Signavio starter pack. Customers can use the starter pack to run a 50 GB one-time data load for SAP Signavio Process Insights, and from that, identify problem areas, get customized recommendations for process improvements, and begin to redesign processes. The starter pack includes:
- SAP Signavio Process Insights (formerly SAP Process Insights) to identify, analyze, prioritize, and monitor critical business processes
- SAP Signavio Process Manager (three users) and SAP Signavio Process Collaboration Hub (10 users): SAP Signavio Process Manager and SAP Signavio Process Collaboration Hub can be pre-populated with SAP best practices and help redesign and standardize processes to lay the foundation to continuously adapt business processes
Using SAP Signavio with SAP S/4HANA helps keep the focus on high-impact areas of the business, helping to improve change management processes and contributing to a faster adoption of change. SAP Signavio solutions are native cloud solutions, built for ease of use and scalability.
Q: When, how, and why should business leaders become familiar with SAP Signavio?
A: The ability to change business processes rapidly to meet new requirements is the fundamental competitive differentiator for businesses today. However, business leaders face challenges when trying to initiate and execute change, such as:
- A lack of data and insights to make decisions with confidence
- Difficulty finding or paying talent; difficulty finding highly qualified experts or consultants
- Slow adoption of change or even resistance to change from the workforce
Given these circumstances, SAP Signavio delivers:
- Rapid access to data-driven process insights, as well as access to customer and employee experience data to monitor the human impact of process changes
- Tailored best practices for business processes and plug-and-play integration to reduce the need for management and technical consulting
- Collaboration that involves the entire organization for early buy-in and less resistance to change from the workforce
Immediately (of course) is the best time for business leaders to become familiar with SAP Signavio. They can do this by inviting an SAP Signavio expert to chapter meetings, becoming a RISE with SAP customer for the starter pack, or visiting Signavio.com.
Q: What advantages does a business gain by using SAP Signavio tools and capabilities?
A: Our solutions let customers go beyond functional optimization (for supply chain, customer service, or manufacturing, etc.) to drive true transformation of cross-functional, end-to-end processes and to understand the impact of process changes on customers and employees.
For example, a retailer may decide to optimize for customer satisfaction, instituting new policies for unlimited exchanges and returns. However, excessive returns may create a problem for warehouse workers suddenly faced with higher-than-expected volumes. Alternatively, a manufacturing company may work to drive down costs in the plant, but this may limit customization, which in turn affects customer satisfaction. The only way to truly optimize is with a full end-to-end process view.
Digital transformation projects often fail because organizations vastly underestimate the need for proactive change management. SAP Signavio Collaboration Hub is designed to democratize change by pulling in ideas from anywhere in the organization and providing a central location for transparent discussions of ideas and development of new processes. By bringing in all stakeholders from the beginning, organizations see more buy-in and less resistance to change. Process transparency helps to quickly understand where process changes are required and meaningful.
For example, in a regulated industry such as banking, process changes needed for new regulations can be made faster because all employees involved know exactly where the changes will hit. Frontline workers can voice improvement ideas and managers have a broader view to help set priorities.
Q: What advantages does IT gain in using SAP Signavio tools and capabilities?
A: SAP Signavio facilitates collaboration and exchange between business, IT, and external consultants. To have a business transformation discussion in an organization, only a process-centric point of view provides the language needed to create common understanding across business organizations and IT teams. IT gains a better understanding of business strategy, goals, and pains, and can provide better-tailored innovations and improvements. Taking a process view of IT architecture helps IT manage complexity more effectively, as it allows a clear view of how operational systems interact with each other, and of the touchpoints for customers and employees. Collaboration Hub provides a centralized view of proposed changes. Process mapping and analysis provide IT with a clear view of their impact on business outcomes.
Q: Does an organization need to bring additional expertise and skills to best deploy and optimize SAP Signavio?
A: Most SAP Signavio solutions are designed to be easy to use, requiring little to no training. However, creating meaningful process transformation requires expertise and focus. We recommend creating a process center of excellence. Historically, many companies viewed process management as a way to ensure regulatory compliance, and processes were only reviewed or revised when mandated by regulatory changes. However, the most effective and successful organizations see the value in constant management and refinement of business processes so they can proactively improve efficiency and customer experience, as well as more readily adapt to shifts in markets and customer behavior.
Q: You contend that SAP Signavio is a business transformation accelerator. What do you mean by business transformation? What are some examples?
A: Business transformation involves a fundamental rethinking of customer experience, business models, and operations. It’s about finding new ways to deliver value, generate revenue, and improve efficiency. The global pandemic provided several examples of business transformations:
- Retailers, especially grocers, saw a massive shift toward online shopping.
- All businesses had to review their supply chains and become more agile and resilient given disrupted supply chains.
- Manufacturers had to run smaller shifts and pause operations to clean.
- Public and private health-care systems had to change hiring, onboarding, training/upskilling practices to try to meet extraordinary demands for care.
- Knowledge workers went remote overnight; HR teams needed new policies to recruit, hire, onboard, manage, and evaluate remote workforces.
Other examples of business transformations include:
- Retailers are beginning to transform brick and mortar stores into places where customers get deep information on products, sort through problems, or take delivery or return products. This has shifted the profile of the typical shop-floor retail employee to one with more skills in customer service, problem-solving, and product information.
- Automakers are shifting from selling cars to individuals to selling “mobility as a service,” where the consumer pays a monthly subscription and has access to whatever type of mobility solution they may need—a truck for weekend yard chores, a minivan for a vacation, or a convertible for date night, fundamentally changing their business model from “producer of expensive goods that an individual buys rarely” to supplier of cheaper services that consumers consume constantly.
Q: How does SAP Signavio accelerate such transformation? Could you briefly explain some scenarios?
A: SAP Signavio Solutions accelerate transformations by giving customers the information they need to make an informed decision quickly on why they need to change and what needs changing. We help them quickly map existing processes, identify problem areas, and collaborate to design the desired end state.
Then, we help them quickly achieve that end state by providing tailored, specific suggestions of changes that will have the biggest impact, reduce resistance to change through ongoing collaboration, and help people understand the impact of changes by correlating user experience data with process changes.
In addition, we have worked with a large U.S.-based insurance company to provide better transparency, ease of business, and the ability to manage rate changes. In addition, it added automation to avoid some of the headaches that were occurring because we had 40 people doing work in 40 different ways.
We also have a steel manufacturer consolidating multiple ERP systems into one system, which is driving improved efficiency across operational systems, reducing costs, and improving employee experience for IT and end users.
Q: What is the ROI—for IT—from the SAP Signavio portfolio?
A: Better connection to business; less programming needed; less customization thanks to best practices; reduced transformation project costs and documentation costs; support for both “lift and shift” as well as “landscape consolidation”; and used in greenfield and brownfield and whatever field.
Q: What is the ROI—from business/senior leaders’ point of view—from the SAP Signavio portfolio?
A: Faster adoption of change; lower transformation project costs; better customer experiences leading to less customer churn, etc.; better employee experiences leading to faster onboarding and less churn; businesses can see improvements early on in projects, then continuously iterate and improve.
ASUG explored a second topic in conversations with Wassilios: how SAP uses SAP Signavio in its own center of excellence operations and organization. Watch for that article, and additional information on the ASUG Best Practices: SAP Center of Excellence conference, in an upcoming First Five newsletter and on asug.com.