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Digital platforms — In the fast lane with SAP HANA [Part 3]

13. December 20185. December 2018by Sara Herrera 0

As in swimming, there are also a number of internationally successful competitors in the cloud industry. SAP is one of the newcomers here. But what makes the cloud platform from SAP so special? To what extent does SAP differ, especially through »HANA«, from the other cloud providers? After all, SAP HANA is the basis of all cloud products from SAP and THE unique selling proposition among cloud providers.

Clouds on the horizon

In the second part of the new series »Digital Platforms,« we clarified what digital platforms are, how they work, and what you need to consider before introducing your own platform. In the third part, we now want to explain why SAP, with their HANA platform, is up to the challenges of big data and customer engagement.

There was interesting news from the TechEd in Barcelona. At the SAP user conference, innovations for their own cloud platform were presented. Among them, the »SAP Cloud Platform Open Connectors«, which supplements the in-house cloud platform integration and thus enables users to integrate over 150 third-party applications into their business processes. In addition, the head of innovation, Jürgen Müller, joins the board of directors, placing the topic directly at the management level of the German software group.

SAP HANA — The Michael Phelps of databases?

Dismantling of data silos with SAP HANA

An extraordinary example of the beneficial use of the SAP HANA platform and the associated dissolution of data silos can be found at the Berlin Charité Hospital.

Usually, health and patient data are only available in an unorderly format. If a decision has to be taken for or against a certain form of therapy, this data can not be used. With SAP, it’s different. The software manufacturer centralises the patient data of more than 15,000 people in the HANA platform. This gives doctors the opportunity to compare patients and their clinical picture, a form of treatment, and treatment success. The insights and coherences gained from this are forward-looking and exemplary for a new form of care. And not just to record medical success, but also economic ones.

Efficient use of therapies also reduces the overall healthcare costs of each patient. But e-health is, as before, a very controversial topic.

In addition to the application example at the Berlin Charité, there are also other use cases from various industries. By using the in-memory database, for example, the retailer Nongfu Spring significantly reduced its transport costs. The transport routes were simply optimised.

Create digital customer relationships

Business-related applications such as ERP, CRM, or even e-commerce solutions can be used on the SAP Cloud Platform. The SAP C/4HANA platform consists of a multitude of different systems covering all imaginable applications in e-commerce. These include marketing, sales, and services. In doing so, the customer becomes the focus of all business processes. As shown in the figure below, the SAP C/4HANA platform includes the SAP Marketing Cloud, the SAP Commerce Cloud, the SAP Service Cloud, the SAP Customer Data Cloud, and the SAP Sales Cloud.

Source: dotSource GmbH

Through the acquisition of Hybris, the Gigya and CallidusCloud solutions are also part of the aforementioned platform. Not to forget the in-house developed AI, Leonardo, and the various business intelligence solutions.

Speaking of platforms

If you would like to know more about trends and developments in digital transformation, you will find answers in the current Handelskraft Trend Book »Moving Towards Digital Excellence«.

From covering digital customer experiences to what is happening in the platform economy, we cover it all. Also in the trend book: Digital Business Facts & Figures – Including but not limited to: Internet usage, consumer behaviour, marketplaces, payment methods, and technologies.

This guide with all the important facts and figures are available here for free to download.

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Best Practice for Best Business – First Speakers for the 2019 Handelskraft Conference

6. December 20184. December 2018by Franziska Kunz 0

Handelskraft Conference 2018 Cover Photo Teaser Blog Post — Source: dotSource

2018 is slowly but surely coming to an end. But preparations for 2019 are continuing to run at full speed. Even better? There’s still news to announce before the end of the year! True to the motto: Think about tomorrow, today. We’re giving all brands, retailers, and manufacturers the chance to do just that. At the Handelskraft Conference on the 28th of March 2019 at the Klassikstadt in Frankfurt am Main.

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The popularity of customer service on messaging platforms [5 reading tips]

3. December 201830. November 2018by Sara Herrera 0

service, kundenservice, messenger — Source: Fotolia

Phone calls are rare. Communicating via text or voice message is getting more and more popular, especially among younger generations. It’s a fast, simple, and comfortable way of communicating. Now users are expecting this kind of experiences when talking to businesses. Excellent and careful customer service is a distinguishing feature and has become essential.

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(4 vote(s), average: 5.00 out of 5)

E-Commerce (General) Reading Tips of the Week Statistics, Data, Facts

One data system to Hospital 2.0

30. November 201828. November 2018by Franziska Kunz 0

German hospitals aren’t exactly known for being digital pioneers: Lots of paper with handwritten notes, x-ray prints, and hardly usable digital health insurance cards. A long way from what Hollywood shows medical facilities to be like. In these shows and movies, doctors are far from reality. Using tablets at a patient’s bedside to show the patient their fracture on a digital x-ray with an animation to help explain what happened internally. The German consortium SMITH wants to use a standardised data system to take the first steps towards efficient patient management so that the digital transformation can finally begin in these hospitals.

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(6 vote(s), average: 4.33 out of 5)

Best Practice E-Commerce (General) Jena

Here’s how retailers and manufacturers can learn from Singles Day

26. November 2018by Sara Herrera 0

11.11? Just a time before the holiday rush. But in Asia, this has been a special day for the last nine years. Thanks to the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, the 11th of November, since 2009, it’s also THE shopping event of the year called »Singles Day«. Not only is it the most successful, best-selling deal day of all time, it has also spread internationally and far beyond Alibaba.

In addition to sales records, the immense number of customer interactions, and parcel shipments, there are other aspects that are worth analysing.

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Improving customer service with AI

23. November 2018by Franziska Kunz 0

Source: pexels

On May 8th, Google CEO Sundar Pichai took his place on stage in Mountain View, CA. During his keynote at the Google I/O Conference, he presented a new development to an astonished audience that could change the world: Google Duplex. Google Duplex lets the Internet giant give AI a voice. The voice is indistinguishable from a real human. In other words: When Google’s AI makes a phone call, the person on the other end doesn’t think they’re talking to a computer. Google Duplex even intersperses a few ums and erms through its sentences. Google Duplex has created a scalable assistant with an ingenious understanding of dialogues that can lead thousands of conversations at once.

Google’s focus on this project is a solution for private users. But it’d be unfortunate if this groundbreaking technology can only take care of table reservations for your next candlelight dinner. Only with personal customer service can this intelligence reach its full potential.

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Smart Cities and E-Government? Germany is still in its infancy [5 reading tips]

19. November 201815. November 2018by Sara Herrera 0

Source: pexels.com

Our cities are getting digital. There is public Wi-Fi and apps that not only provide real-time local information about parking options, but also provide local information such as events, news, or rental offers. But a smart city can do much more than just surf the web. At least theoretically.

But how developed are “smart cities” in Germany? Are digital offerings already known and when yes, have they prevailed? Where’s the biggest potential?

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E-Commerce (General) Reading Tips of the Week Statistics, Data, Facts

Age doesn’t protect against new work — Demographic change 4.0

16. November 201815. November 2018by Franziska Kunz 0

fistbump alt und jung business — Source: pixabay

Experience, wisdom, leadership – all these qualities are spoken to people who are older than you, right? From small business to schooling to the completion of vocational training or studies, it is primarily older people who educate, advise, train, and lead. This socio-cultural character ensures that one expects a senior person to be someone older than oneself.

Thanks to digitisation, new job profiles and the demographic change 4.0, it’s precisely this expectation that is increasingly being met. The tendency is to have a project and team leader around 30 with a staff of 40-plus years.

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Holiday season is shipping season: How retailers and deliverers are preparing [5 reading tips]

12. November 201812. November 2018by Sara Herrera 0

frau, geschenk, paket — Quelle: unsplash

Christmas time is near. Consumers are buying gifts, retailers are stocking up, and parcel deliverers are gearing up to handle the mountains of boxes and avoid messy deliveries.
What can retailers and manufacturers look out for, make sure their shipments arrive on time and their customers are happy?

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(7 vote(s), average: 5.00 out of 5)

E-Commerce (General) Reading Tips of the Week Shipping Trade Statistics, Data, Facts