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The U.S. Supreme Court decided Dec. 4 to allow the Trump administration’s latest travel ban to go into full effect—temporarily—while legal challenges against it are pending. This is the first time that any version of the ban has gone forward in its entirety. https://goo.gl/cuvVZW #GlobalHR #HRTech

Virtual and augmented reality are poised to disrupt modern banking, offering customers an immersive experience in ultra-personalized convenience.

I put on a head-mounted device (HMD) at the recent SAP Financial Services Innovation Summit held at the SAP Leonardo Center in New York where I experienced a mesmerizing example of AR that could turn banks into real estate brokers and customers into people who can’t wait to visit their local branch.

Banks could partner with architectural firms to obtain floor plans, and use AR and VR to give customers virtual tours of property under construction or located in another country.

“Finding a property in crowded cities like New York or London is often very difficult,” said Vidya Gugnani, Partner Innovation and Engagement at SAP. “We’re co-innovating to develop solutions that provide a seamless and immersive experience for home buyers.”

Developed through a partnership between the SAP Co-innovation Lab and a global bank, the Live-immersive banking for real estate application is on SAP Cloud Platform. It consists of an iPhone app customers use it to search for a new home and mortgage, and is connected to a banker with a 360-degree view of the customer’s finances on their iPad. In no way does this buying process resemble how people currently troll through online property listings, or even attend open houses.

Augmented reality could turn banks into real estate brokers

Point and Shop

When someone finds a home that looks interesting, they simply point their phone at the property, and can immediately see important information like the current price, when and what it last sold for, and relevant neighborhood data such as comparable properties, schools, hospitals and shopping nearby. If they like what pops up, they can favorite the property, quickly compare similar houses, calculate affordability and potential mortgage payments, and schedule an appointment with their personal banker to apply for a mortgage – all on their phone.

Meantime, the banker is notified of the buyer’s interest, and has access to all relevant information on their iPad, including the customer’s interests, assets, liabilities, net worth, and favorited properties. With this data, the bank can automatically pre-qualify someone for a loan.

Take an Unforgettable Banking Journey

It’s inside the bank office where VR and AR change everything. Putting on my HMD, I experienced what future home buyers could encounter at their local banking branch. In a visually striking 3D computer-generated environment, I used gestures to easily search for specific properties by size and location, soaring above aerial views of the entire neighborhood, and lifting the roof from each building to “walk through” the homes. Gugnani told me these AR capabilities are part of a future banking display in Dubai.

“The goal is to provide consumers with an unforgettable experience,” said Gugnani. “They can use AR or VR to take a complete virtual tour of floor plans for property that’s under construction or located in another country. Banks can partner with architectural firms to make this information available.”

Gugnani thinks banks can use VR and AR to create new business models, partnering with real estate companies to sell more mortgages to qualified buyers. Once the consumer purchases the property, the bank could also provide insurance, becoming a one-stop shop. She added that “it could also eliminate the need to pay broker fees which are significant in a place like Dubai, opening up opportunities for expanded banking services,”

Gartner research predicted HMD sales of will reach almost $19 million by 2021, and has also found that 40 percent of organizations using or piloting AR discover the technology exceeds their expectations. The challenge for banks is figuring out how to use VR and AR in ways to keep demanding customers satisfied.

Follow me: @smgaler http://bit.ly/2kpLxBk #SAP #SAPCloud #AI

This was an ASUG webcast from earlier this year.  Part 2 and 3 are coming soon.

Be sure to register for tomorrow’s related webcast Cross-Solution Analytics with SAP Analytics Cloud and upcoming webcasts.  Tell us what you would like most to hear in this survey.

Source: SAP

BI-modal IT is shown above

Business & IT collaboration needs to be better

Increasingly, with business moving faster with “digital transformation”, selling data, change leads to differentiation

IT is trying to keep the lights on, with increasing pressures of security, high availablility, network threats

Two groups in separate direction

Data remains same; underneath applications

Holistic data foundation

Source: SAP

“More advanced customers have up to 50% of their employees using Analytics.” (source: SAP)

Adoption is a challenge; less than 20% of employees have access to analytics

How get more analytics to more people

Make sure analytics is embedded where the users are

Analytics is spread everywhere in different portals, SharePoint, different sites, email, personal devices

New employees have to find this information

This can be a high barrier to usage

If you’re one of the 20% who has access, reach 3rd barrier – can I trust data?  When was it refreshed?  Is it from a high quality system?

Source: SAP

It is not just about delivering analytics; it is about self-service

Moving from 20% to 70% – no way to get there using stylized reports

End users to deploy their own reports

Needs to fit inside holistic analytics strategy

Source: SAP

Creating an analytic strategy

Know objectives, business needs – centralized competency center

Hybrid analytics is a key component

Competency center – building programs, evangelizing, training programs, mapping value that group is providing

Building strategy – SAP has a workshop for free, ask account rep for analytics strategy

Source: SAP

That was the framework

Hybrid analytics – customers not using this phrase

Definition is there to use

“seamless user experience” so user not think of where data is residing

Source: SAP

* Article of how competency centers are changing
* It is not just IT, analytic skills and business skills – center – work being done
* Link to blog

* Business Skills:

* Understanding of line-of-business (LOB) needs
* Ability to help business managers set and balance priorities by analyzing consequences of choices and creating business cases
* An understanding of the organization’s strategic business objectives and the role action-oriented information plays in achieving the corporate objectives
* Stewardship skills to drive standardization of official hierarchies, business vocabularies and other relevant business terminology, and to participate in semantic reconciliation and ongoing data-quality efforts

* IT Skills:

* Ability to understand the business intelligence infrastructure implications of business and analytic requirements
* Deep understanding of how to access and manage data required to support business and analysis requirements
* Deep understanding of diverse business intelligence and performance management tools and technologies
* Understanding of the differences in design and access characteristics of diverse data sources
* Data governance, architecture and management skills
* Data administration and metadata management skills

* Analytical Skills

* Fluency with key analytic applications
* Researching business problems and creating models that help analyze these business problems
* Working with the IT department to develop insight into how to identify data for a specific analysis or application
* Skills to train the users in how to transform data into action-oriented information, and how to use that information (source: SAP)

Source: SAP

It is about more than technology – have programs around it, training, where publish assets, who can access

Source: SAP

Data foundation needs to be rock solid

More live stream data, more cloud data sources, blending and merge

How find right sources together

Policies for right amount of governance

Part of information governance program

Information Governance and BI need to be “best friends”

1.Refine the data schema and database architecture underpinning the BI system so business users could easily locate data.

2.Add metadata where possible, including definitions, aliases, and owners. Tip: Start a business glossary, like SAP Information Steward’s Metapedia.

3.Perform routine cleansing and de-duplication.

4.Promote your best, widely-used sources to enterprise sources. Create universes or views of these sources, and gate access with user controls. Tip: Review universes and create smaller, more focused ones for specific audiences to make them easier to use.

5.Decide which existing queries, transformations, and views you can reuse from enterprise systems. How will you control performance implications? (Source: SAP)

Source: SAP

“SAP helps give insight to make better decisions”

Decision making is a process and to succeed in the digital economy just having access to more data isn’t enough. Organizations need to turn data into meaningful insights, improve decision making, and take immediate action.

SAP can help you lead your organization’s digital journey and address the challenges of data proliferation from enterprise data, Big Data, IoT, and beyond.  And we help you to transform your all of data, the foundation of a digital enterprise, into insight to drive innovation and create business value.

Source: SAP

BI, planning and predictive in one solution

Above shows what the market

SAP has put this in one application in SAP Analytics Cloud

Analytics solutions on the market today are fragmented at best and only provide one part of the complete picture. BI technology typically looks at historical data, “what has happened” but isn’t connected with future plans and outcomes. Plans aren’t connected with simulations and modelling based on automated machine learning algorithms to uncover hidden insights. And all of these elements aren’t connected with the ability to take immediate action within a business process whether it’s a decision being made by the board or from the front line. (Source: SAP)

Source: SAP

Should have planning integrated

Data prep across multiple stories

* SAP is creating a highly differentiated solution
* “Interactive Analytics” is the intersection of BI, Predictive and Planning
* Putting these together forces competitors to play a different game (Source: SAP)

Source: SAP

What to do next

*

Explore Relevant Data
*

Simulate & Predict What Will Happen
*

Plan a Course of Action
*

ACT! – Implement Decisions (Source: SAP)

Source: SAP

Leading the cloud – digital boardroom, to help disrupt business

Innovate core – what you have on-premise has a roadmap in front of it

Customers will have a mix; that is hybrid analytics

Two grey arrows – hybrid analytics

* SAP Analytics Cloud off to great start – Continue innovation quickly and lead the Cloud
* Protect Investment in On-Premise: Hybrid, “Build Bridges” (Source: SAP)

Source: SAP

Cloud – SAP Analytics Cloud, Digital Boardroom

SAP BusinessObjects provides all the analytical capabilities that SAP BW/4HANA users need including reporting, analysis, dashboards and applications, advanced analytics and planning and consolidation
– for both on-premise and cloud deployments of BW/4HANA.

SAP BEx analytical tools are no longer supported with BW/4HANA

Source: SAP

Planning/predictive rolled together in cloud

Sits on top of SAP Cloud Platform

SAP’s vision for SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) is to connect to both on premise and Cloud data sources and applications.  Analtyics Cloud is a SaaS platform and is separated into 4 areas:

Core Capabilities – The first layer are core capabilities that are included in all Analytic capabilities and applications such as Data connectivity and Modeling, Administration and Auditing, Story Experience, and Collaboration.

Analytic Capabilities – The second layer are our 3 analytical capabilities:  BI, Planning, and Predictive.  No other competitors have all these Analytic capabilities.

Embedding Capabilities – SAP is building APIs to integrate and embed SAP Analytics  Cloud into SAP, 3rd Party, and customer applications.

Applications – The third and top layer are the Analytical applications.   SAP Digital Boardroom is an example of an SAP Analytics Cloud application.  SAP and our partners continue to look at building additional analytical applications and content that can be consumed on the App Marketplace. (Source: SAP)

Source: SAP

SAP Analytics provides both Private and Public Cloud options:

Private Cloud (IaaS) – BusinessObjects Enterprise can be deployed on premise or hosted on HEC, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, GCP, as well as 3rd party hosting providers.  Customers can leverage their existing BOE licenses in a hosted model (aka Bring Your Own License).  With HEC, we can provide BOE licenses in a subscription model.  The benefit of the private BOE cloud model is for customers who don’t want to manage their infrastructure internally and offload those costs to a hosting provider.  Customers would still need to administer and upgrade their BOE system in this hosted model, however, HEC does provide a managed service offering to help customers with the administration and upgrades of BOE.

Public Cloud (SaaS) – Our solution for public cloud is Analytics Cloud which can only be sold on a subscription model.  The benefit of Analytics Cloud is that it allows customers to try out all of our analytics capabilities (BI, Planning, and Predictive) on one platform with one user experience.

Note:  SAP Analytics Cloud is a new SaaS application and doesn’t support BOE content types like Lumira, Crystal Reports, Webi, Design Studio.  BusinessObjects Cloud should be positioned to complement an existing BOE platform by focusing on new use cases (ie Digital Transformation, extending SAP Cloud applications and SCP applications).  We will cover these examples throughout the presentation. (Source: SAP)

Customer story:

To be continued http://bit.ly/2kp3ccq #SAP #SAPCloud #AI

If you look at the recent Member of the Month recipients, you’ll notice one thing they share in common (aside from being awesome): they are all incredibly active in Q&A and have answered literally hundreds of questions.

But as I was trying to choose the latest Member of the Month, something occurred to me: What about our active bloggers? I know there are members who take the time to write informative posts, so why should their contributions be overlooked?

My bad.

With this in mind, I went searching for a member who not only blogs frequently, but who also draws positive response.

I found Fabian Lehmann, and I’m happy to recognize him as November’s Member of the Month.

Prolific blogger and the latest Member of the Month, Fabian Lehmann

This year alone, Fabian has written nearly twenty blog posts — often as series on a variety of topics. That’s probably why more than fifty people follow him, as I’m sure they all look forward to what he is going to publish next.

And while we’re on the subject of publishing, I should probably stop yapping and publish my interview with Fabian.

Let me be the first to congratulate you, Fabian. How does it feel to be the latest Member of the Month?

Jerry, yeah, thank you! I am surprised and feel honored as a Member of the Month of this great community.

Before we dive into your fantastic contributions for SAP Community, I’d like to learn more about your career. According to your profile, you work for Sycor in Germany. Can you tell me a little bit about your company and what you do for them as an SAP Solution Architect?

For sure. Sycor Group is an international midsize full-service ITC provider.

I have been working here in the SAP department for the last five years in several roles: I started at Sycor as developer in the area of the SAP Hybris. Three years ago I became responsible for the innovation topics around SAP Cloud Platform and the new SAP Leonardo IoT Portfolio. In the role as Solution Architect I am also involved in the pre-sales process, especially in the area of SAP Cloud Platform and Internet of Things. Furthermore, I create demos for our sales team and try to push the new topics internally in our department and finally for me one of the important things is to share my knowledge internally. Especially the last six months, I was involved in the beta phase of the SAP Cloud Platform IoT service and SAP Cloud Platform Application Enablement, based on the new Cloud Foundry environment together with the people from the SAP Product Management.

Whether writing for community or presenting in person, Fabian is where the cool…um…stuff happens.

I noticed that the majority of your blog posts are about the SAP Cloud Platform, so I assume you consider yourself an expert in this field. Can you tell me how you got involved in cloud technologies?

Let’s start with the beginning of my career in 2007. After my studies, I started first with the good old SAP NetWeaver stack (the fridge) and here especially in the area of Enterprise Portal. Later on I moved over to the SAP Composite Environment and to the SAP NetWeaver XI/PI. In one of my projects as consultant from my former employer, I got in touch with a customer. This enabled me to get involved with some of the newest SAP products. This was a very creative time and as result it was clear I wanted to work more with the new and innovative SAP stuff.

If we talk about innovation, we see here from my perspective SAP Cloud Platform as the central part. My first contact with SAP Cloud Platform was in 2012 as I started at Sycor and began my first openSAP courses about SAP Cloud Platform and SAP HANA.

As someone who knows how long it can take to write a blog post, I’m really impressed by your output. How do you manage to squeeze writing into your schedule?

Squeezing writing blogs into my schedule is not always easy, but I get a lot of support from my employer, which helps me to find time. Nevertheless some of my blogs are finished in my spare time or on the weekend.

Giving presentations about SAP Cloud Platform inspired Fabian to share knowledge through blogs.

Do you happen to remember the very first thing you ever blogged about in the SAP Community (or SCN)? What motivated you to blog for the first time?

A short recap to my first contact with the former “Software Developer Network,” short SDN. The SDN was in the beginning of my career the central place to get my knowledge or ask something. I made SDN my start page of my browser and every day my first task was to check the new content and try to learn new stuff.

Anyway my first blog was motivated as a result of two presentations at the “SAP Cloud Platform Integration Info Day” in Walldorf 2016 and the “DSAG Jahrekongress,” where I built a scenario. The scenario showed how we could use SAP CP IoT Services 2.0 (the old one) in combination with SAP CP Integration (aka HCI). Finally, I used SAP Cloud Analytics to visualize the data.

Then I started to write blogs. For me blogging is the best possibility to share my knowledge with others and hopefully to show how easy things can be.

In addition to blogs, Fabian has started to share his CP/IoT experience through SAP Inside Tracks.

When and why do you choose to write a specific blog post? Is there anything in particular that inspires you?

From my perspective it’s easy to become successful with SAP CP. Especially if you play around with different solutions and microservices and combine this to build realistic E2E scenarios — such as combining Business Rules services and Workflow services together with SAP CP IoT services, SAP CP Integration and S4/HANA or SAP Hybris Cloud for Sales. In addition, I simply like to show how you can build such scenarios and get successful.

However, the main reason is the community approach. I think it is important to share knowledge and to help others by answering questions. Moreover, this was one thing which I took home as an attendee from my first SAP Inside Track in the beginning of this year in Walldorf! After this, I have started also to support SAP Inside Tracks by contributing my experience around SAP Cloud Platform and SAP IoT service.

If you don’t read Fabian’s blogs, you’ll make Ella sad. And you don’t want that, do you?

Beyond writing blogs, is there anything else you do in your downtime? Any hobbies or activities that interest you greatly?

The primary hobby is of course my little family with our two wonderful kids (2 and 8) and our little dog, Ella. During vacation I love to travel to Korsika. At the weekends I love to cook tasty things, especially from the Italian kitchen with its huge diversity. Furthermore, I try to build up some liitle projects together with my son based on a “Calliope Mini” (a little microcontroller) to help him a little bit to take the first steps in programming.

Like father, like son. Fabian is helping his son take his first steps in programming.

Let’s circle back to your writing. It’s no secret that members are discouraged with the amount of traffic in the blogging areas. Is there anything you do to help promote your posts?

At the moment I am using Twitter and sometimes LinkedIn. That’s all.

Out of all the activities open to community members, blogging seems to be the most intimidating, in my opinion. Perhaps it’s because of the time investment required to research and write something. It may be because many members aren’t native English speakers, so they feel nervous about writing in another language. Maybe it’s a combination of several things. So my question is this: What advice would you give someone to help them blog successfully?

My advice here is “just do it,” but keep in mind to build a good structure first. Write a short introduction and a good explanation. At least I hope to do that. Finally do not write about the same topic again! Moreover, a good blog can be an opportunity to get deeper in this topic for others.

Great stuff! Once again, Fabian, I want to congratulate you for becoming the latest Member of the Month for SAP Community. Please keep on writing and posting content that members benefit from reading!

  http://bit.ly/2BMUg4E #SAP #SAPCloud #AI