When I get an opportunity to talk about S/4 HANA I start it with three different stories. The stories have a common thread and it's around digitization. It helps me to connect back to the main theme around S/4 HANA an Enterprise Management offering of SAP. In this blog I am going to talk about these three stories and set the stage for the features around S/4 HANA.
Whenever a new product is launched there is a vision and an intended audience of that vision. SAP is indeed a great organization with a great vision "Run Simple to Improve People's Lives". This is truly delivered when we look at the new product around Enterprise Management as it encapsulates the vision of digitization in it. Recently when I was going through a material around Digitization I came across SoLoMo strategy and I related it back to my stories.
Story Number 1 : I think we are all aware how PEPSI had launched Mobile Phones in China. If you are not aware of it; it's a worth a read. This is the news item of October 2015 when I was getting trained on S/4 HANA as an expert. Well this intrigued me, as in what is happening to the businesses around and then I realized how organization want to get into the psyche of the customer. It was evident that if the organizations doesn't want to lose focus on their flagship product but at the same time wants to expand their footprint and the market the only way is to connect with the customers.
To get into their psyche and make them loyal and give them the best experience that they can ever think of. This is also evident from the way Apple mentions it "making a dent in the universe" and does its business. Connecting to the customers and deliver the best in class experience is the only way to get there loyalty and closer to their heart. In this pursuit Organizations like PPEPSI would need to be flexible with the business models that they want to adapt , test and possibly abandon it and formulate more such strategies with a quest to get into the psyche of the customers. The idea is to just connect and get the loyalty by giving the best in class experience.
Story Number 2: In an airline industry there is a process around giving coupons if the flights are either cancelled or delayed or any other reason (overbooking) to win the customer loyalty. But just imagine if the customer has to stand in a queue or there is limited number of vendors available on the airport to honor the coupons. The intentions of the airline industry is to give the customer comfort in such situations and get there loyalty in return and any further discomfort will adversely affect the customer base. This can be addressed by a scenario wherein the coupons are electronically (SMS, WhatsApp(if FB allows) , Mails , any customer preferred channel) or digitally transmitted on the smart phones of the customer and customer has choices to avail the benefit (spend money) at various vendors on the airport.
Big airports (for e.g. : Heathrow or Schiphol) has its own economy and if there is an information about the delayed flights available in advance vendors like Starbucks or Spa vendors or similar other vendors would definitely like to have more foot falls and this would lead them to launch instant promotions. So the digitally transmitted coupons and the amount of money hitting the floors of the airport will help the vendors to launch promotions and increase their revenue and becoming more profitable.
This is only possible if the airline industry transmits this information to the vendors in advance before the customers. Since the money is flowing one way from the Airline Industry they can capitalize on this information and share the load with the Airport Economy and thereby getting some relief on their operating cost and thereby impacting the bottom-line in a positive way.
Story Number 3: With pollutant level rising we are quite familiar with the AQI (Air Quality Index at least in Delhi) or different parameters around it. If you google it you would find lots and lots of such instruments which have different kinds of sensors to guide you on the parameters on the air quality that you are breathing. My prediction is the day is not far when we would start measuring the water quality and bring it in our conversation around it that the quality of water delivered (by different tankers and vendors since the ground water is depleting) is not good for drinking because of certain parameters or probably not good for cooking. So what is the solution around it ? Well the water is generally stored in your Overhead Water Tank (which you see on various Houses and Apartments). If you can launch a mobile app on your smart phone which would tell you the quality of the water in the tank , the level of the water so that you can order the tanker or avail the plumber services whenever required for the regular cleaning and maintenance. Now the questions is who should do this and take this pain of aggregating these services in the form of mobile app. This would be ideal for the manufacturing units of the overhead tanks who will be interested in expanding there footprint and getting into the psyche of the customer and establish a connect with them in order to give them best in class, end to end experience.
The central protagonist in all the three stories is the end Consumer or the Customer. The common thread in the stories mentioned above is either to establish a connect or to provide the best in class service to the customer in order to earn the loyalty by improving their lives in order to make them run SIMPLE. This can be achieved only if the organizations are agile and flexible to serve better to their customer thus impacting the overall bottom line and increasing the revenue and increasing the footprint.
I believe S/4 HANA is a great product which can enable today's organization to become agile and flexible to serve their customer better and how the above mentioned stories relate to it , I will cover it in my next blog along with more interesting scenarios.