Social Business

Business Teams Can Create Their Own Apps (with Occasional Help!)

Posted by WSS on April 30, 2023   |   Comments Off on Business Teams Can Create Their Own Apps (with Occasional Help!)

View the original blog on the SAP Community.

Inspired by the growing opportunity for business professionals to leverage Low-code/No-code (LCNC) tools, I decided to take the SAP Build LCNC Learning Journey, share a few thoughts, and encourage fellow business Citizen Developers to join the SAP Builders group to connect to peers and experts.

Reprioritizing Opportunities

As inflationary pressures and marketplace conditions are challenging business leaders to focus on game changers and reprioritize investments, the need to move faster, increase automation, and become more productive is more important than ever.

As a business practioner, professional coding with SAP ABAP, JavaScript, Python, and Swift are incredibly admired, but too complicated and out of reach to work with hands on.

Until recently leveraging the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) to gain access to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP SuccessFactors, and other SAP and third-party apps and data was best left to the professional coders.

For many of us, it was like standing on the side of a swimming pool and watching all the experts (aka coders) swim. We business people were stuck on the side to watch, admire, or hire a professional programmer to do the work.

With less professional coders than business experts, SAP Build represents a substantial opportunity for business teams to create their own apps (and yes, professional coders can give much appreciated tips and guidance).

Over time it has become apparent that Low-Code/No-Code (LCNC) apps, platforms, and tools are an important, growing part of the IT landscape. According to Statista, the LCNC platform revenue will grow from $22.5 billion (USD) in 2022 to ~$32 billion in 2024 (CAGR: 26.1%).

That stat along with many other indicators show that there is an enormous opportunity for business people to set free their expertise, provide significant value, and help their organizations do more with less.

Learning LCNC Requires Effort

Given this market trend I started on the SAP Build Low-Code/No-Code Learning Journey. It’s exciting to learn about the three key apps:

Keep in mind that Low-Code / No-Code does not mean no effort. It takes focus and time to learn about these tools and put them to use. Each week I set aside some time to learn and deep dive into the Learning Journey concepts.

The good news is that the learning exercises to build these tools along with the free access to an SAP Build Apps sandbox makes it all very accessible.

For example, for years I wanted to work with certain SAP and third-party apps to set up connections to the open data application programming interface (Odata API) to fetch data, but didn’t have the coding skills or knowledge.

With SAP Build Apps I created my first mobile app using the scenario of scanning a barcode and pulling data (using the JSON format) from an OpenFoodFacts API to populate data around products and calories. I jumped for joy when it worked knowing that as a business practitioner the possibilities are endless.

Going forward – Unleash Expertise

Thankfully, the SAP Community provides many resources for Citizen Developers to connect, collaborate, and learn including:

The future is bright where SAP Build apps and tools can make incredible impact in working with organizations, customers, and strategic partners.

Afterall, when working in SAP environments, leveraging SAP tools is a big advantage.

Clearly the teaming between business practitioners and professional coders is very helpful and worthwhile in terms of gaining LCNC insights related to expertise, support, tips, security, governance, and enterprise compliance.

In this business climate where doing more with less is paramount, business Citizen Developers can use their knowledge and experiences to work with SAP Build to leverage SAP and third-party apps, data, and tools, which were previously out of reach to unleash their expertise!

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Appreciate any comments…

  • Are you taking the LCNC Learning Journey now or in the near future?
  • What are your experiences with any of the SAP Build products? What have you built?
  • Are you working on any interesting use cases?
  • Please leave any comments below!

Elevating SAP Collaboration with Microsoft Teams and SharePoint

Posted by WSS on July 17, 2020   |   Comments Off on Elevating SAP Collaboration with Microsoft Teams and SharePoint

Originally published on the SAP Community.

When SAP and Microsoft announced they are building integrations to Microsoft Teams across solutions many of us were inspired. With the new reality of remote and hybrid work, the importance of elevating collaboration has grown significantly.

While the advancements of this integration are impressive, it is important to deploy these solutions the right way to achieve tangible business outcomes.

Since today’s globally distributed workers are no longer confined to office buildings, the “workplace” has transformed into a digital “workspace” allowing colleagues to meet, collaborate, and connect virtually across organizational boundaries. A great user experience is a necessity versus a “nice to have.”

Christian Klein, SAP CEO and member of the Executive Board, said it best that this partnership will address, “New ways of working, collaborating and interacting to completely transform how we operate,” and bring collaboration to the next level.

Collaboration is changing rapidly. Each of us are collaborating more often, increasingly mobile, and working on a schedule that enables us to connect more virtually.

Disparate information kept in silos and organized in ad-hoc ways becomes an impediment to performance and productivity. One of the challenging things to do is to keep Microsoft Teams and SharePoint, along with the SAP portfolio, organized so that the content is valuable to users.

Thoughtful leaders step back and ensure that SAP Collaboration represents how the business works both in the short-term and going forward.

The Information Architecture Pre-Request 

Each time you create a new Microsoft Teams you automatically get SharePoint with the Microsoft 365 Apps including Power App, Power BI, OneNote, and Exchange with email and calendaring.

Project teams working with SAP applications such as SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Digital Supply Chain, SAP SuccessFactors and learning communities, SAP CRM and Customer Experience, Industry 4.0 solutions and/or SAP Activate Methodology should prioritize and implement a well-planned information architecture as a pre-request for a high quality, high-performing intranet, central hub, or group.

It’s important to understand the audience and help them find what they need quickly to support them in getting their work completed efficiently. One expert once referred to it as “help the user get to where they need to go in ONE CLICK versus many clicks and endless folders to assist in completing a task.”

Putting in the time to address Information Architecture helps improve user satisfaction and adoption while reducing information overload.

Customer-Centric Enablement

In this video, “Remove Barriers for Your Sales Teams with SAP and Microsoft it shows the power of the integration,” there are many exciting front-line capabilities, but the power is in the information architecture that supports the tangible outcomes.

Could a sales, marketing, consultant, pre-sales, operations, services or other front-line worker to customers, strategic partners or suppliers have everything they need by primarily using their own individual OneDrive or SharePoint?

Clearly, they need the right resources (“assets”), at the right time for effective engagement including:

  1. Access – Enable secure private, enterprise, and/or external access.
  2. Central Hub – Deploy one location for individuals, teams, and the enterprise to find pertinent information.
  3. Teamwork – Allow for collaboration, chat, video conferencing, calls, meetings, and surveys.
  4. Content – Ensure easy to find central hub for content, information, contributions, and useful links.
  5. Components – Leverage multiuse calendars, planning, notebooks, and other tools and web parts.
  6. Collaboration – Microsoft Teams, comments, surveys, discussion treads, and news updates.
  7. Communications – Engagement and outreach to bring the audience to the central hub and share news, planning, announcements, updates, and access to key assets.
  8. Continuity – Plan that the collaboration continues versus the initial excitement and the investment in a quality set-up drop off months later.

When these items are brought together in full or part, the sum is truly greater than the parts.

Digital Transformation Realized with SAP Collaboration

Collaboration is nothing new and yet it remains a critical success factor for every organization.

Enabling workers to leverage and build upon the work of others is a fundamental principle. When team members work in a silo, they reduce productivity and have a higher probability of duplicating efforts.

With SAP Collaboration, Microsoft Teams and SharePoint the goal is to…

  • Help elevate workers to take advantage of modern platforms and digital transformation environments
  • Increase high quality teamwork, cooperation, and communications
  • Impact the value, growth, revenues, services, and outcomes with a focus on exceeding customer satisfaction.

Working together, people feel more connected to their work and their organization.

With these integration capabilities in place, combined with a well-deployed information architecture, users will always have access to the right content at the right time, to find what they are looking for more quickly and consistently, and support their business requirements.

Purpose-Driven Design for the SAP Build Work Zone Digital Learning User Experience

Posted by WSS on April 30, 2020   |   Comments Off on Purpose-Driven Design for the SAP Build Work Zone Digital Learning User Experience

Written by Elle Savage on the SAP Community.

When deploying SAP Build Work Zone and related SAP HR/Learning solutions, there is a great need for design solutions that are positioned to support business processes and add value to the user’s experience.

The challenge is to create high-quality graphic designs that turn ideas and missions into visuals that engage and excite employees, customers, partners, and other stakeholders, while also optimizing the business objective.

According to a recent McKinsey Quarterly study, “The Business Value of Design,” companies that address all four of the following design priorities are rare, but those that have, reported increased revenues and total stakeholders returns compared to their counterparts. These four key elements include:

  • Analytics – Bringing data to life
  • Cross-Functional Teams & Talent – Enabling visuals to go beyond the silos of a respective group or organization
  • Continuous Iteration – Continued review, improvement, maintenance, and testing to optimize the user experience
  • User Experience – Design a seamless user experience that adds value to their business requirements

In order to achieve the best user experience, designers must be closely aligned with a project’s business leaders and subject matter experts to ensure they understand the mission and design with purpose.

Assessment of the Design-Driven Maturity Curve

Purpose-driven design should be an integral part of a project’s strategy from day one. In today’s increasingly digital world, users have come to expect an interface that is both attractive and easy to use.

There are many corporate tools at our fingertips to satisfy this expectation such as company libraries of images, icons, videos, font guidelines, etc., which should be leveraged to develop standards, repeatable processes, and efficiencies. Still, it is highly recommended that a project’s core team includes a design professional who understands how to maximize the benefits of available design elements.

Setting high-quality standards, per the “Design-Driven Maturity Curve,” sends a message to your audience that a SAP Build Work Zone custom home page or group landing page is valuable, credible, properly maintained, and well thought out.

What is the SAP Build Work Zone Design Value?

Throughout a project’s development, it is important to recognize design as a priority versus as an afterthought. The most forward-thinking organizations will strive to make it a substantive part of their activities because they see the value of design at both a strategic and tactical level.

Designing an intuitive user experience will increase efficiencies and generate higher value by enabling site visitors to quickly navigate the interface and find essential information, therefore optimizing businesses processes.At the same time, the interface must maintain the organization’s brand and messaging throughout the experience.

While a high-quality UI (User Interface) fulfills a user’s wants by delivering an attractive digital environment, an excellent UX (User Experience) fulfills their needs by allowing them to efficiently complete the task they set out to do quickly and with ease.

The Delivery Methodology for Optimizing Design Elements

When building a new digital learning community, group, or site, it is vital that the delivery methodology has user testing baked in to the team’s approach from the start (“Initiate” and “Assess”) to finish (“Deploy,” “Post-go-live,” and “Adoption”). Taking an agile approach allows project leaders to incorporate users’ feedback throughout development in order to create the best user experience possible.

Incorporating a Purpose-Driven Design Approach

Business process mapping enables teams to understand the project requirements and objectives before developing the interface design.

When key participants come and go from the project, there should be guidelines in place, by way of standardization, procedures, and protocols, that can be leveraged while still maintaining the team’s ability to be creative.

Organizations and teams that prioritize design addressing the four key elements discussed (Analytics, Cross-Functional Teams & Talent, Continuous Iteration, and User Experience) as a core part of their strategy outperform groups that take a more ad-hoc or even intermediate design level approach.

A purpose-driven design combined with the proper delivery methodology streamlines organization operations, which allow business leaders, subject matter experts, and contributors to focus on creating high-quality content, boosting productivity, and providing a consistent, impactful user experience.

Sources:

  • “4 key stats on the importance of design for business.” Adobe Blogs. Harmer, Tony. October 2015.
  • “The Business Value of Design.” McKinsey & Company. Sheppard, Benedict; Sarrazin, Hugo; Kouyoumjian, Garen; Dore, Fabricio. October 2018.
  • “The Value of Design.” Design Management Institute.

The CEO’s Role with HR in the Digital Learning Workplace Powered by SAP Build Work Zone

Posted by WSS on April 22, 2020   |   Comments Off on The CEO’s Role with HR in the Digital Learning Workplace Powered by SAP Build Work Zone

Compelling business trends and transformation happens every day. New customer requirements. Markets change. Mergers and acquisitions. Government regulations and compliance. Competitive pressures. Advancements in technology and innovation.

Winning CEOs help these transformations succeed by communicating their vision and strategy, setting up the business model with their leadership team, and making strategic learning an organizational priority.

How can HR / Learning professionals respond?

First, it starts with the Chief HR (or People) Officer and their team, who partner with the CEO, to provide access to the vital skills, expertise, and resources required.

Employees who understand the mission and are trained to perform at the highest level are more likely to achieve tangible outcomes, value, and performance which helps drive the top and bottom line of the business.

For the CEO to achieve transformation 4 key factors must be in place:

  1. Showcase the importance of learning as a pillar of the organization’s success.
    – Believe in the content and its impact.
  2. Create an employee-first culture where learning enables incredible upside with customers.
    – Empower career development.
  3. Develop quality learning programs that are linked to strategic direction.
    – Ensure true commitment and accountability.
  4. Amplify top experts, leaders, knowledge (i.e. videos, playlists, podcasts, thought leadership, blogs, books, presentations, key assets, mentoring, etc.) as a central hub to provide context to formal learning.
    – Extend formal learning to optimize the experience.

Maximizing the Digital Learning Workplace Opportunity with SAP Jam provides a powerful, robust, mobile platform which represents an industry leading, complimentary approach to formal Learning Management Systems (LMS).  SAP Jam fulfills an important, unique niche amongst other learning tools to provide clear value which is highly visible with 53+ Million licensed users.

LMS provides the foundation for courses, certifications, testing, scheduling, and formal e-Learning, classroom, and virtual instructor-led training. The key is to combine LMS with a collaborative, business process, mobile enabled platform (“app”) powered by SAP Jam to achieve success. How would you rate your organization in using these tools?

To realize success, the CEO must go beyond the vision and communications by putting the right strategic learning system and approach in place.

As a result, the performance of the entire organization will elevate.

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Useful Links

About the Author

Richard D. Blumberg is a SAP Jam Practice leader who works with both SAP and SAP Services. He is the President of World Sales Solutions, LLC (WSS) (www.WorldSalesSolutions.com) providing 29+ years of thought leadership on a variety of “View from the Top” strategies including: Enterprise Social Business, Go-to-Market Strategies, Business Development, Talent Development, and Community Building.  He and his team are recognized SAP Jam global experts for implementations, innovation, and adoption.

Blogs

How SAP Build Work Zone and Google Analytics Extend Decision Support

Posted by WSS on March 17, 2020   |   Comments Off on How SAP Build Work Zone and Google Analytics Extend Decision Support

Customers often ask, “How do we know our SAP Build Work Zone group, portal/internet, activities are providing the best results?”

Many times, executive management and stakeholders want to know how the investments in SAP Build Work Zone are working, and what decisions should be considered to optimize the experience for employees, customers, and partners.

Until we started using the combination of SAP Work Zone admin reports (& dashboards) with Google Analytics the raw data, assets (i.e. documents, videos), experts’ knowledge, and the business process (& models) deployed were extremely hard to measure.

Extending SAP Work Zone to Google Analytics is like “turning the lights on” to help identify audience behavior, understand the engagement with content, and make better business decisions.

Given the rapidly changing nature of an organization using SAP Work Zone, along with both structured and unstructured information, it’s easy to lose track of how to analyze audience behavior in relation to goals and campaign tracking.

Five Overall Benefits

  1. Achieving deeper data exploration to uncover trends & patterns
  2. Operationalizing reporting insights to optimize processes and achieve greater impact
  3. Reducing complexity by understanding what’s working and what needs improvement
  4. Providing governance to have consistent views both in the real-time and by way of regular reporting (i.e. bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly)
  5. Delivering high quality insights to executive sponsors and key stakeholders

The first bit of good news is that the SAP Work Zone Collaboration platform does not share employee (or user) profile information with Google Analytics. That gives us all a great sigh of relief when addressing the importance of data privacy and security standards.

Examples of what Google Analytics does very well to enhance the SAP Jam reporting experience:

  • Real Time Custom Reports – Addressing visitors’ locations, traffic sources, content
  • Audience – Tracking active users, geo, languages, behavior, new vs. returning, frequency, technology, mobile, devices, user flow
  • Acquisition – Measuring channels, sources, campaigns
  • Behavior – Understanding the flow, site content (views – what content is most engaging) as well as insights on all pages, exit pages, and problematic pages (i.e. bounce rates) and the time of day that receives the most traffic

When you consider the quantity of assets, data, and traffic on a Jam group, intranet or portal, along with growth and scalability, extending SAP Work Zone to Google Analytics is an essential tool.

With a consistent governance the decision makers (i.e. business leaders, company or group admins) can have a consolidated view, and be in a more informed position, to continuously improve and refine the SAP Jam group(s) or portal/intranet.

Once analyzed, SAP Work Zone decision support may require…

  • Improving communications (i.e. focusing on outreach & awareness)
  • Recognizing completeness of content / information (i.e. auditing a holistic vs. fragmented view. What are the audience’s priorities?)
  • Improving maintenance (i.e. accountability by content contributors to update or archive old information)
  • Assessing process improvements (i.e. ensure the company-wide, line of business or group’s business model is optimized on SAP Work Zone for the audience goals & objectives)
  • Leveraging knowledge (i.e. ownership and contribution from experts, mentors, peers)
  • Refining the user experience and design (i.e. make it easy for the audience to find what they want quickly and with the most value. Also, eliminate and reduce problem areas.)

When used the right way, SAP Work Zone and Google Analytics are a great combination which should be deployed to support data-driven decisions, metrics to inform executive sponsors and stakeholders, and help make decisions which ensure successful outcomes

Useful Links

About the Author

Richard D. Blumberg is a SAP Jam Practice leader who works with both SAP and SAP Services. He is the President of World Sales Solutions, LLC (WSS) (www.WorldSalesSolutions.com) providing 29+ years of thought leadership on a variety of “View from the Top” strategies including: Enterprise Social Business, Go-to-Market Strategies, Business Development, Talent Development, and Community Building.  He and his team are recognized SAP Jam global experts for implementations, innovation, and adoption.


Blogs

Maximizing the Digital Learning Workplace Opportunity with SAP Jam

Posted by WSS on March 5, 2020   |   Comments Off on Maximizing the Digital Learning Workplace Opportunity with SAP Jam

– Going Beyond a Formal Learning Management System to Combine it with a Professional Collaboration and Portal Environment to Display Complimentary Assets & Resources –

CEOs and their boards, leaders, as well as company innovators and experts, know that in order to achieve short- and long-term financial returns a solid enterprise learning strategy is a must.

With the ever growing complexity of customer requirements, partner ecosystems, the global economy, combined with new and evolving products, services and solutions, a top quality learning environment is not a “nice to have” but rather a critical necessity and a competitive advantage.

To scale and grow the business.
And forge new opportunities.

The enterprise’s education leaders must consider going beyond:
(A) a “formal” learning management system (LMS) alone
 “or”
(B) accepting LMS with a document repository only.

The key is to combine formal training and courses with the alignment of a less formal, complementary, and supplementary blended learning environment which we can refer to as the Digital Learning Workplace (DLW) .

A Formula to Consider:

DLW = SAP Jam + LMS (with governance, discipline, quality content, and quality design & brand attributes)

When auditing today’s learning environments do they measure up to modern standards?

The DLW works incredibly well with the SAP Jam collaboration platform by breaking down silos and optimizing business (& learning) processes. The DLW brings together the knowledge DNA of an organization to the employees (24/7, any device).

For example…
Like a university with Colleges and Schools. Each group has their own objectives within the larger mission of the university.

Together the sum (or all the groups) is greater than the individual parts of the university.

To further this example…
 Each class has formal courses as well as supplements with a range of assets and resources (i.e. Think of an accounting mid-term exam with a supplementary Harvard Business Review ”HBR” case study or TED Talks to better understand the concepts tested for in the test. Mid-term = Formal; HBR or TED Talk = less formal).

If they only had formal classes with tests, how effective would the curricula be for the students?

Equipping Employees with the DLW to Support Customers

To survive, a university as well as any organization must be ready for both today and tomorrow’s emerging (& compelling) opportunities. The DLW is a crucial element for success.

Consider employee turnover. As an organization address additions or subtractions (i.e. ~10 – 20%) in the number of employees per year… What knowledge will be shared and retained, and what will be lost or never found?

Employees and contractors.
Internal and external stakeholders. Early talent, older talent, and onboarding. Each depends on learning the current and new realities of the organization, marketplace, and how to best serve customers (& partners).

Each enterprise formed of teams and individuals must continuously learn about innovation, new technologies, products, solutions, services, customer relationships, core business, emerging trends, leadership & management, compliance, regulations, culture, diversity, as well as career and professional development.

Are Complimentary Learning Resources Optimizing the LMS Experience? 

Going beyond formal learning may include a range of complimentary assets such as one or more of the following: custom home pages (i.e. intranet and portal) and groups, expert videos and playlists, TED Talks, HBR case studies, whitepapers, podcasts, webinars, news & updates, 3rd party courses, instructor lead workshops/courses, affinity groups, CEO & their leadership team summits, virtual and face-to-face events — all of which requires a central hub and communications to engage the audience.

For top leading organizations where brand and the quality standards matter, a DLW discipline and governance must first be achieved and then maintained.

By way of DLW portals, intranets, home pages, and groups, each must look exceptional, have accurate, approved, and maintained content, and represent the highest-level user experience for the sake of the respective audience.

From an employee standpoint, when you provide a high quality DLW environment, they will be in a better position to take care of customers.

And a result…

  • Lead and support growing revenues.
  • Improve operational efficiencies.
  • And help cut costs.

These learning environments don’t happen on their own. Only with a concerted formal “and” less formal, complimentary learning initiative with a talented core team of HR/Learning leaders, will a DLW take shape and become an impactful, invaluable resource on any device, 24/7.

Stepping Back: A Few Questions Worth Asking!

So consider your learning platforms, environments, and experiences.
Make your assessments. Ask yourself a few questions:

  • Do they represent “formal” and “less formal,” complimentary learning as one system?
  • Do they have the modern tool capabilities you require for success? Would millennials enjoy the experience?
  • Do they reflect the business and learning processes required?
  • Do they represent the whole …or disparate, fragmented parts?
  • Do they provide current and maintained content?
  • Do they showcase your organization’s brand and high quality?
  • Do they provide measurabilty to extend decision support?

Every individual, team, and leader must know their part.  To help the organization achieve success as champions.

They have their roadmap(s).
But are they equipped…
…with a Digital Learning Workplace at their finger-tips?

The DLW provides a modern resource with excellent capabilities to address the holistic learning requirements of the organization.

As your team considers…
What your DLW is and what it can be…
Are you ready to maximize the opportunity?

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Useful Links

About the Author

Richard D. Blumberg is a SAP Jam Practice leader who works with both SAP and SAP Services. He is the President of World Sales Solutions, LLC (WSS) (www.WorldSalesSolutions.com) providing 29+ years of thought leadership on a variety of “View from the Top” strategies including: Enterprise Social Business, Go-to-Market Strategies, Business Development, Talent Development, and Community Building.  He and his team are recognized SAP Jam global experts for implementations, innovation, and adoption.

 

Blogs

SAP Jam for social onboarding: How to Improve First Impressions for New Hires?

Posted by WSS on February 10, 2020   |   Comments Off on SAP Jam for social onboarding: How to Improve First Impressions for New Hires?

As an employer do you want to leave the early impressions of your organization to chance?

The day a new employee is hired it’s an exciting time. Do you want them to rely on a Google search, Glassdoor, Social Media, and/or disparate information for them to learn more about your organization or their new department?

In an Aberdeen Report, “Strategic Onboarding: Help New Employees and the Business” they pointed out:

“Best-in-Class companies are 2.5 times more likely than all others to provide key stakeholders with visibility into the development progress of new employees through the onboarding process.”

“58% of all companies indicate that the biggest influence on onboarding efforts is the need to engage new hires in the company culture.”

“Since 90% of employees make the decision to stay within the first year, it’s more important than ever to determine if new hires are engaged early on.”

When looking at the life cycle of an employee from prehire, new hire, and cross-hire… to becoming a productive employee, it’s important to enable a positive experience, engage, and help reduce the dropout rate.

First impressions make a big difference!

As a result, SAP Jam aligned with SAP SuccessFactors Onboarding (& the related HCM Suite) represents a best-in-class platform (& app) approach to enabling social onboarding.

4 SAP Jam for social onboarding considerations  
  1. External SAP Jam Group – For new hires they can be invited into an external Jam group with a focus to gaining access to company wide and department specific prehire information (i.e. videos, welcome ambassadors / experts, check lists, what to expect Day 1, etc.)
  2. Account Conversion – Once the new hire joins, Day 1, their prehire account can be converted to a full access SAP Jam user account allowing them to keep their existing information and expand into company wide access
  3. Dynamic Member Lists – New employees based on their start date can automatically become a member of a new hire Jam group which addresses both company-wide and departmental new hire considerations (i.e. stay in the group for 100 days)
  4. Complimentary Platforms & Apps – Align SAP Jam to recruiting, onboarding, learning, Fiori, and related HCM business processes and tools leveraging a common user management experience with SAP Foundation (aka – BizX) to enable the employee system of record
The Role of HR and Business Leadership

An organization’s Chief People &/or Talent Officer and their team play a big role as internal consultants within the organization to step back and assess if prehires, new hires, and cross-team hires are getting the best experience and optimizing their productivity?

A check list to consider:

  1. First Impressions – Has the organization taken the time to optimize the first impressions to the new employees?
  2. Knowledge – Do pre- and new hires have clarity on the value, culture, opportunities, and expectations for their new role?
  3. Engage – Are pre- and new hires being engaged in a timely manner with the best knowledge and information available to equip them for success?
    • Who are the experts and ambassadors who can share their experiences / insights?
  4. Busy Managers – While the business leads from the respective departments (“business units”) are very, very busy, have they provided what’s needed for pre- & new hires to be productive?
    • When was the last time the business addressed how long the boarding process takes and the process for efficiency?
  5. Compliance – Do the pre- and new hires have the information they need to address compliance (i.e. privacy, confidentiality, and related industry compliance requirements)?
  6. Strategy – Is onboarding viewed as a strategic initiative to your organization with ongoing reviews to keep the information fresh & current and use the best tools available?
What can the Chief HR and Talent Officer address? 

With digital transformation new employees expect social onboarding tools to facilitate their new hire experience. For recent graduates (“Next-Gen”) who have grown up with cell phones and social media it’s important for a business to put it’s best foot forward in the hiring process using modern tools and capabilities.

When left to ad-hoc approaches it’s proven that satisfaction levels can go down, and the drop out rate increases, which costs both time and money for all participants in the hiring process.

The Chief HR and Talent Officer and their team should develop approaches (“frameworks”) that make it easier for lines of business within the organization to address the business requirements to optimize the ramp up period… and bring on happy successful new employees… and as result, achieve higher levels of productivity, successful outcomes, and satisfaction.

Based on many SAP Jam experiences, it is often best for the business lead and their core team to focus on the business requirements and stakeholder input, and then work with SAP Jam implementation & adoption services experts to ensure that the platform is optimized and best practices are in place.

First day impressions are very important.

By stepping back… and looking at the best processes, key information, and approach… organizations can optimize what happens before, during, and after the first day on the job to develop talent and positively impact bottom-line results.

—

Blogs

 

Jerry McGuire had it right, “Show me the money!”

Posted by WSS on October 13, 2018   |   Comments Off on Jerry McGuire had it right, “Show me the money!”


So often well intended investments in webinars, seminars, conferences, demand generation and other marketing and partner programs adds value, but unless it can be measured by way of revenues it can be under appreciated.

The WorkSpan approach of providing a platform for “Joint Marketing” and “Joint Sales” is an ideal way for 2 or more organizations to work together on deal qualification and sales cycles.

Consider 2 companies co-sponsor a marketing or partner program. It would be ideal for the account teams in both organizations to have access to the leads as well as the qualified sales opportunities.

CRM systems alone are not the answer in that proprietary information cannot be shared outside the organization. Only with a Joint Marketing & Joint Sales system can this approach be optimized.

What’s the alternative? emails? Phone calls? Texts? Spreadsheets? Social Media tools with disparate, disorganized threads of discussions?

Keep in mind the importance of privacy, security, and that the lead Account Executive wants and must control who participates and who doesn’t. Trust must be built. Often change management is key to addressing new ways to win deals.

A few questions / comments to consider:

  • How often does a sales pursuit include 2 companies and often a third (or more)
  • How can you optimize 2 (or more) talented organizations going after 1 important deal?
  • There can be 1 company with 10 deals and 10 different partners for each… how best to manage the various partners pursuing these deals?
  • And for every deal an account team pursues, the participants inside and outside the organization can change throughout the sales cycle.

As WorkSpan states, “Where you & your partners can nominate joint accounts to pursue, track deals, & report on partner contribution to revenue.” This platform and the methodology that goes with it is an excellent way to bolster measurable outcomes.

When marketing and strategic alliances professionals (“aces”) have measurable success they will make their manager and organization happy, gain more trust, increase investments in future programs, and have better control of important outcomes.

When you and your team achieve “Show Me the Money” status with revenues aligned to marketing and partner programs, more investments can be considered, more customer success can be developed and showcased, and the most important value of them all can be optimized: TIME.

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Building a Global, Integrated SuccessFactors HR Services Model with SAP Jam

Posted by WSS on September 21, 2017   |   Comments Off on Building a Global, Integrated SuccessFactors HR Services Model with SAP Jam

 – Grow Your Talent –

Perhaps Bill McDermott, SAP CEO, said it best on a recent investor call that deploying an HR solution is a “more comprehensive decision” than just HR alone (i.e. WorkDay).

When you look at the importance of having a cloud platform including the digital core of “S/4HANA and the nucleus of the 21st Century Enterprise and all line of business (LoB) executives evolving their use of their individual LoB with the center of gravity, the data and the process of the company. You know, that’s game set match for SAP [and SAP SuccessFactors] (1).”

When assessing your organization’s HRIS program, my team and I find that the BEST RUN organizations consider how the HR Service Model, SAP Jam, and company-wide goals align to the business requirements Including: increasing HR operational process efficiency, reducing costs, and aligning HR to strategic revenue imperatives.

A ONE Company Approach
The integrated HR service delivery model works best with one single, holistic, core HR system which addresses:

  • Deploying one common employee data model
  • Improving people management and talent development
  • Reducing the time spent on HR transactional activities
  • Enabling better reporting for improved decision support

Successful companies develop a strategic HR value map (often with a 3+ year view) which identifies priorities, user cases (scenarios), and enables collaboration and communications.

Quantifying the Challenge
The numbers speak louder than words including a Dale Carnegie Training survey which outlines the drivers of employee engagement and highlights why it is critically important. This study was based on national representation of 1500 employees which found (2):

  • 11 Billion (USD) is lost annually to employee turnover
  • Companies with engaged employees outperform those without engaged employees by up to 202%
  • 71% of all employees are not engaged

While these numbers may vary proportionally in your organization the trends are alarming and every business leader and HR executive and manager is aware of their importance.  Providing the combination of HR and SAP Jam provides the ideal platform to engage employees and stakeholders.

Leaders, employees and contractors, managers, centers of excellence, and experts all have a common responsibility to work together and help achieve company goals, objectives, strategies, and execute tactically in support of a ONE company approach.

Too often there are silos, disparate unorganized information, barriers to cross-team engagement (internal & external to the organization), which impedes progress, creates roadblocks, and increases the risk of failure or inefficient processes — all of which impact the bottom– or top-line of the business.

When the best and brightest in our organizations work together with common goals, excellent communication and collaboration, more often successful outcomes are achieved along with continuous improvement.

Building the HR Service Model with SAP Jam
The business model is clear. Using SAP SuccessFactors for User Experiences, Reporting Systems, Talent Management, Core HR, and Technology increases the odds for enterprise-wide success (see Print Screen 1) and enables an organization’s ability to manage and grow its talent.

Print Screen 1: Building a Global, Integrated SuccessFactors HR Services Model with SAP Jam

Moving all the employee master data onto a single global system, to reduce complexity and deliver better data for analysis, provides a greater ROI (return on investment) and reduces the TCO (total cost of ownership) of the overall HRIS Global System.

While many customers deploy the entire HR suite and others implement a few modules (i.e. Learning, Performance & Goals) at a time… the BEST RUN companies leverage HR and SAP Jam Collaboration together:

  • Deploying enterprise-wide Learning & Development Academies or Universities
  • Ensuring HR communications and collaboration are in place to improve engagement with employees, contractors, and new hires (as well as internal/external stakeholders)
  • Replacing old or ineffective HR intranets / portals with SAP Cloud Platform &/or SAP Jam
  • Leveraging SAP Jam to reduce the risks and costs of implementations, adoption, and change management

The decision to deploy SAP Jam Collaboration with HR is very different than using disparate non-HRand non-business process related collaboration platforms such as Yammer, SharePoint, Jive, Chatter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Slack, Connections and HR boutique throw-in collaboration and discussion boards.

SAP SuccessFactors (along with SAP SuccessFactors Foundation – formerly BizX) and SAP Jam provide a powerful, unified basis to grow talent and address strategic HR management. Together they provide a core set of capabilities centered around one global system of record, fine-tuned to meet local, enterprise, and business unit requirements.

HR leaders and HRIS management should always consider the bigger picture of a comprehensive enterprise HRIS Global System, along with consistent processes and employee data, in setting in place the most effective tools and resources which empower the workforce.

The Importance to HR Leaders
HR leaders have a growing responsibility of great importance = To optimize employees engagement, skills, work experiences and to stay ahead of technology developments which provide value to company-wide and individual KPIs, goals, objectives, and achievements (3).

Given the many changes which will happen from today to the year 2030 in the marketplace (i.e. Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Blockchain, Big Data, and Analytics) the choice is simple: stay up with the times or risk being left behind which can impact jobs and company success or failure.

The decisions made today will impact the next year and the next decade plus.

The times we live in are exciting and important. Those early adopters who pay attention to the strategic direction of their company’s leaders, along with marketplace conditions which impact employees and customers, will be in the best position to stay ahead.

When entrepreneurial visionaries like “Elon Musk Thinks AI Will Beat Humans at Everything by 2030,” it at least sends a signal that we must position our organizations and people to be ready for change and transition to new jobs, skills, and expectations which will affect us one way or another going forward.

Those who consider the BIG picture and make comprehensive HR decisions will be in the best position to (a) grow in their own jobs and careers, (b) help employees and stakeholders, and (c) provide the most value and impact to their organization.

—

Useful Links / References

About the Author

Richard D. Blumberg is a SAP Jam Practice leader who works with both SAP and SAP Services. He is the President of World Sales Solutions, LLC (WSS) (www.WorldSalesSolutions.com) providing 29+ years of thought leadership on a variety of “View from the Top” strategies including: Enterprise Social Business, Go-to-Market Strategies, Business Development, Talent Development, and Community Building.  He and his team are recognized SAP Jam global experts for implementations, innovation, and adoption.


Blogs

14 Ways to JumpStart #SAPJam Collaboration, Communities or Groups

Posted by WSS on November 16, 2016   |   Comments Off on 14 Ways to JumpStart #SAPJam Collaboration, Communities or Groups

How a Group Admin or Leader Ensures Adoption!

Important strategic initiatives, business outcomes and processes, collaboration, content, communications, and/or community building takes “time and effort” to translate onto SAP Jam.

The recent study, “Forrester Total Economic Impact™ of SAP Jam Collaboration for Learning, Onboarding and Employee Development” showcases the impact to cost savings, productivity,  operational efficiencies, and overall strategic objectives. Several customers that my team and I work with participated in this study and continue to realize the value highlighted. Together we see on a first hand, daily basis …that it works!

And yet, sometimes a SAP Jam group admin, business owner, or leader needs to consider ways to drive (or “spark”) sustainable growth and momentum for their respective audience. They need to step back, assess, and plan out the priorities. The last thing any of us want to see is that 3 to 9 months after go-live that the group has “zero” activity.

As a result, my team and I, based on hundreds of work experiences and success stories pinpointed a “Top 14” list to help organizations JumpStart their SAP Jam initiatives.

Which of the following are applicable to you and your current or emerging SAP Jam initiative?

Business is complex. And from complexity we want simplicity. It takes a certain skill set to turn the complex into simple. There are business challenges and technical requirements. SAP Jam can be stand alone or integrate with other SAP, SuccessFactors, or 3rd party applications and data. All of these requirements take cross-discipline expertise.

Every quarter their are new SAP Jam releases. New features and capabilities. My team and I welcome the challenge on a daily basis with the multitude of business and IT considerations (& approaches) to help our customers achieve successful SAP Jam implementations and adoption.

At the end of each day, we appreciate the many important and diverse groups we work with to address their challenges and find solutions. It takes both the “science and art” forms to achieve success.  No matter how many implementations take place and questions are answered there is always more to address, learn about, and discover.

Consider a 1000 piece puzzle. We work together to put the pieces together.Plane.Blog.png

The Many Attributes of SAP Jam
SAP Jam is compared to other platforms which is fine.

The part that’s comforting is that SAP, SuccessFactors, and the SAP Jam product team are market leaders.

SAP Jam and the attributes it represents rank very high in Analyst reports including:

  • Integration – SAP SuccessFactors integration is built in by way of SuccessFactors foundations (previously BizX) (i.e. SuccessFactors Learning / LMS, SAP HCP, SAP CRM, Hybris Cloud 4 Customer, Fiori, S/4HANA, SAP ECC (SD), Document Repositories such as OpenText, Box, etc.) with an excellent Developer and Open API environment (OData).  SAP Jam  works well with SharePoint, Microsoft Office 365 SharePoint (Web Parts), Outlook Plug-in and YouTube. Public documentation is excellent.
  • Social Learning – SAP Jam for Social Learning (Jam + LMS) reduces the cost of training
  • Roadmap – SAP Jam is part of the overall SAP roadmap so the enhancements and value continue to grow in leaps and bounds throughout the SAP portfolio. The SAP Jam roadmap is based on customer feedback and provides continuous innovations on a regular basis.
  • Admin Controls – Strong Permission Levels… Moderation Levels… Language capabilities built into the platform for the users… Users can be removed (made inactive quickly…)…
  • Groups –  Enterprise collaboration goes beyond feed conversations. Both structured and unstructured collaboration is available along with sub-groups and auto groups.
  • Feed Aggregator – SAP Jam provides a feed aggregator, SAP Jam Activity Hub, that can be used. to follow and chat in Yammer, Connections and Jam which allows for one view without having to log-in to multiple applications..
  • Mobile App – SAP Jam Mobile App, which is used for Apple (iOS – iPhone or iPad) or Android, is ready out of the box! No extra programing required.
  • OpenSocial Gadgets – Feeds and data can be embedded  such as RSS Feeds, Stock Tickers, Countdowns, Facebook, Twitter… Survey Monkey which go into widgets.
  • Work Patterns – Admins can leverage templates available, out of the box, to enable repeatable best practice and business processes when creating a group. With work pattern builder, templates can be changed and enhanced easily for custom specific needs.
  • ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS…
    >     SAP has “1” enterprise collaboration platform only which it invests heavily in.
    > All the information is in one place (uploaded, linked, or embedded), one enterprise collaboration platform, one “central hub.”
    > Offline access allows users to select content from SAP Jam to and from a local file system via Jam File Sync Client

Summary: SAP Jam is the Best Bet!
Given the investments and attributes of SAP Jam and with a long-time career in the high tech, entrepreneurial, cross-industry, and SAP Ecosystem space, my team and I bet on SAP to make the continuous investments in collaborative enterprise business software as an essential part of the portfolio to support customers.

The value of SAP Jam is both a today and tomorrow decision. Today for what it can deliver and tomorrow for the investments to the roadmap which is based on a 40+ year history of SAP success.

At the end of the day, my team and I enjoy working with a diverse, smart, progressive group of senior executives, leaders, business owners, instructors, group admins, and stakeholders who want to work on a platform, which delivers the most value and impact, to help them and their fellow internal and external colleagues do their jobs and realize the type of outcomes highlighted in the Forrester Study.

The ideas associated with enterprise collaboration have been around for hundreds of years. However, the realization in the cloud with digital transformation are available NOW in full force with SAP Jam.

About the Author

  Richard D. Blumberg is a SAP Jam Practice leader who works with both SAP and SAP Services. He is the President of World Sales Solutions, LLC (WSS) (www.WorldSalesSolutions.com) providing 29+ years of thought leadership on a variety of “View from the Top” strategies including: Enterprise Social Business, Go-to-Market Strategies, Business Development, Talent Development, and Community Building.  He and his team are recognized SAP Jam global experts for implementations and adoption.


Blogs

Featured Link: SAP Jam Collaboration Help Portal

This video highlights the value of turning the complex into a more simple productivity resource.