Industry Cloud: Using apps to stand out from the competition

Automating self-billing procedures, optimizing returnable packaging management, and making cooperation between manufacturers and suppliers more efficient: Industry Cloud apps from the SAP Store increasingly offer what standard ERP does not cover (or no longer covers) for certain industries. Many automotive suppliers, including Brose and Schaeffler, are already benefiting from apps developed by SAP and, increasingly, by SAP partners such as Capgemini.

Make or buy: This is a question that is discussed over and over by decision-makers in companies. In processes along a supply chain with countless suppliers and sub-suppliers, for instance, the processes can quickly become complex. Creating a supplier portal that accelerates and harmonizes processes and simplifies the exchange between partners: this is what the automotive supplier Brose had in mind. But no suitable product was available on the market. The company lacked the internal resources to develop its own solution, a custom solution from service providers seemed to be too expensive. And yet, within a year, Brose came up with a solution: via co-innovation.

How did that work? Software manufacturer SAP and IT service provider Capgemini teamed up with Brose. A proof of concept was developed, followed by an initial product version and finally a co-innovation partnership. The product – later to be the Industry Cloud app – was developed jointly but is ultimately available not “only” to Brose, but to anyone interested in the application.

Advantages for the co-innovation partner: not as time-consuming as “make” but tailored to their own needs. Advantages for other customers: a new industry solution available to all.

Brose: New supplier app for 14,000 suppliers

Adding new suppliers to the supplier network is now 50 percent faster than before and the support workload has been reduced by 20 percent. Identity management has also become much easier. For example, if a supplier’s salesperson is acting on behalf of different subsidiaries, the new supplier portal automatically distinguishes between these two roles – the legal entities- and assigns them correctly. As a result, the employee no longer has to log out and then log back in, as was previously the case. The solution, provided and operated by Capgemini as Software-as-a-Service, is called “Capgemini Supplier Integration for Automotive” and was finished after less than a year of joint development work. It is one of many Capgemini apps now available through the SAP Store.

Optimizing the use of returnable packaging throughout the supply chain and automating self-billing processes

Other apps come directly from SAP and were also partly developed in cooperation with Capgemini.

• These include SAP Returnable Packaging Management (SAP RPM). With this solution, returnable packaging materials in a logistics chain, such as reusable packaging and transport containers, can be precisely planned and thus optimally used. This saves resources, cuts costs, and reduces the risk of missing transport equipment. The automotive supplier Schaeffler, for example, uses this Industry Cloud solution, which can be used wherever reusable packaging materials are used to transport goods between suppliers, producers, and customers. As a new Industry Cloud solution, SAP RPM offers not only functionality for managing returnable packaging accounts, but also advanced features such as planning, collaboration, machine learning, supported reconciliation between shipment and receipt confirmations, and more.
• Capgemini also supported SAP in the development of the SAP Self-Billing Cockpit. The app is the strategic successor solution to the existing self-billing procedure, which will no longer be developed in the SAP S/4HANA core system (SAP note 2967401). Transactions between manufacturers and suppliers are automatically executed via the cockpit and inconsistencies in the self-billing transmission can be automatically detected as soon as they occur. Ultimately, all companies that have long-term contracts with their business partners with agreed, recurring purchase quantities will benefit from this application.

SAP Store: Partner ecosystem develops more than 80 percent of apps

The SAP Store is similar in purpose to Apple’s App Store, except that it is used in the B2B sector. It is an important tool in SAP’s industry cloud concept, which enables companies to use additional processes beyond their standard ERP functionality to “make the difference” and help them stand out from the competition.

SAP Business Technology Platform, or BTP, is the development platform where new apps can be developed and connected to target systems such as SAP S/4HANA. Whether in co-innovation or not, most of the apps developed on the BTP as part of the Industry Cloud have been developed by SAP partners such as Capgemini. According to SAP Senior Vice President Sven Denecken [in German], the share of the partner ecosystem is already more than 80 percent.

Industry Cloud Events: Brose and Schaeffler share their first-hand experiences

The Industry Cloud and the three solutions mentioned above will also be the subject of the following one-hour virtual customer roundtables by SAP and Capgemini (in German language):

• October 19, 2023 at 02:00 PM CET – New SAP solution for self-billing: SAP Self-Billing Cockpit with
  • Markus Scherbaum, Global Automotive Program Director and
  • Achraf Chtouki, Senior Application Consultant of Capgemini, among others
• October 25, 2023 at 02:00 OM CET – Efficient packaging management: SAP Returnable Packaging Management with
  • Jan David Berneburg, Consultant for IT and Digitalization at Schaeffler,Korbinian Koblitz, Industry Cloud Business Development Lead Automotive at SAP,
  • Bernd Amsler, Managing Consultant at Capgemini, among others
• October 26, 2023 at 02:00 PM CET – Faster and more precise through efficient collaboration in supply chains
  • Michael Seifert, responsible for digitalization in purchasing at Brose
  • Nektarios Dourdas, Head of Customer Advisory Automotive & Manufacturing at SAP, among others