Extending Process Innovation to the Cloud: The Future of Enterprise Application Strategy
As CIOs look to lower costs and reduce IT complexity, cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solutions provide organizations with the capabilities and flexibility they need to remain agile in a fast-paced and highly competitive market. Organizations can face resistance, however, if users are concerned about abandoning the safety and security of on-premise systems. For many, the complex business logic and competitive information that are built into customized on-premise SAP systems make the risk of moving to the cloud too great to even consider.
You can lessen that level of risk, though, by taking a hybrid cloud approach and extending business processes, not entire SAP systems, to the cloud. A hybrid cloud approach would allow your organization to introduce innovations that improve processing efficiency and lower processing costs without introducing unnecessary risk.
An Efficient Approach to Cloud-Based Business Processes
Processes extended through applications running on SAP HANA Cloud Platform provide an ideal way to implement a hybrid cloud model in your organization. Organizations can use these applications to quickly and easily deploy new capabilities that complement existing processes. With tight integration to on-premise systems, SAP HANA Cloud Platform applications make it possible to leverage the valuable information and process controls available in on-premise systems while also evolving processes to meet new technical or business requirements (see Figure 1).
Most importantly, using SAP HANA Cloud Platform applications in a hybrid cloud environment gives organizations more control over the cost and pace of innovation. New functionality can be strategically introduced exactly where and when it is needed. Because the functionality is cloud-based, organizations can deploy new SAP HANA Cloud Platform applications with minimal effort and without significantly adding to the cost or complexity of the SAP landscape. They also reduce security risks because they simply extend the existing on-premise system’s security infrastructure to the cloud.
At Dolphin, our team has been focused on developing applications on SAP HANA Cloud Platform to extend complex financial, sales, and HR processes to the cloud. The Dolphin Advanced Approvals app, for example, enables individuals to view and approve accounts payable invoices using a web or mobile device. The application’s simple, responsive user interface works on all devices, can easily be shared with users via a simple URL or native mobile app, and can be deployed in days.
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Without a doubt, the unprecedented flexibility, increased business agility, and scalability offered by SAP HANA Cloud Platform applications and the hybrid cloud approach makes moving to the cloud a possibility for many organizations. If your organization is weighing a move to the cloud, consider starting with your processes.
To find out more about Dolphin’s SAP HANA Cloud Platform applications and how to extend your processes to the cloud, contact us at contact@dolphin-corp.com.
