Five Reasons Why SAP Cloud Platform Is Right for You

Smart business models and processes will be the driving force behind successful companies in the future. SAP Cloud Platform can help simplify and accelerate the digital transformation to a smart enterprise — delivering five key benefits in the process.

What makes up an intelligent enterprise? It brings together the skills and strengths of people and machines, thus establishing the foundation for innovative business models and services. But it can only do so contingent on three essential prerequisites: integration of all its processes and data, immediate availability of new applications and technologies, and reliable enterprise, security, transparency, compliance, and quality standards. No easy task, to be sure. SAP Cloud Platform, however, offers a comprehensive answer to this challenge.

SAP’s integration and development platform bundles all core elements of an intelligent enterprise into a single platform-as-a-service offering (PaaS), empowering companies with the ideal technological foundation they need to maximize business agility and responsiveness both now and in the future.

“SAP Cloud Platform is more than just a tool for our customers to program new apps,” explains Dagmar Zoder, head of SAP Cloud Platform for Middle and Eastern Europe at SAP. “It also covers things like integration and life-cycle management, and comes with predefined templates that support customers’ transitions to the intelligent business world of tomorrow.”

And that is precisely what sets the PaaS offering from SAP apart from conventional platforms. SAP Cloud Platform is “enterprise-ready” and stands out above all for the following features:

1. Seamless integration of existing solutions and hybrid system landscapes

Not only does SAP Cloud Platform ensure the smooth interaction between core SAP systems and SAP’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings, the SAP HANA Data Management Suite tools and SAP Data Hub solution likewise integrate seamlessly – making it possible for users to call up data from disparate systems and solutions in the blink of an eye. Consequently, SAP Cloud Platform brings heterogeneous solutions and hybrid system landscapes together under one roof.

2. Rapid deployment of preconfigured applications and services

With SAP Cloud Platform, companies have access to a wide range of preconfigured business services. Using ready-made application components and integrated functions for authentication and provisioning, customers can now build and integrate innovative applications in next to no time at all. But that’s not all: They can also consume partner-built solutions and apps at the push of a button on the platform, meaning they also benefit from the ever-growing SAP ecosystem. There are already more than 1,500 enterprise-class applications available in the SAP Store to date.

3. Simple development of native business applications

SAP Cloud Platform is based on open standards and offers IT experts a range of development tools and capabilities. Programmers, for example, can leverage their existing ABAP know-how with agile methods and DevOps principles to build new business services and apps – or, thanks to the integrated programming framework Cloud Application Programming Model for SAP Cloud Platform, concentrate exclusively on the business logic for new applications and processes.

4. Holistic life-cycle management of all interfaces

SAP Cloud Platform makes it easier to manage your application interfaces (API) – no matter whether for legacy systems or for new, encapsulated container solutions. Which is a key competitive advantage, since API management is one of the main pillars of every intelligent enterprise. And you can’t build a solid foundation without taking all components of bimodal IT into consideration. Going forward, SAP Cloud Platform will improve business-driven life-cycle management in the cloud even further: Starting 2019, customers will also have the option of developing powerful, container-native business apps in a Kubernetes environment, for deployment and management in the public cloud of their choice.

5. Consistent user experience

User acceptance is key to an intelligent business app’s success. This makes it all the more important to offer users intuitive application interfaces – across all end devices. Not a problem for SAP Cloud Platform. The PaaS offering comes with all the software development kits (SDKs) companies need to create tailored, needs-based, and end-to-end interfaces so that users can work just as effectively on their smartphone and tablet as they can on their desktop PC.

This story originally appeared in German on the SAP News Center.