Today digital business is everywhere around us, and companies that master digital technologies are creating new markets and disrupting the existing ones.

Companies that adapt their business to the new reality are seeing significant business improvement across several dimensions: strategic agility, tangible business results, better risk and compliance management, as well as reduction in total cost of ownership. They are also quickly learning the art of the possible when running in real time. These companies are accelerating change based on early results, and they are developing new skill sets and capabilities.

Join a half-day workshop in The Hague this April to explore the opportunities that digital technologies bring to the utilities industry and assess their value for your company. For more information, visit: http://bit.ly/1RhpnFJ

The workshop is part of the International SAP Conference for Utilities 2016

Winning in the digital economy is all about customer focus

Digital disrupters such as amazon, AirBnB, Uber or Apple share two commonalities: their strategy, business model and operations are driven by a truly customer-centric mindset; also, they are capturing the full potential of digital technology to fulfill and exceed customers’ desires.

Utilities itself has seen a rapid rise in new products & services offerings – from smart homes to solar & storage combination to demand response offerings – enabling new, non-traditional players (e.g. telco, electric car manufacturers) to acquire customers at an unprecedented pace.

Hence for established Utilities players, embracing digital innovation to reimagine their business is no longer an option. Reaching and sustaining leadership in the digital age requires answering challenging questions: who are my customers and what are their needs – today and tomorrow? How is technology changing the nature of my industry? Where to start our own digital transformation in order to increase customer satisfaction, loyalty and develop new revenue streams?

Register for Workshop 10: Exploring the Value of Digitalization in Utilities, held at 2016 International SAP Conference for Utilities, to kick-start your digital transformation. In this workshop you will get insights into digital trends, new digital business models and examples from digital leaders; you will also be able to practice innovation thinking, share thoughts, experiences and ideas with your peers and understand how the art of design thinking can accelerate your journey.

I am looking forward to seeing you in The Hague

Hichem Hachemi
VP & Head of Energy & Natural Resources | EMEA

Industry Value Engineering

SAP

It is a Customer Engagement jungle out there, with an alphabet soup of three letter acronyms, new products, re-branding and more buzzwords than a management consulting spelling bee. For those new to SAP, the acronyms can be mysterious. For those that have been around SAP for 20 years it can be disconcerting when the things you used to know have new names or have evolved into something more.

Fear not. Let me help you understand how your utility can better attract and serve your customers with SAP. We will walk through how the different solution components work together, why you might need them and where you can get more information. You may also know some of these solutions better by their former names so I will explain the back story on the branding to help you understand the lineage and hence how it all fits together…

But first, SAP Hybris – what’s that about?

Here is a quick history lesson to help you understand some of the product branding and direction. In 2013 SAP acquired Hybris a global leader in commerce. Soon after the acquisition, all of SAP’s customer facing solutions (including SAP CRM, Cloud for Customer, Customer Engagement Intelligence etc) were brought under a “Customer Engagement & Commerce” organisation largely lead by Hybris executives. Recently this organisation (and many of the products) have been branded SAP Hybris. This is consistent with SAP’s dual branding of other lines of business such as “SAP Ariba” for procurement and “SAP Successfactors” for HR. 

An Overview of Omni-channel

Here is a view of the Customer Engagement & Commerce portfolio for utilities. This is a slightly adapted the diagram you will find on the scn home page. I will use it to navigate the solution portfolio.

SAP IS-U the Digital Core

There is a reason nearly 800 Utilities worldwide trust their core bill to cash operations with SAP. Gartner has rated the SAP Industry Solution for Utilities the leader in this space for 10 years running. IS-U supports Utilities of all sizes, even yours…

 
Digital Self Service Fast with MCF

Running SAP IS-U and looking to get some solid wins in your customer engagement strategy? SAP Multi-channel Foundation for Utilities & Public Sector might be just what you are looking for.

 
The CRM suite for those that compete

Are you fighting to win and retain customers in a deregulated market? SAP CRM has the full range of tools that you need to lead and succeed.

 
CRM essentials made easy

Are you after a simple solution that gives you the CRM essentials to support Utility customer service? Do you already have SAP CRM for mass market but your sales team want to do their own thing? SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer could be just the ticket.

Telephony integration that just works

Having problems connecting telephony, chat, sms, webchat with your agents’ CRM system? SAP Contact Center is a proven performer.

 
Closing the Loop from Insight to Segmentation, Campaign Execution and Reporting

Whether you want to drive customer acquisition via digital marketing campaigns or a pro-active customer messaging platform (for severe weather, demand management, credit & collections, etc) SAP Hybris Marketing provides the brains and the brawn to reach your customers with tailored communication via their channel of choice.

 
Take Customer Experience to the Next Level

Websites as electronic brochures are dead. Self Service is functional but not particularly engaging. Exceptional customer experience come from bringing together compelling personalised content with the easiest possible buying process any time, any device. Hello SAP Hybris Commerce…

 
Billing for New Energy Products and Services in a Subscription Economy

Utilities’ business models are rapidly evolving. They are increasingly required to charge, bill and offer subscriptions for new products and services without disrupting their core energy and water billing. SAP Hybris Billing could be your next best friend.

 
Solution Extensions and The New Micro-service Future

Your core operations and customer engagement are running on SAP and you are looking to accelerate innovation. Solution extensions from partners like OpenText work hand in glove with your SAP solutions. While Hybris as a Service provides a new approach for front office solution extensions.

I have tried to give you a comprehensive view of the breadth of the Customer Engagement and Commerce portfolio without going into too much depth. Hopefully you have a better view as to how the parts fits together. Of course there is always more - so if you have any questions about solutions past or present in this space I am happy to answer your questions.

As Natuvion, we combine many years of experience in SAP projects with profound understanding of and process skills in the utilities sector. Our actions focus on trusting and creative working methods. We are convinced that cooperation is the inspiration for professional and technically innovative IT consulting.

We are looking forward to exhibiting at the International SAP Conference for Utilities to share our portfolio. One of our key topics this year is our engagement in data protection.

Data theft, misuse, wiretapping – catchwords that have become ever-present in the media landscape these days. Companies find themselves increasingly under great pressure as they are forced to protect their costumer data adequately – and promptly. The subject is considered especially relevant in the insurance, energy, banking and healthcare sectors, which generate, store and process a particularly large amount of personal information. In the Federal Data Protection Act the legal requirements for handling personal information of natural persons are defined. If companies ignore these requirements, they’ll risk a misuse of data – including the threat of negative headlines, serious penalties and/ or loss of reputation.

Due to the fact that in system landscapes, which usually have three levels, the production systems serve as the data source to set up the secondary systems, a sophisticated authorisation concept for a single SAP system to protect company data and, especially, personal information is insufficient. For this reason, we recommend to consider the entire SAP system landscape.

We suggest: Let's get anonymous – data protection through anonymisation

If you want to get more information about data protection in SAP systems in general and/or learn how you can protect your data through anonymisation, come and say hello.

We’re looking forward to meeting you – in person, not anonymous. 

Natuvion – Innovation and Professionalism for your success

The workshop Exploring the Value of Digitalization in Utilitiesheld at theInternational SAP Conference for Utilities is a unique opportunity to foster some good exchange of views. SAP Industry Value Engineering experts will share with you the latest insights and return of experience regarding digitalization. As all major disruption, digitalization is not a predefined schema but an ongoing & multi-modal transformation. The workshop will be an ideal place to meet your peers, learn from each other experience and share your views about the state of digitalization in the Utility Industry.

While everyone speaks about digital, it appears that only 15% of companies have a strategy and an action plan in place to cope with this revolution. Take advantage of the workshop to learn about SAP’s vision for the Utilities, the digital trends & emerging business models. Be prepared to the entrance of new competitors in your market and leverage existing tools and methodology to turn your company into a profitable digital Utility.

I am looking forward to seeing you in The Hague,

Thomas Roullet

Industry Value Engineer Energy & Natural Resources

Shifting the focus of data collection and analytics to the edge of the network improves equipment reliability while preventing costly, and potentially disastrous, downtime.

By Seyed Mirsepassi, VP of Solutions, FogHorn Systems

The unexpected failure of a steam turbine can create substantial disruption, damage, and economic loss, not only to its power plant but also the downstream power grid and the business and customers who depend on a reliable and continuous source of electricity. To prevent this, predictive maintenance has become a key part of the modern maintenance department. More power utilities are deploying such processes to maximize the reliability of their equipment by detecting potential failures before significant problems arise.

It begins with software systems that can collect and establish historical performance baseline data from each turbine as well as the entire power plant.  Edge intelligence technology can then compare this baseline data to the real-time performance monitored on a continuous basis and trigger an alarm if the real-time performance data is outside of the baseline data’s acceptable range.

Edge intelligence refers to a software solution based on fog computing which extends data processing and analytics closer to the “edge” where Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices and sensors reside. Maintaining close proximity to these edge devices rather than sending all data to a distant centralized cloud for processing, minimizes latency allowing for maximum performance, faster response times, and more effective maintenance and operational strategies. This is becoming increasing important in cases where even a few seconds might mean the difference between a safe and orderly response and major equipment failure.

With predictive maintenance, any variance from the “expected behavior” can trigger an alert.  These triggers could be based on predetermined performance rules, such as temperature or vibration outside of an acceptable range or be based on deployment of predictive models at the edge that account for historical data. The use of predictive analytics enables users to explore potential root causes and appropriate remedies.

Power plant maintenance is a major undertaking so deployment of predictive analytics at the edge allows power plant operators to proactively schedule maintenance in a non-disruptive fashion to avoid outages altogether and to do so in the most cost effective manner.  One of the advantages of an intelligent edge solution is that it can respond immediately to any anomaly or malfunction before it becomes a much more serious and costly issue.  It also eliminates the need to upload massive amounts of data to remote data centers because many maintenance issues can now be resolved on site using analytics and processing applications deployed at the edge.

The data center or cloud will continue to play a key role by providing overall system management as well as analytics and machine learning functions that require the computing power of a cloud/datacenter. However by relying more on edge intelligence for critical latency-sensitive functions, utility companies can reduce overall bandwidth and data processing costs and operational delays by sending only non-critical information to the data center or cloud for analysis.

In summary, a predictive maintenance solution that utilizes edge intelligence can maximize revenue and customer satisfaction by reducing maintenance and repair costs and by preventing disruptive downtime and energy blackouts.

If you  are interested in this topic, you can meet us at the International SAP Conference for Utilities.

Learn more about Migration Strategieslive at the International SAP Conference for Utilitiesin The Hague, Netherlands on April 12th at 14:05 (Microforum Theater 1) and April 13th at 12:20 (Microforum Theater 2) or make an appointment by contacting me directly: sabine.wachter@sap.com

SAP LT Migration Strategies moving to S/4HANA

The constantly evolving business and technology challenges demand from companies to realign their corporate and IT strategy by simplifying and accelerating processes and reducing infrastructure costs. SAP S/4HANA is the next-generation business suite characterized by simplification and efficiency and designed to meet the needs of any industries. This session will mainly focus on the consolidation of your current regional SAP Business Suite landscape and the planned selective data transformation into one global SAP S/4HANA system. It will showcase how you can use SAP LT Technology and Services for a selective, value-based migration of legal entities and/or single applications, as well as IT system consolidation into SAP’s S/4HANA product family.

This session will explain the supported business scenarios, the technical procedure and technology used.  Furthermore will the session provide additional information on SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server (SLT) used to address real-time replication requirements by moving and integrating data from different sources and present the Data InHub concept to take full advantage of this innovation driven approach.

WiFi, emergency button, eCar charging points, sensors to measure temperature, particulars in the air or the dense traffic - in Karlsruhe all of that comes in one smart lamp post. The cloud solution collecting and analyzing the data from these services is the SAP HANA cloud platform!

Watch this video how the German energy provider EnBW is setting the example by using technology to enable an infrastructure tailored to the needs of the city of tomorrow.

Hear a presentation from EnBW at the International SAP Conference for Utilities taking place from April 11-13, 2016 in The Hague, The Netherlands:

Tuesday, April 12, 2016 at 5 p.m. in the Internet of Things track: Smart Cities and Their Data presented by Daniel Schneider, EnBW and Reiner Bildmayer SAP

The Future of Customer Engagement and Commerce published recently an article written by Dean Afzal from SAP.

Read his blog on how utility companies with a forward-thinking approach to customer relations can increase customer satisfaction.

This topic will be discussed at the International SAP Conference for Utilities taking place next week from April 11-13, 2016 in The Hague, The Netherlands.

Many markets around the world are liberalized or deregulated with more moving that direction in the coming years.  Now that you are faced with competition are your marketing systems strong enough to take you into this new reality?  Competition is coming at you from every direction and you need to know that your limited budget will provide projected revenues.  So where should you focus to help understand your market, make sure limited funds are being spent the right way, that customers know who you are and talk positively about you?  Where should you look for examples for best run companies that do this on a regular basis?

When you think about it, the fashion industry has been marketing for years, although with much larger budgets.  They have to fight every day for every penny as there are more and more competitors chasing the same customers.  They need to know what customers like, why they buy, where they buy, how often and why they switch.  So how do they go about seeing results from the marketing efforts?

There are several metrics consumer marketers watch and manage on a regular basis.  Several of these apply to the deregulated market. Here are some of them in broad categories.

There are several metrics consumer marketers watch and manage on a regular basis.  Several of these apply to the deregulated market. Here are some of them in broad categories.

• Brand Management:  Knowing where your brand compares to others is important.  Does your brand have a good reputation?  Do your customers identify with your brand? Does it hold value when customers are faced with choosing a competitor?  I’m sure you know people who are loyal to a brand of shoes, bags or sports gear.  Why do they insist on staying with that brand?  Reviewing your brand with respect to others is a good place to start.

• Promotions:  How do you currently track promotions?  Do you A/B test them to know which ones do better?  Do you manage when they are run, i.e. time of year, month or day; media used; frequency, etc.?  Do you send promotions to customers that have already signed up for your service?  This one really irritates me! Do you know when customers are coming up on a renewal date and send appropriate materials?  How do you monitor this today?

• Pricing:  This can be an art as much as a science.  This is especially difficult in what can be considered a commodity market where customers can get almost the same service from multiple providers and are only price shopping.   In the fashion industry there can be a huge amount of margin built into apparel, sometimes over 1000%.  You need to be able to understand fixed and variable costs that make up your pricing metrics along with appropriate margins.  You will need to know what works where and why in addition to the ability to take that into other markets.

• Consumer tracking:  Understanding what customers are doing is very important as well. Are they active on social media and are you tracking that information?  What is in their mind when making a decision to purchase from you or a competitor?  How loyal are they and why?  How often do they interact with your company?  Are you answering their questions or concerns quickly?  At all?  Tracking your customer’s behavior is very important in understanding why and how they choose you over someone else.

Would you be surprised if I told you that this happens with systems that are not integrated and require effort to move important data into and out of platforms to make important decisions?  Pulling information from multiple sources and visualizing them in a way that is actionable and gets results is a fairly complex process.  Luckily SAP has already done that for you in a solution called Marketing Performance Management that lets you try before you buy.  Better yet, it is in the Cloud so there is no infrastructure required on your part, just point to the data sources and the system integrates them on the fly, in real-time, giving you the ability to make decisions faster and hopefully gain the market share your Board is expecting.

For more information on this solution contact Stephan Klein, Global Head of Energy & Natural Resources; David Moyer, Global lead for Energy & Natural Resources solutions; or Kristian Kauffmann, global service offering manager for Consumer Products at SAP.

Last week, I was proud to join my friend and colleague, Ken Evens – SAP Global Head of Oil & Gas - to jointly welcome over 1000 industry professionals at the 2nd annual SAP International Utility and Oil & Gas Conference held in The Hague, Netherlands.  It was a fantastic event where we shared and heard great stories about reimagined business  models, business processes and exciting new ways to work!

Peter Maier, SAP General Manager of Energy & Natural Resources, kicked off the presentations with specific details about what SAP is doing to help customers map their digital journey followed by an exciting panel of customers and experts from around the world.

Every presentation was filled with examples of how SAP is helping our Utility customers transform into a digital business experience.

These stories came from over 60 countries involving over 180 utilities worldwide.

Marie-José Nadeau, Chair of the World Energy Council, talked about the three “Ds” impacting the Energy Markets: De-carbonization, De-centralization and Digitization”.  These were also constant themes throughout the conference.

Some of the amazing stories from around the world which incorporated these 3 “Ds” included using Tesla power Walls and prosumer interactions in Australia, the challenges of power delivery and energy settlement in the jungles of South America, a comprehensive approach to deploying full Business Suite on HANA integrated to Cloud Computing in Washington State, a “start-up” like strategy to look at digital innovations in the Netherlands, A new SAP IS-U customer system now live in Japan for 28 Million customers along with an innovative energy credit programs for consumer engagement, and finally drones, digital workers and cloud strategies in Ireland.

The conference not only delivered great customer and partner content, but also delivered fantastic networking opportunities highlighted with our evening event at the World’s Oldest Automobile Museum right there in The Hague!

In summary, I heard from many customers and partners that this continues to be a premier event for learning about SAP’s solution strategy, hearing new ideas and networking with peers to become a best run digital business.  It all starts with developing a strategy, reimagining business models & processes, creating a road-map and realizing the value.  You can learn more about our view of the Digital Utility in our new whitepaper found here.

I invite all Utilities to start now with a Digital Maturity survey which is free for a limited time.  All information is strictly confidential as part of our Benchmarking program under the Value Lifecycle Manager system. Once completed, the SAP Value Engineering team will provide a tailored assessment back to you showing where you are on the digital journey. Start the survey now by clicking this link.

I want to thank everyone for a fantastic event and look forward to seeing everyone at our SAPPHIRE NOW user conference in Orlando, May 16-19, 2016!

Have you heard of Splash?

If you are wondering how to create great apps, like the SAP Fiori apps, there is good news. We are sharing our design experience and provide you with a nice tool called SAP Splash. Our ‘Design Thinking’ approach is very visible in this tool and fully embedded. It will help you to go from requirements gathering to validating a prototype and starting development much faster and better. Let’s walk through such a scenario.

You have been tasked to design an app where account managers and customers can quickly review energy programs and start the enrollment. After an initial meeting and interviewing potential users you have a good overall idea and some sketches from a whiteboard. What’s next? Creating a 167-page requirement document for sign-off and hand-over to development? No, there must be something better.

Luckily a friend at SAP told you about Splash. You created an account (free of charge) and can now use this online tool to design a working prototype. You started with a template and created a first version. Now you can share this prototype with the team for online testing and feedback.

Here is what the tool looks like working on the first page and how the first page of the new app 'Energy Efficiency Programs' looks like, this took less than 1 hour:

After adding a few more pages, a working prototype can be finalized and is ready for development. The tool can even generate large parts of the app code. All of this was done in less than a week and the outcome is very predictable, the users will get what you designed with them.

Do I need to say more?

Please visit www.experiencesplash.com to learn more about SAP Splash.

Cheers, Robert

In a little over a month, the extended SAP community will gather in Orlando for SAPPHIRE NOW. Here are the  top 10 reasons  every Utility company should attend:

1. Learn about SAP’s Vision to support the changing landscape of utilities companies at the Industry Campus. Understand the development roadmap to incorporate new innovative technologies such as in-memory computing, cloud computing, mobility and social media to help utilities optimize efficiencies.
2. .Hear how best run utilities are adopting new technologies to redesign their business processes to become more competitive and increase profitability.
3. Understand how Big Data and In-Memory computing is changing the way we process data, access new sources of data and impact business as we know it today. Listen to innovative use cases on how utilities are leveraging this new technology including IT/OT Convergence.
4. Transform Your Business to Achieve Operational Excellence – utilities are transforming their business by leveraging best practice processes and increase operational efficiency and agility with in- memory computing technologies.
5. Mobilize your utility – Learn how utilities are leveraging mobile technologies to improve work efficiencies as well as improve communications with their customers
6. Use SAP secured cloud solutions to support your growth goals, sustain workforce productivity, and develop the next generation of leaders to overcome the shortage of skilled resources in our industry
7. Use Predictive Analytics to Reap New Opportunities –Learn how to improve hardware designs for greater availability, reliability and maintainability, as well as to provide opportunities to grow your service business
8. Increase the ability to rapidly deliver valuable business innovation by leveraging the best methods, platforms and tools SAP HANA can provide to your business today
9. Network With Your Peers - Collaborate and network with the entire SAP ecosystem in one location. Take advantage of forum keynotes, theater presentations, micro forums, demos, and networking activities focused on your business needs such as the Utilities Networking Reception. Learn about the latest trends, solutions, technologies, and services from SAP and our partners. Meet with SAP customers, experts, and thought leaders who understand your business challenges and can help you run like never before.
10. Coldplay- Don't miss this "Adventure Of A Lifetime". Experience one of the world's most popular music acts. The band has sold more than 80 million copies of their six number one albums and won almost every major music award, including seven Grammy's and eight BRITs. See them perform live at the SAP Concert.

Learn more at sapphirenow2016

Introduction

One of the limitations of SAP CRM: Marketing when used in the utilities context is that segmentation based on objects (Segmentation Based on Relationships) is only supported using either ADS or SAP BW data sources. This is a quite a severe limitation as even in simple scenarios in the utility context, object information is required. The reason is, that it is quite common for utilities customer to hold several contract on several premises.As an example consider a father that pays the electricity bill of his son living in a student apartment. This father will have at least two electricity contracts, one for his home and one for the student apartment. Additionally, he will most likely have further utilities contracts, e.g. water and/or gas for his home. For any marketing scenario beyond a simple use latter therefore information regarding the contract and the premise is required when addressing the customer. For example, it is not enough to write an email to a customer about a his electricity product X as the question for a lot of customers will be "About which premise are you talking?". Instead information regarding the premise needs to be included in the email. This is a significant difference to, e.g. an automotive context. If one writes to a customer about his blue 2015 BMW 3 series, it is usually clear which car is meant. Only very few customers will own several of those.

As an result of this limitation, it is quite impossible to start small with SAP CRM Marketing in the utilities context. Instead, up front always a SAP BW connection is required. Therefore, especially smaller utilities companies do not use the features of SAP CRM Marketing.

What is the reason for this limitation?

According to the SAP documentation for Segmentation Based on Objects (Objects in CRM) the following is required to perform object based segmentation with only CRM data:

The selection of objects is always performed via InfoSets. An InfoSet must be created for each object family. The InfoSet interface must return the following field information:

1. Business partner GUID
2. Object GUID
3. Relationship type
4. Object family
5. Attributes and attribute values

However, for utilities contracts and the technical object (ie. connection object, premise and point of delivery) no connection via a relationship type exists in SAP CRM. Instead, special tables are used to store this information (e.g. table ecrm_isu_to_idx or isu_pod). consequently, object based segmentation with only CRM data is not possible.

Is there a solution?

While preparing a presentation of SAP CRM Marketing for one of our customers recently I had the idea to use CDS views (CDS - Core Data Services - ABAP Development - SCN Wiki) to implement a InfoSet. There reason was mainly that I'd rather would code a complex join in CDS than model it in SQ02.  The first thing I did was to ask on twitter if anyone had experiences with doing this (ceedee666 auf Twitter: To all the #CDS and #ABAP experts:…):

However, I didn't receive any responses to the question. This could mean two things; either the question is so stupid that nobody dares to answer, or not many people tried it and have experiences with it. For the sake of my self esteem I will go with the latter of the two options .

While playing around with CDS views and InfoSets I stumbled across a CDS feature that I hadn't used before: Literals. This made me think is using CDS Literals it might be possible to overcome the current limitation of SAP CRM Marketing for Utilities.

CDS views to the rescue

The first thing I did was to create the following CDS view (available in text format at #10815517 - Pastie):

This CDS view is basically a complex join of the tables ECRM_ISU_TO_IDX, ISU_POD, CRMD_ISUEXTA4 and the BUT000 to link business partners, utilities contracts (table CRMD_ISUEXTA4) and point of delivery data (tables ECRM_ISU_TO_IDX and ISU_POD). The interesting part is line 24. Here, the partner function 00000001 (= contract partner) is added to the result of the view. Furthermore, the parameters in lines 28 - 30 limit the selection to contracts and PoDs.

Note, that this CDS view is a quick hack used as a prove of concept. I wouldn't recommand using it in a productive scenario as several border cases (e.g. contract already ended) are not taken into account.

Next I created a InfoSet on the basis of the CDS view that returns all the elements of the CDS view.

Segmentation based on object data in CRM

Using this InfoSet it is now possible to perform object based segmentation based only on CRM data. As an example consider the segmentation model shown in the following screen shot. In this example I select all business partner that have a contract in the medium water in a street starting with the string "MAAS*".

The next screen shot shows the details of the created target group. Here it is obvious that a single business partner is indeed linked to several objects in the target group. So using just the rather simple CDS view shown above, segmentation based on object data in CRM is suddenly possible.

Executing campaigns based on the object data

The final step is now to execute a campaign based on the object data. In order to do this I first created a custom attribute context in SPRO->CRM->Marketing->Marketing Planning and Campaign Management->Personalized Mail->Maintain Attribute Contexts for Mail Forms. For the prove of concept I simply added all fields of the structure CRM_ISU_TEC_CO to the context.

Next I created a custom implementation of the BAdI CRM_IM_ADD_DATA_BADI (#10815549 - Pastie):

In this BAdI implementation a select to the CDS view is performed for each of the business partners and some attribute values are filled based on the resulting data. Again, note that this is only a proof of concept. The implementation should in this form not be used in productive scenarios as e.g. no buffering is performed.

With the custom attribute context and the BAdI in place I executed a simple campaign with file export using the target group shown above.

The following screen shot shows details of the resulting file export. In this screen shot the main feature of object based segmentation is visible. For one business partner several entries are present in the result file, one for each technical object.

In summary it is possible to overcome the limitation for object bases segmentation in a utilities scenario with just one CDS view and and a few lines of code. Consequently, this approach should simplify the adoption of SAP CRM Marketing in the utilities context.

Christian

More than 800 utility companies worldwide are running SAP's Industry Solution for Utilities (IS-U) as part of their SAP ECC system, and most of them have also defined so-called front-office processes in IS-U. These multi-step processes guide agents and back-office specialists through a series of screens or transactions in a well-defined sequence, as a power user has set it up. In SAP S/4HANA, the next-generation business suite designed to help you run simple in a the digital economy, SAP product development team intends to build a new "Back-Office Launch Center".

SAP product development has just started working on item 3 (S/4HANA Multi-Step Process Tool) - which will provide a new and easier way for power users to define multi-step processes for back-office agents. While designing and developing the new tool, we would love to take into account your experiences with IS-U front-office processes - hence we are planning to set up interviews (e.g through short phone calls) and possible also site visits to get your view as an SAP customer or partner. Especially we would love to talk to power users that have defined and run front-office processes in IS-U.

Don't miss this opportunity to influence SAP's future product offering in S/4HANA for Utilities - just send a short e-mail to michael.ernzerhoff@sap.com if you are willing to spend a few minutes or hours to provide your input related to the planned multi-step processes for back-office agents in S/4HANA, And don't forget: Your feedback and input will go straight to the SAP development team working on the new tool, and allows them to take your business requirements into consideration for SAP S/4HANA. Looking forward to hearing from you!

You might be familiar with our SAP for Utilities Headline News newsletter.

If not, subscribe by email (SAP Utilities News).

But what happens with information I received shortly after the last issue and that cannot wait until the next issue?
The answer is this News Bites blog.

Don't miss the in-between news and under Actions, choose Receive email notifications on the right-hand side of this page.

• New: Kick Off Call Webinar for SAP for Utilities (IS-U & CRM) - May 3 & 4     

Tuesday - May 3 (only in German) 09:00 am CET (Berlin), Wednesday - May 4 09:00 am CET, 05:00 pm AEST

This project for SAP for Utilities (IS-U & CRM) starts with the collection of improvement requests on May 4, 2016. Therefor we would like to invite you to join one of the planned Kick Off Webinars where we will explain the scope, the timeline and the collaboration model used for this project and provide you the opportunity to ask questions.

Please find here the dial-in and log in information

• Quindi Research:
  

UK analyst firm Quindi Research is publishing a report on customer care and billing for energy retailers in competitive markets. The report will analyse how the retail energy supply marketplace is changing, including the emergence of new business models that leverage value-added services. As part of our research, we are inviting energy suppliers in deregulated markets to share their views and experiences with us. The (short) online survey asks for opinions on market trends, as well as on the role of customer care and billing solutions as a business strategy enabler. All respondents will receive a free summary of our findings when the report is published in Q2.

Online Survey

• Developing Web Apps with SAPUI5

Online: May 24, 2016 09:00 (UTC) to July 06, 2016 09:30 (UTC)

In this course, we'll introduce you to the main concepts of the UI development toolkit for HTML5 - SAPUI5. The JavaScript exercises for each unit will     give you the technical background needed to develop your own responsive Web apps. We’ll start from scratch with the very basics and lots of hands-on coding. As we go through the weeks of this course, you’ll learn more about the powerful development concepts and truly master SAPUI5. Join us on this journey and enroll today!

Read more

• Radio Session on Changing the Utilities Customer Engagement with DTE Energy, OpenText and SAP

Online: March, 22nd 9 a.m (Pacific Time)  

Read more

• openSAP: SAP Business Warehouse powered by SAP HANA

Online: April 11, 2016

SAP Business Warehouse powered by SAP HANA (Update Q2/2016) opens with a new module including updates SAP BW powered by SAP HANA 7.5. To support your company’s analysis, reporting and other business intelligence functions, a data warehouse acts as a central entry point and single point of truth for various data sources. SAP Business Warehouse powered by SAP HANA (Update Q2/2016)will introduce the renewed concepts and possibilities of SAP Business Warehouse powered by SAP HANA.

Note: This course is not utilities-specific!

Register here

• Webinar for Partners: Digital Customer Innovation for Utilities with the SAP Hybris Solutions Portfolio

Online: Monday, April 4, 2016 at 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. (GTM 2 - Amsterdam,Berlin, Rome, Stockholm,Vienna)

Learn why SAP decided to strengthen the portfolio with sap hybris customer solutions to answer the industries requirements. We show some demos of the SAP Hybris product portfolio for Utilities for call center, self service, commerce and customer engagement. Finally, we plan to discuss our roadmap and the opportunities for our partners and SAP. Registration via SAP PartnerEdge

Online: Tuesday, March 15, 2016 09:00 (UTC) to Wednesday, May 04, 2016 09:30 (UTC)

Digitization is reinventing the global economy: individuals, businesses, and societies are becoming interconnected in real time, leading to a new digital economy that is more collaborative, intelligent, responsive, and efficient, with dramatic increases in productivity and economic value. In this subsequent 6--week course, we will cover trends and challenges faced by businesses executives across the extended supply chain and learn how SAP extended supply chain solutions address these challenges. The course is structured along the SAP extended supply chain value map. Each week will cover a different business priority of the value map.

Read more and register

• For registered partners only: "SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management – Simplification and Innovation for Utilities Industry" – 25 February, 2016

Read more

• "SAP's Digital Utility Framework - Reimagine Your Utility" Featuring SAP's Global VP of Henry Bailey

This webcast offers SAP’s perspective on where the industry will go and how SAP contributes to the evolution of the Digital Energy Network.

Thursday, February 4 at 12 p.m. ET - 1:00 p.m. ET

Read more

• SAP and OSIsoft Enable Innovative Internet of Things (IoT) Scenarios

DistribuTECH 2016livesession that will also be streamed for our virtual viewers to learn how SAP and OSIsoft enable Innovative Internet of Things (IoT) scenarios through IT/OT integration and convergence.

Wednesday, February 10 at 9 AM Pacific / 12 Noon Eastern

Read more and register

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Following the successful launch of SAP S/4HANA in March 2015 (on-premise edition 1503) and the delivery of the SAP S/4HANA on premise edition 1511 in November 2015, SAP plans now to deliver with the Support Package Stack 2  the next innovation package for the on-premise edition 1511. In addition to various functional enhancements, the package is intended to include more than 40 new or updated Fiori Apps for Finance, Logistics, Production Planning and cross applications. In the SAP Service Marketplace you can find more information about the planned innovations of SAP S/4HANA on-premise and the future direction of our SAP S/4HANA Roadmap.

In the context of the SAP Release Strategy we often get questions about SAP’s maintenance concept for the SAP S/4HANA editions: SAP has developed a sustainable maintenance structure and provides at least seven years of mainstream maintenance for core application releases – please refer to the comprehensive description of our maintenance strategy rules in the SAP Support Portal for more details.
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Disclaimer: The provided links require a SAP Service Marketplace User and can hence be accessed by customers and partners only
All forward looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations.

Dear Utilities Community,

Once again it was great to meet with all of you in The Hague mid of April. Would you like to see again what you experienced or missed at our event?

I summarized the highlights of the event for you:

• After a successful Workshop day with a huge variety of deep-dive sessions our partners Utopia and Intel invited the whole Community for a first networking Get Together. Thank you @Utopia @Intel

• On Tuesday the conference started officially with an impressive keynote sequence:
  Keynotes from SAP executives, a futurist and the attendees of our Customer Panel shared their thoughts about the Digital Transformation with us (we will share the keynote videos with you soon):

• More than 1000 customers and partners followed our invitation - once again a proof point of our unique community. During the huge variety of tracks customers used the time to attend our microforums, the SAP Digital Board Room or met with our SAP and partner experts in the Touch Innovation Lounge.

• Another highlight was our evening event at the Louwman museum, with an amazing car collection, music and delicious food and lot's of networking:

• Our 2nd Annual Business Women Network Lunch for Utilities took place at the last day and was a nice networking event with an inspirational talk from Janette Beinart, Shell. Looking forward to our next gathering.

• We had the pleasure to welcome SAP TV and Tom Raftery to The Hague. SAP TV produced an interesting video and as well Tom Raftery published video interviews with four customers from all over the world talking about their current challenges. Take a view minutes and get some new insights:

Thank you again for attending and being part of the SAP Utilities family. Join the utilities newsletter today to stay in touch and get the information of tomorrow.

Best regard and looking forward to welcome you again at our next Utilities event,

Melanie

Wouldn't it be nice to:

• receive the latest information and be directly informed on which innovations SAP has to offer
• learn best practices from other customers
• hear about how you can enhance your portfolio with partner solutions
• know what is going on in the Utilities community

Issue 14 of SAP for Utilities Headline News is now available, full of news, stories and hot topics about the utilities industry.

You are more than welcome to subscribe. Just send us an email at SAP Utilities News, simply stating Subscribe to SAP for Utilities - Headline News.

Please note your email address will only be used to receive this newsletter, it will not be forwarded to anyone or used for other purposes.

FYI: Information which cannot wait until the next issue, will be published in SAP Utilities News Bites blog.

Enjoy reading.

Best regards from your,

SAP Utilities News Team

Preview Issue 14 (click to enlarge):

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