By Bernie Cahiles-Magkilat
Claus Andresen
President and Managing Director
Sap Southeast Asia
In the world of technology, speed is of the essence. Whoever goes into the market first gets the most credit and the most business. That is why technology firms are very aggressive with their new innovations fighting for their share on AI, automation, Blockchain, and robotics.
Claus Andresen, president and managing director of SAP Southeast Asia, is confident enough they are on top of the situation.
Innovation
We all know that SAP is world’s leading IT company with a quiet history of innovation.
As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition.
SAP applications and services enable more than 365,000 business and public-sector customers so they can operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably.
“We’ve been helping to transform the way companies run,” says Andresen as the company expands its innovation portfolio.
SAP drives continuous, adjacent and transformative innovation paired with impactful technology, design thinking, and creative culture. The way we help businesses is different from the others as we help our customers and partners innovate with purpose and confidence.
Foremost, Andresen cited their SAP Leonardo as the company expands in new ways that give customers and partners the freedom to digitize their business seamlessly and confidently.
This platform serves as an engine to enable the Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, Analytics, Big Data, Cloud Platform and Design Thinking. The way we help businesses is allowing the world run better and to improve people’s lives.
For instance, the Internet of Things at SAP connects things with people and processes. Connected devices, or “things,” generate an explosion of data that could change the way we do business forever.
“IoT is not new for most companies,” says Andresen citing that companies collect and store data from connected devices.
But, he pointed out that only SAP has the technology, business applications, ecosystem, industry expertise and platform to truly simplify IoT.
“SAP connects ‘things’ with data, turning insight into action,” says Andresen.
SAP helps customers use IoT as an important step on their journey toward digitization. SAP provides an innovative IoT solution portfolio that extends its digital core with adaptive applications, big data applications, and connectivity.
This impacts on their customers’ business in three ways: enables companies to digitally transform existing end-to-end business processes; empowers customers to evolve new business models; and creates new work environments that are digital and connected.
Andresen cited Ohtake Noodle Machine among its current customers that utilize SAP Leonardo. Ohtake is a family-run company in Tokyo, Japan that designs and manufactures noodle-making machines. By leveraging SAP IoT, cloud technologies and advanced analytics to bring sophisticated IT systems together, Ohtake had successfully created an innovation roadmap that transforms the organization from a traditional, manufacturing company into a digitally-powered one.
AI
When it comes to Artificial Intelligence (AI), SAP values Machine Learning as the best bet in getting closer to the goals of AI and specifically describes algorithms that can learn from data without having to be explicitly programmed.
“This technology can lead to an industrial revolution in software,” he adds. Like the cloud, he said, “AI is a once-in-a-generation opportunity that will reimagine business.”
Because of machine learning, he said, computers can suddenly compete with or surpass human abilities in many domains, including understanding and processing natural language and finding meaning in images and video.
According to Andresen, machines with the ability to take on repetitive tasks will enable companies to save money through automation and allow knowledge workers to focus on high-value work. It could also eliminate human bias.
“Can you imagine a world where a company could continue lights-out operations in customer contact centers or where a computer can identify one individual among thousands who is the right fit for a specific job position,” says Andresen.
With SAP Leonardo Machine Learning, businesses can make all of SAP’s enterprise applications intelligent, enabling customers to benefit from both cost transformation and undertake new growth scenarios. This is possible because SAP offers intelligent applications along with a machine learning platform empowers customers and partners to create custom solutions for the intelligent enterprise of the future. SAP is capable of turning systems of data into systems of intelligence.
SAP is also committed to advance Blockchain technology and as it explores new use cases per customer needs. The financial services, banking, and insurance industries are the harbingers of change for Blockchain.
Blockchain is defined as a continuously growing list of records called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography. Each block typically contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp and transaction data. By design, a blockchain is inherently resistant to modification of the data.
According to Andresen, its influence is expected to extend to other industries and lines of business with substantial data distribution, such as healthcare and supply chain. Digital assets such as land titles, loans, intellectual property, corporate brands, or currencies can be better managed, secured, tracked, and monetized leading to efficiencies and new business opportunities.
Up until now, he said, SAP has helped its customers excel in day-to-day operations that have mainly relied on central ledger technology.
“With Blockchain, we see a future where we can use SAP’s strength in optimizing central ledgers in a world of distributed ledgers and peer-to-peer business processes,” says Andresen.
Aside from these digital technologies, Andresen said that SAP is also exploring how the hottest new technology like conversational applications and augmented reality can be used in a business context.
“We believe the future of business applications will be intelligent, highly personalized, and contextually aware – and these technologies will help us achieve this,” he adds.
An example of this is the SAP Knowledge Workspace consists of collaboration tools that let people address their business issues together, using data from SAP and non-SAP applications, right from their desktops. SAP also innovated Conversational applications that enable humans to interact with machines using natural language. Teams across SAP are engaged in this space, working to improve the usability, productivity, and reach of their applications.
Digital technology
SAP forges technology with the potential to substantially and positively impact its customer’s business. To do that, SAP technology innovates forward-looking solutions to create the enterprise of the future, all supported and elevated by an open and inclusive culture of innovation.
Andresen noted one great customer NTUC FairPrice Co-Operative Ltd., one of the largest supermarket chains in Singapore.
The company turned to SAP to support the way they manage and collaborate with suppliers more efficiently and enhance storage of diverse document formats. By implementing the SAP Cloud Platform, NTUC Fairprice could rapidly develop and deploy a supplier portal, which then helps them automate manual forms and processes to facilitate effective collaborations with suppliers.
With digital processes in place, NTUC Fairprice could better serve their 500,000 customers with a fast supplier network. The story does not end there, SAP has more of such customer success stories to showcase.
In 2017, the company launched the SAP S/4HANA Cloud solution, its latest intelligent ERP solution for the cloud, benefiting from a proven platform and decades of experience.
“Only SAP can help companies to get a real-time view of their business, with the confidence of knowing that SAP is managing their digital core,” claims Andresen.
Customers can and should expect more from a modular cloud ERP suite: with 1702 and 1705, S/4HANA Cloud will offer major ERP suite functionality in the cloud including enterprise-ready functionality for Manufacturing, Finance, and Professional Services.
Role of technology
While technology is meant to make business, work and life easier and gain from it profitably, Andresen said that SAP’s technology is to ultimately help the world run better and improve people’s lives.
“For us at SAP, our higher purpose goes beyond economic success but turning our considerable resources into positive global impact,” says Andresen.
SAP boasts of unmatched solution portfolio and more than 86,000 employees representing 150 nationalities around the world to help people, businesses, and institutions achieve economic development, social progress, and environmental impact.
“We lead with purpose through our people. We innovate with purpose through our solutions. We amplify with purpose through our customers, partners, and global network. Ultimately, the role of SAP’s technology is to help the world run better and improve people’s lives,” says Andresen.
“The best run companies run SAP technologies,” declares Andresen, whose passion in the industry stems from the experiences gained from his 15 years in SAP.
In fact, he said, SAP customers produce 78 percent of the world’s food and 82 percent of the world’s medical devices. This is because their customers operate efficiently by using SAP technology, they are supported to focus on what they do best and contribute valuably for the society and to their communities.
Passion
Andresen has always been passionate about helping governments and businesses achieve their aspirations by leveraging technology.
Started at a young age of 25 with SAP, Andresen was given a chance to work for Business Operations across Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) with the charter to improve Sales and Operational Excellence.
Before joining SAP’s Global Customer Operations (GCO) organization, he spent more than a decade in various Global and Regional Senior Leadership roles in SAP’s Services & Support organization (now Digital Business Services). His last responsibility there was to manage the Consulting Practices and Innovation Adoption Centers across the APJ region.
Andresen used to serve as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) for SAP Indian Subcontinent, where he provided leadership and direction to SAP’s multi-functional sales and operations organization in India. During his tenure, SAP India accelerated to become the Market Unit of the Year in 2016.
Today, as President and Managing Director for SAP Southeast Asia (SEA), Andresen handles business strategy, operations, P&L, and sustainable growth for SAP across the SEA region, building on SAP’s success in its 28-year presence in the region.
“I also lead high-performing teams across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and other emerging markets in Southeast Asia,” says Andresen, who holds a Master of Business Administration from Copenhagen Business School and Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and has taken a number of certification programs at INSEAD and Stanford University.
To him, a good IT company exemplifies three key attributes. First, it must be committed to helping employees learn, grow, and develop into the next-generation of leaders.
“The 21st-century workforce is becoming more technology-savvy and demanding. Millennial employees are filled with passion and purpose,” says Andresen.
To attract these young talents, a good IT company must be able to inspire, nurture and cultivate their potential as future leaders.
Second, he said, the organization must lead the way towards the future of work by embracing a globally diverse, flexible, and multi-generational workforce.
It is time for IT companies to understand that diversity is a source of innovative strength, allowing them to better meet and understand their customer needs.
“That’s what we do in SAP. We believe that diversity is about leveraging the unique experiences and perspectives of all employees to better understand and serve our customers, to drive innovation and to create a work environment where everyone fully and passionately engages to achieve SAP’s corporate objectives, while growing professionally and personally,” he adds.
Third, he said, a good IT company must understand how to enable innovations. For an IT company to transform and contribute breakthroughs, it must know how to utilize technology to help the world run better and improve people’s lives.
“These three elements are the core values that I’ve learned, followed, and led in SAP. And, these factors are necessary for any companies so that they’ll create a forward-looking culture, which is relevant now and well into the future,” says Andresen whose greatest joy is to drive change that positively impacts people’s lives.
Lessons
Over the years in business and dealing with people in the IT industry, Andresen has learned to judge people based on their actions and not on their intentions.
Two other most important lessons he learned in life are “Dream big and focus on the details,” and “Only thing you cannot control is time.”
But one of the things he learned in SAP is to run with a meaningful purpose.
“A clear purpose is powerful enough to motivate different types of people to come together and make a difference that really improves people’s lives,” says Andresen, who has a wealth of experience in managing large scale and multi-complex business transformations and IT programs for SAP customers in the Hi Tech and Retail industry all with the focus on business optimization.
Thus, his advice to the youth is to “find your purpose by understanding what inspires you and then finding how you can use your passions to help those around you.”
“Especially in this dynamic Information Age, where there are several areas to cover such as AI, IoT, or cloud, a clear purpose simplifies and helps you carve your niche in technology,” concludes Andresen.
Part of that purpose is having a work-life balance. At SAP, part of this purpose is to ensure happiness with family as Andresen explores the world with his wife and three energetic boys.