SAP’s core product portfolio expands with the addition of three new products: SAP Intelligent RPA, SAP Ruum, and Spotlight by SAP.
SAP Intelligent RPA, SAP Ruum, and Spotlight by SAP were each developed by three separate teams under the SAP New Ventures and Technologies group. According to SAP, these innovative solutions aim to equip customers with future-proof tools and help them accelerate their transformations into intelligent enterprises.
Graham Ratcliffe, General Manager of SAP.iO Venture Studio and Interim Head of SAP New Ventures and Technologies, comments on the teams’ success:
“Within New Ventures and Technologies, we strive to build products that scale in commercial impact and move closer to the SAP core. Our teams in business process automation have achieved this. Their graduation means that we are developing the right solutions and are ensuring that SAP and our customers are ready for the future of the Intelligent Enterprise.”
He adds:
“We aren’t just building innovative solutions that are missing within the existing SAP portfolio. It’s our job to keep our eyes on the future.”
SAP Intelligent RPA and SAP Ruum are now part of the SAP Cloud Platform. Meanwhile, the Spotlight by SAP solution is now a core element of the German company’s newly formed Business Process Intelligence unit.
SAP Intelligent RPA
SAP Intelligent RPA has also joined SAP Business Technology Platform. The solution uses intelligent bots to automate and systematise time-consuming, manual processes by developing bots that support scalable tasks. This helps avoid human error and accelerate tasks, helping increase overall operational productivity.
With this business process automation solution, enterprises are better equipped to effectively redirect resources to high-value activities and processes.
Sebastian Schroetel, Head of the SAP Intelligent RPA team explains:
“RPA bots can quickly access all of your data—including data stored in Excel spreadsheets or in legacy apps—to seamlessly feed business processes and core systems. For instance, an RPA bot can open an Excel file received by an accountant via e-mail and parse the rows of the spreadsheet to quickly enter the data into SAP S/4HANA, without any possible error.”
SAP Ruum
SAP Ruum is SAP’s no-code process management platform. It empowers non-technical users to build, integrate, and run departmental processes without compromising IT security. The project was launched in 2016 by Stefan Ritter and Florian Frey as part of SAP.iO Venture Studio.
Frey, General Manager of SAP Ruum comments:
“We envisioned SAP Ruum becoming an accessible platform where anyone could build processes quickly and in an automated way without requiring coding skills.”
Last August 2020, the team conducted a Beta Program where SAP’s beta customers were provided free access to SAP Ruum’s latest product functionalities.
Key features of the new business process automation tool include:
- lightweight project management workspace
- AI-driven automation
- deep integration with business processes
Spotlight by SAP
The Spotlight by SAP solution was originally founded in 2018 by SAP employees Andre Wenz and Gregor Berg. The solution aims to bring transparency into the efficiency of business processes by identifying and highlighting processes and activities where significant manual effort is required and could be automated instead.
According to Berg, leveraging the Spotlight solution is the “simplest first step for companies looking to digitally transform into an intelligent enterprise.”
As part of the SAP Business Process Intelligence unit (one of the four growth areas of the new SAP strategy), the Spotlight solution strives to help customers better understand and analyse their business processes, gain insights into issues and improvement potential, and ultimately take action.
