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Bizagi + SAP: Why integrate?

Adding value to your ERP through
Business Process Management

Copyright 2002-2015 Bizagi. All rights reserved.

Bizagi + SAP: Why Integrate?

Can SAP do it all?

As a SAP user, you rely on this common corporate database to carry out your critical
daily work. As a central system of record, its capabilities and power are beyond doubt.
But let us ask you this: does SAP manage all your end-to-end processes the way you want?
Are you able to make process changes quickly and easily and at acceptable cost?
If not, then read on: Bizagi could make things a lot easier for you.

Contents
We already have SAP. Why do I need a BPMS?

How does BPMS add value to SAP?

SAP + BPM: The Bizagi Way 

Bizagi SAP Connector

Customer Stories & Testimonials

Copyright 2002-2015 Bizagi. All rights reserved.

Bizagi + SAP: Why Integrate?

We already have SAP. Why do I need a BPMS?

In terms of supplying all the tools and data to manage core business transactions,
SAPs capabilities are beyond doubt. SAP was also built on process best practices.
However, SAP customers tell us that it is probably easier, and less expensive, to
change your processes to adapt to SAP, rather than the other way around.
Doesnt it sound absurd? The real-world need for flexibility and quick adaptation
to change may not be reflected in your current SAP investment.
Not convinced? Think what happens when you want to change, expand or fix your
processes. This may require information from external systems for further
processing, or need deep and complex integration with your SAP environment.
More than likely, its a complex, code-intensive job involving your IT department. And
the worst part? You can do all this, only to lose your customization efforts the next
time you upgrade.
The fact is: if you need to innovate fast, SAP simply isnt designed for the job.

Projects need to be deployed

fast and efficiently, to manage
regulatory changes or new
business goals to improve
efficiency or customer service
Your IT department is overburdened
with SAP modification requests,
leading to bottlenecks and delays on
business-critical projects

2
Extending, integrating,
customizing plus upgrading
customized SAP versions is costly

Copyright 2002-2015 Bizagi. All rights reserved.

You need to connect with mobile

devices and/or cloud-based apps

5 signs when you

need to complement
your SAP with BPMS

Lack of visibility into SAPs data

structures and sequences makes it
hard to see whats connected to what and how to make productive changes

Bizagi + SAP: Why Integrate?

How does BPMS add value to SAP?

Your ERP manages all your core business transactions and if the process
you are concerned about is stable, managed end-to-end by ERP there is no
need for BPMS. However, if this process is broken, then adding BPMS can
deliver value.

Lower IT burden

Greater adaptability

Related to the above point: all necessary changes in SAP

are traditionally done come by the IT department or are
outsourced to a consultant since they are the only
people with the required programming skills. This can
work out very expensive and prevent IT from focusing on
other tasks. By taking a no-code approach, the BPM
provider enables business users to take the lead on
process change and spreads the load across the
departments where change needs to be made. A
graphical interface makes it easy to set up the required
touch-points with the SAP system, enabling flexible
changes to take place quickly and avoiding bottlenecks.

In our busy corporate world, events happen on a daily

basis that need to be reflected in our processes. NFor
example, growing businesses may need to change the
authorization procedures but this cant be easily
reflected in the rigid SAP system. This can lead to
workarounds, duplication and silos with all the
undesirable bottom-line impacts. The joy of a BPMS is
that business stakeholders can implement these
changes themselves through a flexible integration layer;
the change is embedded within the process, and
procedures continue to flow all while maintaining the
integrity of the core SAP system.

Improved mobility
Todays users want to reach out to mobile from their ERP
systems, whether accessing expenses information,
updating customer records or viewing reports. Typically
SAP screens are very complex, slow and cumbersome,
displaying loads of information not relevant to the task.
BPM systems on the other hand are designed to make
the user journey as simple and clean as possible, not
only displaying optimally on any device of the users
choice, but displaying only the necessary information to
complete the task - essential for time-pressed business
users.

Copyright 2002-2015 Bizagi. All rights reserved.

Cost & time savings

Whether updating a process or creating a new one, SAP
users will most often require information from external
systems to be processed further in the ERP. The problem
is, involving several systems, puts the onus on users to
update each one separately which is very inefficient and
error prone with all the detrimental knock-on effects. A
BPMS can act as a process glue, pointing the process to
be changed towards all its different data points without
replicating the data itself. The result of this is seamless
and very fast integration without the need to rekey
information, enabling the business to adapt quickly,
efficiently and cost-effectively.

Bizagi + SAP: Why Integrate?

Key benefits of adding a BPMS to SAP infrastructure

Save time and money through better process orchestration

Develop custom process applications based on visual models
Exchange data across SAP and non-SAP applications
Automate decisions and ensure compliance with policies

To conclude: Combining your SAP investment with a BPM solution can help
improve the visibility, flexibility, agility and control of your SAP processes.
The result: the ability to deliver an exceptional customer experience, reduce costs,
and optimize business performance. So how do we do it?

SAP + BPM: The Bizagi Way

As businesses grow, their systems expand exponentially from legacy
systems to SAP, SharePoint to apps, there are more systems to connect
with than ever before. What Bizagi BPMS does is provide the process glue
that brings all your systems together.

Not only that, it delivers the easy to use interface that

allows business users to visualize all their processes and
implement the process changes with minimal coding, so
this can be often done by business people.
Bizagis SAP integration follows the exact same principle.
Through a Connector, business users can query, create or
update SAP records directly, from any part of their BPM
system, and interact with any SAP module, from ERP and
CRM through to Financials, Accounting, Sales or
Distribution. Using our graphical mapping tools, all this
can be easily installed and managed without any coding
skills.

SAP alone cannot drive business change, but you can

supercharge it through BPM. Our short video explains
more about how it works.
Bizagi operates a freemium business model, our SAP
Connector with our free Suite allows you to build business
processes that take full advantage of the SAP assets
many companies already have. This is asset re-use for
delivering greater business efficiency providing good
governance, in any organisation.
This is where Bizagi BPMS can add value. We can connect
SAP business transactions with other applications or
processes in a matter of weeks. Were not trying to
replace your investments, but to leverage them. With the
agile process wrapper placed around the standard SAP
application, you gain easy and cost effective connectivity,
delivering real-time access to information direct from the
process, or vice versa.
Think of Bizagi as a very flexible process glue to fix broken
processes.

Copyright 2002-2015 Bizagi. All rights reserved.

Bizagi + SAP: Why Integrate?

Bizagi SAP Connector

As part of Release 10.6 of Bizagi Studio, Bizagi have introduced an out-ofthe-box SAP connector. Through Bizagi Modeler, business users can
configure all the touch points between their processes and the SAP system,
and create customizable processes to handle any exceptions that occur
during the invocation of SAP BAPIs.
The connector creates a standard interface to the applications and data on the SAP
server, so that Bizagi does not have to understand the lower-level details on the SAP
server; i.e how the application or the data structures are implemented. Through the
SAP connector, users configures their processes to invoke BAPI wrappers to either
query, create or update records directly in SAP.

Bizagi

SAP

RFC
BAPI

SAP / R3

Bizagi - SAP Connector

(SAP .NET / SAP JCO)

Benefits of using Bizagis SAP Connector:

Low-code - SAP integration is configured by using graphical mapping features for SAP
inputs and outputs, avoiding the need of programming

Robust - The SAP connector features a powerful capability to configure error handling.
Through this option a user may configure special routing and treatment for functional
errors (SAP exceptions predefined at the BAPI).

Secure

- the SAP connector authenticates directly with an authorized SAP user,

instead of delegating security to an organizations web service setup. Often, creating
the correct configuration for the web service setup requires more time to achieve, as
achieving the right balance of security, (which is not too restrictive to cause issues nor
too permissive to be prone to vulnerabilities) can take time, and such configuration
does not provide the same maintainability advantages.

Performance

- the SAP connector offers enhanced performance due to the RFC

connection it uses, instead of going over HTTP/HTTPS.

Copyright 2002-2015 Bizagi. All rights reserved.

Bizagi + SAP: Why Integrate?

Customer Stories & Testimonials

I am very satisfied with Bizagi as a process glue solution. The tool is fast
and gives us opportunity to integrate with other systems within our company,
creating a very good network for business plus reducing workload for
countries.
Manager of Finance Consumer Direct
Senior Manager Performance Improvement, adidas

Case study: adidas Group

By connecting to SAP, the global sportswear brand has improved efficiencies in many
areas of its business, including:

Accounts payable - staff can execute multiple real-time transactions, quickly.

PO Change Management - here, people register a purchase order (PO) in SAP. This
calls Bizagi and hands over the approval process of the said PO, while updating the
status of the PO in SAP. Once this process is finished, Bizagi returns the PO to SAP and
continues its flow there. This simple step has eliminated around 1m emails per year
for the PO team.

Want to learn more?

How adidas group eliminated 1m emails through SAP integration
Discover Seamless SAP integration the Bizagi Way

Watch Benefits of SAP + Bizagi video

Discover

Copyright 2002-2015 Bizagi. All rights reserved.