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If we were to casually poll people on the street as to the meaning of innovation, we’d probably get a predictable range of responses. In its purest form, most would agree that it’s about making improvements to a product or service already being invented. But surprisingly, many people, including IT and business leaders, would point to others, often suppliers, like the ones leading innovation. And adding “co-innovation” in our polling might produce a broader range of responses and perhaps a stream of questions. Adding “co” to innovation generally means jointly working on innovation, with one or more other parties, to drive innovation even faster while sharing the costs and enjoying the benefits.
For us at ConvergentIS, it includes both the co-innovation between SAP and its partner base, including ConvergentIS and taking it a step further, the co-innovation that takes place between ConvergentIS and our customers. These two co-innovation arms are both symbiotic and powerful; in the end, customers stand to benefit significantly.
At ConvergentIS, we’ve long valued great design coupled with rock-solid software development. This served us well in earning the spot as SAP’s first North American AppHaus partner in providing SAP services and apps. Since then, we’ve taken it much further, integrating co-innovation into our business model, focused on delivering great apps designed to make business processes far easier, faster, and cheaper. Apps designed to move with you in your SAP journey. How does his work? Let’s dig deeper.
There are frequently “white spaces," gaps where customers find that available prepackaged solutions don’t address their needs in solving big problems. Often available solutions are too complicated, perhaps extensively process versus user-oriented, and as a consequence, adoption and compliance are challenging.
Dissatisfied customers either tough it out, believing that there is no easy and affordable solution, wait for SAP to develop a new app, or resort to consulting companies seeking out custom solutions that address those gaps. While we’re happy at ConvergentIS to provide such custom solutions for customers, we believe that innovation can happen faster, for more enterprises, when innovation is shared. In our model, the "co" in co-innovation can include one or more customers collaborating in the design specifications, to gain the optimal voice of customer inputs, without charging the customer for custom work. Inputs into the design are frugally collected and vetted, yet the gains from a purpose-built app, make the ROI far better.
In our model, the design is not a work-hire project, but a product that can be provided to others, with similar needs. In essence, we continue to refine the generation of next-generation prepackaged apps for others, yet through continued co-innovation, the apps get better and better. Our Simplified Requisitioning and Service Entry Sheet Apps are such examples. We’ve seen too many cases where different customers are paying for the same custom work. In our thinking, that can slow down aggregate innovation that could improve results for the many versus the few.
We’re out to build a community of like-minded customers looking to co-innovate with us. In a day when many enterprises are struggling to produce robust business returns for IT initiatives, we're out to break those barriers. And this could include carving out an efficient means to migrate to SAP Cloud Portal and S4 HANA by delivering apps that can move with you, that you can benefit from today and that affords an immediate ROI.
Our co-innovation model is directly in line with SAP’s vision for the Intelligent Enterprise. We accomplish this in three ways:
First, by providing technology, services, and processes, with a keen focus on role-based development, that integrates an enterprise’s data and apps to serve users and the business better. This role-based development requires a deep understanding of the users and co-innovation helps ensure this. SAP’s vision is built on SAP’s Cloud Platform- the unifier and integrator of app models, both inside SAP and through SAP partners and other third parties. Through continued co-innovation, we're committed to delivering new apps and ensuring their integration, when our customers are ready, into SAP's Cloud Platform.
Second, a commitment to integrate artificial intelligence into our co-innovated apps, when and where it helps automate processes or make it easier for users.
And third is our continued focus on assuring customer success as measured in assisting customers to gain the most from the ecosystem to facilitate adoption, and more importantly, success as measured in improved business results.
ConvergentIS would love to discuss opportunities to co-innovate with you. ConvergentIS knows SAP inside and out and even uses S4 HANA to run its own business and would be happy to work with you to secure apps that you can benefit from today and take with you on your journey to the SAP Cloud Platform and S4 HANA. And this may entail cooperating to deliver apps you need today or taking advantage of the out-of-the-box apps we've already created. We look for opportunities to remove complexity and frugally to make SAP really easy to use and help many down the path of the Intelligent Enterprise.
We invite you to learn more, either by visiting our co-innovation page or by scheduling a free consultation with us. We’d love to hear from you.
To watch Shaun Syvertsen’s recorded SAPPHIRE NOW interview with SAP’s Jan Ruessel. Shaun shares insight on the User Experience and Co-Innovation. Especially relevant during the COVID-19 Pandemic.