SAP ERP is notoriously challenging to integrate with other systems. Thus, SAP integration requires not only the right technology and strategic approach but also a means of enabling your organization to achieve success.
While Anypoint Platform is easy to learn, technology alone is insufficient to drive business transformation. Research shows that most IT projects fail to be delivered on time, on budget, or meet the business objectives. This is generally due to a lack of alignment around business outcomes as well as organizations not being enabled to deliver success. Instead, companies must have the right operating models, organizational structures, and approaches to execution in order to be successful.
To address these challenges, we’ve developed MuleSoft Catalyst to ensure our customers are successful in achieving their desired business outcomes. MuleSoft Catalyst is a unique delivery methodology and set of packaged offerings that include best practices, assets, services, training, industry accelerators, and customer success programs. This flexible approach enables multiple engagement models: you can drive the approach within your organization by leveraging the assets and best practices developed by MuleSoft experts. In this model, MuleSoft’s Customer Success team serves as a guide throughout the journey. Alternatively, you can use a services-led engagement driven by MuleSoft Professional Services or your preferred partner. Whichever path you choose, you will have the resources to realize the full potential of your digital transformation initiatives.
Practical application: outcome-based delivery
MuleSoft Catalyst is designed to deliver customer success, and one of the key components to doing so is our outcome-based delivery methodology of aligning to three core pillars: business outcomes, technology delivery, and organizational enablement. Even with the right technology, organizations face an uphill battle when they lack alignment and enablement.
MuleSoft Catalyst defines clear a path to success across each pillar. Our methodology is codified into rich playbooks—step-by-step guides containing best practices with recommended activities and steps to accelerate success. This includes blueprints to track the achievement of each desired business outcome as your API-led adoption and integration implementations mature. As an overview, here is what you can expect across each pillar:
- Business outcomes: Define clear outcomes and KPIs with stakeholder alignment.
- Organizational enablement: Ensure organizational readiness with Anypoint Platform.
- Technology delivery: Enable platform availability and team readiness to build APIs and integrations.
Our methodology has been designed around API-led connectivity, decoupling core IT projects from the innovation that each line of business creates. To truly deliver on this model, organizations greatly benefit from an internal team that drives both alignment and organizational enablement, and in the MuleSoft Catalyst framework, this team constitutes a Center for Enablement (C4E). This methodology applies to businesses of all sizes; we’ve seen one-person C4Es drive enormous success. As part of the MuleSoft Catalyst methodology, we provide the assets to help you stand up and enable your C4E in Catalyst Knowledge Hub, and if desired, MuleSoft’s Customer Success teams, Professional Services, and our partners are available to guide you.
A C4E driving API-led connectivity delivers value by enabling people while promoting best practices. More specifically, the C4E helps break down silos by training cross-functional teams and promoting awareness throughout the organization. The C4E also promotes the concept of integration asset reusability, driving decentralized and productized APIs. With this approach, central IT generally focuses on connecting and abstracting systems of record while lines of business IT consumes and builds on top of these core assets, delivering customer-facing innovation. Anypoint Platform supports this approach with Exchange, where central IT makes integration assets available, including versioning, documentation, and identifying dependencies, upon which line of business IT builds. Further, business lines can reuse assets from other teams instead of having to solve the same challenges again. The outcome of these efforts is the accelerated delivery of integration projects aligned with best practices, security policies, and internal standards.
As previously discussed, SAP is a vast landscape of disparate systems and applications, and SAP ERP involves having to understand complicated frameworks, such as IDocs, BAPIs, and ABAP code. Central IT has the resources to unlock SAP ERP and other systems of record, according to the organization’s best practices. When those underlying systems change, the abstraction provided by API-led connectivity ensures that there are no upstream impacts to line of business IT. Ultimately, this allows IT to focus on delivering value to their business partners, maintaining the agility required to remain competitive.
Global manufacturing company drives 30% asset reuse
One of the largest manufacturers in the world has struggled to remain agile, as the number of systems and technologies continues to explode. Looking for ways to connect SAP and other systems to their latest internet of things, business automation, and data analytics initiatives, they adopted Anypoint Platform to create connected experiences across hundreds of business units. This company recognized the imperative to break down silos and drive alignment across people, process, and technology. To do so, they adopted MuleSoft Catalyst and our outcomes-based delivery approach, standing up a global Center for Enablement to institute API-led connectivity. This global C4E was able to drive alignment, best practices, and internal enablement for business lines all over the globe, resulting in 30% asset reuse. Now, these business lines are able to save considerable development time and cost while accelerating their global initiatives and business outcomes.
Read our SAP integration best practices whitepaper to learn how Anypoint Platform and MuleSoft Catalyst can make your SAP migrations seamless and accelerate your business’ innovation.
