Dr Stefan Sigg, Chief Product Officer at Software AG provided the keynote address at the company’s international user group meeting in Budapest. Innovation was the key theme during the address, in which Sigg outlined Software AG’s five key innovation models. Sigg suggested innovations in companies is suffering because of the challenge of creating a new product from scratch. However, innovations can emerge from combining and connecting existing products and services in a new, more creative way. “Essentially, everything is connected. That connectivity is also asking for integration. So, there is no connectivity without integration, no integration without connectivity, and the connectivity of people applications, data processes devices.”
What does software driven innovation mean?
For enterprises this means that products or services that may have been built for decades and integrating them with software. Siggs points to Tesla as a perfect example to illustrate the point. “Tesla is a software company that is providing you with a car. It is not a car manufacturer, but a software company.”
Sigg committed Software AG to continue to innovate to ensure its applications and solutions continue to deliver the value that customers need. “We will innovate further to ensure our applications continue to deliver the value that customers need. We will be reducing the cost when we can. and build our roadmap including cloud technology.”
Software AG’s five innovation models include:
1. Generative AI for iPaas
Sigg says the use of AI for iPass is truly transformational. Software AG quickly discovered that the Large Learning models (LLM) made a perfect example for iPaas. Essentially, integrating tools that make business processes run across all the different components in a technical stack environment. The beauty of integrating generative AI is that it makes anything possible. Sigg suggests it is a door to unbelievable possibilities with LLMs. Providing an enterprise asks the right question and integrates into the workflow. Together with Software AG’s clients, the company will explore where the technology can take many traditional areas of business. Sigg suggests generative AI is a rare case in technology of a solution looking for a business problem to solve.
2. Snowflake data transformation
The company has developed a new method for data ingestion. Moving data from various sources such as SAP or Oracle into a single source e.g. A data warehouse in Snowflake. Software AG’s StreamSets’ data integration platform allows customers to move data to and from any part of their digital backbone. According to Sigg, the way Streamset integrates with Snowflake is absolutely amazing. Streamset used its transformation UI for on-the-fly transformation to also undertake the transformation on top of Snowflake.
3. Modernising mainframes and lower TCO
Enterprises increasingly want more for less. The company has a solution to get enterprises onto Streamset. Sigg is confident they will have a modern and scalable data integration and data transformation supporting any mainframe-based businesses.
4. Closed loop process mining
According to Dr Sigg, “We are thrilled to be recognised as a Leader in Gartner’s first Magic Quadrant for Process Mining. We believe this acknowledgement underscores our commitment to delivering the best process mining software to our customers, and we are proud to be named among the evaluated vendors in the industry. ARIS Process Mining stands out for its powerful yet user-friendly analytics, closed-loop conformance inspection, and ability to integrate with a variety of data sources. As an integral part of the ARIS transformation suite, we are committed to providing ingredients they need to successfully transform their businesses.”
Closing the loop entails taking the results from process mining-based processes and putting the results into the model. Eventually, the most important KPIs in an enterprise process emerge. Businesses also see steps that are missing in the process. The discrepancy between how the process should work and the actual way the processes work. As a result, all kinds of variants become visible. This is a total game changer. Enterprises can now establish the internal triggers to change internal processes and practices.
5. IoT applications plug-ins
Sigg suggests, “IoT is the best possible and the greatest device management. The best possible device connectivity and the best way to pipeline data into the cloud. It is also the best possible method for managing data in the cloud.”
According to Sigg, once data has been transformed into something new using an application, the apps ability becomes absolutely crucial. Software AG has made innovation with its IoT application plugins to dramatically speed up workflows between all of these applications. The solutions include a dashboard combined with operational data, including native IoT from across the business.
Enterprise Times: What this means for business.
This was an interesting keynote address from Software AG. Dr Stefan Sigg has clearly put innovation at the centre of all developments taking place in the company. Sigg believes all companies must evolve to become software companies. A few years back, all organisations were undertaking digital transformation. Increasingly, all enterprises need to embrace generative AI, into their operations such as CRM, customer services and Finance.
Software AG appears to be positioning itself as the company that can support that development. In the Californian goldrush of the 19th century, the merchants that sold the pans, pickaxes and tools became successful. In the 21st century, Software AG are positioning themselves as the modern-day equivalent of those merchants.