Eursap's Ask-the-SAP-Expert – Owen Pettiford

Ask-the-SAP-Expert – Owen Pettiford

This month, we feature Owen Pettiford, a vastly experienced SAP enterprise architect, based in the UK. Owen has a huge amount of experience in digital and integration architecture with SAP, having worked for end clients as well as big consultancy firms. He was an SAP Mentor from 2009 to 2020 as well as being one of those SAP gurus whose name is whispered in hushed tones in the SAP environment.

Owen, thank you so much for joining us, I’m thrilled you could make it as your name keeps popping up as an SAP guru and mentor for so many people. We know you must be very busy, so we really appreciate your time. For our readers who may not be familiar with you, could you share your SAP career journey briefly?

I began my career in 1991 when I joined Conoco, marking the start of an incredible journey in the world of SAP. It was there that I first implemented the R/3 3.1fcs system, quickly becoming an expert in Controlling and Profitability Analysis (COPA). My passion for technology and innovation led me to advance into SAP Business Warehouse (BW), where I developed a deep understanding of data integration and analytics.

As my career progressed, I had the opportunity to lead integration projects with industry leaders like IBM, WebMethods, and XI. This experience was pivotal in my career, as I led the charge towards SAP NetWeaver, recognizing its transformative potential for enterprise solutions.

Seeing a unique opportunity with the NetWeaver Composition Environment (CE), I founded CompriseIT, a venture that allowed me to push the boundaries of innovation in SAP solutions. My journey continued as I embraced SAP Business Process Management (BPM), Process Orchestration (PO), SAP Cloud Platform (SCP), HANA Cloud Platform (HCP), Business Technology Platform (BTP) and S/4HANA ensuring I stayed at the forefront of technological advancements.
In my latest evolution, I've transitioned into the realm of Enterprise Architecture, focusing on SAP-centric environments. This journey has been a testament to my commitment to innovation and my ability to navigate the ever-changing landscape of technology, contributing significantly to the field of enterprise solutions.

Having worked with SAP since the 1990s, you will have seen many large-scale changes in the industry, from MySAP, through R/2 and R/3, through ECC6 and on to S/4HANA and Fiori. What would you say are the most significant transformations you've witnessed in SAP enterprise software architecture?

Reflecting on my journey with SAP, I've witnessed some of the most significant changes in the adoption of standards and contributions to open source. These shifts, coupled with the increasing availability of solutions in the cloud and the "try before you buy" model, have transformed the landscape. It's astonishing to think back to when I started, and we would purchase SAP solutions based on PowerPoint presentations and a few demos, only getting to see the actual software after signing the deal.

While SAP has made strides towards allowing customers to "try before they buy," there's still progress to be made. However, the direction is promising. The same can be said for the adoption of industry standards. When I began, everything was based on SAP's own standards. Now, with more industry standards being adopted, there's greater potential for plug-and-play solutions. Yet, there's still a journey ahead to fully realize this vision.

Everyone is talking about AI these days, but I’m interested to hear your take on what emerging technologies you believe will be game changers for SAP implementations in the next five years.

In my view, one of the most impactful ways AI can enhance SAP implementations is through improving data quality and exception handling. A world-class ERP solution should operate seamlessly, much like a darkened warehouse where a signal from one part of the business, such as a sales order, triggers all the necessary actions across the enterprise. I believe this was Hasso's vision for R/2.

The primary obstacle to achieving this vision has often been the entry of poor-quality data and transactions by humans. If AI can serve as an intelligent governance layer, ensuring that only high-quality signals are processed, then ERP systems can function efficiently in the background. This might even lead us to finally address the issue of SAP usability by eliminating the need for a user interface altogether!

And what about cloud computing with SAP? Do you see the Public Cloud as taking off as quickly as SAP say it will, or are clients (especially large organizations), wedded to private cloud and on-premise solutions?

If only I knew the answer to this one. SAP has really created a challenge for themselves here. One reason SAP was so successful in the '90s was its adaptability to individual needs. While there are plenty of horror stories about SAP systems, many solutions developed in the Z namespace have been game-changers for customers. SAP has always provided frameworks to enable these extensions in an upgrade-proof way, but the issue was that many implementation partners didn't read the manual!

SAP customers desire that flexibility, and if you listen to some systems integrators and quite a few people at SAP, they claim you can't have that flexibility with the public cloud. Personally, I think this is incorrect, and people need to spend more time reading the manual. However, this requires change management and doing things differently from what we've learned over the past 30 years.

I believe we'll start to see more successes with the public cloud, and those running on-premise solutions will be looking over the fence at the year-on-year run costs, wondering where it all went wrong. But this will only happen if SAP can lower the price of RISE, which they will probably achieve through AI automation. I'm not sure which way I would jump today.

I’d like to touch on BTP if I may. SAP seem to be pivoting towards BTP being the strategic direction for all integrations, extensions, and partner delivered content. Can you give us a favour of how you see BTP fitting into the SAP market?

Asking how BTP fits into S/4HANA is akin to asking how NetWeaver fits into ECC. Just like NetWeaver, BTP is a collection of technical services, and the specific services you need depend on your requirements. With SAP adopting more open standards, it's possible to implement all the services provided by SAP BTP on other technology platforms.

My advice to customers is to consider using SAP BTP based on its five pillars—Integration, UI/Automation, Analytics/Data, Planning, and AI—though these may evolve in the future. Like most of SAP's technology, BTP works with non-SAP tech but tends to work faster and better with SAP tech through specific adaptors (not available to third parties) or content that accelerates implementation.

If you utilize more than one pillar, you'll likely achieve economies of scale at the administration level and probably secure a better price from SAP.

You have a fair amount of experience with different industries and market sectors. From your perspective, which industries are most successfully adopting advanced SAP solutions?

The simple answer to this question is that the industries which are best suited to the standard processes delivered by SAP are those that need to operate globally. This naturally points us towards "global manufacturing," which isn't surprising given that this is where SAP began back in the R/2 days.

That said, I'm always amazed when I speak with the various Industry Business Units at SAP about the depth of their solutions. It's fantastic to see SAP making this depth more transparent as they add industry content to LeanIX and Signavio.

It seems to be a strange market currently for consulting. How do you see the SAP consulting market evolving in response to rapid technological changes?

Like rabbits and foxes – new skills will come into demand, prices will rise, people will be attracted to those skills, prices will level out / fail. I think the people most in demand will be those that can blend the best of the old world (ECC/NetWeaver) with the best of the new world (S/4HANA/BTP) – In some cases doing it the old way is perfect, in some cases the old way is not wrong – people who know the difference will be most in demand.

There are a lot of myths out there about SAP, especially regarding upgrades and support. What are the most common misconceptions you see that companies have when approaching the SAP environment in the age of S/4HANA?

Clean Core has to be the most misunderstood concept in the S/4HANA space. SAP have actually done a pretty good job of describing what it is, but many people over simply it to a “all modifications are bad”. For me the acid test of a Clean Core should be “is it upgrade safe ?”, meaning do it need to do anything to it as part of an upgrade – if you read the manual then you can build inside the core, on top of the core or by the side of the core – done right all of these can be upgrade safe aka clean core.

You’ve been in a lot of different roles in the SAP space. From a personal leadership perspective, what's been your biggest learning moment or challenge? 

My biggest learning moment was when I as at SAP and we did some Myres-Briggs training. Before this I had appreciated that diverse teams worked best together with different types of people bring different skills, but the MB training opened my eyes to how different people can be motivated and communicate in different ways, so what worked for me might not be great for others – seems obvious now….but it wasn’t then. Seek to understand others and then adapt your style to their needs would be the lesson.

With the SAP market changing so quickly in recent months and years, how do you stay up to date with your SAP knowledge?

If you had asked me that question 10 years ago I would definitely have said SAP Community Network (SCN) – following the right people there and reading blogs worked really well – today mostly I do it via LinkedIn.

I’m not sure how you have the time to do this, but you are also a Lifestyle Coach for STRIVE4, a fitness and wellness company. Can you explain a little bit about STRIVE4?

At the age of 49 I had a fitness epiphany – quit booze, lost weight and got fit, but I did quiet a few things the hard way and I decided to get qualified as a Personal Trainer to be come my own coach. The for a short while pre-covid I toyed with the idea of doing coaching training full-time, but realised I enjoy IT, so for now I do Coaching as a hobby with people giving money to charity – DM me if you want help. 

As both an SAP enterprise architect and a Lifestyle Coach, how do you apply your problem-solving skills from SAP to helping people in the STRIVE4 setting?

It is actually a very similar starting point for me – what is the business case for change – in both business and fitness this is asking “what will be different after this change” and is the squeeze worth the juice. I find spending time on this question and being sure you are doing something where the outcome is what you really, really want means you follow through to the end. This is why S/4HANA business case are often hard as it is difficult to paint the picture of what will be so different it is work the squeeze.

Let’s get a bit more light-hearted: If you could design an SAP module that improves people's happiness and well-being, similar to your STRIVE4 work, what would it look like?

My SAP module would be a life planning and optimisation workbench where you could balance your net worth, your health and experience to plan the perfect life journey.

And what about hobbies and interests? Do you have time for these sorts of things?

Running, cycling, swimming (triathlons), travelling and I fix up old cars – the latest is a 1980 Triumph Spitfire….and SAP 😊

Finally, the question we always like to ask our interviewees: Looking back at your career, what advice would you give to young professionals aspiring to work in SAP enterprise architecture? 

Be curious, ask questions, prototype stuff and only work on projects with a business case you can explain at the (virtual) coffee machine

Owen Pettiford talked to Jon Simmonds