A tour of SAP's stand at the Mobile World Congress and talks with some of its top executives highlight some of the more diverse and cutting-edge areas the company is working in.

A1:50 scale model of "smart" cranes, a futuristic vending machine, augmented reality, football statistics and beer analytics... It was an engaging experience to walk around the German multinational's interactive stand at MWC in Barcelona, seeing how some of the core technologies developed by SAP are finding applications in such diverse industries.

Among the software giant's key developments is its proprietary in-memory computing platform HANA (High-performance Analytic Appliance), which it released a few years back. Talking more about this game changer, Adam Stein, Senior Director of Mobile Product Marketing, said: "HANA can provide the back-end computing power to run a wide range of analytics applications. When integrated with HANA, big data and the accompanying analytics can be easily visualised through the mobile application."

Though the stand had showcased a select few examples where the technology was being implemented resulting in exponentially increased productivity, in reality there isn't a single industry that couldn't benefit from HANA and its accompanying business suites. Route profitability analysis for airlines, personalised product offering, solving crimes in less time and personalised patient treatments are just some of the exciting applications that HANA is being used for. The Smart Vending Machine really brought the technology to life. Backed by cloud-based software, scanning your smartphone at the machine activates an interactive touch screen menu. If the user has the HANA app installed on their phone, preferences and purchase history can be tracked and analysed. Not having to struggle with coins and currency notes or watch helplessly as your bag of crisps gets stuck on the way down would be great, but that's not what all this innovation is about. "The machine will track the purchases, the time a customer spends in front of the machine, which products are most popular, and send the bulk of the information to the cloud for further analysis. It will also maintain a real-time inventory and alert distributors when the stock is running out, in addition to remotely signaling technicians about any maintenance issues," Stein points out. Maybe even directly to a delivery truck when it is in the vicinity.

"When integrated with HANA, big data and the accompanying analytics can be easily visualised through the mobile application."

Adam Stein
Senior Director of Mobile Product Marketing

SAP also recently signed up to help the German national football team train more efficiently using sensor technology, cloud computing and big-data technology. By capturing and analysing data like the position of players and how they move on the field relative to the ball (which is also fitted with a sensor), coaches can optimise training in real time. This has gained far more traction in the United States than in Europe, and Dinesh Sharma, Vice President, Marketing, Internet of Things predicts that in another three to four years sensor-based analytics will be widely used in professional games to drive fan engagement.

Are you the owner of a bar/pub and want to track the alcohol consumed at your establishment, what the popular brands are and when they move fastest, how much is being wasted and what kind of offers will help boost sales? A company called Weissbeerger is doing exactly that with the help of HANA. They are calling it alcohol analytics.

Stein also talks about how SAP helped revamp the Montreal transit system to make it more engaging and customer-friendly. "The STM Merci app replaces your train/bus card and makes the whole process electronic. It also learns about your interests and likes and rewards you with localised offers based on that," Stein explains. So after you take a certain number of rides, you are eligible for a free or discounted coffee at a café nearby (determined using real-time location-based services). "This has not only led to increasing number of people using public transport but also provides the train company with added digital advertising revenue." It's a win-win situation. SAP is also modifying this concept to be used in the Connected Car that they are working on with BMW. "Offers and coupons are pushed to the user depending on their GPS location. But better than that is helping you better understand how optimally your car is functioning, and telling you exactly what's wrong when you have a breakdown."

HANA in the Middle East
Paul Devlin, Director, SAP Platform Solutions at SAP MENA, spoke to us about how the technology is finding specific applications in the Middle East. "We have worked with SK Solutions, who provide software for anti-collision systems, who are fitting the super-sized cranes (modern cranes are immense, able to lift loads of more than 19 tons to heights of more than 80 metres) at construction sites with sensors, and analysing the data in real time on the HANA platform," he said. This has been deployed in Qatar as well. It enhances worker safety and improves productivity by pulling together data such as three-dimensional motion control, location, load weight, equipment usage, wind speed and direction etc and analysing it to automatically prevent a potential collision. "As the global leader in anti-collision systems, we understand the value of real-time information for saving lives," says Dr Séverin Kezeu, CEO, SK Solutions. "Our collaboration illustrates how information technology and operational technology are converging. A unique portfolio of SAP solutions is expected to help us provide accurate, timely and secure information to construction equipment operators, fleet managers and senior construction managers."

Solutions like HANA are finding uses in the energy sector as well, to aid oil exploration in remote and difficult locations. This digital innovation comes in the form of distributed sensors, high-speed communication and data mining. The large volumes of data generated from the millions of sensors deployed on the ocean floor, for example, are analysed on the fly at any level of granularity, aggregation, and dimension. Another interesting application, Devlin says, will come in the field of medicine. "Genome analysis, which generally takes weeks or months, can be done in real time on the platform. This will help towards arriving at the optimal diagnosis and has a positive impact on the stress levels of the patient," he says. This is already being done at many hospitals in Europe and the United States.

"Here at SAP we have created a list of 25 industries that we'll focus on in the next years, figuring out how the Internet of Things can drastically change the way they work, and create new business models that didn't exist before."

Dinesh Sharma
Vice-President, Marketing,
Internet of Things

Internet of Everything
"As we move from the third era of industrial revolution to the fourth, the bidirectional connections between machines, people and data will become increasingly important," says Sharma. By the end of the decade, some 50 billion devices will be talking to each other, according to networking giant Cisco. These will start from household appliances like your refrigerators to multi-tonne drill bits used in hydrocarbon exploration.

But expectations have to be tempered according to the rate of adoption. So how do you convince business leaders of today to make the leap? This is where people like Sharma come in. "Here at SAP we have created a list of 25 industries that we'll focus on in the next years, figuring out how the Internet of Things can drastically change the way they work, and create new business models that didn't exist before. Increased operational efficiency and lowered costs is the simplest argument you can make," Sharma explains. His job is to make this real for executives and find avenues where connected devices will make a tangible difference to the bottom line. "There is already an understanding that your value at the stack will be in jeopardy if you are not doing something in this direction. Because for sure your competitors will, putting you at a disadvantage. So if we can show our customers what this level of capability can do for their processes and workflow, it'd be easier for them to make the transition."

He goes on to talk about Hamburg Port, clearly one of his favourite case studies. "Hamburg is home to the second largest port in Europe. Today they handle some nine million containers annually. By 2025 this number will be close to 25 million." He pauses for effect. Sinking money into making another port or expanding the current one is something that will definitely come up for debate. And you can be assured that it will be a lengthy, contentious one. But such is the age we live in that the ability to do more with less is always possible and it's often just a brainwave away. "The question was, could we make the existing port more efficient? Yes, we could. We equipped 5,000 trucks with telemetry systems through which we could constantly monitor where they were and what loads they were picking it up." It sounds simple at first but the fact that most trucks are owned by sole proprietors meant it was difficult to incentivise the programme for the owners. "So the port authority did it for them as part of their licensing. How did they make money out of it? This is the brilliant bit. The port authority was able to sell this information as a value-added service to shipping companies like Maersk and Evergreen, who were more than willing to pay for this information; it gave them a holistic picture of all the congestion and helped streamline their own operations." This is a perfect example of how new business models, in the tens and hundreds, will continue to emerge as the Internet of Things (IoT) becomes more pervasive.

There isn't a sector that can't be touched by this, according to Sharma. "Value proposition can be created anywhere - in higher education, banking, insurance, defence, retail, healthcare..." The possibilities are endless. "Take something as small as blood pressure monitors. A hospital typically has several of these and often people don't always know where they are. This means they often have to invest in buffer machines.

But if the BP monitors were fitted with sensors, you'd know where each one is at all times." While on the medical side this not only saves money and makes data collection more efficient (for example, by directly recording the BP measurements in the patients' medical record) but it creates new opportunities for the vendors as well. "The machines can now be remotely monitored and are accessible for preventive maintenance. So as a vendor, I can sell a service and not just the product. This is going to be increasingly prevalent in a lot of areas."

The above example explains why SAP considers asset management one of their "biggest tickets". "We have the solution and a platform that it can be deployed on. On top of that, we bring more value because we already know the operational processes and can give a clearer picture of how the data can impact this.

Among the industries we have picked, many of them already know the value of asset management. The oil and gas industry, for example, has always been adding sensors to the expensive drill bits they use. The cost of the equipment runs in the hundreds of thousands and they don't mind spending money to protect and monitor this high value asset." But there is so much more that you can do with them when we add them to existing data from other resources, Sharma says. It's much more valuable to have the whole picture from every sensor. "Many companies are half-way across the bridge; we are just taking them through the rest of the path."

Tapping into telecom
The region's Head of Telco at SAP MENA, Sherif Hamoudah, was also present at MWC to emphasise the big shift in how telecom operators are viewing themselves, and how this will prove to be a big growth opportunity for the company. This is further brought into focus by the important partnership announcements that were made at the event with two of the biggest players in the Middle East, STC and Etisalat. "It's an exciting, growing market which is currently quite underserved, signifying plenty of opportunities. Telecom is one of SAP's four strategic industries, and it is our goal to help telecoms better serve their customers."

These kinds of partnership will create the ecosystems be needed to deliver effective solutions in the future.

When companies with different core competencies and appetites come together to build a solution, the customers believe in them more. "Take the example of the smart vending machine. We can work with two companies at most on building the machine. But, say, a soft drink company might own, say, 40,000 such machines regionally. This immediately makes the scope of the work much, much larger. But if we partnered with a company that has the perfect infrastructure, resources and capability, give them the platform and they'll take care of winning those 40,000 machines. We have enough feet on the street, while the company has a new source of revenue. It's a great complementary relationship. We are really energised by what we think an ecosystem like this can do."

© Qatar Today 2014