At the SAP TechEd conference this week, the company announced a unified low-code development environment to allow business users to create and augment enterprise applications.
SAP Build brings together the SAP AppGuyver development environment (now known as the SAP Build Apps development environment), the SAP Process Automation Solution (redubbed SAP Build Process Automation Solution), and SAP Work Zone (now called the SAP Build Work Zone solution). All now share a common project registry and artifact repository, giving them a common project lifecycle. SAP said this allows users to easily integrate systems, intelligently monitor, analyze, and automate processes, and build applications without moving their data into an external system.
“With SAP Signavio solutions natively integrated, users also get in-depth visibility into all their processes, so they know where to focus to achieve the greatest impact,“ SAP stated.
The company added it has included more than 275,000 process reference points from 4,000 customers, as well as 1,300 use-case specific workflows and automations to allow users to tap into the full spectrum of business expertise built into its technology.
SAP Build also works with non-SAP systems, and the new SAP Builders program helps users ramp up quickly and connect with their peers via hands-on sessions and forums for sharing best practices.
“SAP Build allows business teams to collaborate with development and IT teams, because we will need strong development and IT teams,” said Juergen Mueller, SAP chief technology officer and SAP executive board member, during his conference keynote. “But they need to work together. Developers can encapsulate their code, which they wrote, for example, in Business Application Studio, and then this can be used by business users to develop in SAP Build. It can also enforce consistent governance and lifecycle management capabilities across all apps being developed. This way IT teams can be confident that all apps deployed by the business meet necessary security and governance requirements.”
Closing the skills gap
To further alleviate the skills gap, Mueller also announced a commitment to upskill two million developers worldwide by 2025, by tripling free learning offerings on the SAP Learning site, and through a partnership with learning platform provider Coursera.
“I’m happy to announce that today SAP is launching an entry-level professional certificate on Coursera,” said Jeff Maggioncalda, chief executive officer (CEO) of Coursera. “This certificate is designed for learners of all backgrounds, with no college degree or industry experience required,” “It will prepare learners for entry-level job roles and in some of the most in-demand fields.”