Like many other SAP partners, Process Technologies  began its packaged solutions journey to meet a customer’s need.

The Latin America based partner was working with an operational leasing company that needed some specific reporting capabilities and predictive analytics for managing a large vehicle fleet. Process Technologies executives saw a compelling business case and built a solution based on SAP Vehicle Insights, SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Cloud Platform. There was only one problem—the customer didn’t buy.

But Process Technologies was so confident in the solution they created that they kept it—eventually developing it into an SAP qualified partner-packaged solution that features a standard price, scope and implementation time. Determined to be successful, the partner made a first sale with its Vehicle Insights Accelerator Package and has interest from several other prospects. The solution is a powerful addition to Process Technologies portfolio, said Damian Benghiat, Director of Sales and Marketing at Protech.

“We have a lot of competitors, but none of them have a concise approach that says this is what you get in eight weeks for this amount of money,” Benghiat said. “With the solution, there is no doubt about what you get and how much you pay. We believe that we can start with this packaged solution, and once we have it working, we can extend in any direction a customer needs. First you need to show results. That’s very hard to do with other solutions. That’s an advantage for us.”

Having an SAP-qualified package available through SAP’s partner-packaged solution finder has given Process Technologies global visibility, including inbound leads from as far away as Dubai, Benghiat said.

In the initial lead that didn’t pan out, the customer asked Process Technologies how could you install a device in thousands of vehicles deployed all around Argentina? How could you perform maintenance on the monitoring device particularly if it’s 1,000 miles away? At the time, Process Technologies didn’t have an answer, but it does now.

Building the Perfect Package

The partner signed an agreement with a third-party IoT device company that operates in 30 countries. Process Technologies leverages that companies’ resources to provide an end-to-end solution, Benghiat said.

“We are a software company. We didn’t have the physical device distribution, logistics, maintenance, warranties, replacements. Now we do. Our logistics partner deploys the devices and allows us to integrate their platform to SAP Vehicle Insights. Customers are going to receive a warrantied physical IoT device, software, implementation and all the benefits from usage,” Benghiat said.

Now that a more-complete solution is available—and SAP qualified—Process Technologies plans to revisit that original customer that said no. The company held off on any purchase, likely because of economic challenges in Argentina, Benghiat said.

“They took this as a ‘hold-on’ year. My idea is to let them see the new aspects of our proposal. They have 11,000 vehicles on a custom application. We’re going live with another company and I plan to show them our success with that customer,” he said. “Hopefully we can deploy with an IoT device provider in the U.S. and other countries. We now can tell other SAP and other organizations what we’re doing—that we have an SAP-qualified packaged solution with fixed scope for a fixed budget.

Process Technologies is looking to develop additional packages and SAP has all the technology to enable a complete solution. For example, Benghiat estimates that there are 1,000 R/3 customers in Argentina and 15,000 in Latin America that will be looking to convert to SAP S/4 HANA. An upgrade package spells opportunity, he said. “Every customer has to implement that by R/3 end of life. In terms of SAP Leonardo, we’re also starting to review other connected products. That’s a natural consequence after SAP Vehicle Insights,” he said. “Hopefully the SAP Vehicle Insights market explodes, and we will be full of work until then. Packaging is an investment and we will keep working to create opportunities around this and other solutions.”

 

 

Source: SAP