The administrative aspect of your job takes way too much time as a sales rep or hospital staff member! There are just too many managerial tasks and so it seems obvious that working with a mobile app could be useful; for example, you could use it to schedule surgeries or manage bookings of required medical equipment and devices. This would lead to hospital staff and sales reps saving much-needed time while simultaneously ensuring that scheduling and supplies are reliably managed, right? Well, sort of! Let’s slow down for a second and think it over.
It’s often tempting to just jump right into a system like this headfirst, but before implementing an app too quickly we should remember that ideally your apps should be connected to your SAP® system so that bookings or inventories are automatically updated in your SAP® landscape. This will ensure that customer service reps, logistics and warehouse personnel, and sales reps are all on the same page and can access all the information they need.
Now that we can all agree that it needs to be done, let’s look at two popular options on how to connect your apps to your SAP system:
1) The SaaS (Software as a Service) Solution
Vs.
2) The SAP® Cloud Solution
At first glance, their technical architecture looks pretty much the same since both solutions connect an app through a cloud to the SAP® system, so what exactly is the difference?
To explain, let’s look at some business cases and identify a few challenges that could come up in the daily life of a medical device distributor:
First off, what does the SaaS Solution need in order to work properly?
If you said “data”, you’re absolutely correct!
Now, you might be asking yourself “Ok, but why does that even matter?”
Well, it matters because the data of all your different SAP® specs like customers, materials, batches, or prices to name a few, need to pass through so many different interfaces. Depending on your actual setup, the data would need to pass through at least 30-40 interfaces before it actually arrives in the SaaS solution. Sounds complicated, right? Well, it is!
Now, imagine you have a recall, and a batch needs to be immediately blocked.
Time is of the utmost importance in a situation like this because the consequences can be catastrophic, and quality could be affected greatly. Now think back to our SaaS example – how would you block the recall batch if we were using a SaaS solution?
First of all, you would need to block the batch inside SAP®, then this updated data would need to be duplicated. As we have already seen, all this data needs to pass many, many interfaces making the process much more complicated than it needs to be.
What happens if the FDA or EMA is validating your system?
They would want to be convinced that you have full inventory visibility to be compliant. This means you would need to know exactly where a specific batch is and know where and when it was used. But the issue is when any data in your system needs to be duplicated and pass all those interfaces, it means that you cannot document a real-time data flow. You cannot 100% rely on data that’s been duplicated since that could lead to some very real quality issues which means that additional efforts would be needed in order to maintain compliance. Who has time for that, you ask? That’s right, nobody!
What if a new business site needs to be integrated into the system?
The good news in this scenario is that it is possible, but the bad news is that the process is neither quick nor easy. You would have to manually feed the SaaS cloud with all the necessary data and you would also have to set up new interfaces and go through validation. This is time-consuming and rather tedious.
And lastly, what happens if you make a technical change in SAP®?
Basically, you need to start from scratch. First, you’d need to change the SaaS implementation and second, you’d need to change all impacted interfaces. There is a great deal of effort required to validate all this change. First, you’d have to validate SAP, then validate SaaS, and lastly, validate all interfaces.
So, what about the second option? Integrating the app over the SAP® Cloud Platform with your SAP system?
Is it easier? Quicker? More reliable and more flexible? YES! Let’s find out why!
Remember, the architecture seems to look the same.
What about the interfaces? How many of them do you need when choosing the SAP Cloud Platform Solution?
NONE! No data needs to pass a single interface because the data is exchanged through APIs.
And how many synchronization efforts do you need to get the data to the cloud?
NONE! When connecting your apps through the SAP Cloud Platform with your SAP system, you’re working with only one source of data making this system much less complicated.
How many additional validation efforts are required?
NONE! You only validate SAP® and that’s enough!
Now, let’s go back to our scenarios again but this time, using the SAP® Cloud Platform:
Imagine you need to block a recalled batch with the SAP Cloud Platform connection.
The process is effortless; you simply push a button and block the recall batch and all data is automatically updated in real time through the APIs. No messy or ineffective data duplication needed! It’s that simple.
Even if the FDA is knocking on your door, there’s no need to panic. Since no data duplication is needed, the data that you are working with is always coming from your SAP system. So, you can be assured that you have full inventory visibility and real-time data available at any time given.
New business sites need to be integrated?
This can be done very quickly since no data replication is required.
When you toned to perform technical changes inside your SAP® system, you only need to validate one system, which will save you valuable time!
We’ve clearly seen that the SAP Cloud platform is superior because it is more streamlined and effective, but how can you capitalize on its simplicity?
By using the mymediset app! mymediset is the only solution of its kind that is integrated fully with the SAP cloud platform, allowing you to fully unlock its full range of benefits.
What if you want to connect multibackend?
Not a problem at all with the SAP® Cloud Platform Solution.
mymediset makes it very easy for you to connect multibackend! Simply scan the barcode of the mymediset cloud and you’re in the right system.
Discover mymediset and benefit from a 100% reliable, easy, and quick integration into your SAP® system.
Ready to go mobile with the mymediset app? Contact us now for a demo!
