MINH GIANG: Good afternoon.
Welcome to Google Cloud Next 2021.
Today's session is Optimizing Business Operations with SAP:
A Customer Perspective.
My name is Minh Giang.
I am part of the SAP Center of Excellence
here at Google that's dedicated to helping SAP customers
migrate to Google Cloud.
Google Cloud leverages the power and expertise of Google
to provide SAP customers a cloud that is scalable, flexible,
and meets their needs.
And once SAP customers land on Google Cloud,
they can combine their SAP data with Google's
smart analytics solutions like BigQuery
to gather further insight on their business.
But let me invite our guest speaker today
to tell you about his company's journey
on moving their SAP to Google Cloud.
David Vidoni is VP of IT at Pega.
David, Thanks for joining us today.
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and Pega?
DAVID VIDONI: Hey, Minh.
Thanks for having me.
I'm responsible for leading the digital transformation
of Pega's business systems and services,
supporting growth, and providing our clients and partners
a better experience.
Let me tell you a little bit about Pega.
Pega is an enterprise software provider.
Our software helps organizations make better decisions
to get work done.
And our intelligent automation enables anyone
in the organization to build valuable digital experiences.
And Pega's approach puts your customer
at the center of any experience.
And with Pega's scalable architecture
and low-code platform, organizations
can stay streamlined and be agile and ready for what's
next.
MINH GIANG: David, thanks for that background.
Could you tell us a little bit more about how Pega uses SAP?
DAVID VIDONI: Sure.
SAP is Pega's ERP.
It's the core to the way we manage our financials
and billing.
Pega also leverages HANA for centralizing our business data.
MINH GIANG: So it sounds like SAP
is pretty important to Pega.
Before moving to the cloud, where were you running SAP?
And what were some of the challenges that made a move
to cloud attractive for Pega?
DAVID VIDONI: So before Google, we
were in a traditional third-party data center,
which hosted our system.
We also had a separate managed service provider operating it.
And we were in a situation where we
were spending too much energy managing the infrastructure
and not enough time managing our innovation.
And the hosting platform lacked the ability
to rapidly expand without impacting the business.
MINH GIANG: So let's talk a little bit more about your move
to Google Cloud.
When moving to cloud, customers have a few options to consider.
One is a lift and shift, where they do an as-is move of SAP.
Another is a move and then upgrade to S4.
How did Pega make the choice of a lift
and shift versus the move plus upgrade?
DAVID VIDONI: We opted for the lift and shift
for a few reasons.
At first, it could seem very attractive to just do
a big move, big upgrade, and get it all done at once.
And we like to think big but execute small.
And this allows us to move quickly and better manage risk.
There's already enough considerations and things
to worry about moving from one-site to the cloud.
We wanted to focus on that first and make sure
that we did that right.
MINH GIANG: So can you describe a little bit
in more detail the migration process itself,
the timing, the impact on your organization?
DAVID VIDONI: Our timeline was very ambitious.
Time was not on our side, and there was very little room
for error.
We had approximately 13 weeks to move 30 systems
into dev, test, and production.
And we had to work around some critical milestones.
We had sensitive times around quarter end closes,
as well as other projects that were in flight.
And the migration process itself was very seamless from start
to finish.
Everything ran on schedule, as expected.
And I attribute this to very good
planning with our team as well as our partners,
and using an approach that was well defined.
And we were not blazing trails that had not
been figured out before.
MINH GIANG: You mentioned before that you had already
had an existing MSP.
But as I understand it, you brought
in Managecore, a new one, as part of your migration
to Google Cloud.
Can you tell me a little bit more
about how Managecore fits into the project?
DAVID VIDONI: Sure.
So Managecore was selected as our managed service provider
because of their expertise in Google Cloud and SAP,
and most importantly their ability
to understand our challenges.
From the beginning they listened to our needs,
and they adjusted their approach along the way.
And that really made a huge difference
in how well the project went and how well the relationship has
been going forward.
They also understood the space that we
operated in and could anticipate the problems
before they occurred.
So choosing the right platform is just the beginning.
You need to choose a partner that you can trust
and is a natural extension to your team.
MINH GIANG: So now that you're on Google Cloud
and you're on this platform, has that
changed the way your team works supporting SAP?
DAVID VIDONI: It has.
As I mentioned, we're spending a lot less time
focusing on the infrastructure.
And it really has allowed us to double down
on the digital experiences and transformations that we're
doing, much less time on hosting,
compliance, and general availability.
MINH GIANG: So we've talked a little bit
about the infrastructure experience.
But how is the rest of the experience
going now that you've been running
on the platform for a while?
DAVID VIDONI: Overall, the experience has been great.
We've been on the platform for about a year now,
and the system is extremely responsive.
We had a huge boost in performance
in both our SAP financial system as well as HANA.
And we noticed that right away as soon as we switched over.
But the great thing about the cloud platform
is the expansion of resources can be done in minutes,
versus hours or days.
Testing compliance activities like disaster recovery
has also become much easier.
And security is inherently built within the Google Cloud
platform, so we know that we're running
on a very secure environment.
MINH GIANG: So now that you have your SAP on Google Cloud,
are you taking advantages of some of the other Google
solutions, like smart analytics?
DAVID VIDONI: We are.
Pega does take advantage of both GA 360 and BigQuery.
And it's become a lot easier for us to move that data down
to HANA to make faster processing
and ultimately faster decisions.
MINH GIANG: So you talked a little bit there about data.
And I think you've said to me before that data
is the lifeblood of Pega.
So could you tell us a little bit more
about how Google Cloud is helping
Pega maximize this data?
DAVID VIDONI: It's helping by allowing
us to make better decisions around our business
to assess our operational effectiveness,
to make better investment decisions, understanding
where activity is coming from and where
we need to make investments.
And most importantly, having that data available
is allowing us to personalize the experiences
that we're providing to our clients and our partners.
MINH GIANG: David, thanks again for being with us today
and sharing Pega's experience.
Before we close, is there anything else
you'd like to share about Pega's journey to SAP?
DAVID VIDONI: Just that Google has provided us
choice and flexibility for SAP hosting.
And similarly, Pega is a partner of Google.
And it also provides the Pega Platform with cloud choice
and flexibility.
Pega doesn't dictate where you want to deploy.
The platform provides the flexibility and independence
for you to transform your business on your terms.
MINH GIANG: Well, thank you again, David Vidoni from Pega,
for joining us and providing us a firsthand customer
perspective on Pega's journey to Google Cloud.
For further information on Pega's SAP journey
to Google Cloud and Google's different solutions for SAP,
please see the links provided.
And thank you for joining us today.
Please fill out the survey link at the provided link
and let us know what you think about today's session.
And enjoy the rest of Google Next 2021.