Software AG Announces Intelligent Business Operations Platform – CeBIT 2014

Software AG has taken the wraps of its Intelligent Business Operations Platform (IBO) at CeBIT, claiming that it will allow companies to become ‘digital enterprises’ that can take advantage of growing amounts of data to make real time decisions that benefit their business.

Speaking at CeBIT in Hannover, Software AG CEO Karl-Heinz Streibach said all companies would have to become digitised to stay competitive and said ‘analogue’ enterprises, characteristed by non-flexible systems, lifecycles and legacy environments, were living in a “dark age.”

“The digital enterprise is where you have full visibility of what’s going on inside and outside,” he said. “Not every company is a digital enterprise yet, but every company needs to become digital to successfully manage the current paradigm shift and differentiate itself from the competition.”

Business process management

IBO is the product of three years of internal development and acquisitions, including Terracotta, Apama, JackBe and My-Channels. It is built on a new in-memory architecture that allows large volumes of data to be analysed in real-time.

It can combine in-memory, historical process discovery and performance monitoring data with business operational data streams, market behaviour and individual customer requirements to detect new kinds of business patterns which are shown through visual analytic alerts.

The platform is integrated with other Software AG services, such as the cloud-based Software AG Live, and WebMethods BPMS, the company’s business process platform, which when combined with IBO forms the iBPMS, the intelligence business process management suite, which can predict problems and recommend pre-emptive actions.

The firm has also announced integration between its ARIS and Alfabet products, producing a new platform that unites business processes and architecture management, promising lower costs and faster reaction times.

Digital transformation

Software AG claims to be a leader in the digitisation of the enterprise and predicts that 80 percent of its revenue will come from digital services by 2018. Streibach says his company is two to three years ahead of the IT industry, which continues to rely on its legacy portfolio.

Potential uses for the new platform include more efficient shipping logistics through port management and fuel efficiency, as well as fraud detection by the likes of PayPal and detecting rogue activity by financial firms such as CitiGroup.

CTO Wolfram Jost said that the digitisation of the enterprise was not just about technology, but a combination of business models and technology, inspired by the likes of Google and Facebook which have created “a completely new way of interaction.”

Traditional companies might not have digital products, such as Mercedes which makes cars, but they want to use digital channels to sell products, making the transformation for many inevitable he said: “This is something companies have to do, otherwise you cannot survive in this environment.”

Google and Facebook have also inspired the mobility and social monitoring features of IBO, with Jost stating that they have shown how a basic social interface should look like.

But ultimately, Jost said, the new platform would enable faster, better decisions.

“If an IT question takes longer than one second, you get nervous.”

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