Salesforce, Inc. (CRM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Everyone, welcome to today's session, Easing The Pains of SAP S/4HANA transformation. And thank you all so much for joining us today. My name is Ariana, and I'm on the marketing team here at Salesforce. And before we begin, I'd like to cover a few quick notes with you about our webinar platform. Today's webinar will be available on demand, after we wrap up, and it will be accessible through the URL that you are on right now. Please note the slides will advance automatically throughout the presentation, and you can enlarge them by clicking the Enlarge Slides button, located in the top right-hand corner of your slides widget. Should you need technical assistance, like on the Help widget located on the bottom left corner of your console. We've also added some additional resources, which are available through the resources window to the right of the slide. There, you can find additional related content. And lastly, we encourage you to submit your questions at any time throughout our presentation today, using the Ask a Question widget at the bottom of your console. We'll do our best to answer as many questions, as we can at the end of the presentation. And with those logistics out of the way, I am turning things over to Mark to get us started.

Thank you so much. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, to all our global participants all over the world. It's fantastic to have you here. I saw this several hundred participants. So this topic is really booming and buzzing, and I hope we can get all the information to you delivered that you have a clear view what you can do to kind of accelerate this S/4 HANA transformation in your corporation. Let's have a quick look to the disclaimer. Of course, we may show future looking slides and products at some point, along the way. But please make all purchasing decisions based on what is already available. My name is Mark Schindler. I'm a Solution Engineer Director of Salesforce/MuleSoft. And I'm not the only expert and speaker on the call. Over to you, Raul.

Hi, everyone. My name is Raul Jimenez. I'm located in Switzerland. I joined Sika 5 years ago, and the last 3 years, I have been managing MuleSoft, so I was responsible to launch MuleSoft and successfully operate this platform for the last 3 years.

Hello, everybody. My name is Denise Flueckiger. I'm a Solution Engineer with MuleSoft located in Switzerland. I've been working in the Salesforce landscape for 5 years with the last 2 years dedicated to MuleSoft.

Wonderful. Thank you, Denise. All right. Let's kick it off and have a quick look on the main topics we're covering today, and I hope that's fitting your expectation. So first of all, to understand the data integration imperative for your organization, as you plan your S/4 journey. Secondly, avoid implementation pitfalls and accelerate the S/4HANA transformation with MuleSoft. And I mean, you see the press, you see it on your customers. They are struggling. They can run in delays and more cost -- overrun costs on this topic. So that's a very urgent thing that you should look at and understand how we can ease the pain. And last but not least, I'm really proud to have Raul here and Sika. Sika completed its transformation on time, budget and quality by leveraging MuleSoft. And that is not only in the S/4 transition, it's kind of overall the entire organization with this dual integration approach they selected. All right. But let's rewind back to this beautiful summer of 1971. I'm sure you are aware how beautiful that summer was. You see Harry and Sally, sitting in their wonderful convertible. It is E9 from BMW with its beautiful gray leather seats and the latest appraised function features, the car had those days. So they were heading off to their honeymoon, through all of Europe -- through the coast side of Europe at the blast the best time of their life, which a honeymoon should be about. But in a relationship, you have good and bad days, and one day Sally came to Harry. and said, "Harry sweetheart, I have an issue. I mean the radio plays only bad news about [indiscernible] war, oil crisis, cold war. And I can't listen to my Beatles and Rolling Stones anymore. But guess what? Becker invented in 1973, the tape player, including the radio. So sweetheart do you think we can exchange that? And they did it. The car dealer charged them quite a fortunate for that, but Sally was happy. A year later, Harry came to Sally said, honey the traffic is getting really tense in town and on the highways. And actually, the seatbelts got standardized in the front seat. So let's build that in and out our car. So they went to the car dealer again. The seat belts got implemented. It costed really fortunate for them, but safety first. So they were happy again. Now quiz time, quiz time to Denise and Raul, what happened actually in '17 -- 1977, any idea?

Cool. The first Star Wars movie was released.

No, no, no. Not really. No. Any other idea?

Elvis Presley died?

Okay, we are not talking about dying, talking about the opposite. Twins got born Harry and Sally got twins, I mean imagine that, wonderful -- congratulations. But actually, the car, seat belts in front seats, and little tiny trunk, forget about the stroller -- okay, actually, yes, the tape player with radio might help. But overall, yes, not the perfect fit for a fast-growing company, a company or family. And you ask yourself, why am I telling you that story. And that story is -- has similarities with the traditional SAP ERP approach. And also like that, that when you implemented -- your company implemented ERP -- SAP ERP decades ago, they started as a greenfield and they just connected point-to-point all surrounding databases to the ERP. Pretty straightforward and in the architectural approach point-to-point, all good, because the data is the fuel of the ERP. Then after a while, they found out actually, they're not too happy with the standardization processes. So they started to bend them to their own needs with custom code, that is [indiscernible] custom code over time, which made things maybe better on the business growth size -- side. But on the main DevOp side, maintenance side it became really complex over time. So at the end, the ERP turned into the corporate central nerve system of the corporation, but with a very high complexity and dependency. And you think about 20, 30 years ago, how many release cycles you had a year, there were kind of 4 to 8 release cycles a year. Nowadays, after all the customization, bending the processes to the needs, they had to go down to 1 max, 2 release cycles a year. And that is -- I'm not sure if that's time to market because the business has to wait for functional features, new apps, not weeks, they have to wait months now that they get it. So overall, very complex. So that's kind of, I would say, an intersection where even SAP said, okay, well, in which direction are we moving? And then they said, okay, we have to invent a brand-new system called S/4HANA, S stands for simplification, 4 for the cloud-ready code line, the R3 and the 4 stands for this code line, the new one, and HANA for the in-memory database, which is a kind of a real-time database. And the vision of SAP is to convince the customers to say, okay, let's start in a greenfield approach that you start on an MDS-4 system, you use our standardized processes, avoid custom code, and that leads to a very lean system, which makes you more innovative, easier in DevOps maintenance. And if you go Cloud, you see even CapEx impact. So that is the vision of SAP. I see both approaches. And I see the tendency more to brownfield approach because customer sales are implemented. I invest so much time and money, 20, 30, 40 years in my ERP, I'm a little [ worried ] to build that everything up from scratch. So that is kind of what I observed in the market right now. So what is the challenge? And the S/4 HANA challenge or kind of the beginning you start with the analysis. What is the demand? But first of all, you say, okay, which field approach are you selecting, the brown/greenfield, the bluefield approach. Then you talk about, I mean, what demand -- business demand should be covered by the S/4HANA. What process should we go back to standard. Are you going best of breed, that we say, okay, I just take the best Cloud vendors worldwide and implement them in my organization. So a lot of business-related questions. What's -- what about the data integration, the data topic? The data topic comes likely too late into the game. And if you don't have that on your plate from beginning on, the chance is super high that you run in bottlenecks, that you can't keep the time lines anymore because don't forget the data is the fuel of the ERP. And then you see now the SAP PI interfaces. There are hundreds and thousands in corporations, which have to be migrated to the CPI, the integration suite of SAP. And don't forget, it is not an automated process. So there are my code checkers around as I try to develop something that is fast to migrate. But actually, you might end up with a very heavy customized PI interfaces to redevelop them from scratch. And that is kind of even widening the delivery gap because the SIs are already booked out 2027 -- end of 2027 is out of maintenance for PI and all the [ net PO ] related products. There is a window of 3 years, until 2030, for extended maintenance but the journey takes a little bit longer. So that is the right moment to think about that, to think about the integration and how we do that. But going too much into detail, I would like to hand over to Denise, our technical expert, and she will explain you why MuleSoft plays the role in this transition. Over to you, Denise.

Thanks, Mark. So historically, when you add new systems into your network, you just connect them to whatever app needs that data with the point-to-point integration. For the first system, this may be okay, but the more you add on, the landscape starts getting chaotic, right? The more connections you make point-to-point, the harder it is to maintain. Think about when you want to update the fields or add new fields within the integration, how much effort it takes to implement? Don't forget the testing as well as the change management that's needed for each of the systems. Over time, your network starts looking like this, Spaghetti. We can show you a different way by using MuleSoft technology and API-led connectivity. So you can go from chaos to structured. We show you how to build API-driven networks, using modular building blocks. This promotes reusability and all the assets are discoverable and documented in a common marketplace, that we call Exchange. It also makes it easier to enhance, maintain and scale all your integrations, not just a single integration. By using the building blocks, you don't have to start every project at ground zero. I've used the term API led connectivity, but are you familiar with this methodology. Let me describe what this is. And we'll start at the bottom at the system layer. This is where you actually connect to the back-end system. This connectivity is abstracted from the end users. So this is the only place that you need the back-end system expertise to get access to the data. You build a robust connection to the system, including the error handling. Next, we have the process layer. This is where your business processes are defined. You may need data for multiple systems to complete the business process, which could then be reused for other use cases and scenarios. The experience layer is where you present only the data that is needed. For example, if you are updating a mobile app, you might only have a handful of critical fields that you're displaying in the app. But a desktop or a cloud app may have 50 fields or more. By using channel-specific data, you make the apps more responsive and provide the right data to the right experience at the right time. You can add error handling security key and policies every step along the way. As companies have implemented their SAP ECC solutions, they've made many modifications and customizations to the platform, including new fields, new tables, possibly even new user interfaces, just to name a few. They have done their integrations with on-prem and cloud solutions using the SAP technology, PI or file transfer, database connections, but these have always been point-to-point. Some customers rely very heavily on the SAP process orchestration tool. And as Mark highlighted, this is going out of maintenance in 2027, with the possibility to extend a little bit longer. When moving to S/4HANA, the focus is to go back to the standard and keep the core platform clean. The philosophy of this approach is that this will allow the companies to benefit from new S/4HANA capabilities and upgrades. This also removes the concept of a monolithic ERP system, by introducing satellites, which can be cloud-based and best-of-breed. The benefit of this is it allows you to migrate over time instead of a big bang. You may choose to migrate country by country or module by module, at least you have options. It also gives you an opportunity to modernize your integration strategy, use SAP tools to integrate into the SAP landscape, for example, connecting SAP to Concur or Fieldglass. For connections from SAP to non-SAP systems like SAP to Salesforce or SAP to Workday, or even just pure non-SAP integrations use MuleSoft, which would simplify your integrations and allow reusability. By using this approach, we can bring less risk to your projects. There are missing or incomplete capabilities in the SAP tool suite when connecting to non-SAP systems, which could introduce project delays. MuleSoft is able to connect any system to any other system. Also, since it's a suite of tools that SAP offers, you have to ensure that all these tools are working together. MuleSoft has a single platform and run time, so you don't have to integrate the integration solutions. SAP uses other people's technology that they don't own. The current connectors were built by a company called Cloud Elements, which has now been purchased by UiPath. So there's some uncertainty in the arrangement. At MuleSoft, we develop all the connectors in-house. MuleSoft is also a proven market leader, that can run successfully at scale and to ensure that you get the most benefit from the platform. Our focus is on good design using API-led connectivity, which leads to reusability. So you don't have to start every project at ground zero. Which means you can deliver your projects faster over time. As you're making your decisions, remember, MuleSoft provides 400-plus connectors, accelerators and templates. So we're able to connect to all types of systems. Both SAP and non-SAP systems. And also by using templates in the starting point, you can accelerate the delivery of your integrations. Our platform is a leader in the API management and security for full API life cycle management, rated almost equal with Google. We're also the leader in data and process integration category for a Platform-as-a-Service. Don't just take our word for it. I would like to reintroduce Raul, and he will show you how Sika has gone under S/4HANA digital transformation using MuleSoft. Over to you, Raul.

Thanks, Denise. All right. So I'm pleased to share with all of you our successful experience with MuleSoft in a decentralized model. And according to 2 approaches, you have already heard API-led Connectivity and also API First. We will elaborate the concept later. Over the last 3 years, this solution, the Sika MuleSoft integration platform has become a critical component of each and every digitalization initiative in our company. A company that has a certain size, certain complexity, and that is facing both internal and external digitalization challenges. We will see how MuleSoft has enabled the establishment of this agile and innovative digital ecosystem, but also while helping fortify the SAP ecosystem, enabling the SAP team to concentrate on key activities like rollouts, upgrades, migration of legacy companies and so on, new acquisitions and so on. Let's start by looking at a little more in detail at what Sika is and how we manage IT in our organization in the Sika Group. Sika is a leader in specialty chemicals. We operate in 100-plus countries and specialize in products and solutions for systems for construction mainly but also the automotive industry. It is 113 years old organization, and we have recently released our, we call it, new Strategy 2028, that focus on sustainable growth and value enhancement. It is structured around 4 key pillars that are; market penetration, innovation and sustainability, acquisitions, people and culture. On one hand, you see our focus on acquisitions already in the past, but much more now in the future, has led to many Legacy IT, Legacy IT that we need to incorporate in our ecosystem. Particularly with the ERP or related to the ERP, SAP in our case. On the other hand, our dedication and focus on innovation demands more agility -- more agile and innovative IT solutions. These 2 drivers are actually driving the IT strategy in our company, in our organization. So Sika, Informationssysteme, Information Systems, SIS, is a legal entity within our group and acts as the global IT department responsible for managing all global IT solutions, software, hardware solutions. As a competent partner, it support all businesses, all brands, all IT regional, local, by country and to develop next generation and drive the digitalization transformation -- digital transformation journey and agenda. Has 278 experts across 6 global locations and offer -- provides diverse IT expertise in projects and operations, as I said, drive the digital agenda of the Sika Group and provides technical oversight for global network and staff. So we cover in different locations and locally and globally from Switzerland all the countries where Sika, the company has a presence. Now here are some of the main software solutions we have in our ecosystem. And so you can imagine, right, how given the importance and the size of the software solutions, the complex matrix organization we have at Sika. And the strong focus on acquisitions and innovation can imagine how complex such an ecosystem and each governance might be. But there is not only internal also external challenges. Some are global universal, while others are more specific relevant to industries or sectors like chemicals and manufacturing. In chemical construction, for instance, the demand for digitalization and digital transformation has never been greater. Might be driven also because the digital maturity of our B2B customer is increasing. There are also emerging technology like DigitalTwins, AI and also innovative start-ups that are now focusing more on applications in the construction sector. And in addition, our B2B customer and B2C customers, they are seeking for -- seeking more valuable and efficient digital experiences as well. So as our digital ecosystem expands, cybersecurity risk also increase. But cybersecurity, personally I think, can act also as a catalyze for integrating the IT and the operational technology of the [ OT ] world. And these are not all, there are some other external challenges along with geopolitical issues, supply chain disruptions and more. Now to handle these internal and external challenges in digitalization, we might rely in 2 essential pillars, that act like the foundation for any initiatives, data and integration. Data serves as the fuel for our digital processes. We saw it in Mark's presentation. And must be supported with a Single Source of Truth and a strong data strategy. Now integration brings everything together, including an opportunity to break down silos for a smooth collaboration and faster innovation. These pillars are crucial for digitalization. Without them, personally I think, implementing any emerging technology like AI, Automation, could work, but will work in isolation and missing out their full potential. Now let's look at the history of MuleSoft at Sika. The last 3 years history exploring why and how we choose the integration platform, as MuleSoft, and the API-led connectivity and the API first approaches. What was the situation exactly as was described? 3, 4 years ago, before implementing MuleSoft, our company faced a very complex case of direct point-to-point integrations with technical debts, redundancies. I would say everything was ERP-centric. All the few integrations we had with SAP PI at that time were ERP-related and everything else was point-to-point integrated. Various business units use different techniques, develop very heavy customized tools with 0 leverage, 0 reuse of existing solutions. This led, you can imagine, to the unnecessary repetition and lack of productivity and efficiency. This caused significant delays. In some cases, we had projects, where because of the integration part, the whole project took double -- 3x the time that was expected. So we had integration going over 1 year of development. Therefore, in 2019, 2020, after consulting external partners, we decided to shift our integration approach of, call it, approach from a point-to-point, through an API-led connectivity and API-First approach. We conducted a request for proposal and RFP with several candidates, and we selected MuleSoft. Now Sika SAP PI solution was our ecosystem, solo integration tool until 2019, as I said. Post RFP with fully integrated MuleSoft any point as was by May 2020, followed by 2 pilot projects that we implemented in Q3, Q4 of the same year 2020. Our migration -- brownfield migration of SAP ECC to S/4, starting 2020 and was fully completed in '21. This also triggered a project to migrate the existing PI interfaces to CPI that is still ongoing. It's important to mention that our corporate ERP template consists of 2 solutions. SAP S/4 and for smaller Sika companies, we have -- we leverage SAP by design. But not all of the group companies and the recent acquisitions are already leveraging these 2 corporate template solutions, CRP solutions, S4 by design. We still have a lot of them. Group companies using Axapta Navision. And perhaps also SAP for the recent acquisitions, but in a different template that the Sika wants. Therefore, this is the legacy that we need to consistently integrate through different rollouts and projects. In early 2021, we were entrusted by the CIO and the Group IT Management Board to create a strategic document to establish the governance for these integration solutions, MuleSoft and SAP. The paper, you may see here some details. We cover everything that is within that SAP ecosystem world, with leveraging the SAP integration capabilities. CPI access, the entry/exit door to this ecosystem. And now everything else that happens after outside -- we are leveraging for the CRM integration with [ websites ] and also external integrations with e-retailers, pure Internet players, customary shops for all of this, we use MuleSoft. In the following slide, we will learn more about how MuleSoft was implemented technically speaking. I will provide some details on how it's being covered and the benefits that we get -- we got from this. Now in this -- in the introduction of the presentation, I mentioned a concept was the decentralized model. MuleSoft and the overall digital integration, Sika, is delivered -- or under this decentralized model. To clarify, this means that we offer the Sika MuleSoft integration platform, SikaMIP, as a service for both ad hoc and full-time integrators. So we pack and you will find all details in the next slides. We pack everything and we offer this platform as a service, to everyone in the organization, corporate, regional, local level. So certified individuals, and we do have an onboarding process for that, internally certified individuals that might be internal but also external from suppliers can create integration in our platform by themselves. This decentralized model should not be misunderstood or considered like a chaotic or -- and control model, where everyone can do whatever thing they wish, its actually required strong unified governance, and this is what my team, [ SikaMIP ] Center for Enablement, C4E, is doing. API-led connectivity and API-First approaches. This is what you already hear. We implemented both of them by leveraging MuleSoft of out-of-box capabilities, MuleSoft is, in my opinion, integration platform to do so. API-led connectivity is all about modular architecture. And with the primary -- and this is the API-First approach with primary focus on the APIs themselves. The vast majority of digitalization and digital transformation projects in our company and I guess the same in your companies, require more than one software, more than one database. There are very few perhaps, known in our case, project where we just rolled out one software, right? We need to provide solutions to business that consists of more than one software and/or database. There may be software application A with the need to retrieve data from database A and database B and perhaps also with an integration required with a third-party solution. This is the complexity of any digital project nowadays. Therefore, what we do is we position the APIs at the center of this integration cases. With that, we enable the organization to become more agile, flexible and faster. For us -- faster delivering value. For us, it's much more important, the [ EPIs ], it product, then the case of integration we are doing between A -- application A and application B. We satisfied that integration case for now and also considering how this could be leveraged in the future. And you will see the results and the benefit of this in a minute. The Sika MuleSoft integration platform, SikaMIP consists of MuleSoft, any point platform, complemented with resources to integrate MuleSoft into our infrastructure and also with the CI/CD pipeline. So all the tools required for -- to do so. And additionally, additional offering like [ traceable ] integration assets, support services, et cetera. I would like to highlight an additional service here that we provide, thanks to the approach we are following and the capabilities out of the box, that MuleSoft provides. This is the integration as a service. My team, supported by an external DevOps provider, implements and delivers integration for first corporate, regional, local business and IT teams that cannot undertake integration by themselves or with a local partner. They say, "We need that, but we don't know how to make it happen." So we act as an agency delivering that solution, integration to them. And at the end, we -- they decided why and what, and we ensured how this is aligned with our unified [ governance ]. This is also a service, us acting as a key player as well in the platform, in the network that is possible. Thanks to the approach and the integration platform and software. Over the past 3 years, SikaMIP has delivered substantial value as is recognized today like a critical, critical component of our Sika Group ecosystem -- digital ecosystem. And again, I said I cannot imagine any project, new project without the box in the architectural design with the name SikaMIP or MuleSoft. Now one of the main benefits to highlight is agility and flexibility, which is quantified by our most critical KPI, key performance indicator, API reuse. Last year, we concluded with 51% of reuse rate, indicating that every second API, in our integration project this year, was pretty existing within MuleSoft. We have to use it as is or after enhancing with additional logic. And our goal for this year is to achieve 70%, 75% API reuse. This has a significant impact in the next main benefit that is rapid development. What you see here, screen 6 to 8 weeks to design, build, deliver MuleSoft Integration. This was not just for one, the best project. This is the average for all integration projects, implemented over the past 2 years -- the last 2 years. Leveraging MuleSoft and our approach, we have reached an average of 6, 8 weeks at the end. And in the past, this set was months, 6 to 9, 10 months, as an average in the past. The past integration was the pain, was the pain of majority of the digitalization digital project. Today, Digital Integration -- Sika MuleSoft Integration platform has become an enabler and catalyze for any new digitalization initiatives. Third, we have built a user-friendly solution. It's easy to use, MuleSoft is easy to use. We have made integration easy to understand. Indeed, our main focus has been over the last 3 years, the IT community, but next year, we will bring the integration platform to the Visa citizens so they can also solve problems with needing integration by themselves, without no code, without no interaction with the IT teams. And all the corporate and regional solutions are today integrated at least for one integration case, through MuleSoft. Let's take a look at the Sika team operating MuleSoft in the IT department. One -- some may think, okay, that's to achieve all of this to govern a critical system like the SikaMIP in a complex organization like Sika, there might be a huge -- an army of people behind taking care of everything and so on. But in fact, there is not. The Sika C4E is the smallest team with the largest scope in our organization. This consists of 4 internal, supported by 6 external, so 4 external team lead, project manager integration architect, DevOps lead. So the people defining how the governance, guidelines, how we want anyone to build an API MuleSoft and then is supported by DevOps partner that consists of 6 external specialists. There is obviously the SikaMIP community that consists of ad hoc full-time integrators, that are at corporate level or in any of the different regions. So my team is responsible -- the C4E is responsible for ensuring that unified governance that we show implement and deliver the integration as a service and take care of the knowledge base and the onboard of new ad hoc full-time integrators. Again, could be internal Sika people or any integration [ say for ] MuleSoft partner. All right. So let's take a look at the very high level representation, some key integration of SAP, other known SAP ERP solutions and with Salesforce. As you can see here on the left side on the bottom, we have the SAP ecosystem, consists of SAP S4, SAP by design and the integration layer like that is called the entry/exit door to this ecosystem. On the right side on the bottom, we have the order that is much more fragmented, is not the corporate approach. We have all the legacy local ERP systems, Axapta, Dynamics, Navision SAP some of them as I said, but still not under the Sika SAP template. We leverage MuleSoft for the integration of these systems, ERP system with the rest of the ecosystem. And as I said, to all the applications and platforms that are outside of our ecosystem. It could be e-retailers, pure internal players, OT systems, factories and so on. Now last, we will see summary of the takeaways of the points. I would like to highlight at the end of this presentation. I personally believe that the centralized model in a future, that is more and more open is the best approach for digital integration for any digitalization, digital transformation initiative. This approach promotes collaboration and innovation, while at the same time, breaking down silos. As we saw Mark's presentation, that traditional approach, in this case, we are seeing today digital integration of having one key corporate team, for example, that is handling all, every and each integration case with a unique tool for the internal ERP/business processes, but at the same time, offering this to integrate with external applications. I don't think this is the right approach. I believe more on a decentralized model with this API-led connectivity approach, MuleSoft out-of-the-box offers the capabilities to make it happen. And as I said at the end, it's not just modernizing your ecosystem. It's mitigating the SAP challenges by providing a flexible, composable, integration platform and enabling them to focus on the very critical crucial topics they have, fortifying the SAP ecosystem enabling key activities like onboarding a new acquisition or that company, that team that is still running on a local custom ERP and/or handle the upgrades S/4 HANA upgrade, like we are doing now this year that is a significant or require a significant effort as well. That's all from my side, thank you very much. Over to you, Mark.

Thank you, Raul. It's always amazing to hear you talking about your success story. For me, a true flagship approach. And I mean, my key takeaway of your session here is, first of fall, you brought down the development cycles of integration from 6 to 8, 9 months down to weeks, which is really give the business the time to market they need nowadays. Reusability rate, that is hitting in a little later, and now you're up to 71%. It's also very impressive. And overall, what I really like to see. I mean, it's not kind of compete against SAP. You said you had before the single vendor strategy with SAP PI. The other companies having that, they're saying CPI is the wall-to-wall integration tool. There are other companies having 10, 15, 20 different kind of integration tools, which is also not the way to go. And so I really like this complementary dual approach, where you say, okay, let's select SAP, the CPI integration suite for connecting SAP to SDP because that is the lifeblood of SAP. That is what they develop and they have the connectors ready to go, so that's amazing. So let's leverage SAP for the SAP topics. But the non-SAP integration and the exposure to non-SAP database and apps, that should be done with an enterprise-ready solution like MuleSoft. That is, for me, the key takeaway I like it very much. So the next steps. So we have a lot of QR codes here. We have blocks, we have even a Whitepaper for CROs. You can dive in into the Gartner Magic Quadrant of 2023. And we have even a contact form where we can reach out to us. We have solution engineers worldwide, who can support you there, just to dive in a little bit deeper to make a discovery. We can even calculate the value, if you give us some numbers and data. And yes, to pave the journey into a way, that will really help you and have a success story, can replicate the story of Sika, like the other customers already doing worldwide on your side. Because that is the real success. So you ask some questions, I guess, Denise, do you see any questions in the chat.

Yes, we do. And thank you, everybody, for posting questions and asking -- the first question, I think, is over to Raul. Could you highlight where you are in your S/4HANA transition?

Sure. I said we already in S4. We migrated years ago and now we are handling upgrade on one hand and additionally, the onboarding of all those group companies that are still leveraging other ERP systems. And at the same time, for example, for this year [indiscernible]. And you can imagine how much legacy, ERP IT systems to migrate also. So this is all what the SAP and many others SAP team is to win at the moment. But we're already in S4. We leverage also by design for those smaller ticker companies, countries that don't need a full package.

Cool. Thank you. The next question we have, I think, is over to Mark. You mentioned replacing PIPO, which deployment options does MuleSoft offer?

Okay, straightforward, can be cloud only, can be on-prem, can be hybrid. So that is the deployment options pretty straightforward. Talking about replacing, I don't like that word replacing because, it's still a mutual approach, where you say that's dual. So everything which makes sense for CPI integration suite should be go from PI to SAP CPI or the integration suite but every -- the heavy lifting to really carve out the risk of the S4 integration, which, I mean, the customers know it's of full of custom code, it's non-SAP integration and we are not really good in handling that. Then MuleSoft plays definitely a role to make it as a comprehensive picture. So that's all what I wanted to say here.

Thanks, Mark. Another great question. We have quite a few number of micro services and functions, can we reuse them or do we need to build everything from scratch again with MuleSoft? I can take that one. So of course, we'd love you to rebuild everything, but let's be realistic. If you've got microservices, we have a product called universal API Management that you can manage, secure and discover all the APIs, that you've already created. And you can then also monitor them within the product as well. So you can bring your own APIs and we can assist with monitoring and securing that. Okay. The other question is. Raul, over to you. Are you also exposing APIs externally for customers or partners or suppliers?

Absolutely. We are exposing APIs to pure Internet players, e-retailers and also some customers. We have very project implemented 2 years ago is very close to my heart is a kind of [ PIM to PIM ]. So from our system, providing data to our customer [ PIM ] system, so product data. And this is something very automated and very innovative and efficient [indiscernible] that is implemented today.

Very cool. Raul, I think you've got a lot of questions coming. Everybody was intrigued by your story. So thank you. So another question is an SAP partner is advising me for a single vendor integration strategy and that BTP would be the best fit. Could you please elaborate again on the benefits of this dual integration strategy?

There might be other questions of why -- how to deal with this dual approach or -- and having SAP teams and MuleSoft team. I would say here what I said is not only about -- it's not only a technical argument. It's also the way that technology is delivered. In our companies, larger smaller companies, we have been investing on the ERP, with having a dedicated team, very often full in-house team of developers taking care of the ERP, in our case SAP. That's become -- and that was the only integration we had in the past. That's become the bottleneck for the increase in demand outside of this ERP ecosystem. And this was in the last year, the more we were digitalizing other areas of the company and also going beyond our boundaries interacting, connecting with external. So it's not only -- the argument is not only the technology whether SAP or just only MuleSoft, it's also the way we deliver that integration capabilities. And in our case, as I said, thanks to leveraging that the out-of-box features of MuleSoft, we can offer as a complement to the ERP ecosystem. We can offer a layer that covers integration internal and externally much agile, faster, flexible, sustainable as well. So I think that nowadays because of the complexity that we are getting in our ecosystems, the so emerging technology hypes and so on. I think this bimodal IT approach and also full integration is the best and the most suitable. And now to finish very transparently, honestly, I will share. It was tough at the very beginning to make such a decision. When we call the mandate from the CIO and the Group IT Management Board to put this on paper, this integration strategy. But the fact is that today, after 3 years -- 3, 4 years, 3 years, everyone likes this approach. Whether this is on the SAP side or on the non-SAP side, everyone is -- agrees that this is the best setup for a company like Sika with a challenging digital transformation journey as we have.

Cool. Thank you. Okay. We have another question about some of the SAP tools specifically the SAP Business Technology Platform or BTP, which provides similar functionality. Mark, would you like to cover that topic?

Yes, yes, indeed. So a lot of customers are approaching us with a wall-to-wall BTP strategy. But as you understood, I mean, as it comes from PI, their on-prem integration tool, which plays now the topic in the S/4 transition. Then they develop the CPI tool, which is more or less cloud Integration tool of SAP which is strong on cloud integration inside the [indiscernible] and a little weak on the on-prem part. And now what SAP did, they invented the BTP, which is not a product, BTP is a product portfolio, and they put all data-related products. They bundled it into a portfolio. And inside this portfolio, there is a SAP Integration Suite, which is under the hood of CPI. So that's kind of the entire picture. So that is BTP's portfolio and inside there is the SAP Integration Suite. Talking about the SAP Integration Suite, we have to understand that -- and that is what Denise showed us. It's a kind of integration suite or tool, which is not kind of enterprise ready tool, and they are partnering an OEM, the white label approach with other kind of software vendors like UiPath, like -- UiPath was it, as [ Solis ] was it and Apache to make it more or less kind of complete. But you have this dependency on these other software vendors, and they are all different kind of code lines, which makes it more complex. And if you ask, for example, Gartner or you see the market trends or reference customers, they really prove that this BTP integration, it makes sense inside the SAP landscape, but exposing data outside of bringing a non-SAP data into the S/4, where you need an enterprise-ready integration suite, which, for example, MuleSoft is, and you see the outcome on the Sika side itself with a big success.

So we've received many great questions, which we'll get back to you on, many of them being very technical. Also, as we're still showing on the screen, we have recommended steps. You can also record your information and your questions via the QR code here and we really appreciate your time for joining our webinar and we hope you found it useful. So thank you, everybody. We have you -- hope you have a great day or night, depending on where you're located.

Thank you.