Kakao Enterprise aimed to expand the capabilities of “Kakao Work”, one of their B2B solutions, to allow users to conduct business scenarios at companies using SAP ERP. Kakao Enterprise and SAP developed 68 cross-industry use cases. Three use cases with SAP Business Technology Platform were identified and chosen for the first implementation round in the third quarter of 2021. As a first milestone, the “SAP x Kakao Work Package” already went live at SAP Store in June 2021.
Kakao is the No. 1 B2C mobile service company in Korea. In 2019, the company established the subsidiary Kakao Enterprise to provide B2B Artificial Intelligence, in short AI, services. One of their new solutions is ”Kakao Work”, a mobile messenger and app-based collaboration platform that enables employees to communicate, share files, and integrate third-party services.
The company aimed at expanding the ”Kakao Work” capabilities to allow users to conduct business scenarios at companies using SAP ERP. In close strategic collaboration with SAP, a project team discovered use cases, designed the user experience, and developed the service. As a first milestone, Kakao Enterprise launched the “SAP x Kakao Work Packages” on the SAP Store in June of 2021. This new service for enterprise customers is built with SAP Business Technology Platform. Its capabilities can be expanded in the future to include more business scenarios, and across various industries.
Kakao Work was able to take one step closer to innovate users’ work experience as a ‘comprehensive work platform’ through collaborating with the SAP AppHaus. We were able to empathize with the real-world pain points of corporate customers with the help of the human-centered approach of the Sunrise Program and developed solutions to address it through Kakao Work.
– Ju-Young Chung | Executive Director, Kakao Enterprise
Building with SAP Business Technology Platform
The “SAP x Kakao Work Packages” solution allows users to perform business scenarios using SAP ERP through the mobile messenger app. Users can conveniently search data and process transactions such as checking sales order status, processing goods receipt, and work order status.
The improved business value in SAP’s elaborated scenario integrates other SAP solutions and provides productivity and accessibility to maximize utilization for business users. It operates regardless of any environmental constraints end users may have and delivers business processing faster.
SAP Business Technology Platform provides the capability to integrate ”Kakao Work” with SAP Ariba, SAP Concur, SAP SuccessFactors, and other cloud solutions in addition to SAP ERP.
For a closer look, project insights shared by the SAP AppHaus team in Seoul
Exploring 68 scenarios to identify the top 3 use cases
The Korean SAP AppHaus team interviewed business process experts and identified 68 potential scenarios as potential new work packages, followed by additional interviews and prioritizing them by scoring them in terms of expected users, expected frequency of use, and expected work performance. Along SAP’s Human-Centered Approach to Innovation, the team conducted an exploration workshop with Kakao Enterprise and a development partner. Based on feasibility of development and importance the project team was able to select three high-priority use cases:
- checking sales order status
- processing goods receipt
- checking work order status
Designing the top 3 use cases and validating the design with key business value features
The SAP AppHaus created the project team and carried out the project so that one user experience – UX – designer was dedicated to designing one use case for efficient project progress. The three use cases selected are the following:
- Sales people can check the progress of the sales order they created through push notifications provided by ”Kakao Work” on their mobile devices.
- Logistics personnel receives and processes materials through ”Kakao Work” after checking the package details on site upon receiving it.
- Maintenance technicians can receive the assigned work order through ”Kakao Work” and log in his/her start or finish time upon completing the task.
The iterations with the Kakao Work project members led to adaptations and further improved the design. Two things that the project team considered when working on UI Flow and UX Design for use case development are as follows: First, the team members considered designing a user flow that is seamlessly connected to the system because the workflow of the selected scenarios follows the SAP ERP business process. Second, the team had to design a user centered mobile UX because customers use Kakao Work based on mobile messenger to do their work.
The SAP AppHaus Innovation Toolkit for virtual collaboration
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the project team conducted interviews remotely along the proven Innovation Toolkit for virtual and on-site collaboration. This toolkit allowed the team to move forward with the project under challenging circumstances.
The members designed based on the results and outcomes of many interviews and detailed scenario reviews with business process experts and development partners with the goal that employees can perform ERP-related tasks more easily through Kakao Work.
The project team prototyped using the Invision tool, and immediately shared it with process experts for validation. After several iterations, an online workshop was held with Kakao Enterprise, development partners, and SAP process experts. In a next step, the final design output could be verified and shared for review and feedback. To finalize this first project, all feedback was immediately incorporated and reflected in the UX design of the solution. Based on the UX design provided by the SAP AppHaus colleagues, Kakao Enterprise and a development partner developed the application which, in June 2021, was launched at the SAP Store: „Kakao Work“ – Mobile business messenger that supports efficient and productive communication.
