CIO Influence Interview with PF Grillet, SAP Global Lead at SoftwareOne

“For cybersecurity and SOC teams, it’s crucial to have comprehensive end-to-end visibility over the entire technology estate so that threats and potential indicators of compromise can be identified quickly using SIEM tooling.”

Please tell us about your role at SoftwareOne. How did you arrive here? 

I am the Global Lead SAP Service Line at SoftwareOne. I started at the company in 2020 to develop its SAP Cloud Advisory services.

I have spent 30 years in the SAP ecosystem, including CIO- Practice lead at leading SIs companies e.g., Deloitte and Capgemini. I also built a SAP Business Consulting practice in APAC. I then started my career with Accenture implementing their in-house ERP solution (Mac-Pac for IBM mid-range S/38 and AS/400).

You recently announced a partnership with Dynatrace. How would this association benefit the customers in 2024? 

PowerConnect is a unique solution providing customers with observability, alerting, and workplace to accelerate incident resolution. PowerConnect benefits customers in managing their SAP systems performance, security, and business process execution.

PowerConnect is integrated with the Dynatrace SIEM platform, providing SAP-specific insights and using Dynatrace analysis and visualization capabilities.

Please tell us about your efforts in developing end-to-end software solutions for SAP and non-SAP platforms.  

SoftwareOne acquired PowerConnect as part of the BNW acquisition in 2019. PowerConnect is the result of over 10 years of development and is the leading SAP monitoring solution.

SoftwareOne builds and partners to assist our customers with effectively managing their application and cloud landscape, providing technical and commercial optimization as a leader of Cloud, Applications, and ITAM & FinOps services.

Working with SIEM platform providers such as Dynatrace contributes to providing customers with end-to-end security and monitoring solutions across SAP and non-SAP systems.

Tell us more about AI-powered alerting capabilities. How does it fit into the modern-day observability ecosystem? 

In the monitoring area, advanced data analysis can identify patterns and abnormal situations that trigger alerts.

The rapidly increasing amount of data that can be captured when monitoring systems enables the application of AI to support data analysis and identification of threats.

SoftwareOne is heavily investing in Data and AI capability and service offerings.

Enterprise data storage technologies have reached new heights with GenAI. Could you tell us how your team works with new-age GenAI tools and capabilities at SoftwareOne? 

SoftwareOne is fully engaged in the new AI including GenAI tools, beyond the SAP Service Line. This includes being a key partner of Microsoft for the deployment of Copilot and the building of our Data and AI capability and offerings. In the SAP area, we are building proofs of concept applications for both customer-facing solutions and tools that improve our internal delivery, quality, and efficiency.

How should CIOs and CISOs protect their SAP security frameworks against ransomware and other cyber threats? Could you provide a sneak peek into data protection and recovery plans at SoftwareOne for internal and external stakeholders? 

For cybersecurity and SOC teams, it’s crucial to have comprehensive end-to-end visibility over the entire technology estate so that threats and potential indicators of compromise can be identified quickly using SIEM tooling. However, SAP systems are often a black box to the SIEM platforms and PowerConnect solves that problem by plugging SAP systems into the SIEM and providing real-time telemetry for what is happening inside the SAP system.

Protecting against ransomware goes beyond the observability angle. Backups are also a critically important last line of defense.

Here it’s important to architect backups and data protection with recognition of the risks and capabilities brought by cloud hyperscalers, rather than simply treating a hyperscaler like another data center and using legacy on-premises backup tools. All of the major hyperscalers offer not only encryption of backups but also protection against deletion or modification that’s baked into their infrastructure and provides excellent protection against malicious actors. Such ‘immutable storage’ functionality wasn’t available in on-premises data centers in the past, and the expensive and complex third-party solutions that were required there should not simply be lifted into the cloud where better, cheaper, and simpler solutions are available from the hyperscalers.

On a Lighter Note

Burn the midnight candle or soak in the sun? 

I like both but I burn the midnight candle a lot!

Coffee, or Tea? 

Unsweetened hazelnut flat white or piccolo – coffee…

Your favorite SoftwareOne offering that you want everyone to know about? 

PowerConnect — our advanced monitoring solution for SAP systems.

First memorable experience in your career as a technology leader? 

Thrilling to be able to make an impact by influencing an organization’s decision-making regarding the deployment of technology to support its business objectives. I find it especially exciting when the technology is game-changing. One particular experience was in the insurance industry helping the integration of policy and claims applications with SAP S/4HANA finance solution.

One thing you remember about your employee (s)?

Their passion, and the satisfaction of seeing my teammates grow as they progress in their careers.

Most useful app that you currently use?

Globe. It’s an easy-to-use app that helps navigate across time zones, which is essential when in a global role.

Thank you, Pierre-Francis! That was fun and we hope to see you back on itechnologyseries.com soon.