I'm Rakesh Narayan — an SAP Solution Architect with 15+ years of experience building enterprise systems that actually make sense to the people who use them.
The journey
I spent the first decade of my career in India, working across industries and learning the craft of SAP implementation the hard way — in the field, alongside business users, firefighting go-live issues, and eventually leading architecture decisions on large-scale programmes.
In 2021, I moved to Helsinki, Finland. That transition — from a familiar professional context to an entirely new country, culture, and way of working — has shaped how I think about systems, people, and the human side of digital transformation.
What I do
I work as a lead architect, helping organisations design and implement SAP landscapes — from S/4HANA migrations to BTP integrations to Fiori UX strategies. My focus is always on the intersection of technical correctness and business value: systems that are well-built and actually adopted.
Why I write
SAP is infamous for documentation that is either too dense to parse or too shallow to trust. I write to change that — in my own small way. This site is where I share what I've learned, what I'm thinking about, and occasionally, what I've experienced living between two very different cultures.
The three content categories here reflect my reality: Technology (what I build), Life Experiences (what I live), and Short Stories (what I imagine).
Beyond work
When I'm not in architecture diagrams or writing, you'll find me exploring Finnish forests, learning the language one word at a time, or wondering how a country of 5 million people manages to produce so much sauna wisdom.
"In the dark night of all beings awakes to Light the tranquil man. But what is day to other beings is night for the sage who sees."
— Bhagavad Gita