50 to 1 Can Save a Company 1.2million Euros!

 Sustainability  Comments Off
Mar 282011
 

I stumbled upon a very cool Green IT impact calculator from SAP the other day during a conversation with Timo Stelzer, Global VP of SAP Green IT.  This one week old calculator shows companies impact of energy cost savings through system consolidation of SAP systems.

SAP Green IT Calculator

At the max, if a company is currently running 50 SAP ERP systems with one client each and they reduce them down to one system with 50 clients they can potential reduce their energy consumption by 1.2million euros in over five years!  This number is based on a company that has a 5% increase of energy cost per year and an average utilization of their systems at 40%.

Since this really is a new tool, it is still sitting on SAP’s internal portal, so I can’t provide the calculator to play with. But it will be available in April on www.sap.com/greenit.

The results are not 100% guaranteed, but gives a good baseline of cost savings. The methodology behind the calculator is based on the recent model SAP has developed to estimate the carbon footprint of SAP products in use.

SAP Details Sustainable Business Strategy With Release of Fourth Annual Sustainability Report

 Newsbyte, Sustainability  Comments Off
Mar 242011
 

With sustainability core to its strategy of making the world run better, SAP today released its fourth annual sustainability report.  The report details the company’s progress in driving impact via the delivery of innovative customer solutions that turn sustainability into a business opportunity, leveraging innovation to improve SAP’s own sustainable operations, and pursuing social innovation to help meet people’s basic needs and create sustainable growth and economic opportunity. To encourage an ongoing dialogue with stakeholders, the report is available in an online, interactive format — accessible via mobile devices, including iPad — that features tight integration with social media platforms. Read the newsbyte.

 Permalink  Analytics  Comments Off
Mar 232011
 

New Version of SAP BusinessObjects GRC Launches

Is SAP’s new GRC release 10.0 really the most comprehensive GRC suite in the market?  I heard this marketing phrase thrown around at SAP and wanted to know if there is validation behind this claim.

Jim Dunham, the solution manager for SAP BusinessObjects GRC solutions, gave me the download about the new version. And in fact there are a lot of enhancements.  More importantly the solution brings together three critical components of managing risk and compliance:

  1. Manages compliance
  2. Monitors the enterprise 
  3. Gathers the data from 1 and 2 for analysis

From the backend customers of the SAP BusinessObjects GRC system hook into other systems a customer might run, as well as SAP systems this is possible via an OEM link

This seems pretty comprehensive to me and these are only the highlights. I am not an expert in risk and compliance; I’m adverse to risk and tend to be conservative (especially when it comes to money)!  So what I found interesting about the new 10.0 release was “bow-tie builder,” a drag and drop tool. What a perfect name! Jim explained that this is a feature that risk managers can use to explain the steps they have taken to mitigate risk to the line of business.  Check out the demo Jim gave me of the bow-tie builder.

SAP has enhanced over 20 areas of its GRC version 10.0 where there are updates in the individual solution areas: Access Control, Global Trade Service, Risk Management and Process Control. Here is a summary of the enhancements:

  • The solution now has a common look and feel that is easier to navigate and easier for customers to train their organization.
  • SAP Business Intelligence is embedded into SAP BusinessObjects GRC for visualization of compliance across the enterprise.
  • Through the SAP Ecohub, customers can pull content provided from partners to let the customers tailor the solution for their specific industry needs.
  • The bow-tie builder gives the risk manager a graphically pleasing visual tool that is easy to display.

I wanted to know how many customers are moving to version 10.0 and Jim did not hesitate to answer that over 50 customers are already ramping up. Right now only existing SAP customers can get the new version, but come June the version will be generally available.

Three SAP customers claim that because of only one new feature they will upgrade to version 10.0.  I will follow-up to this blog with some of the customers he mentioned.  They will upgrade because of the cost saving from efficiency gains made to the upgrades of SAP BusinessObject Access Control solution. 

Here is what sold them.  Within SAP Access Control there is a component called super user privilege manager, AKA Firefighter (another creative name!). Rules are set-up in the system to protect a company of risk, i.e. segregation of duties. If a company needs to change the rules because of an issue or emergency they now can, but only through a monitoring capability, allowing the company to watch any changes being made.  This created a lot of log of changes, which takes a lot of time for an organization to review.  With version 10.0 this log is now segment- able and can be made into a workflow for distribution to the organization for assistance in resolving the issue. This will save companies tons of time and money in tracking all changes made to rules.

In my opinion, the new version does create a comprehensive GRC suite that addresses a lot of the demands from SAP’s customers.

What do you think? Is this the most comprehensive GRC solution in the market?

SAP launched the SAP BusinessObjects GRC new release today.

SAP Launches Next-Generation GRC, Enabling Unified View and Greater Control Over Risk

 Analytics, Newsbyte  Comments Off
Mar 222011
 

SAP today announced its newest release of governance, risk and compliance (GRC) software, providing a single, unified environment for the most comprehensive support for management, monitoring and analysis of enterprise risk and compliance activities. Nearly three years in the making, the new release integrates GRC capabilities into everyday business processes, helping make risk management, regulatory compliance and safe, productive operations a standard and a consistent practice. Read the press release.

Vaya Con SAP Portal: Spanish Railway Connects Employees

 Newsbyte  Comments Off
Mar 212011
 

When it comes to the types of platforms that trains pull up to, Spanish railway company Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat Valenciana (FGV) is an expert in its field. But when FGV wanted a central information and service platform that would enable its employees to access the portal at any time, they trained their eyes on SAP NetWeaver Portal.

When implementing the portal, FGV had three objectives, according to José Antonio González Redondo, head of HR: “First, we wanted employees to be able to access the portal at any time. Second, we needed employees to be able to access self-services and commonly used applications for HR. Finally, we set out to drive active participation and collaboration among our employees.”

SAP Portal’s tight integration with SAP ERP enabled the automation of services in the company’s HR department, which means FGV employees can now access the latest information and self-services they need via the Internet, terminals, or the intranet. And they’ve formed online workgroups on the portal to share documents and exchange ideas to boot. Find out more in this new feature story from SAP Spectrum: Next Stop: Your Portal

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