SAP Broadens Industry Reach With New Analytic Application for Aerospace and Defense

 Analytics, Newsbyte, Sustainability  Comments Off
May 312012
 
WALLDORF — Extending the industry reach of its analytics portfolio, SAP today announced a new analytic application for aerospace and defense (A&D). The SAP Program Performance Analysis for A&D analytic application lets A&D program managers and business executives quickly uncover deep insights into their portfolio of programs, including the development of new commercial aircraft, weapon systems, spacecraft and ships. The announcement was made at the EVM World 2012 conference, being held May 30 – June 1 in Naples, Florida. In the highly competitive A&D industry, program managers must identify the relevant issues of projects throughout their lifecycle by analyzing data collected from many diverse sources. They must gain visibility into key performance indicators (KPIs) such as requirements stability, production quality, or supplier risks, and be able to take quick corrective actions to keep programs on track. The analytic application provides program managers a scorecard view of the performance of multiple programs at once. Additionally, it enables users to drill down through layers of increasing detail to root causes without the delays and manual efforts that plague today’s program assessment efforts. Enabling organizations and individuals to gain real-time, actionable insights, analytic applications from SAP are tailored for specific industries and lines of business to help users overcome the challenges of their unique business climates. SAP Program Performance Analysis for A&D enables program managers to work proactively and avoid commonly experienced setbacks such as cost overruns and schedule delays that cause organizations to lose millions of dollars to annually. It also enables them to clearly visualize all relevant data to help stakeholders improve overall decision-making and ensure program goals are achieved. Since the analytic application is powered by the SAP HANA platform, it can process large volumes of data – from any data source – in memory, meaning the results of complex analyses and transactions are produced immediately. With this information, program managers can base reports and tactics on comprehensive business intelligence (BI) from the entire value chain. They can also easily determine the status of tasks and run ad-hoc queries to drill down on granular metrics. To learn more, watch a product demo: “SAP Program Performance Analysis for Aerospace & Defense – Sharpening Operational Insight and Boosting Program Performance.” For more information, visit the SAP Newsroom. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews and @businessobjects.

SAP Public Services Urges Congress to Adopt Innovative Solutions to Address the Nation’s Biggest IT Challenges, Save Taxpayer Dollars

 Analytics, Newsbyte  Comments Off
May 242012
 

WASHINGTON, DC  — Jennifer Morgan, president of SAP Public Services, Inc., a subsidiary of SAP AG, testified today before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security. Morgan was invited to address members of Congress in a hearing titled “Innovating with Less: Examining Efforts to Reform Information Technology Spending.” The hearing explored efforts by President Obama to cut wasteful and inefficient IT spending within the federal government.

Citing advances in in-memory computing, cloud computing and mobile solutions, Morgan said: “The advances in technology over the last few years now allow government to tackle some of the largest challenges with fewer resources and shortened deployment times. A host of new technologies, specifically ones that turn large amounts of data into useful and actionable information, are transforming the way the private sector does business. Using the same technology, the government has the ability, for example, to proactively identify possible improper payments which could literally save billions of taxpayer dollars.”

A very large and growing portion of SAP’s business occurs in collaboration with its partners and, most importantly, with its customers. New solutions have to work seamlessly with legacy solutions. Vendor lock-in is “out;” co-innovation and teamwork is “in.”

“We found that the fastest and most successful results occur when industry and government co-innovate to bring new possibilities to life through technology,” Morgan said.

Some of these solutions are already at work for the American people and delivering results. “In just 22 days, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board made history by moving the tremendous amount of stimulus grant data housed on Recovery.gov to a public cloud environment,” Morgan said. Today, citizens can track spending of stimulus funds through their Recovery Explorer platform.

“More recently, the Recovery Board created FAST ALERT enabling federal agency personnel from across the government to perform large and concurrent searches though big data sets to identify potentially fraudulent entities and individuals,” Morgan added.

In the hearing, Morgan said one of the biggest challenges facing the government are IT procurement processes, which can often take longer than the modernizations themselves, “This becomes a challenge when technology innovation cycles are getting shorter and shorter, costs are going down and benefits can be achieved sometimes quicker than the acquisition process itself.”

For more information, visit the SAP Newsroom.

For more information, press only:
Atle Erlingsson, SAP, +1 (415) 858-8149, atle.erlingsson@sap.com, PDT
SAP Press Office, +49 (6227) 7-46315, CET; +1 (610) 661-3200, EDT; press@sap.com
Mollie O’Dell, Story Partners, +1 (202) 714-5993, mollie.odell@storypartnersdc.com, EDT

SAP Urban Matters Initiative to Help Cities Run Better Than Ever

 Corporate Topics, Ecosystem, Newsbyte  Comments Off
May 232012
 

WALLDORF — SAP today launched the SAP Urban Matters program, an initiative with the goal of helping cities and urban settlements improve the lives of people and deliver better, more effective government.

With so many challenges facing cities and urban settlements, SAP Urban Matters focuses on helping customers and partners address the issues associated with rapid urbanization, the drive for smarter economies, the need for sustainable growth and the power of connected citizens. The initiative’s primary focus is helping urban governments deliver better-run cities. SAP’s strategy addresses five key aspects: supporting the fundamentals of good government; empowering public officials to be more productive; increasing community engagement and openness; driving innovation around government service delivery; and improving urban resilience to help ensure public safety and security.

SAP has a strong and growing global presence in urban governments — from Berlin to Sydney, from Cape Town to Philadelphia, from Singapore to Birmingham, from Vienna to Buenos Aires. SAP Urban Matters allows the company to deepen its understanding and broaden its focus around city, municipal and state government.

“Our industry vision, expertise and ‘best-run’ know-how act as a force multiplier,” said Jens Romaus, senior vice president and global head, Public Services Industry Solutions, SAP. “This year, on SAP’s 40th anniversary, we have supercharged our public services strategy for cities and municipalities. With SAP Urban Matters, we can accelerate innovation with our customers and connect directly to the lives of people.”

The profound changes and growth in urban settlements require fresh thinking and creativity around how municipalities can run better. SAP Urban Matters helps municipalities to engage with citizens, improve efficiency, deliver better services, improve tax and revenue collection, address social inclusion, open up government and increase public safety and sustainability.

“SAP is already working closely with urban governments around the world,” said Sean Patrick O’Brien, global lead, Urban Management and Public Safety, SAP. “In India and China, we are helping innovate around urban transportation; in Australia and the UK, we are helping innovate around public safety; in Germany and the U.S., we are helping to innovate around good governance; in the Nordics and South Africa, we are helping deliver service innovation; in Austria and the Nordics, we are innovating around community engagement. With SAP Urban Matters, we are taking our existing expertise, experience and technology innovations to a new level.”

For more information, visit the SAP Newsroom. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews and @SAPUrban.

Media Contact:
Kate McNeel, +1 (484) 624-2256, k.mcneel@sap.com, CDT

SAP Helps Finance Leaders Run Best-in-Class Close and Reporting Processes

 Analytics, Newsbyte, SME  Comments Off
May 222012
 

WALLDORF — SAP today announced new innovations to its line-of-business finance offerings that aim to improve processes used to conduct the financial close and external reporting. Enhancements to the SAP Disclosure Management application and SAP Financial Closing cockpit are intended to deliver increased process efficiency, greater accuracy as well as savings in cost and time.

Increased scrutiny from stakeholders, including regulatory organizations and shareholders, has put more pressure on companies to produce fast and efficient financial closings, with accurate and reliable statements and reports. Many companies still rely on manual processes to conduct the financial close and collect, consolidate, edit and generate statements and reports. These manual processes increase the risk of inconsistencies.

According to Mike Willis, partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, “The ability to fully realize reporting benefits depends on how comprehensively professionals consider the tool’s implications for their process and control enhancements.”

New enhancements to SAP Disclosure Management address critical capabilities such as EDGAR HTML, which U.S. companies must file with the SEC. The application helps companies reduce the time, risk and cost of regulatory disclosures by managing the production, filing and publication of financial statements and reports. It also enables finance departments to manage XBRL submissions, to help ensure a comprehensive audit trail and ensuring the consistency of data across reports.

The latest release of SAP Financial Closing cockpit aims to deliver stronger governance, increased efficiency, better insight and faster execution of the financial close process. SAP Financial Closing is a graphical application that helps accelerate the entity financial closing cycle by standardizing and automating the process. It also gives finance professionals greater ability to monitor, control and analyze the financial closing cycle. Additionally, it aims to help companies record closing tasks for full audit support.

“SAP gives CFOs the visibility to lead with a 360-degree view of their organizations so they can drive financial excellence,” said Martin Naraschewski, vice president, Finance Solutions, SAP. “Increasingly stringent compliance regulations and the expanding adoption of financial reporting standards are driving greater financial accountability and internal controls. SAP provides finance professional better insight so that they can develop strategies for increasing total shareholder value, maintaining external and internal confidence by improving finance efficiency.”

The new enhancements to SAP Disclosure Management are generally available. The latest version of SAP Financial Closing cockpit is currently available via the SAP® Ramp-Up program with general availability expected in October 2012.

Examine how current manual report assembly and review processes can be enhanced through effective implementation of disclosure management applications by reading the whitepaper “Disclosure Management: Streamlining the Last Mile.”

For more information on SAP solutions for finance and to learn how SAP helps CFOs and finance professionals transform their businesses, visit www.sapcfo.com and the SAP Newsroom. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews.

Media Contacts:
Susan Miller, SAP, +1 (610) 661-9225, susan.miller@sap.com, EDT
Jeff Shadid, Burson-Marsteller, +1 (214) 224-8419, jeff.shadid@bm.com, CDT

SAP Delivers New Applications Built on the SAP HANA Platform

 HANA, Newsbyte, SME  Comments Off
May 162012
 
ORLANDO — SAP continues to deliver on its innovation agenda and announced today a new wave of solutions built on the SAP HANA platform. These real-time solutions aim to help customers drive new business value with advanced reporting, analysis and planning capabilities in the context of their lines of business and industries. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE NOW, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 14-16, 2012. “SAP’s innovation continues with the delivery of these new applications that are simple to use, easy to implement and are built on an open real-time platform,” said Dr. Vishal Sikka, member of the SAP Executive Board, Technology & Innovation. “These applications take advantage of detailed and fresh data, doing complex analysis on-the-fly to power interactive decision-making on mobile devices and in the cloud.” The solutions announced today are:
  • SAP Sales and Operations Planning application
  • SAP Cash Forecasting analytic application
  • SAP Planning and Consolidation application
  • SAP Collections Insight analytic application
  • SAP Sales Pipeline Analysis analytic content
  • SAP Bank Analyzer rapid-deployment solution for financial reporting with SAP HANA
  • SAP Deposits Management rapid-deployment solution for transaction history analysis with SAP HANA
  • SAP Supplier InfoNet site
Next Generation Planning Applications powered by SAP HANA SAP Sales and Operations Planning is a cloud-based application powered by SAP HANA and designed to help companies become more demand-driven by enabling them to rapidly translate demand fluctuations into actionable plans for manufacturing, procurement and logistics. With the new application, companies can engage stakeholders from sales, marketing, finance, supply chain and other functions in a truly integrated and collaborative planning process. SAP Sales and Operations Planning brings together the real-time computing power of SAP HANA and the social collaborative paradigm of the SAP Streamwork application to enable:
  • Planning, using a unified model of demand, supply chain and financial data, which can be analyzed in real time at any level of granularity or dimension
  • Rapid simulations and scenario comparison on a complete, detailed sales and operations planning model against multiple criteria such as demand fluctuations, product mix changes and capacity constraints
  • Collaboration, using an embedded, context-aware social platform to accelerate planning and decision-making across the company
More details on SAP Sales & Operations Planning, Powered by SAP HANA can be found in this video. “In relatively short period of time, we were able to model a significant portion of our business in the pilot environment and perform what-if scenario analysis,” said Richard Komm, director, Advanced Micro Devices. “We could adjust demand volumes and the capacity resource allocations and immediately see their impact on revenue and margins in the solution. This is something that used to take multiple spreadsheets, numerous emails and phone calls and meetings to develop an aligned plan. We feel that this solution has great potential to improve our sales and operations planning process management and accelerate decision-making and the overall responsiveness of our teams.” “Today, our sales and operations planning process is largely manual, managed over disconnected spreadsheets, spans multiple internal teams and contract manufacturers, and it takes too much time and effort to respond to demand and supply variations,” said James Smith, director, McKesson. “We were able to assess the impact of fluctuations in capacity positions at contract manufacturers on our sales forecasts in real time, model alternative scenarios and cut our planning cycle time in half. We are excited about the solution and look forward to rolling it out at McKesson.” SAP Cash Forecasting is an on-premise analytic application built on the SAP HANA platform that helps companies better navigate today’s volatile financial environment by providing advanced capabilities for cash forecasting and analysis in a heterogeneous system landscape. The application is available via an early adoption program. With SAP Cash Forecasting, companies can:
  • Create accurate cash forecasts based on financial data from SAP and non-SAP systems such as ERP
  • Develop an effective foreign exchange hedging strategy based on real-time visibility into exposure across multiple currencies
  • Perform ex-post variance analysis on cash forecasts with the ability to explain variance down to the cash flow statement item-level
  • Manage the forecast process centrally, tracking subsidiaries’ planning status and consolidating forecasts from across the company
“BSH Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH co-innovated with SAP on the new SAP Cash Forecasting analytic application, which is built on the SAP HANA platform,” said Marco Dockweiler, enterprise architect, BSH Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH. “This application has the potential to improve cash forecast accuracy and to optimize our processes in the treasury department. The results we have seen are very compelling, and we look forward to our continued collaboration with SAP.” SAP Planning and Consolidation helps organizations dramatically accelerate their planning processes, giving financial professionals more analytics power and smarter insights, as well as time savings. Powered by SAP HANA, the application enables companies to accelerate budgeting and forecasting by speeding up the retrieval of queries, pull in large data sets and get a real-time view of what’s happening in the business. As a result, people can plan faster, input data back into systems faster and shrink planning cycles, enabling organizations to more quickly respond to capitalize on opportunities or avoid risks. This also provides simplicity for IT as the application is optimized in real-time with SAP HANA.  Empowering Sales and Marketing Users With Real-Time Solutions SAP Collections Insight provides sales teams with the real-time customer insights they need to optimize their collections strategy and the collaborative tools to execute that strategy. The application is available via an early adoption program. Powered by SAP HANA and accessible via an easy-to-use Web or mobile app, SAP Collections Insight helps companies:
  • Develop rich, dynamic profiles of their customers, including real-time visibility and analysis of payment history and trends
  • Equip users to quickly make and act on collection calls — anytime, anywhere
  • Empower users to collaborate rapidly and effectively to track and resolve collections issues
The capabilities delivered by SAP Collections Insight can enable companies to increase collections yield, accelerate the conversion of revenue to cash and strengthen their customer relationships. SAP Sales Pipeline Analysis, powered by SAP HANA, helps sales organizations to get instant insights into massive volumes of pipeline data in the SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) application while performing on-the-fly calculations and in-depth analysis on any business dimension. Sales managers can react more quickly to changing sales conditions with real-time information and accelerate deals through the pipeline with powerful and user-driven analytics. As a result, companies can unlock hidden revenue opportunities as well as significantly increase profits and sales effectiveness. To help ensure a quicker time-to-value for customers, the content can be deployed as a rapid-deployment solution with the SAP rapid-deployment solution for sales pipeline analysis with SAP HANA. Taking Advantage of “Big Data” in the Banking Industry SAP Bank Analyzer rapid-deployment solution for financial reporting with SAP HANA is designed to help organizations quickly analyze large volumes of data, enabling them to automate lean banking processes and make decisions in near real time. The solution enables banking organizations to rapidly generate detailed financial reports on assets and accounting performance, offering immediate answers to their business questions. SAP Deposits Management rapid-deployment solution for transaction history analysis with SAP HANA helps retail banks boost performance through improved transaction history analysis. It makes it easy for employees to access up-to-date account information, while powerful in-memory data platform and business intelligence (BI) software helps organizations process multi-year information for real-time insights. Drive Greater Visibility and Stronger Performance Across the Business Network SAP Supplier InfoNet is an information network that brings together the power of SAP HANA and the cloud to help companies gain real-time insights from ‘big data” and rapidly respond to changing conditions across their multi-tier supply networks. With this solution, companies are able to effectively manage their complex supply chains by:
  • Proactively monitoring and predicting risks across the multi-tier supply network with real-time alerts and leading-edge machine learning and statistical analysis tools
  • Gaining instant insights into the operational health of the supply network by aggregating and analyzing supplier data from enterprise systems and thousands of external data sources
  • Benchmarking supplier performance on quality and delivery and identifying significant shifts and trends in their performance
The capabilities delivered by SAP Supplier InfoNet empower companies to minimize supply chain disruptions before they impact the business, drive stronger performance of their suppliers and save time and operational costs of managing the supplier base. For announcements, blog posts, videos and other coverage during SAPPHIRE NOW, visit the Events Newsroom. SAPPHIRE NOW With SAPPHIRE NOW, SAP offers its customers, partners and prospects even more opportunities to engage in dialogue with peers, participants and thought leaders around the globe. Being held in Orlando, Florida, May 14-16, 2012, this enhanced, real-time event connects attendees on site with global participants through state-of-the-art broadcast studios and an online experience that incorporates the latest social media and community functionality. Whether on site or online, participants can gain insight as to how SAP is delivering on its product strategy and helping organizations around the world to run better. For more information, visit www.sapphirenow.com. Follow SAPPHIRE NOW on Twitter at @SAPPHIRENOW and visit the Events Newsroom at www.events.news-sap.com.  Note to Editors: Webcasts, announcements, media roundtables, keynote presentations and blog posts from SAPPHIRE NOW will be available in the Events Newsroom at: www.events.news-sap.com. To preview and download broadcast-standard stock footage and press photos digitally, please visit www.sap.com/photos. On this platform, you can find high-resolution material for your media channels. To view video stories on diverse topics, visit www.sap-tv.com. From this site, you can embed videos into your own Web pages, share video via email links and subscribe to RSS feeds from SAP TV. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews. For more information, press only: Samantha Finnegan, +1 (650) 276-9350, samantha.finnegan@sap.com, PDT Cathrin Wolf, +49 6227 7 63908, cathrin.wolf@sap.com, CET SAP Press Office, +49 (6227) 7-46315, CET; +1 (610) 661-3200, EDT; press@sap.com During SAPPHIRE NOW (from May 14 to 16), to speak with press contacts on site, please dial the SAP press room: +1 (610) 661-0469.

McLaren Group Runs Faster With SAP

 Analytics, HANA, Newsbyte, On Demand  Comments Off
May 152012
 

ORLANDO — The McLaren Group, known for its Grand Prix racing team and iconic Formula 1 cars, will integrate its growing portfolio of businesses using solutions from SAP as its technology backbone. McLaren selected SAP for enterprise applications that improve efficiency across all lines of business, combined with an innovative vision that promises to amplify that value via mobile devices, the cloud and in-memory technology. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE NOW, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 14-16, 2012

SAP has a long-standing relationship with various parts of the McLaren Group. This latest deal marks a new stage in their relationship aimed at transforming the IT infrastructure of the entire McLaren Group. McLaren is a midsize company, quickly growing across multiple business centers and regions. As the company expands its investment into diverse markets, including applied technology, electronic systems and high-end hospitality, it needed a technology engine that was integrated, scalable and delivered maximum performance.

McLaren chose SAP to help create a holistic approach, enabling the company to gain better visibility and leverage best practices more easily across the business divisions. With the SAP HANA platform and mobile apps, the company will be able to empower everyone — from tire changers to executives — with the real-time information needed to keep ahead of competitors. The McLaren Group is looking forward to a fast time-to-value using SAP Rapid Deployment solutions, pre-configured software and implementation services.

“The McLaren Group is a rapidly growing business and has unique demands for our software implementation,” said Ron Dennis, executive chairman, The McLaren Group. “These are exciting times for our business, and as we look to the future, we’re pleased to be able to partner with a company like SAP that shares our values – passion, commitment and the willingness to make sacrifices in order to be the absolute best. The growth and longevity of our brand are dependent on our having a varied portfolio, supported by a strong business plan, implemented by the best people – with input from the best partners.”

The McLaren Group’s core activity is Formula 1 racing, a data-intensive sport that demands technical agility and continuous, rapid invention. And McLaren has perfected telemetry systems, which use data generated by race car sensors, so much so that it is the official electronics system for all Formula 1 teams as well IndyCar and NASCAR series. SAP HANA will help turbo-charge both the speed and depth of McLaren’s telemetry technology allowing the teams to look at much larger data sets and ask more complex questions. This real-time analysis of car sensor data can be run against both historical data and predictive models, helping the team to make immediate proactive corrections, avoid costly, dangerous incidents and win the race. With instant analysis of what is happening to the car while the race is on, the driver and engineers can work together to ensure a winning result.

“At McLaren we’re accustomed to handling ‘big data,’” continued Dennis. “On every lap of every Grand Prix, practice or test session, our Formula 1 cars generate vast quantities of performance data. Our ability to process that data and act on it rapidly is crucial to creating the kind of prescriptive intelligence that enables us to transform the outcome of races. And that need resonates through every other facet of our business.”

As McLaren diversifies its business, its electronic systems — including telemetry, modeling and real-time simulations — are being used widely in other areas, such as to help Olympic athletes hone their performance and in rapid transit systems in the U.S. to optimize traffic flow. The company plans to use SAP innovations to augment the competitive advantage it provides across these various areas.

“Transforming information into intelligence in real time is a cornerstone for McLaren’s winning formula – and increasingly critical for the future of every company,” said Jim Hagemann Snabe, co-CEO, SAP AG.” With SAP HANA, mobile and the complete SAP portfolio underpinning its business, McLaren can now bring increased intelligence across the full spectrum of its business operations. SAP will be able to help McLaren better anticipate, accelerate and differentiate its business — keeping them very much in the driver’s seat. In short, working together, SAP will help McLaren run like never before.”

For announcements, blog posts, videos and other coverage during SAPPHIRE NOW, visit the Events Newsroom.

SAPPHIRE NOW
With SAPPHIRE NOW, SAP offers its customers, partners and prospects even more opportunities to engage in dialogue with peers, participants and thought leaders around the globe. Being held in Orlando, Florida, May 14-16, 2012, this enhanced, real-time event connects attendees on site with global participants through state-of-the-art broadcast studios and an online experience that incorporates the latest social media and community functionality. Whether on site or online, participants can gain insight as to how SAP is delivering on its product strategy and helping organizations around the world to run better. For more information, visit www.sapphirenow.com. Follow SAPPHIRE NOW on Twitter at @SAPPHIRENOW and visit the Events Newsroom at www.events.news-sap.com.

Note to Editors:
Webcasts, announcements, media roundtables, keynote presentations and blog posts from SAPPHIRE NOW will be available in the Events Newsroom at: www.events.news-sap.com. To preview and download broadcast-standard stock footage and press photos digitally, please visit www.sap.com/photos. On this platform, you can find high-resolution material for your media channels. To view video stories on diverse topics, visit www.sap-tv.com. From this site, you can embed videos into your own Web pages, share video via email links and subscribe to RSS feeds from SAP TV. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews.

For more information, press only:
Robin Meyerhoff, +1 (650) 440-2572, robin.meyerhoff@sap.com, PDT
SAP Press Office, +49 (6227) 7-46315, CET; +1 (610) 661-3200, EDT; press@sap.com

During SAPPHIRE NOW (from May 14 to 16), to speak with press contacts on site, please dial the SAP press room: +1 (610) 661-0469.

SAP Customers Embrace Breakthrough Technologies for Innovation, Growth and More Powerful Business Models

 Newsbyte  Comments Off
May 142012
 

ORLANDO — The SAPPHIRE NOW conference from Orlando kicked off today with 60,000 customers, partners and employees of SAP  gathering in person and online to understand how profound new technologies are reshaping companies, industries and the way people live and work. On the opening day, SAP customers, including Coinstar, Inc., Burberry and Ace Hardware, demonstrated how forces shaping today’s IT landscape — big data, cloud and mobile — are helping them keep pace with rapidly changing customer needs and buying behavior. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE NOW, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 14-16, 2012.

Today’s businesses operate in a digital economy where information is vast, interconnected and automated. Companies must continuously transform their business models to remain competitive in a world with rapidly changing global economic conditions and events.

“When I talk to CEOs, I hear three big problems consistently, across all industries: How can we innovate better? How do we grow profitably? How do we transform our business models?” said Bill McDermott, co-CEO, SAP AG. “Businesses today must must be serial innovators and move in almost surreal time to anticipate the needs of customers and deliver an incredible and personal customer experience.”

Top Executives Share Success Stories at SAPPHIRE NOW
Top executives from Ace, Burberry and Coinstar are participating in a keynote panel discussion with McDermott on Monday, May 14, at 4:30 p.m. EDT. Representatives joining McDermott on stage at SAPPHIRE NOW include Ray Griffith, CEO of Ace Hardware; Angela Ahrendts, CEO of Burberry; and J. Scott Di Valerio, chief financial officer of Coinstar, Inc. The panel will be broadcast via the virtual platform at www.sapphirenow.com, with a replay available following the session.

Solving Retail Problems With SAP Solutions
Embracing technology has helped Burberry, the iconic British luxury brand, to build a “young, old” company that combines a 156-year heritage with a modern attitude. Once a federation of businesses, Burberry today is one globally SAP-connected organization, with full visibility across its retail network and a pure, consistent brand worldwide. From concept to customer, every part of the business and culture has been touched and transformed by technology, enabling greater responsiveness, deeper engagement and compelling customer experiences that blur the boundaries between the physical and virtual worlds. Burberry has used solutions from the SAP for Retail solution portfolio and other industry-specific solutions from SAP for business-critical functions in the fashion world that include optimizing supply chain logistics, customer segmentation, spotting hot items and driving down stock inventory.

Coinstar, Inc., a leader in automated retail, was faced with a positive yet challenging problem: outdated legacy systems supporting its growing core businesses and promising new ventures. It needed a way to identify synergies and share information to enable the company to continue providing its simple and convenient solutions to a growing number of consumers. Coinstar tackled the problem by revamping its IT infrastructure, retiring legacy systems and adopting a shared-services environment. The company divested under-performing ventures and used that capital to reinvest in its core businesses, Redbox® movie rental and Coinstar® coin-counting kiosks as well as new automated retail concepts. Today, Coinstar is a large enterprise with more than 50,000 kiosks in the market and annual revenue of approximately US$2 billion.

Similarly, Ace Hardware was at risk to the “big box” retailers. Priding itself on being “the helpful place,” Ace understood that customers were becoming increasingly social. Consumers shared experiences – good or bad – with their friends and neighbors verbally and electronically. Ace wanted an enterprise that enabled small retailers to enjoy bulk-buying prices but maintain a local, personal feel. As a prime user of SAP solutions for supply chain management and with SAP Rapid Deployment solutions, Ace has been able to rapidly enable business processes, gain real-time data and distribution for quick reaction to global changes and develop specialized merchandizing capabilities. Ace used its data to understand demographics, and for visibility into things such as seasonal buying trends. Using mobile connectivity, personalization and buyer insight, the company not only maintained profitability, it remained a vital part of the community.

For announcements, blog posts, videos and other coverage during SAPPHIRE NOW, visit the Events Newsroom.

SAPPHIRE NOW
With SAPPHIRE NOW, SAP offers its customers, partners and prospects even more opportunities to engage in dialogue with peers, participants and thought leaders around the globe. Being held in Orlando, Florida, May 14-16, 2012, this enhanced, real-time event connects attendees on site with global participants through state-of-the-art broadcast studios and an online experience that incorporates the latest social media and community functionality. Whether on site or online, participants can gain insight as to how SAP is delivering on its product strategy and helping organizations around the world to run better. For more information, visit www.sapphirenow.com. Follow SAPPHIRE NOW on Twitter at @SAPPHIRENOW and visit the Events Newsroom at www.events.news-sap.com.

Note to Editors:
Webcasts, announcements, media roundtables, keynote presentations and blog posts from SAPPHIRE NOW will be available in the Events Newsroom at: www.events.news-sap.com. To preview and download broadcast-standard stock footage and press photos digitally, please visit www.sap.com/photos. On this platform, you can find high-resolution material for your media channels. To view video stories on diverse topics, visit www.sap-tv.com. From this site, you can embed videos into your own Web pages, share video via email links and subscribe to RSS feeds from SAP TV. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews.

For more information, press only:
Andy Kendzie, +1 (202) 312-3919, andy.kendzie@sap.com, EDT
SAP Press Office, +49 (6227) 7-46315, CET; +1 (610) 661-3200, EDT; press@sap.com

During SAPPHIRE NOW (from May 14 to 16), to speak with press contacts on site, please dial the SAP press room: +1 (610) 661-0469.

Cabela’s Inc. Selects SAP to Support Retail Expansion, Increase Customer Service

 Business Suite, Newsbyte, SME  Comments Off
Apr 302012
 

SIDNEY, Nebraska — SAP America Inc., a subsidiary of SAP, today announced that Cabela’s Incorporated has selected the SAP Point-of-Sale (SAP POS) application to support its retail expansion and enhance its legendary customer experience. Cabela’s, the World’s Foremost Outfitter of hunting, fishing and outdoor gear, will leverage out-of-the-box functionality inherent in SAP POS to provide increased customer service, as well as system and sales associate efficiency.

“It is at the point of sale that our customers receive the last impression of our retail stores,” said Michael Copeland, executive vice president and chief operations officer, Cabela’s. “A faster, more efficient system will result in increased sales associate productivity and provide improved service at this vital customer touch point.”

Part of the SAP for Retail solution portfolio, SAP POS provides fast, secure and friendly customer experiences anytime, anywhere, and adapts quickly to changing business needs. The application allows retailers to customize the shopping experience and support better omni-channel operations with seamless store, Web and mobile integration. With SAP POS, employees can learn the functionality quickly and the retailer can benefit from improved staff productivity and lower operating costs while achieving greater flexibility.

“During the deployment of SAP POS, emphasis will be placed on using out-of-the-box functionality and limiting customizations,” said Dave Kardesh, vice president and chief information officer, Cabela’s. “Integration of cross-channel functionality will be incorporated along with other features that our customers are looking for.”

“We are pleased to have Cabela’s embrace SAP’s newest release of point-of-sale software for retail stores in order to deliver an outstanding customer experience,” said Michael Schulze, senior vice president and general manager, Retail, SAP. “We look forward to continued collaboration with one of North America’s most innovative recreation brands.”

For more information, visit the SAP Newsroom. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews.

Media Contacts:
Atle Erlingsson, +1 (415) 858-8149, atle.erlingsson@sap.com, PDT
Rachel Granger, +1 (610) 308-5956, rachel.granger@sap.com, EDT

SAP to Work Closely With Citi and The Royal Bank of Scotland to Co-Innovate a Cloud-Based Services Platform

 Newsbyte, On Demand  Comments Off
Apr 192012
 

WALLDORF — SAP today announced that it will work closely with Citi and The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) to co-innovate a cloud-based services platform. The highly interoperable, multi-bank platform aims to seamlessly integrate banks with their corporate customers. A combination of SAP’s deep expertise in enterprise resource planning (ERP), treasury management software and new cloud services technologies is driving the solution development. Together with the industry expertise and global networks of Citi and RBS, SAP aims to deliver a new, innovative solution to the corporate banking marketplace.

“SAP has prided itself in customer-centric innovation, in this case creative innovations in banking that can increase the velocity of information flow between banks and their corporate customers,” said Sanjay Poonen, president, Global Solutions, SAP. “Integrating banks with corporate ERP and treasury systems has always been an expensive proposition for banks and corporations alike. Furthering SAP’s commitment to the cloud, the banking industry and our many thousands of corporate customers, this solution will dramatically ease corporate banking. This will allow corporate customers to seamlessly extend their ERP and treasury systems and interface with multiple banks.”

Due to size, complexity and a reliance on non-standardized legacy systems, banking architectures have historically been isolated entities unique to each bank. This has led to businesses and banks shouldering the burdens of higher connectivity costs and juggling multiple relationships with one another. SAP, Citi and RBS have tasked themselves to define a new, more flexible architectural model that reduces the cost and time-to-value of these interactions.

SAP is taking the lead in developing the solution, which is intended to more closely link banks’ transaction systems with the ERP and treasury systems at corporate businesses. This aims to help streamline financial transactions, such as payments, while enabling new, on-demand banking services to be delivered via the cloud.

“We are working toward a solution with SAP to remove integration barriers and facilitate greater connectivity to Citi’s global network of more than 90 countries and over 100 currencies,” said Naveed Sultan, global head, Treasury and Trade Solutions, Citi. “As a leading international bank, it is always Citi’s desire to bring new innovations to the forefront of the industry. Leveraging the cloud is one effort in Citi’s goal to be the world’s ‘Digital Bank.’ Through our pioneering work here, we hope to bring banks and businesses closer together and create a springboard to new innovations and value creation in the future.”

“The cloud-based corporate-to-bank initiative is an important step for corporate customers toward simplifying the complexity of connecting with their banks,” said Kevin Brown, global head, Transaction Services Product, International Banking, RBS.

For more information, visit the SAP blog Banking View and the SAP Newsroom. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews and @sapforbanking.

Media Contacts:
Johannes Gillar, SAP, +49 (6227) 747177, johannes.gillar@sap.com, CET
Anthony Suarez, Burson-Marsteller, +1 (212) 614-4331, anthony.suarez@bm.com, EDT
Nina Das, Citi, +1 (212) 816-9267, nina.das@citi.com, EDT
Aoife Reynolds, RBS, +44 20 3361 1588, aoife.reynolds@rbs.com, GMT

City of Cape Town Empowers Commercial and Industrial Customers With SAP AMI Integration for Utilities Software

 Newsbyte, Sustainability  Comments Off
Apr 192012
 

MADRID — SAP today announced that the Electricity Service Department of City of Cape Town successfully went live with SAP Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) Integration for Utilities software. The project enables the City of Cape Town to read meters on demand while integrating the smart meters and the processes in the back office. The focus for the first phase was on large commercial and industrial customers. The project is the first implementation of the software in the Republic of South Africa. The announcement was made at the SAP Conference for Utilities 2012, being held April 17-19 in Madrid.

With SAP AMI Integration for Utilities, the City of Cape Town is able to read meters remotely, eliminating issues of premises access and travel time and helping prevent errors. In addition, the utility can offer tailored billing services based on actual consumption data and meter reading that better match consumer needs.

Information on customer energy usage is collected from smart meters and stored in a meter data unification system (MDUS) provided by local company Elster Kent. SAP AMI Integration for Utilities facilitates the continuous exchange of master and transactional data between MDUS and SAP for Utilities solutions. This information is then used in business processes such as invoicing and customer service or for analysis of energy consumption.

“SAP AMI Integration for Utilities is the foundation of our smart metering infrastructure,” said Andre Stelzner, CIO, City of Cape Town. “We will be able to analyze consumption profiles and then use them to more accurately predict demand and align supply. We thereby increase energy efficiency by balancing demand, delivery and supply.”

To learn more, visit the SAP AMI Integration for Utilities page on sap.com. For more information, visit the SAP Newsroom. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews.

Media Contact:
Birgit Krauter, SAP, +49 (0) 151 44614373, birgit.krauter@sap.com, CET
Christoph Weissthaner, Burson-Marsteller, +49 (0) 30-408 194 5-54, christoph.weissthaner@bm.com, CET

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