SAP Unveils Accelerated Cloud Strategy

 ByD, Newsbyte, On Demand  Comments Off
May 152012
 

ORLANDO — SAP today unveiled its accelerated cloud strategy by announcing cloud solutions for four lines of business to manage people, money, customers and suppliers. These are planned to be offered in a consistent way and seamlessly integrated into enterprise resource planning (ERP) business software. SAP will leverage the market strengths of SuccessFactors, an SAP company and one of the fastest growing cloud providers in the world, and its founder and CEO Lars Dalgaard. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE NOW, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 14−16, 2012.

“As a long-time customer of both SAP and SuccessFactors, we see this strategy as a clear way forward, harnessing and streamlining the best of what each side brings to the table,” said Troy Barnett, director of HR Processes, Under Armour. “SAP has the process and industry expertise that we rely on every day to run our business, and SuccessFactors gives us cloud applications that our teammates love to use. With the resources at SAP’s disposal coupled with Lars’ vision and passion, we expect great things from this combination.”

“The cloud is a completely new paradigm. Our team of 5,000 will provide customers and all their people with rock-solid access to best-in-class business functionality for people, money, customers and suppliers,” said Dalgaard, SAP Executive Board member. “They aim for the highest level of reliable security in the cloud. We will provide integration among the cloud solutions and external content out-of-the-box with on-premise business software. We are passionate about bringing creative and innovative first-in-class applications to market with a beautiful user experience.”

The New Cloud Powerhouse
Since the close of SAP’s acquisition of SuccessFactors in February 2012, the combined teams immediately joined forces to begin delivering on an accelerated cloud strategy. SuccessFactors is a pioneer in the cloud and a clear leader in the human capital management (HCM) space, while SAP has deep and unmatched end-to-end business process know-how across on-demand and on-premise solutions, hard-won from 40 years of intellectual property, experience and customer success. Together, and with Dalgaard at the helm of the combined Cloud business unit, SAP is now investing more than 5,000 people dedicated to designing, building and delivering beautiful cloud solutions that enable people to love work again and perform at their best. The newly formed Cloud business unit, serving more than 17 million users, will be focused on four solution areas aimed at helping customers manage their most business-critical assets and relationships.

SAP plans to deliver its multitenant cloud solutions as a loosely-coupled suite of best-of-breed applications. The company plans to offer customers the choice and flexibility to adopt these applications at their own pace, as their business needs evolve. When used together, these applications aim to offer the value of a single solution with a consistent user and customer experience, process and data integrity. The cloud portfolio will focus on solutions that help SAP customers better manage:

  • People: SAP announced the addition of its industry-leading global  payroll software as a cloud-based offering integrated with SuccessFactors’ core human resources (HR) solution, Employee Central. The solution is planned to be available in 10 countries, and is today leveraged by a number of strategic partners as a platform to offer business process outsourcing (BPO) services. SAP has more than 200 resources throughout every region in the world to help ensure local regulations and complexities are addressed and updated within its payroll solution. With the addition of global payroll to the SuccessFactors talent management and core HR solutions, SAP intends to offers the most comprehensive suite of applications in the cloud to help customers manage their people more effectively along end-to-end HR processes, from strategy to execution.
  • Money: With decades of deep expertise in global localization of sophisticated financial applications, SAP announced the planned availability of the SAP Financials OnDemand solution, targeted for large enterprise customers to manage their core financials as well as order-to-cash and invoice-to-pay processes. It is planned to be integrated with SuccessFactors’ core HR solution Employee Central. In addition, SAP intends to deliver a new release of the SAP Travel OnDemand solution with additional integration and mobile capabilities, including the ability to capture and process expenses directly from a mobile device.
  • Customers: The SAP Sales OnDemand solution, with new innovations now released quarterly, goes beyond the outdated capabilities of existing cloud-based sales force automation tools by delivering new marketing and social selling capabilities, new configurability and customization tools, and new integration to on-premise SAP Business Suite software, including the SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) application. SAP is now broadening its portfolio of CRM solutions to help companies leverage the full power of social networks. SAP today also announced the general availability of the SAP Social Customer Engagement OnDemand solution to help companies engage intelligently with their customers via social media such as Facebook and Twitter as part of their multichannel approach for both marketing and service professionals.
  • Suppliers: Supplier interaction continues to be a key lever for customers. SAP intends to invest in the SAP Sourcing OnDemand solution for strategic sourcing, supplier and contract lifecycle management integrated on premise with SAP Business Suite, as well as its business networks solutions, including the SAP Information Interchange OnDemand solution, for networked-based invoice management and information exchange for the procure-to-pay process.

SAP Cloud Solutions Built With “Social, Mobile, Analytics-First” Approach
Harnessing the power of its mobile, collaborative and analytic expertise for the cloud, SAP cloud solutions can create synergies for customers to realize business value in entirely new ways. A beautiful and intuitive user interface (UI) enables people to easily navigate the system to get their work done more efficiently. Built-in social collaboration aims to help teams work together to achieve business goals faster— whether across the globe or in the next cubicle. With these capabilities powered by the SAP HANA platform, people can make better-informed decisions while integration with the existing portfolio of on-premise solutions from SAP allows for faster innovation across lines of business.

Social Collaboration Where People Work: In Every Application and Business Process
SAP continues to reinforce its social collaboration strategy with new people and data collaboration capabilities: analytics directly in social software for fact-based decision-making, social communities easily blended with formal training for increased learner engagement and an iPad application for collaboration on-the-go. Additionally, in less than two months, social capabilities have been activated for millions of users, letting them easily share and tap into the expertise of their colleagues, unlocking the value of social software.

Sameer Patel, a social software influencer who recently joined SAP, is driving the development of the next-generation social strategy at SAP. The goal is to combine the company’s broad footprint in systems, data management and business processes with SuccessFactors’ leadership and knowledge of cloud solutions to deliver social and collaborative capabilities in a way that accelerates process and business performance. SAP plans to announce further details in the coming months.

Mobile, Extensible, Powered by SAP HANA: Cloud Applications Using SAP and Third-Party Platform-as-a-Service
Across its rich portfolio of mobile cloud solutions, SAP announced today the planned availability of SAP NetWeaver Cloud as its unified platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering. It is intended to be powered by SAP HANA with application design and runtime capabilities, as well as a rich set of services that are planned to include security, mobile and collaboration. SAP today also reaffirmed its commitment to openness by announcing its partnership with leading third-party PaaS offerings, including VMware Cloud Foundry™, that customers will be able to use together with platform services from SAP NetWeaver Cloud to extend SAP solutions.

Integration of Hybrid Landscape Using SAP and Third-Party Integration-as-a-Service
SAP recognizes that for many of its customers, heterogeneous IT landscapes and deployments across on demand and on premise will continue to be the norm and it is crucial to provide integration to make such a hybrid solution landscape work. To address this need, SAP intends to deliver a cloud-based integration technology, comprised of on-demand solutions for process integration and data services, with out-of-the-box content to connect the loosely coupled line-of-business on-demand solutions to other SAP solutions whether on premise or on demand. For integration to third-party solutions, SAP plans to offer its own cloud-based integration technology and also plans to enable its vast ecosystem of partners, including solutions from Dell Boomi, IBM Cast Iron and Mulesoft.

SuccessFactors and SAP Run Better Together
Wasting no time, SuccessFactors implemented several key SAP cloud solutions internally in only six weeks. SuccessFactors, previously a user of multiple, disparate cloud applications, now boasts the title of world’s largest implementation of SAP Sales OnDemand. In the weeks since the companies came together, SuccessFactors has also gone live with SAP Sourcing OnDemand for its strategic procurement management; SAP Travel OnDemand for expense and travel management of its U.S. and German employees; and the SAP Business ByDesign solution, supporting finance and professional services processes.

In parallel, SAP will also use SuccessFactors BizX suite internally as its new HCM system. The use of Success Factors’ cloud solution will simplify HR processes for managers and employees, help managers better align their daily management activities with the corporate strategy and provide the best tools for employees to take more control of their career development. Thirteen hundrend internal early adopters have been working with SuccessFactors since April with enthusiastic feedback about its ease of use and simplicity. The solution will be globally available on May 14 to every SAP employee.

Run Better: Full Business – Any Size – In the Cloud
SAP will continue to offer fully integrated suites in the cloud, with SAP Business ByDesign for mid-market customers via its reseller channels and for subsidiaries of large enterprise customers, as well as the SAP Business One OnDemand solution served by certified SAP partners for smaller customers.

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:
Dorit Shackleton, SAP, +1 (604) 889-7841, dorit.shackleton@sap.com, PDT
SAP Press Office, +49 (6227) 7-46315, CET; +1 (610) 661-3200, EDT; press@sap.com
Andrea Meyer, SuccessFactors, + 1 (415) 370-7329, ameyer@successfactors.com, PDT

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.

Capgemini and SAP Announce Strategic Co-Innovation and Co-Development Agreement for Mobile Solutions

 Mobility, Newsbyte  Comments Off
May 152012
 

ORLANDO and PARIS — SAP and Capgemini today announced an agreement to co-develop a mobile sales execution solution and a joint go-to-market plan for the next five years. This follows the global managed mobility agreement Capgemini signed with SAP and Sybase in September 2011. Today’s announcement focuses initially on the consumer products sector to design a mobile application solution for companies selling products via mobile direct store delivery with additional requirements for accelerated customer relationship management (CRM). The solution is planned to be based on Sybase Unwired Platform and aims to help customers reduce costs but at the same time improve customer experience, as mobile channels become increasingly important. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE NOW, being held inOrlando,Florida, May 14-16, 2012.

“Having worked with SAP and Capgemini for many years on the Direct Store Delivery area, we feel that their shared knowledge is a huge asset to build a solution for the consumer products industry,” said Alejandro Bombaci, CIO for Empresas Polar, a leading consumer products manufacturer and distributor. “Capgemini’s mobile development capabilities combined with SAP products and mobile strategy experience will produce a world-class mobile solution, which includes extensive process coverage and strong data integration, that should become the de-facto standard in the industry.”

The joint team will leverage SAP excellence in back-end architecture, process consulting, custom development and technical optimization, along with Capgemini strengths in mobile architecture design, implementation and hosting services, drawing on its recently created Global Mobile Solutions Service Line.

“We are delighted to sign this significant co-development agreement with SAP and to have been defined as the preferred systems integrator for mobile sales execution in the consumer products industry,” said Fernando Alvarez, mobile solutions global service line leader, Capgemini. “This agreement builds on our strong relationship with SAP in the area of mobile. It will help us deliver further value to our customers as we continually strive to build and advise on solutions, in a sector where mobile channels are developing at a rapid pace.”

“We are partnering with Capgemini because of their strong global footprint, deep expertise in implementation, hosting services, mobile capabilities and functional expertise in the market,” said Sanjay Poonen, president, Product Go-to-Market, and head of Mobile Division, SAP. “We look forward to developing our go-to-market strategy with them over the next years, as one of the leading forces in the marketplace.”

Capgemini has a long-standing relationship with SAP with nearly 11,500 practitioners focused on SAP solutions globally. It provides application life-cycle services in support of SAP solutions, including on-premise, on-device and on-demand projects to thousands of clients worldwide. Capgemini has one of the broadest offerings of SAP Services globally, including design, build, run and operate services. It delivers solutions to its customers by providing SAP software licensing, implementation, hosting, application management and business process outsourcing under one contract. In March 2012, Capgemini received an SAP Pinnacle award in the category of “Transformational Award: Unwired Enterprise.”

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.

About Capgemini
With around 120,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2011 global revenues of EUR 9.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organization, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore, its worldwide delivery model.

Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

For more information, press only:
Jason Loesche, SAP, +1 (484) 437-0015, j.loesche@sap.com, EDT
SAP Press Office, +49 (6227) 7-46315, CET; +1 (610) 661-3200, EDT; press@sap.com
Christel Lerouge, Capgemini, +33 (0)1 47 54 50 76, christel.lerouge@capgemini.com
Hester Decouz, Capgemini, +44 87- 904 5758, hester.decouz@capgemini.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.

SAP Teams Up With Amazon Web Services to Offer Customers Cloud-Based Option for Mobile Device and Application Management

 Analytics, Mobility, Newsbyte  Comments Off
May 142012
 
ORLANDO — SAP today announced that the industry-leading SAP Afaria mobile device management solution is now available on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace, providing a convenient, reliable and cost-effective way for customers to effectively manage and secure their enterprise mobile applications and corporate-liable and personally-owned devices. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE NOW, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 14-16, 2012. The AWS Marketplace is an online store that helps customers easily find, purchase and deploy software and services they need to help them run their businesses. The availability of the fully configured SAP Afaria 7.0 server on the AWS Marketplace gives customers the ability to immediately take advantage of a comprehensive mobile management platform with the click of a mouse. “As the cloud rapidly becomes the IT deployment model of choice for businesses of all sizes, Amazon Web Services  is excited to be working closely  with SAP in bringing enterprise solutions to the cloud,” said  Andy Jassy, senior vice president, Amazon Web Services. “Adding SAP Afaria to AWS Marketplace provides customers a fast, simple and trusted way to shop for and implement an enterprise-ready mobile solution.” The decision to offer SAP Afaria on the AWS Marketplace is in response to increasing customer demand for software that can deliver centralized control of all mobile devices and instantly be deployed in the cloud. A July 2011 Aberdeen study found that 75 percent of organizations permit the use of employee-liable mobile devices for business purposes. With the growing trend of employees using personally-owned mobile devices in the workplace, regulating these devices is essential for protecting sensitive data and enhancing employee productivity. SAP Afaria is a long-standing solution that has evolved over the last decade into a complete platform that manages and secures mobile data, devices and applications across the enterprise from a single console. The 7.0 release of SAP Afaria brings a new user interface for simplified app and expense management, a consumer-like app portal with SAP® Store integration and mobile analytics dashboards for business intelligence (BI) reporting with powerful drill-down analysis capabilities. SAP Afaria can now be found in the AWS Marketplace. Customers with licenses for earlier versions of SAP Afaria can use the same license to experience SAP Afaria 7.0 on Amazon Web Services. Customers without existing licenses can receive a license that enables a 14-day free trial. The evaluation includes help from SAP mobile experts, who will guide customers throughout the test-drive process. SAP Afaria can be found by visiting http://aws.amazon.com/marketplace. “By offering SAP Afaria on the secure, scalable AWS cloud infrastructure, we are extending our existing close relationship with AWS and making it as easy as possible for customers and partners to test and deploy the industry’s leading mobile device management solution in an economical and reliable fashion,” said Sanjay Poonen, president, Product Go-to-Market, and head of Mobile Division, SAP. “This announcement is just a sneak preview of what’s coming from SAP as we lay the ground work for long-term innovation around our comprehensive, unmatched B2B and B2C mobile platform – both on premise and in the cloud.” 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.  Media Contact: Jason Loesche, + 1 (610) 661-8541, j.loesche@sap.com, EDT  

SAP Mobile Apps Connect Businesses and Consumers — from the Boardroom to the Shopping Center

 Analytics, Newsbyte  Comments Off
May 142012
 

ORLANDO — Extending its commitment to drive mobile innovation from the enterprise to consumers, SAP today announced a new wave of mobile apps designed to help people be more efficient whether at work, at home or pursing leisure activities. With the help of a thriving partner ecosystem, the new SAP mobile apps lay the foundation for growth by providing real-time mobile access to human resources (HR), sustainability, finance, sales and mobile commerce functions. This includes updated versions of existing SAP mobile apps available on more mobile platforms, including Android and RIM BlackBerry. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE NOW, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 14-16, 2012.

Mobile apps are transforming devices into useful productivity tools that enable people to save time, whether they are entering travel expenses, meeting with a customer, investigating a potential safety hazard, treating a patient at his bedside or purchasing an out-of-stock item at their favorite store. Innovations from SAP and its partners make it possible for people to quickly access a wide range of simple mobile apps to help them make informed decisions, any time and from anywhere.

“SAP is following through on its commitment to deliver innovative, engaging mobile apps for millions of people,” said Sanjay Poonen, president, head of Mobile Division, SAP. “With mobile serving as a major part of daily life, it is a top priority for most businesses that seek to simplify daily tasks for employees and their customers. SAP is leading the charge for businesses to run better with stunning, easy-to-use mobile apps that can manage and analyze today’s explosion of data—bringing business to people.”

Mobilizing Work Tasks for Employees On the Go
Entering travel expenses is a necessary evil for many workers. Most travel and expense systems require an employee to log onto back-office systems from a computer. SAP is empowering mobile workers to easily enter expenses while on the road, freeing them from tedious re-entry at a later date. The SAP Travel Expense Report mobile app allows business travelers to easily create expense reports from a mobile device. For example, users can save time by adding corporate credit card charges or quickly taking a photo of a receipt to submit expenses with a few clicks directly from a restaurant.

With the new SAP Learning Assistant mobile app, SAP helps learners explore and consume learning content anywhere and anytime. The app accesses SAP Learning Solution and allows learners to explore available learning content, manage course bookings and download and play e-learning content online in a range of formats right from their iPads. Learners can view personal notifications for expiring and required qualifications, as well as the recommended courses to fulfill them on time. Employees who to consume learning content off-site can now do so quickly and easily even in unconnected mode.

For sales executives the SAP Customer Briefing mobile app provides a real-time dashboard to help prepare them for customer interactions. This allows immediate access to critical client data in an easily consumable format. The app provides real-time visibility to internal customer relationship management (CRM) data, as well as external business, and news sources, while on the road. Sales professionals can easily view customer information in a visual format, helping ensure they are exceptionally well prepared for every customer meeting.

Companies focused on improving safety will have faster visibility to problems with the SAP EHS Safety Issue mobile app. Workers can log issues from their mobile device with a photo or video, as well as an audio recording, and send it directly to an incident or safety manager for corrective action. The app makes it easy for everyone to participate in creating a safer, more sustainable work environment and proactively reduce operational risks.

Bringing Mobile Commerce to Consumers and Businesses
With billions of mobile apps downloaded to date and hundreds of millions of mobile commerce users worldwide, what people do with their mobile devices is changing. SAP is supporting this monumental shift through its award-winning mobile customer engagement and commerce platform for banking, telecommunications, utilities, retail and consumer packaged goods. The mobile commerce portfolio from Sybase 365 has already been widely deployed by banks and mobile operators for mobile banking, mobile payments and mobile money services in both developed and emerging markets. This mobile commerce portfolio from Sybase 365 is a key component of the industry-leading SAP mobile platform for powering highly productive business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) mobile apps and services, including:

  • Sybase 365 Mobile Banking, which enables subscribers to pay, buy, bank and remit money with any mobile device. It allows an end user to use his mobile phone as a micro bank, performing all banking tasks where instant information is important, such as inquiring about account balances, configuring notifications to receive account activity, paying bills, person-to-person (P2P) money transfers and applying for new products. This solution is available in retail, small to midsize business and corporate mobile banking editions.
  • Sybase 365 Mobile Payments, which enables people to leverage a mobile wallet solution to pay bills and loans, make domestic P2P payments to known and unknown beneficiaries, remit money, top-up and pay for goods and services. The solution includes all the tools and services for managing merchants and for emerging markets managing agent networks.
  • Sybase 365 Mobile Money, which enables financial institutions to offer a branchless financial inclusion service that allows them to offer financial products to un-banked and under-banked customer segments in a highly cost-effective manner, entirely through the mobile device. For the end user, mobile money supports money transfers, balance inquiries, bill payments, cash in/cash out via agents and self-service machines, as well as micro-payments and loan repayments. For bank agents, it offers a full suite of customer enrollment, KYC (Know Your Customer) details, reports, fee tracking and much more.

Numerous leading financial institutions and mobile operators, including Dutch Bangla-Bank, First Tennessee Bank and Telefónica, are providing their customers with live mobile commerce apps and services built on top of the Sybase 365 mobile commerce portfolio.

Mobilizing Across Industries
SAP is extending the value of key systems of record by mobilizing business processes across healthcare, insurance and retail industries:

  • Retail shoppers and employees can benefit from the SAP In-Store Product Lookup mobile app, which creates a new experience for retail shoppers and employees by helping store managers and associates on the floor better assist customers. For example, store employees can locate the availability of an item with current stock information in real-time, eliminating the need for shoppers to wait at the checkout counter. The app also displays product details and stock levels both in-store and in nearby stores, as well as the ability to adjust inventory.
  • Insurance companies can improve customer service with the SAP Policyholder Lookup mobile app, which allows insurance sales agents to access policy and claim details of policyholders anywhere and anytime. The app provides increased sales insight and service with up-to-date customer information, decreasing call volume for claim status and policy coverage.

SAP Store and Mobile App Ecosystem Growth
SAP offers a carefully curated mobile platform and enterprise application portfolio designed to expand and accelerate any business’ ability to run better with mobile. With the introduction of more than 70 apps from SAP and its partners, SAP continues to expand a network of industry-leading developers, with companies such as Advent Global and Principal Consulting making it possible for complex mobile solutions to become a simple reality.

Advent Global’s Go Sell mobile app is a comprehensive sales force automation app that enables sales professionals to be connected and sell on the go. With instant access to their handheld devices, sales professionals can log calls, respond to hot leads, and access vital information such as opportunities and dashboards across the complete order-to-cash process wherever they are. The app not only saves precious time, but also eliminates the process overhead of carrying physical reports/forms and dependency on sales office for real-time information. The app runs on Android, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices and utilizes data from the SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) component and SAP CRM application.

The Principal Consulting Group successfully runs an app called the Project Manager, which allows users to effectively manage their projects while out of the office. The app provides customers with a complete end-to-end project management functionality including: the ability to review and update projects, review work-breakdown-structures, coordinate team members and project assignments, capture time for project tasks to be completed and review dashboards and critical KPIs. The app saves time and cost, while providing all the information needed for a project manager to run the task on time and on budget. The app is available for all major mobile devices.

An HTML5 version of SAP Store for iPad and tablets is now available, delivering a dynamic user experience. New versions of SAP Store native mobile application for iOS (“SAP Mobile Apps” in iTunes) and Android (“SAP Store” in Google Play Store) platforms have also been made available for an end-to-end buying process for mobile solutions, including credit card enablement for payment.

Expanding SAP Mobile Apps Across Platforms
SAP is continuing to evolve and build the mobile app ecosystem with updated features and expanded platform availability to existing apps, including:

  • SAP Customer Financial Fact Sheet mobile app, allowing sales representatives or account executives to check the system financial status of their customers anywhere and anytime, is now available on iPad and Android 2.2 or later.
  • SAP Payment Approvals mobile app, helping ensure the liquidity of a company by approving payments anywhere and anytime, is now available on Android 2.2 or later.
  • SAP Electronic Medical Record mobile app, putting critical patient information in the hands of doctors, providing them with instant access to the electronic medical records at a patient’s bedside, is now available on Android 3.2 and iPhone.
  • SAP GRC Policy Survey mobile app, allowing employees to receive, complete and submit governance, risk and compliance (GRC) policy surveys, quizzes and acknowledgements, is now available on iPad.

For a closer look, see: “Screenshots: SAP Mobile Apps Connect Businesses and Consumers.” 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:
Amisha Gandhi, +1 (415) 341-7101, amisha.gandhi@sap.com, PDT
Scott Malinowski. +1 (978) 287-1793, scott.malinowski@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.