WALLDORF – SAP AG today announced its financial results for the first quarter, ended March 31, 2013.
Apr 192013
Sep 172012
SAPPHIRE NOW has been named “The Most Innovative Meeting of 2012” by BizBash Magazine. The magazine highlighted SAP’s “always on” approach as the next step in hybrid event design. SAPPHIRE NOW beat out the well-regarded TED event to take the title.
SAP’s “always on” approach will reach over 500,000 physical and online participants globally from November 2011 through the upcoming SAPPHIRE NOW from Madrid in November 2012. This time span includes SAPPHIRE NOW from Madrid in 2011, China SAPPHIRE in November 2011 and July 2012 and SAPPHIRE NOW from Orlando in 2012. Global participants continue to access content and contribute to conversations via www.sapphirenow.com, YouTube and social media platforms such as LinkedIn, FaceBook, Twitter, Weibo and Youku. Social media impressions globally have reached approximately 1.2 billion and continue to grow daily.
“While some vendors engage in a battle of words over the number of people who attend their events, SAP’s focus has been on attendee experience and highly-engaging content,” said R. “Ray” Wang, principal analyst and CEO, Constellation Research. “The award shows the approach is working.”
“SAP brings the same focus on innovation to our event strategy as we do to our customers, products, and solutions,” explained Jonathan D. Becher, chief marketing officer, SAP. “We design our events around what our attendees want to hear and recruit presenters from our customers and partners. The attendee feedback, the business results and the award validate our approach.”
SAP Broadens Industry Reach With New Analytic Application for Aerospace and Defense
Analytics, Newsbyte, Sustainability
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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. 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
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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
May 222012
WALLDORF, Germany and SUNNYVALE, Calif. — SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) and Ariba, Inc. (Nasdaq: ARBA) today announced that SAP’s subsidiary, SAP America, Inc., has entered into an agreement to acquire Ariba, the leading cloud-based business commerce network, for $45.00 per share, representing an enterprise value of approximately $4.3 billion. The acquisition will combine Ariba’s successful buyer-seller collaboration network with SAP’s broad customer base and deep business process expertise to create new models for business-to-business collaboration in the cloud.
The Ariba board of directors has unanimously approved the transaction. The per share purchase price represents a 20% premium over the May 21 closing price and a 19% premium over the one month volume weighted average price per share. The transaction will be funded from SAP’s free cash and a €2.4 billion term loan facility. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of calendar year 2012, subject to Ariba stockholder approval, clearances by relevant regulatory authorities and other customary closing conditions. The transaction is expected to be accretive to SAP’s non-IFRS earnings per share in 2013.
Business Network to Drive Growth
With the addition of Ariba, SAP will acquire the leader in cloud-based collaborative business commerce. The acquisition establishes SAP as the leading business network, adding business-to-business collaboration to its existing solutions. The move positions SAP in a fast-growing segment as buyers and sellers across the globe connect in new ways through the cloud.
SAP’s entry into the inter-enterprise business network space significantly expands its growth opportunities and accelerates its momentum in the cloud. Last week, SAP announced the roadmap for its cloud applications business (Software-as-a-Service), focusing on managing customers, suppliers, employees, and financials, in addition to its cloud suite offerings SAP Business ByDesign and SAP Business One. The acquisition will also significantly boost SAP’s cloud applications portfolio with the addition of Ariba’s leading cloud-based procurement solutions.
Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, Ariba has approximately 2,600 employees. The company is the leader in cloud-based collaborative commerce applications and the second-largest cloud vendor by revenue. Ariba combines industry-leading technology with a web-based trading community to help companies discover, connect and collaborate with a global network of partners – all in a cloud-based environment. With $444 million in total revenue, Ariba experienced 38.5 percent annual growth in 2011. Its business network recorded 62 percent organic growth in the same period.
“The cloud has profoundly changed the way people interact. The impact will be even greater as enterprises connect and collaborate in new ways with their global networks of customers and partners,” said SAP Co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe. “Cloud-based collaboration is redefining business network innovation, and we are catching this wave in the early stage of its evolution. The addition of Ariba will create the business network of the future, deliver immediate value to our customers and provide another solid engine for driving SAP’s growth in the cloud.”
Businesses to Benefit from Combination
Industry experts estimate the cloud-based enterprise network and procurement segment at a current size of $5 billion in revenue. The Ariba network is the largest and most global trading network, connecting and automating more than $319 billion in commerce transactions, collaborations, and intelligence among more than 730,000 companies. SAP’s global customer base of more than 190,000 companies includes the largest buyers and sellers in the world, offering great potential to increase the number of participants, as well as the volume and types of transactions conducted through this network. Already today 63% of the world’s transaction revenue touches an SAP system. SAP and Ariba will facilitate collaborative commerce within and between companies of all sizes.
The combination of SAP’s innovations and core applications with the Ariba cloud-based network will create new business value for customers:
- Together, SAP and Ariba can deliver a truly end-to-end solution that enables companies to achieve a closed-loop from source-to-pay, regardless of whether they deploy in the cloud, on-premise or through a combination of both.
- Ariba’s open network and SAP’s integration expertise will facilitate participation and extend the benefits of business collaboration to all companies, on any system, from any provider.
- The Ariba network will benefit from the performance delivered by using SAP’s flagship in-memory platform SAP HANA.
- Relationship and transaction information from commerce activity in the Ariba network together with SAP’s leading analytics will provide real-time insights to enable trading partners to discover, connect and collaborate more effectively.
- All SAP customers will be able to easily connect to the business network through pre-built integration points.
- Through the combination of the business network procurement solutions from Ariba and SAP, organizations can gain 360-degree business intelligence and effectively demonstrate that spending activities, contracts, and supplier interactions adhere to corporate compliance guidelines.
“In our personal lives, networks are playing an increasingly important role in how we connect, share, and shop – bringing more insight and efficiency into everything we do,” said Bob Calderoni, CEO, Ariba. “Businesses are looking for the same connectedness, insight, and efficiencies in the processes and collaboration with customers, suppliers, and partners beyond the walls of their companies. By combining Ariba’s open global trading network and SAP’s solutions and analytics, we are ushering in a new era of business-to-business collaboration and driving new levels of productivity.”
Upon completion of the transaction, it is planned to consolidate all cloud-related supplier assets of SAP under Ariba. The existing management team will continue to lead Ariba, which will operate as an independent business under the name “Ariba, an SAP company.” The SAP Executive Board intends to nominate Ariba CEO Bob Calderoni to the SAP Global Managing Board after closing of the transaction and subject to the approval of the SAP Supervisory Board.
Financial Analyst and Media Conference Call
SAP and Ariba will host a conference call for financial analysts and media to discuss the transaction on Tuesday, May 22nd, at 10:00 pm CET / 4:00 pm Eastern/ 1:00 pm Pacific. The call will be webcast at www.sap.com/investor
Conference ID: 7427781
Participant Dial-in Numbers
US: +1 646 254 3361
UK: +44(0)20 3140 8286
Germany: +49(0)89 1214 00699
Replay Dial-in Numbers
US: +1 347 366 9565
UK: +44(0)20 3427 0598
Germany: +49(0)89 2030 3201
Replay Passcode: 7427781
For more information, visit the SAP Newsroom.
About SAP
As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 190,000 customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.
# # #
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this press release include the quotes from executives of both companies and statements concerning the parties’ ability to complete the transaction, the expected closing date of the transaction, and the expected benefits and synergies of the transaction. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. These potential risks and uncertainties include, among others, uncertainties as to the timing of the acquisition; the satisfaction of closing conditions, including the receipt of Ariba stockholder approval and regulatory approvals; the failure to retain key Ariba employees, contracts or benefits; the failure to achieve expected synergies and other benefits; customer and partner uncertainty regarding the anticipated benefits of the transaction; whether certain industry segments will grow as anticipated; the competitive environment among participants in cloud technologies; and other risks detailed in SAP’s and Ariba’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F and Ariba’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.
Additional Information about the Merger and Where to Find It
In connection with the proposed merger, Ariba will file a proxy statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). The definitive proxy statement will be sent or given to the stockholders of Ariba and will contain important information about the proposed merger and related matters. Ariba’s stockholders are urged to read the definitive proxy statement carefully when it becomes available before making any voting or investment decision with respect to the proposed merger because they will contain important information about the merger and the parties to the merger. Additionally, Ariba and SAP will file other relevant materials in connection with the proposed acquisition of Ariba by SAP pursuant to the terms of an Agreement and Plan of Merger by and among, SAP America, Angel Expansion Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of SAP America, and Ariba. SAP, Ariba and their respective directors, executive officers and other members of their management and employees, under SEC rules, may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies of Ariba stockholders in connection with the proposed merger. Investors and security holders may obtain more detailed information regarding the names, affiliations and interests of certain of SAP’s executive officers and directors in the solicitation by reading SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F, and the proxy statement and other relevant materials filed with the SEC when they become available. Information concerning the interests of Ariba’s participants in the solicitation, which may, in some cases, be different than those of Ariba’s stockholders generally, will be set forth in the proxy statement relating to the merger when it becomes available.
The materials to be filed by SAP and Ariba with the SEC may be obtained free of charge at the SEC’s web site at www.sec.gov. In addition, security holders will be able to obtain free copies of the proxy statement from Ariba by contacting Ariba Investor Relations by email at investorinfo@ariba.com or by telephone at +1 (678) 336-2980.
© 2012 SAP AG. All rights reserved.
SAP, R/3, SAP NetWeaver, Duet, PartnerEdge, ByDesign, SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, StreamWork, SAP HANA, and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and other countries. Business Objects and the Business Objects logo, BusinessObjects, Crystal Reports, Crystal Decisions, Web Intelligence, Xcelsius, and other Business Objects products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Business Objects Software Ltd. Business Objects is an SAP company.Sybase and Adaptive Server, iAnywhere, Sybase 365, SQL Anywhere, and other Sybase products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sybase, Inc. Sybase is an SAP company. Crossgate, m@gic EDDY, B2B 360°, and B2B 360° Services are registered trademarks of Crossgate AG in Germany and other countries. Crossgate is an SAP company. SuccessFactors, Execution is the Difference, BizX Mobile Touchbase, It’s time to love work again, Jam and BadAss SaaS are trademarks or registered trademarks of SuccessFactors Inc. in the United States and other countries. SuccessFactors is an SAP company. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.
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For more information, press only:
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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 Further Extends Real-Time Data Platform With “Big Data” Capabilities
HANA, Innovation, Newsbyte, Technology
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May 162012
ORLANDO — SAP today announced advanced support and integration with Hadoop environments including an expanded “big data” partner council and customer showcases. These “big data” integration capabilities are planned in SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward software with the release of service pack 4 for the SAP HANA platform. SAP also showcased game-changing business results among customers, made possible by “big data” implementations based on the SAP real-time data platform. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE NOW, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 14-16, 2012.
The SAP real-time data platform, based on the flagship SAP HANA platform, includes data management capabilities from SAP Sybase IQ, SAP Sybase ESP, SAP Sybase ASE and SAP Enterprise Information Management. It unlocks business value from “big data” by providing for real-time decision support within the window of opportunity with extreme capabilities to ingest, store and process big data in real-time.
“Groundbreaking innovations like SAP HANA help our customers access and deliver information at unprecedented speeds — up to 100,000 times faster than before — and empower them with fundamentally new ways to run their businesses and master ‘big data,’” said Steve Lucas, global executive vice president and general manager, Database & Technology, SAP “The SAP real-time data platform delivers an information value chain that uncovers and harnesses the right information at the right moment by moving data among SAP HANA, SAP Sybase IQ and Hadoop file systems.”
Customer Showcases “Big Data” Results Powered by SAP HANA
MITSUI KNOWLEDGE INDUSTRY analyzes genomes for cancer research and treatment. By building an information value chain that uses SAP HANA with R, open source programming language and software environment for statistical computing and graphics, for real-time analysis and Hadoop for preprocessing DNA sequences, the company found a way to shorten the genome analysis time from several days down to only 20 minutes.
“Going from a process measured in days to one measured in minutes is radically transforming our customer relationships,” said Yukihisa Kato, CTO and director, MITSUI KNOWLEDGE INDUSTRY. “Using the SAP real-time data platform with SAP HANA at its core will be critical to our DNA going forward and to future business growth.”
SAP Enterprise Information Management Solutions to Power Access to All “Big Data” Sources
SAP envisions SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward as the industry’s first and only unified solution for data quality, data integration, text data processing, data profiling and metadata management. The company aims to allow users to unlock the full business potential of “big data” by making it easier to integrate and synthesize information across an enterprise’s SAP and non-SAP applications. SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward are intended to provide both business users and IT with an intuitive and comprehensive information management solution with planned enhancements that include:
- Hadoop integration: reading from and loading to Hive and Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), rapid batch updating and loading to SAP HANA, SAP Sybase IQ server and any other data store, resulting in faster performance
- Text data processing: extending the data view to analyze data sources by performing linguistic analysis and extracting relevant content from files, Web logs and social media
- Authoritative and trustworthy data: helping users understand, assess and improve the quality of data by integrating data quality scorecards directly within business intelligence (BI) and enterprise applications so users can immediately determine the accuracy of the data and if necessary take corrective action
SAP Broadens Analytics Reach With New Stake in Data Discovery and Visualization Market
Analytics, HANA, Innovation, Newsbyte, SME
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May 162012
ORLANDO — SAP today announced intuitive software that turns data into answers for people across organizations. SAP Visual Intelligence software allows employees, departments and lines of business to creatively visualize and analyze information and apply it to individual and group decision-making. A desktop version of SAP BusinessObjects Explorer software, SAP Visual Intelligence is powered by the SAP HANA platform and empowers users to perform data discovery regardless of technical skill level. With the new application, business users can take advantage of existing data investments that their IT organizations have built and maintained without tasking IT to produce reports. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE NOW, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 14-16, 2012.
No matter where users sit in a company, they want a way to easily explore, mash up and share information to make better decisions and find new opportunities — without having to task IT to deliver reports. Companies are also looking to maximize existing business intelligence (BI) investments; expanding access allows more people to take advantage of a wealth of existing data and systems to make better-informed decisions.
“The category of visual data discovery has become a must-have component of the BI tool portfolio and SAP has upped its capabilities with its latest product, SAP Visual Intelligence,” said Cindi Howson, founder, BI Scorecard. “Ease of use, time to insight and business agility are key reasons for the rapid growth of visual data discovery that provides users with greater self service with minimal IT support. SAP BusinessObjects Explorer provided ease of use, but the release of SAP Visual Intelligence brings greater flexibility and richer analysis.”
“3M is a diversified company consisting of six different businesses units operating across various industries globally. As a result, we are a data-rich organization that relies on SAP to deliver intuitive BI solutions,” said Jeff Robinson, IT manager, Global Business Intelligence, 3M. “SAP Visual Intelligence puts our people in the driver’s seat because they can truly discover data on the fly. And because SAP handles the work of combining multiple data sources backed by in-memory technology, self-service analysis hits our users’ screens in seconds.”
Empowering Users in Any Industry or Line of Business to Explore Data and Find Answers
SAP Visual Intelligence draws upon the company’s expertise in 24 industries, 10 lines of business and global footprint to deliver a product that any company can use to deliver answers to users everywhere. For example:
- A loan officer at a bank might wonder how the bank is performing regionally across multiple categories of loans and demographics. Typically this would involve intensive efforts downloading and bringing together information from corporate as well as public data sources to find answers, which would be done manually each time a refresh is needed. SAP Visual Intelligence enables the loan officer to create an automated routine to download census information, combine it with regional loan data as well as additional region and state details to enrich the data. The information could be immediately plotted on a map to discover that loan business had increased 25 percent in the past two years for high-income earners in a specific zip code but new loan applications had slowed significantly. At the next meeting, the team could put together a new campaign targeting sales of loans in the high income areas.
- Responsible for analyzing the numbers of defects across plants and suppliers, a business analyst at a global manufacturing firm could use SAP Visual Intelligence to pull enterprise data as well as external data files sent by suppliers. A mash up of the data might reveal that specific parts and one particular supplier are responsible for 80 percent of the defects. As a result, the engineering team could work with the supplier on correcting the issues.
- A regional manager for a healthy snack company might be tasked with increasing sales of a new health bar in the western region. Working with a business analyst and SAP Visual Intelligence, the regional manager could easily access sales numbers for the last three years and combine this with point of sale data to see that the majority of sales were coming from small stores running a new campaign. On the spot, the regional manager and business analyst could expand the campaign to a broader market and eliminate poorly performing campaigns.
Fast, Engaging Way of Finding Answers Buried in Massive Amounts of Data
Building on SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, SAP Visual Intelligence leverages SAP HANA to help users ignite their creativity with beautiful and interactive visualizations, allowing them to ask any question without the need for predefined queries, reports or dashboards. SAP Visual Intelligence removes roadblocks to information so business users can find real-time answers on any volume of data. The engaging interface increases the usage of data and ability to derive answers and make better decisions. SAP Visual Intelligence enables ad-hoc discovery everywhere, across all data — from spreadsheets to sales, finance, marketing, customer, social, geo-location, third-party and other business data.
Analytics Innovations Revolutionize the Decision-Making Process
Recognized as the BI market share leader by Gartner, today’s announcement is another of example of SAP’s commitment to investing and expanding its analytics portfolio to respond to the needs of customers and the market. Recently announced SAP BusinessObjects Predictive Analysis software is intended to help users improve decision-making by predicting future outcomes. Additional planned enhancements to SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions aim to deliver more mobile analytics options, richer insight, improved collaborative decision-making and deeper SAP applications integration. The improved capabilities are planned to help companies extract the most business value from the massive amounts of data that are generated today.
“SAP Visual Intelligence revolutionizes decision-making by offering every person in an organization a fast and extremely easy to use way of discovering answers from any data,” said John Schweitzer, senior vice president and general manager, Analytics, SAP. “SAP solutions for analytics empower people with precise information anytime and anywhere using beautiful visualizations, enabling rapid response to events as they unfold. SAP delivers a powerful and comprehensive analytics portfolio that helps companies adapt to constant change so they can achieve remarkable results.”
For more information and demos about SAP Visual Intelligence, visit www.experienceexplorer.com. For a closer look, see: “Screenshots: SAP Broadens Analytics Reach.”
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:
Susan Miller, SAP, +1 (610) 661-9225, susan.miller@sap.com, EDT
SAP Press Office, +49 (6227) 7-46315, CET; +1 (610) 661-3200, EDT; press@sap.com
Jeff Shadid, Burson-Marsteller, +1 (214) 224-8419, jeff.shadid@bm.com, CDT
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.
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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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