Latest Version of SAP® Sourcing OnDemand Solution Delivers Sourcing Innovation ... - PR Newswire (press release)

WALLDORF, Germany, Oct. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- On-demand technologies are continuing to grow as an important facilitator for companies looking for cost effective solutions that can be quickly deployed. To address this increasing adoption and market traction, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced the latest release of the SAP? Sourcing OnDemand solution, wave 7. The solution delivers the complete sourcing-to-contract process via an on-demand deployment model, enabling rapid time to value. Wave 7 of SAP Sourcing OnDemand includes usability enhancements, mobile device support, integration of business intelligence tools from the SAP? BusinessObjects? portfolio, and new functionalities in the areas of sourcing, contract management and supplier management. SAP Sourcing OnDemand offers flexibility through subscription packages that deliver strategic sourcing, contract life-cycle management and supplier management components integrated with the enterprise resource planning (ERP) application SAP? ERP. This latest release demonstrates how SAP is delivering business innovation and speeding customer time to value by providing new releases of on-demand solutions twice a year.

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In early September 2010, SAP conducted customer workshops in which 25 companies experienced SAP Sourcing OnDemand firsthand. Participating companies responded positively to the usability enhancements and key new capabilities as well as the ease of adoption that they were able to directly experience during the workshop.

"The number one concern of our customers is the price of energy. SAP Sourcing OnDemand helps us improve customer satisfaction," said Gail DeVeau, director of supply chain, We Energies. "We have found that electronic bidding and reverse auctions lead to cost reductions that help us hold the line on energy prices. Our SAP ERP is run by We Energies while the sourcing solution is hosted by SAP. We chose the on-demand solution for sourcing because we were up and running in less than one month."

Wave 7 of SAP Sourcing OnDemand enables faster and more effective strategic sourcing, contract management and supplier management processes for accelerated savings through the following capabilities:

Rapid and more effective sourcing decisions — Wave 7 provides significant enhancement for total cost calculations that support better sourcing decisions, including line item grouping and formula-based pricing, along with new auction types and tools for faster results and enhanced supplier management workflow. It also offers mobile device support for sourcing processes and contract approvals. Key usability enhancements — Users now have faster access to content and new ways to evaluate event results through new usability features, including favorites, saved searches, auto-complete, global searches, user reporting, a "Quick Create" tool and enhanced charting features. Users can also now access their most active business documents immediately. Use of SAP BusinessObjects reporting tools such as Xcelsius? software provides report views that can be modified in real time, and supplier performance dashboards provide enhanced supplier performance visibility. ?Faster management of contract documents and enhanced globalization — An enhanced default view of contract documents allows users to quickly access contract documents and attachments, while a quick and fully searchable repository delivers enhanced accessibility to documents in different locations, and can effectively manage contract expirations and audits. The solution also maintains different currencies on master and sub-agreements. Wave 7 also enables the publishing and replication of supplier information between multiple backend ERP systems.

SAP is also providing packaged standard services such as customer success manager, on-boarding and enablement, as well as hosting and training. Additional services such as consulting services, event day support, supplier and contract support, legacy contract migration and supplier management risk profiling are also available.

"Through co-innovation with its customers, SAP is committed to delivering on the promise of on-demand solutions through rapid innovation and adoption of its solutions," said Mark Ellis, senior vice president development, SAP Sourcing OnDemand, SAP AG. "Successful companies have formal sourcing processes, and effective contract management and supplier programs. The enhancements in wave 7 enable superior supplier and contract management while providing sustainable cost savings with the rapid time to value necessary to compete in today's global economy."

Next Major Event: SAP? TechEd 2010 in Berlin, Las Vegas, Bangalore, and Shanghai

More than 14,000 SAP customers, partners and technical experts are expected to convene at SAP? TechEd 2010, the company's largest ecosystem education event series. The conference brings IT managers, software developers, administrators, and business process experts together to see, hear and share how they and their peers can stay one step ahead of business change. Choosing from hundreds of hours of expert-led sessions and hands-on training, attendees can gain the inspiration and skills they need to maximize impact on their organizations. In its 14th year, SAP TechEd 2010 is being held in Berlin, Germany, October 12-14; Las Vegas, Nevada, October 18-22; Bangalore, India, December 1-3; and Shanghai, China, December 1-2. Follow SAP TechEd on Twitter at @sapteched. For announcements, blog posts, videos and other coverage during the event series, visit the SAP TechED newsroom at www.sapteched.com/news.

About SAP

SAP is the world's leading provider of business software(*), offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses. With more than 102,500 customers in over 120 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE, under the symbol "SAP." For more information, visit www.sap.com.

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning, business intelligence, and related applications.

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "predict," "should" and "will" and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

Copyright ? 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved.

SAP, R/3, mySAP, mySAP.com, xApps, xApp, SAP NetWeaver 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 in several other countries all over the world. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Data contained in this document serve informational purposes only. National product specifications may vary.

Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews.

For customers interested in learning more about SAP products:

Global Customer Center: +49 180 534-34-24

United States Only: 1 (800) 872-1SAP (1-800-872-1727)

For more information, press only:

SAP Press Office, +49 (6227) 7-46315, CET; +1 (610) 661-3200, EDT; press@sap.com

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Addison Lee deploys SAP business intelligence platform - ComputerworldUK

Addison Lee, London's largest minicab service, is rolling out a new SAP business intelligence system to improve its operations.

Addison Lee will work with IT systems provider Maxima to implement the SAP BusinessObjects EDGE business intelligence platform. The system will provide account teams and sales management staff at Addison Lee with real time visibility of the company's fleet of 3,000 vehicles, and allow them to see the performance levels being achieved for its 10,000 corporate account customers.

Get the latest stories on law, regulation, compliance and patents in the Computerworld UK Law channel.

The system is aimed at helping improve core business processes, as well as providing access to self service tools, business intelligence dashboards and web analytics.

It will be implemented at Addison Lee's London headquarters, with the aim of providing executives and operational managers with role-based real-time dashboards. It will allow them to drill-down for further details, carry out root-cause analysis and generate daily information and alerts on specific operational performance issues.

Peter Ingram, Addison Lee IT Director, said, "Our business is growing rapidly so we needed an enterprise-class business intelligence solution."

Ingram said, "When Maxima introduced us to SAP BusinessObjects Edge we immediately saw that it would be possible for us to secure all the benefits of SAP BusinessObjects in a cost-effective package that was backed by Maxima's own specialist expertise."

As part of the deal Maxima will provide full consultancy, training and support services.

Earlier this month, SAP released a set of real time analytics products that are customised for use in various industry sectors and business functions. The products are based on technologies from the company's 2007 purchase of Business Objects.

They include new tools designed to let enterprises enable mobile access to business intelligence (BI) applications. The new products are customised for companies in the healthcare, consumer products, public sector, financial services, retail and telecommunication sectors.

They are designed to deliver real time analytics capabilities for line of business functions, such as finance, sales, marketing, planning, risk assessment and customer satisfaction.

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Clearly Understanding the Business Objectives

Have you created a formal business plan for the business, which clearly sets out the sales targets and profits that your business is going to achieve? I’m not talking about one of those business plans that people often create when starting a business, which is put on the shelf never to see the light of day again. I’m talking about a useful working document, which you have created to clearly map out where the business is going. One that shows the growth of the business over the coming months and years ahead and one that paints a picture of exactly how the business should look in terms of turnover, staffing numbers, premises, sales per sales person, and so on.

As it’s only by clearly laying out a business plan to this level of detail that you’ll be able to establish how far along your journey you are at any stage, and whether in fact you are on course or not.

If you are serious about business growth, and are looking for some guidance and support in putting your ideas into practice then maybe a visit to www.achievebusinessgrowth.com [http://www.achievebusinessgrowth.com] might be just what you are looking for. This site is designed to help you to achieve More Profit – More Easily - More Often!

With your business, you need to put a clear stake in the ground of where you are today, as well as where you want to get to. Only once you have these points clearly fixed in your mind, and in the mind of your team are you able to create a workable and sustanable business growth strategy.

What is a Marketing Strategy and Why Your Business Should Have One

In this article I will cover off the basics of developing your marketing strategy and how you can regularly check back on it to make sure you are on track.

Ideally a marketing strategy runs annually but you can start this process at any point in time. Firstly make a realistic set of business objectives based on past performance, budget constraints and competitor analysis. What are you hoping to achieve in the upcoming twelve months. How much can you afford to invest and what resources do you have in place to achieve them.

The best way to get your staff to buy into your strategy is to involve them in developing it. Have a specific time set aside to brainstorm new ways to market to your customers and bring along customer research to the session. It's really important that you are listening to what your customers are saying as they are your business effectively.

Once you have your business objectives try and come up with up to five key strategic objectives. These should be measurable, time bound and ultimately focus on your customers or prospects. For example one business objective might be to increase sales by 10%. One strategy could therefore be to focus more energy on a specific niche which you know is profitable. Another might be to launch a new marketing channel to acquire new customers through. At this point you should not be thinking tactically and trying to implement solutions. Try and think more high level than executing campaigns.

Work through your objectives until you have agreed an overall strategy of how you will achieve them. Bear in mind that this should be a plan to keep you on track so try not to have too many objectives. All your activity going forward should link directly into one of these strategic objectives.

The next stage will be to build a marketing plan which will link into the marketing strategy. The marketing plan lays down the tactical activity which you will carry out in order to achieve the business objectives and that link into the marketing strategy. For example if you have agreed to launch a new sales channel, you need to document the launch date, the marketing mix and budget. It is beneficial to have an annual marketing plan but you can start this at any point in time.

Spend time developing your marketing strategy and build a solid document for everyone to refer to. This way everyone knows what you are trying to achieve as a business and how you are going to achieve it. It should ensure that you innovate and stay in line or ahead of your competition rather than being reactive. Present the marketing strategy to all the staff within your business so they know where you are heading and they can buy into it. Make sure everyone has a copy to refer back to through the year.

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