SAP happenings

SAP AG subsidiary SAP America, Inc. representatives announced earlier this week that engineered access hardware solutions and applications provider Southco has selected SAP to enable a lean manufacturing strategy. The company sought an enterprise resource planning solution to support its lean six sigma initiatives and to increase managerial visibility. Under terms of the agreement, Southco will implement applications from mySAP Business Suite to support lean processes for managing product life cycles, import, export and trade. As part of the integrated business management platform, the company also will deploy mySAP Customer Relationship Management to support its client model.

SAP America won the contract over Oracle after an extensive evaluation process. In the end, the decision was based on “SAP’s stability as industry leader, superior capabilities for managing end-to-end business processes such as order to cash, and ability to support global operations in emerging markets.” “Our team really hit the pavement in the evaluation process,” said Southco president / CEO Brian McNeill, “and other global vendors couldn’t measure up with the same combination of solid solution road map, proven success at customer sites, and the ability to provide effective solutions and support them with training and skilled workers in markets like China.”

Southco is currently seeing rapid expansion of its global operations in the marine, automotive, truck, off-highway / construction, recreational vehicle / caravan, consumer electronics, computer hardware, and industrial enclosures industries; Southco has 70,000 customers in 65 countries. Indeed, McNeill claimed that “We are on track to double in size over the next five years.” Meanwhile, SAP Americas president / CEO Bill McDermott sees Southco as “a great example of the world of new markets and opportunities opening up to midsize enterprises and how technology will be the equalizer that allows them to compete with agility against both smaller and larger enterprises.” The day after the Southco announcement came new from RSM McGladrey, which announced the addition of SAP Business One, an integrated software solution for small- and medium-sized enterprises, to RSM McGladrey’s central plains and upper midwest America regions.

These regions join the New York practice in offering SAP Business One software and implementation services through 16 offices in the United States. From here, RSM McGladrey seeks to add SAP Business One capabilities to other markets in 2006 and 2007. This agreement is a natural extension of the companies’ relationship, which began in 2003, when American Express Tax and Business Services served as a key partner in the launch of SAP Business One in the US. “We intend to focus our SAP Business One activities in distribution, retail and manufacturing as part of our vertical industry strategy,” RSM McGladrey national director of information technology consulting Stan Mork stated. “We believe SAP Business One offers a strong value proposition to our small- and mid-sized clients and also presents significant opportunities with subsidiaries of large companies.”

SAP interests surely hope that Mork’s enthusiasm is justified. In press material, Dan Kraus, vice president, SAP Business One, SAP America, Inc. said that “We are actively engaged in working with RSM across their various focused regions to deliver SAP Business One and are thrilled to have them as part of the SAP network.” The recent strategy at SAP as of late is based in a pair of publications commissioned by the firm from the Economist Intelligence Unit. In February, findings of 2006 study were released, showing that mid-size enterprise growth strategies commissioned by SAP highlighted international expansion as a key focus for growth among businesses worldwide. In the study, mid-size enterprises cited the threat of competitive advantages – such as the ability to execute on changes in strategy, maintain deeper customer relationships and sustain robust innovation – eroding as they grow. These respondents see IT as critical to their ability to expand and retain flexibility.

Yesterday, SAP Press announced the publication of Enterprise Services for Financial Services: Taking SOA to the Next Level, a new book regarding the growing importance that service-oriented architecture and enterprise services will play in banking and insurance organizations as the industry continues to transform to meet business needs. As financial services companies face shifts in customer behavior, consolidation and increasing regulatory requirements, the book outlines a road map to better cope with these pressures and help simplify technology adoption. Written for C-level technology executives at banks and insurance companies, the book provides a vision and approach for tomorrow’s solution landscape for financial services organizations.

Complete with industry insight on internal and external market challenges from banking and insurance executives and leading industry analysts, the book offers practical examples of how to utilize SOA standards to help the business. “This book is a resource to help banking and insurance executives understand and leverage SOA and enterprise services at the technology and business levels,” said SAP AG financial service senior vice president Thomas Balgheim said. “The premise of SOA is based on the principles of exchange and interoperability; this vision cannot be achieved when every bank and insurer or software vendor has its own definition of a service-enabled IT environment.” And there’s more to keep the SAP PR people busy this week: Clearly following the dictum of “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, SAP has a trio of conferences set in swell locations in May. SAPPHIRE ’06 are international customer conferences held in Orlando, Fla. (Hmmm…) and Paris, France (Hmmm!); the dates for the tutorial-type shows are May 16 through 18 and May 30 through June 1.

In addition, SAP has Orlando double booked, as this year, SAP and the Americas’ SAP Users’ Group (ASUG) is also holding the 2006 ASUG Annual Conference of May 14-17 in Orlando. SAP, proclaiming itself, “the world’s leading provider of business software,” today boasts more than 33,200 SAP application customers in more than 120 countries in over twenty-five industries, including financial services, healthcare, high tech, the public sector and retail.