The Best-Run Businesses Run SAP

Written by Karen Hagemann

SAP Global IT celebrated an outstanding win recently at the Ovum BYOX Strategy Awards 2013 where the Security and Risk organization were crowned winners in the “Best Technology and Telecoms” category.

Organized by independent market analyst, Ovum, the BYOX Strategy Awards recognize companies driving innovation in the area of BYOD. SAP Global IT impressed the judges by demonstrating the success of the SAP Runs SAP program in which employees use their preferred mobile devices and applications to better collaborate, access information, and influence key business decisions – anytime, anywhere, and with the peace of mind of a secure network.

The jury was most impressed by SAP’s approach of addressing the consumerization of IT trend, allowing employees to own a single device for both business and personal use.

Ralph Salomon, head of IT Security and Risk Management, together with Maximilian Adrian were present at the ceremony in London on June 5 to collect the award. Reflecting on their win, Ralph exclaimed, “We were literally surrounded by global experts for BYOX strategy and operations. Three world class experts on the jury reviewed dozens of award applications and told us they were so impressed by our strategy and could immediately see that we had fulfilled all the selection criteria for the award.”

(Ralph and Maximilian with award)

Interim CIO, Axel Bülow, congratulated the team on their well-deserved award – “This is a fantastic achievement for the Security and Risk team and the SAP Global IT organization as a whole, which continues to support the “Mobile” pillar of our corporate strategy. I would particularly like to thank Ralph Salomon, Maximilian Adrian, and Alex Guitman for their tremendous efforts in driving the program and for coming out on top!”

Currently in their third year, the Ovum BYOX Strategy Awards have drawn leading names in a short time. Beating off such stiff competition from highly respected brands makes this recognition all the more impressive for SAP Global IT.

 Click here to read Ovum’s Press Release

SAPPHIRE NOW 2013/Session #64983
Presenter: Axel Buelow, SVP, Head of Applications Services and Acting CIO, SAP AG

For SAP, there is no mission more critical than satisfying customers. So when the company decided to move its SAP CRM application onto SAP HANA, it was not a decision that was made lightly. At this SAPPHIRE NOW 2013 theater presentation, Axel Buelow described the impact of SAP CRM on SAP HANA – and the implementation process that has made it an unqualified success.

A New World

Axel began by putting the new application into context, including such megatrends as the increasing need for pervasive access, the rapid accumulation of “Big Data,” the move toward “global-class” delivery through the cloud, and the emergence of a generation that was raised on social media.

Customers, he said, look to SAP for innovation and inspiration. And SAP CRM on SAP HANA illustrates SAP’s ability to deliver.

Bringing Innovation to Life

“SAP Runs SAP is bringing innovation to life with 100 projects and five percent of the project portfolio,” Axel said. “Our job is to assess, evaluate, and prototype new components to see what value they bring.”

Axel also described SAP’s internal roadmap for the adoption of SAP CRM on SAP HANA, which included side-by-side operations for functions such as the SAP sales pipeline.

Going Live

After a migration period of two and a half months, SAP CRM went live on SAP HANA in March, 2013. Today, Axel reported, “SAP CRM on SAP HANA supports 15,000 business users – including up to 10,000 users per day.

“It was a ‘big bang’ implementation,” he added, “reaching all users in all geographies. Our search performance improved by a factor of 250.”

Early in the process, Axel said, “There was a lot of concern in the area of custom code. But in the end, we had to adjust less than five percent of the custom code.”

New Business Scenarios

Axel cited examples of how SAP CRM on SAP HANA enables new business scenarios, including:

• Faster profitability analysis: The time required to conduct profitability analysis has been reduced from      26 hours to just four hours – while providing even greater detail.
• Sales pipeline management: SAP’s sales pipeline management once had a latency time of 12 hours.      Today, that information is available on iPads and other mobile devices in a matter of seconds.

The Roadmap Continues

Axel closed by discussing SAP’s future plans, which include leveraging SAP HANA for receivables management; fraud management for governance, risk, and compliance (GRC); and procurement.

Most significantly, Axel said, “We will continue by moving SAP ERP to SAP HANA in August, with 50,000 to 60,000 users.

“Our roadmap,” he concluded, “is not at an end yet.”

Author: Bill Kozel

As CIO for SAP Americas, Michael Golz travels extensively throughout the Western Hemisphere. He recently returned from trips to Latin America, where he presented as part of the SAP Forums, whose theme was “The Future of Business.” Bill Kozel spoke with Michael about his impressions and observations.

Bill: Michael, how were your trips?

Michael: Fantastic. I had the pleasure of presenting at the events in São Paulo, Brazil, and Mexico City. These are key markets for SAP, and I was really blown away by the attendance, the scale, and the energy. The programs were SAPPHIRE-like events, with 6,000 to 8,000 people, a large show floor, and big theater presentations.

Bill: What were the key topics?

Michael: There was a very strong focus on SAP HANA – both for SAP Business Suite on HANA and as a platform. In Mexico City, Bill McDermott launched SAP Business Suite for SAP HANA in Latin America, and that generated a lot of excitement. SAP is the only company offering anything like this, and it’s a game-changer for enterprise software.

Bill: How did the audience respond?

Michael: Our message resonated very well. People understand that running SAP Business Suite in memory is really unique, because it takes away critical boundaries and restrictions that have made IT solutions, especially high-speed transactional and analytics applications, complex.

Bill: What did you tell them about SAP’s experience in running SAP CRM on SAP HANA?

Michael: We showed how we run our internal SAP CRM system on SAP HANA for more than 14,000 registered users, and support up to 10,000 concurrent users. These people represent all lines of business, from marketing to sales and support to finance to field services – all running on and sharing the same system, and all working with the same customer data.

As a result, SAP’s team gets a 360^o view of every customer, from the first lead throughout the entire buying process to ongoing support. With CRM on SAP HANA, all transactions are processed on the same platform as our CRM Analytics. This means that all data is available in real-time, without the need to pre-configure cubes, drill-downs, and accelerations – it is all available in memory in an instant for whatever analysis you would like to run. That’s something that a lot of companies would really love to have. And we can show them how it runs in real life. We have very good proof points on processes that were never possible before.

We also showed that with SAP HANA, infrastructure and applications are moving closer together and becoming interwoven. So from an organizational perspective, there’s less of a divide.

Bill: What kind of questions did you get?

Michael: People asked a lot of very detailed and insightful questions about SAP CRM on SAP HANA, especially related to disaster recovery, failover scenarios.

They also asked whether we’re really running SAP HANA as a database – which we are. Some people still think of the traditional “sidecar” scenario. So when we tell them that their ordinary database will go away, they’re surprised and think about the implications for the system landscape and their teams. But when we explain that all their well-established SAP mechanisms and practices – including backup and restore – will still work the same way, they become more comfortable. They need to see a live, credible reference, and SAP is one.

The most exciting discussions with customers in both Brazil and Mexico were about business scenarios in different industries, from Financial Services to Engineering and Mining. We talked about the possibilities that SAP HANA brings and how they can apply to new business scenarios in their industry.

Bill: Was this a sneak preview of your presentations at SAPPHIRE NOW 2013?

Michael: Absolutely. Attendees can expect to hear a lot more about how we’re using SAP Business Suite on SAP HANA. And judging from my trip, that’s what everyone is most excited about.

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Written by Manik N. Saha, CIO – Asia Pacific & Japan

What will APJ customers be looking for @ SAPPHIRE?

A few weeks ago, at the SAP Forum in Mumbai, I had the opportunity to host a CIO lunch. During this lunch and the conversations that followed, one theme stood out – all the companies represented at the discussion were eager to exchange ideas on enterprise innovation. I was amazed at the intensity and passion of my peers to make technology work for the success of their business and grow their footprints beyond local and regional markets (many of who were well established towards that direction).

This made me reflect on our own SAP story in the Asia Pacific & Japan (APJ) region. Over the last 25 years of SAP being present in APJ, we have grown exponentially in this region, with a diverse ecosystem of customers, partners and employees. The correlation between our growth and the growth in the industry in APJ is not a co-incidence. Operating in 12 countries, today we have over 14,000 employees and 1,400 partners in the APJ region supporting around 22,000 customers.

A pillar of our success has been SAP’s ability to innovate in different technology categories, and bring these innovations into the enterprise space. At Global IT, we strive to be early adopters of SAP’s innovations and we ourselves continually innovate our IT services and solutions.

As an example, by using our SAP Afaria platform, over the last 3 years we were able to deploy over 45K smartphones (IOS and Android based) and 5,5K BYOD mobile devices. Our large employee footprint in India and China has seen a significant adoption of BYOD for mobile phones, which validates that the consumerization of IT is real.

To support these mobile devices, we had to also innovate our IT services. We have established Enterprise Mobility Solution Centers in multiple key locations within the region, to provide a more consumer-centric support to our employees. As a result, employees get a personalized service each time they have an issue with any IT equipment, and our IT satisfaction has really grown.

Heading into SAPPHIRE next week, I’m eager to welcome and look forward to meeting our customers from APJ. Customers will be able to meet Global IT experts at the SAP Runs SAP booth on the SAPPHIRE showfloor. These experts have deep knowledge of SAP’s technology, LoB solutions and project experience. The present Global IT Management team has multiple years of experience in IT governance, strategy and management – and many of them will be available at the booth to talk to customers.

For the first time, I will personally host tours of our SAP Runs SAP booth for APJ customers and partners. The one hour walkabout tour around SAP Runs SAP will provide our customers an opportunity to meet the experts. During this tour, we would like to share our innovation practices and experiences with our customers, and learn from them what we could do differently or better.

If you are going to SAPPHIRE Orlando 2013, please drop by the SAP Runs SAP booth. I look forward to meeting you and talking more about enterprise innovation!

Manik N. Saha

CIO – Asia Pacific & Japan

SAP

Learn about SAP’s IT Strategy in the cloud with Sahil Shah’s latest blog.