SAP on the Cloud

Hybrid Cloud Computing: Is it Organic or GMO (Generally Made-up Over-complication)?

October 1, 2012 by Greg Chase

It’s already hard enough to understand what people mean when they talk about cloud computing.  Now cloud computing vendors and IT industry analysts are talking about “hybrid” cloud computing.  Is this some new trend that’s happening organically in the market, or is it “Generally Made-up Over-complication” by pundits and vendors?

Clouds converge on New York in time for the Interop conference

[IMAGE SOURCE]

These vendors and analysts don’t even mean the same thing when using the term “hybrid.” They can be referring to at least one of three different concepts:

1)      IT infrastructures made up of on premise and cloud deployments.

2)      Multi-cloud deployments , especially multiple Software as a Service or platform as a service clouds.

3)      An IT strategy that makes use of multiple cloud deployment approaches.

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Retreading On Premise Systems to Leverage Cloud Technology – Part II of Turning Cloudy Chaos into an IT Strategy

September 20, 2012 by Greg Chase

This blog continues the discussion we started with Turning Cloudy Chaos into an IT Strategy Part I.  Here we examine how existing on premise systems of record such as SAP Business Suite can be brought into a cloud-centered IT strategy.

The vast majority of people reading SCN work for companies that already have existing enterprise on-premise systems up and running.  These companies are enjoying the business efficiencies from having their end-to-end business processes supported with comprehensive solutions such as SAP Business Suite.

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Retail – It is All About BIG DATA and Winning with the Cloud

September 19, 2012 by Anders Trolle-Schultz

After Cloud and SaaS, the hype is now surfacing around BIG DATA.  Moreover, as with Cloud and SaaS, many views and interpretations paint a very colorful picture – the big (J) question – how do we turn all of this into tools that can help businesses make the right decisions based upon facts and not assumptions?

In today’s world, the amount of data grows every second and we are starting to look at data in a much more “science-like” way.  Instead of the traditional data mining with our “own-created” data sets, we now reach out to the cloud to include new data sets and find new correlations, some unexpected, and use them to adjust our strategies.

No doubt, the possibilities are there and many businesses stand to gain from the new resources of data – one in particular, the retail business. (more…)

The Cloud by Any Other Name

September 19, 2012 by Alec Wagner

Since its inception, The Cloud (as a term) has been bandied about and attached (as a definition) to any number of concepts. But, has The Cloud been become the New Coke of its generation? Or, more accurately, has it become a generic term that once had the cachet of a brand-name (think Kleenex)? That’s the concept behind a question from Lori Janjigian at Focus, who asked: “Given how tired we all are of cloud-this and cloud-that, what new names would you use for marketing cloud-based services?”

So, what’s in a name? Is it that “The Cloud is a cloud is a cloud”? With all apologies to Gertrude Stein, the experts at focus.com seemed to feel that renaming The Cloud would be reinventing the wheel. The Cloud, indeed, is the cloud—and we’re stuck with the name. But there are some ways to stand out in a crowded market without having to come up with a new name. (more…)

Cloud Guidelines: It’s Just Good Policy

August 29, 2012 by Alec Wagner

Before The Cloud, IT spending and IT policy were tightly controlled. Now end-users can whip out a credit card and acquire IT services on the fly. First there was server sprawl. Then VM sprawl. Do we need policies to prevent cloud sprawl? Lori Janjigian, VP of client marketing at Focus, got to the heart of the matter when she asked: “Is there a need for a cloud policy? What should it cover? How broad should it be in terms of what (purchasing, consumption, security) and who (IT, employees, supply-chain partners, vendors)? Who should own it, and how should it be developed (top-down, bottom-up, crowdsourced)? How often should it be reviewed?”

It’s no surprise that the experts who responded were emphatically pro-policy. But their road maps for reigning in cloud sprawl took some intriguin (more…)

Turning Cloudy Chaos into an IT Strategy Part I

August 23, 2012 by Greg Chase

Yep, cloud computing is here. In fact, the cloud is probably all over the place if your company is like many.

Now, your CEO sends you an email saying, “I need you to give a presentation to the board about our corporate strategy for moving to the cloud.” You think, “Uhh, Ma’am, we’re kind of already in the cloud. I guess we need a strategy now.”Your CFO is notes a significant rise in employee expense claims for Amazon, “Wow, they sure are reading a lot of books!” Each department head has their favorite software as a service application. You have no idea what server the HR’s department’s new custom employee vacation request application is running on. Already, the marketing department is complaining about out of synch customer data again after you cleaned up the on premise CRM system last year.

Get in front of the cloud mob and turn it into a
parade. [PHOTO SOURCE]

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CRM is getting social and eco-system ready… in the cloud – June release is available

July 8, 2012 by Sven Denecken

With the General availability of SAP Customer OnDemand June 2012 release, there are massive enhancements that are available now – all based on customer and partner co-innovation and design-thinking. What an amazing acceleration of development and applying our new “every quarter a release”  approach we saw fast iterations on existing scope and additional areas covered.

Thanks to all the customers and partners that supported us, and kudos to the team!

The  Customer OnDemand team confirmed Friday that the SAP Customer OnDemand June 2012 release is generally available! As of this release, we have the following solutions available:

•  SAP Sales OnDemand
•  SAP Sales OnDemand, cloud integration option (to SAP ERP and SAP CRM)
•  SAP Social Customer Engagement OnDemand
•  SAP Social Media Analytics by Netbase
•  SAP Cloud Developer Studio

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The Value in Tightly Managing Your Subsidiary Ecosystem

June 26, 2012 by Michael Morel

Michael Morel, Senior Director, Solutions Marketing, SAP

I am passionate about the need for large enterprises to develop structured approaches to managing their subsidiary ecosystems.  I wrote an article a while back that talked about some of the business benefits possible.  Here is a quick summary:

Large enterprises need to increase the velocity and efficiency of their order-to-cash cycle within their subsidiary network, which can each reach a count in excess of 1,000 subsidiaries for Fortune 500 companies. These subsidiaries include international and local sales and distribution offices, small operating divisions, customer service units, and joint ventures. While most large manufacturing enterprises have implemented ERP systems at corporate and larger divisions/operations, a vast majority of subsidiaries in these companies still use manual or legacy systems to manage their operations.  These manual or legacy systems cause various business processes in their order-to-cash cycle to be inefficient and error prone. By improving the metrics in the entire order-to-cash cycle across the subsidiaries, these organizations can free up valuable cash that can be used to fund growth. Such improvements come from: (more…)

What to Look for in a Cloud-Based Solution for 2-tier ERP

June 18, 2012 by Michael Morel

In addition to meeting the functional needs of a subsidiary, a Cloud-based solution for 2-tier ERP should meet four key requirements:

• Integration with Corporate ERP system: A subsidiary system must integrate with the HQ ERP system in order to better coordinate and manage activities between them; to implement a shared corporate services model; to provide HQ visibility into its operational metrics and regulatory compliance; and for financial consolidation.  Key integration scenarios include:
  • Data Exchange to support financial consolidation.
  • Process integration to support scenarios such as a subsidiary buying from (or selling to) headquarters.
  • Master Data integration to enable maintaining and synchronizing key master data, such as customer and product information among the corporate and subsidiary systems
  • Analytics integration to enable HQ to compare performance across subsidiaries
  • IT Management integration to reduce the pressure on subsidiary IT resources by distributing subsidiary incidents to corporate IT

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Two-tier ERP: The Right Choice for Large Enterprise Subsidiaries

June 7, 2012 by Michael Morel

As companies of all sizes expand their businesses to grow faster and achieve strategic advantages in their industry, they are increasing their investments across the globe to take advantage of growth opportunities. They are also acquiring smaller companies to gain access to new technologies, products or markets. Such activities increase the number of subsidiaries within their corporate hierarchy – international and local sales/distribution offices, small operating divisions, emerging businesses, planned divestitures, customer service units and joint ventures.

Along with increased global investment comes an increased need for application solutions that can help support and manage this expanding subsidiary ecosystem.  The IT solutions at these subsidiaries have to:

• Support the current business requirements in an efficient manner, while implementing best practices and standards
• Ensure flexibility to adapt to the changing market conditions
• Be scalable to support future growth
• Provide operational visibility and compliance transparency to the Headquarters (HQ)
• Support intra-company transactions such as buying and selling between corporate/subsidiaries
• Leverage shared services such as centralized purchasing
• Supply data to corporate for financial consolidation and reporting

Two-tier ERP

Many companies are finding that it does not make business sense to implement the HQ ERP system at all their subsidiaries because of many reasons – a) IT resources and budget available at the subsidiary are significantly less than what it would take to deploy and support a corporate ERP system at small subsidiaries b) As new subsidiaries are added, the window of time required for implementation is lot less than what a HQ ERP system would take c) The subsidiaries need systems to drive standards adoption, while the HQ systems are designed to support complex business scenarios and one-off customization. As a result of these conflicting requirements, many companies are turning to a different ERP system for their subsidiaries. When HQ and its subsidiaries have different ERP systems by choice, it is called a two-tier ERP model.

An increasing number of SAP’s Fortune 1000 customers are choosing a two-tier ERP model and selecting cloud-based SAP Business ByDesign as their subsidiary system.  The SAP Business ByDesign is a comprehensive and functionally rich system, but is also well integrated with the HQ SAP ERP system. So it meets both the subsidiaries’ and HQ’s functional requirements listed above.  In addition, it is less expensive, quick to deploy, faster to adopt, easier to change and simpler to manage. SAFECHEM, a subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company, needed to start its North America operations with very limited time and funds. Installing the parent company’s existing SAP ERP software would have been time consuming and costly. SAFECHEM opted for a two-tier ERP model and selected SAP Business ByDesign.  “The solution is one we feel we can successfully deploy to other future subsidiary businesses”, said Dennis Stahl, Financial Systems Architect, Dow Chemical Company.

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Mike Morel is Senior Director of Marketing at SAP and is responsible for marketing the SAP Business ByDesign solution.