I. What is Duet by the way?
Duet is a jointly developed software solution developed by Microsoft and SAP keeping information worker in mind that is YOU.
Duet enables information workers to easily and quickly interact with SAP business processes and data using familiar Microsoft office environment. Duet simplifies business process transparency without compromising security and compliance.
Duet is an innovative solution that allows decision makers in an organization to access SAP data and processes using Microsoft applications driving an increase in customer satisfaction.
Duet also sets up the ground for repeatable framework and provides a solid foundation that will allow the company to extend its benefits to other core business processes within the organization.
Organizations can quickly realize return on investment as Duet is all about reusing the IT infrastructure and business processes and clients can be productive with Duet from day one.
Duet is designed to take advantage of the open, Web services–based enterprise services architecture of the SAP NetWeaver platform.The services-based architecture of Duet allows direct calls from the client to the Web services and makes Duet an out of a box SOA solution. II. OK but What business issues Duet addresses?
Issue 1 – Budget Monitoring
Limited budget transparency for managers.
Inaccurate budget posting.
Inability for managers to correct budget variances and postings.
Budget overruns.
Central overhead to support managers with budget controlling.
Issue 2 – Demand Planning
Demand data only visible to limited group.
Need for accurate and real time demand information to reduce stock out
Centralized demand planning too far removed from real customer demand.
Time wasted through manual updates and reconciliation of Excel.
Redundant, out-of-date data.
Poor customer satisfaction.
Issue 3 – Sales Management
Long sales cycle and high cost per sale.
Lack of visibility into customer account activity.
Lack of strong customer relationships.
Sustaining a motivated, high performing sales force.
Low levels of repeat sales and customer satisfaction.
Slow pipeline conversion.
Issue 4 – Leave Management
Manual process to initiate leave.
Limited process guidance for employee and managers.
Limited insight on leave policies and approvals.
Central HR overhead to support leave requests.
Increased processing time.
Issue 5 – Reporting and Analytics
Inability to make informed, data-driven decisions.
Lack of easy access to corporate information.
In-accurate, out of date information.
Sub-optimal resource allocation.
incorrect reporting and compliance failure.
poor quality decision making.
III. So, What are the benefits of Duet to my organization?
Duet creates tremendous value for both end users and IT organizations.Increased data accuracy and reduced redundancy.Increase compliance with corporate policies.Improved decision making.greater IT efficiency through the use of service-oriented processes.Leverages the customer’s existing investment in user role management in the SAP ERP system.Makes business processes and SAP data transparent to the information workers.Reuse of IT infrastructure and last but not least sustained financial benefits. IV. Can you give me an example of real life scenario? Yes, stay tuned
In part II we will take a look at the demand planning scenario using Duet and how it enables planners in the Organization to access planning data from SCM system, perform the planning when offline and upload the data back into the SCM system. 
