Investors voted with their money at the end of 2012, sending almost €100bn in private funds back into the Eurozone’s periphery, Financial Times reported this week. This follows encouragement by the European Central Bank to reinvest in the region, and has reassured policy makers that their crisis is over.
But 2012 also ended with a decline in lending to Eurozone businesses and consumers, according to The Wall Street Journal this week. Signs like this conflicting with ever more indications that the financial sector is healing have businesses around the globe streamlining their operations.
In-memory technology is one way for companies to get the most out of every dollar, euro or rand they spend. Analyzing streams of Big Data in milliseconds -- as opposed to hours or even days -- is a tremendous advantage for organizations of all sizes.
Papers In Order
SAP HANA’s in-memory technology provides immediate results and business benefits for the mid-sized Koehler Paper Group. Digital media has decreased demand for paper, causing overcapacity across the industry, so the Oberkirch, Germany-based paper manufacturer uses HANA to analyze solid facts, such as real-time raw material prices and exchange rates.
When margins are as tight as they are in the paper industry, even tiny factors are important to reaching business objectives.
“SAP HANA enables our management to achieve their business goals,” Koehler’s Karl Schindler, Head of IT, told SAP TV. “In the future, we’re planning to introduce mobile reporting ... so that board members, executives and salespeople have all business data available at any time no matter where they are in the world.”
More than 100 Koehler employees work with HANA, analyzing up to 14 million sets of data in seconds. HANA allows queries of any kind by anyone, from the CEO to the newest hire, providing new insights, which in turn let Koehler react to information -- and grow its business -- faster than before.
That’s Service!
Staying ahead of the competition means better decision-making in the paper industry. But providing first-class service to customers is what differentiates competitors in the communications industry.
Lack of infrastructure makes much of Africa a tough place to run many types of business, but mid-sized Nashua Communications’ customers demand topnotch service throughout the continent. So the Johannesburg South Africa-based enterprise network and communication solutions provider relies on SAP Business One analytics powered by HANA to meet those needs.
“We have a lot of very, very stringent service-level agreements with some of our customers, meaning that we have to respond to service calls within a very short space of time.” Nashua CIO Darren de Vries told SAP TV. “Implementation of SAP HANA has definitely reduced the overhead required from IT to deliver certain services to our user base.”
Nashua is also using HANA to steadily increase its ability to react lightning-fast to consumer demands, allowing the company to attract more business from across South Africa.
Growing Fonder
HANA lets people access information using tools they’re already comfortable with. As a result, employees have the confidence to generate their own reporting content faster than before -- without having to rely on their IT department to generate reports for them.
So many tools and capabilities on a single platform have convinced employees at both Koehler and Nashua that SAP HANA will help their businesses grow.
Related Media:
“Euro periphery draws back €100bn” in Financial Times
“Euro-Zone Credit Sluggish Despite Upbeat Sentiment” in The Wall Street Journal
“At the Speed of Light” on SAP TV
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