SAP for Chemicals Blogs
Explore blog posts by chemical industry leaders and SAP experts, showcasing transformative solutions powered by SAP. Contribute a blog post of your own.
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
former_member184909
Active Participant

With 2014 another challenging but successful year for SAP in Chemicals has passed and it is time to reflect some of the highlights and accomplishments.

Major Events:


At Global ManuChem Strategies 2014 (February 27/28, Berlin, Germany) SAP presented on how to manage manufacturing complexity with the latest technologies, featuring topics including mobile technology in manufacturing operations, the visual plant, real-time plant and asset performance management, and the future of manufacturing.

The Chemical Industry was well represented at the SAP Conference on Environment, Health and Safety Management (February 18-19, 2014, Houston, USA). The event was a big success with more than 120 customers, partners, and SAP experts gathered for two days of workshops, case studies and SAP keynotes focused on the EHS Line of Business professionals and executives. It was a key milestone in documenting customer success with our renovated EHSM solution portfolio.

Sapphire (June 2-5, 2014, Orlando/FL, USA) was another great success for the chemical team. Overall 244 customers were attending the main event and more than 40 customers and partners joined the Pre-Conference event. Strong focus was put on our innovative HANA and Cloud solutions and customer feedback was very positive, clearly evidenced by very strong pipeline impact and high social media activities (17 Sapphire Blogs with total of 3616 views and 149 Tweets with 17 retweets and 29 new followers).

Find all publically available content from Sapphire here.

The International SAP Conference for Chemicals (October 7-8, 2014, Amsterdam, Netherlands) with the overarching topic “Drive agility, performance and growth in the chemical industry with innovations from SAP” was another big success. The event gave clear evidence of the strong momentum of customers adopting SAP’s latest solution offerings built on the HANA platform and ready for cloud deployment. For more information read the Blogs on the SAP
Conference for Chemicals
and the PartnerEnablement Workshop Day.

Innovative Concepts:


SAP’s “Best Run Chemical Company” methodology has been taken to the next level and has established itself as a powerful vehicle in support of developing customer specific roadmaps on how to best adopt SAP’s solutions, following best in class companies in the chemical industry. A Whiteboard
Video
is available to describe the approach in detail.

More and more companies,  in particular small and midsize enterprises, are seriously considering SAP’s “Chemical Company in a Box” solution package since it is fully OPEX driven and provides added value via reduced costs, reduced risks and accelerated deployment (see maturity model). The solution is offered by partners on a subscription base, hosted in the cloud.

Solutions Highlights:

A chemical specific version of SAP CRM Cloud for Sales has been launched with a brand new user interface, native integration with ERP core functions and chemical specific add-ons like sample management provided by SAP partner Qnovate. The solution resonates very well with customers as it provides deep insight into accounts throughout the buying cycle (for more details watch the solutionvideo and the AkzoNobelReference Video).

Also, SAP’s Sales and Operations Planning solution had a strong momentum in 2014 and many industry leaders are now in the process of implementing it. In particular the fact that it integrates demand and supply with finance, that it allows rapid what if simulations and that it provides embedded social media collaboration makes it very appealing to customers.

In many future oriented and highly relevant areas to the chemical industry SAP laid the foundation for solution leadership.

A concept for a Precision Farming collaboration platform was developed jointly with SAP partner F4F with the purpose to simplify and orchestrate farmers’ collaboration with seed producers, crop protection chemical suppliers, fertilizer companies, equipment manufacturers, commodity traders and data brokers with the ultimate goal to drive improved yields and sustainably feed the world’s growing population (read the Blog and article in Automation World, see also the overview video).

In addition a chemical perspective on the Internet of Things was developed, targeting at CEOs with the purpose to show them how to successfully navigate the era of big data transforming the way business gets done (read the Blogs).

The Future of Work was recognized as another Thought Leadership topic, highly relevant to the chemical industry. SAP’s HR Cloud solutions are perfectly designed to master talent management, better understand strategic workforce needs and, at a tactical and operational level, better manage the entire people lifecycle - from hire to retire read the Blogs and article in ChemInfo).

Summary and Outlook:


Overall 2014 was an exciting year, characterized by a strong momentum behind market adoption of SAP’s HANA platform and cloud solutions. More and more customers recognize the potential of HANA and the Cloud, together with mobile and social media, to transform their business and IT landscape and
run their business smarter, simpler and faster.

This year’s Top 10 Blogs provide a good snapshot on discussions around those and also other topics which drive the chemical community.

Considering the latest trends in the chemical industry in 2015 SAPwill focus even more  on building and delivering customer value via industry-relevant applications, supported by the SAP HANA and Cloud platform, with businesses ever-more connected via SAP’s business networks.  In this
context see also the latest video on Energyand Natural Resources Industries - Thriving in the Face of Market Changes.

What were your favorite parts of 2014? What was most surprising about 2014? - Be sure to leave your thoughts and comments below.

We look forward to your input and contributions in 2015!

Labels in this area
Top kudoed authors