SAPPHIRE Orlando's just a few weeks away and the countdown has begun in earnest. The US leg of SAP's premier showcase event for customers traditionally kicks off the event series, quickly followed by an EMEA fixture, to be held this year in Berlin. Both events generally prove to be hot tickets and attract exhibitors and speakers from the entire spectrum of IT vendors and service providers, eager to show their wares and demonstrate their leading-edge solutions to the most important and influential customers and prospects on the planet.
However, behind all the razzmatazz and sales talk, scores of system architects, developers, and designers form the backbone of the offerings that are eventually shortlisted for the various technology beauty pageants at the SAPPHIRE conference.
One such team of professionals that spends endless hours behind the scenes in the distinctly non-glamorous world of software laboratories is SAP's Industry Business Unit (IBU) Chemicals. The driving force behind SAP for Chemicals, IBU Chemicals undertakes the painstaking and meticulous tasks involved in product requirements-gathering, specification, design, validation, and testing. The process itself is generally established using an iterative approach, so many of the steps are subject to rework and re-evaluation frequently. Of course this leads to dynamic enhancements and continuous improvement, but remains demanding and goes more or less unseen at events such as the upcoming SAPPHIRE show. On top of this, the IBU remains one of the key contributors to SAPPHIRE, summarizing developments in digestable presentations and supporting these overviews with detailed demo scenarios, to contextualize the solutions for their primary audience - the chemical industry.
To uncover some recent developments and also shed light in a kind of sneak-preview before this year's SAPPHIRE season, I persuaded IBU Chemicals program managers to divulge a little key information about their focus topics for this year's customer events. As the SAPPHIRE countdown continues, we'll gather additional information and flesh out many of the topics on a more detailed level. Until then, here are some of the goodies in store from our colleagues in IBU Chemicals:
REACH Compliance:
- The soon-to-be-released solution, jointly developed by SAP AG and TechniData AG to address customer requirements in light of recent EU legislation, covering registration, evaluation, and authorization of chemicals, more commonly referenced under the less tongue-challenging acronym REACH.
Energy Management:
- Activities relating to energy management at a corporate or enterprise level
Master Data Management (MDM) in Chemicals:
- To harmonize and support global supply chains (customer presentations)
Industry Value Network:
- The Industry Value Network (IVN) community for the chemical industry is one of the great success stories of the partner ecosystem initiative in recent years. SAP has designed a network to bring together leading-edge software vendors, technology vendors, systems integrators, SAP, and customers to focus on key priority business needs and customer requirements in the chemical industry.
Responsive Supply Networks for Chemicals:
- Globalization of the chemical industry is changing the traditional supply chain. Shifting demand patterns, mergers and acquisitions, and outsourced manufacturing all cause uncertainty and complexity. Learn how new solutions for the chemical industry can help you address these issues.
- Integrated business planning with supply chain management, supply network collaboration, demand planning with Duet™, and inventory optimization
- Manage multiple types of transportation including railcar management, ocean carrier booking, truck planning, and warehouse management
