SAP

PAC US, Peter Russo - Managing Director

Generally overlooked amidst all the ballyhoo at Sapphire about HANA in-memory database (not to mention social software, mobility, analytics and the rest) was an intriguing, if not unexpected, database announcement: that SAP ERP would soon be available running on Sybase's ASE relational database. The combination is being piloted at 'selected customers' right now and will be generally available later in 2011.

Describing Sybase ASE as "an integral part of the SAP solution stack," SAP said that the tight integration between SAP and Sybase means that customers will be able to engage with a single partner and that SAP will provide "attractive licensing and maintenance terms and conditions."

This is clearly a shot at increasing SAP's independence from Oracle in particular - a co-opetitor if ever there was one (and a very fierce one, to boot).

There is an irony in this: if SAP hadn't written R/3 to require Oracle's 'row-level locking' feature some 20 years ago, then Sybase could well have been the default choice for running SAP today. At the time, Sybase was in the ascendant in many fields - notably financial services - thanks to features like its performance-enhancing "stored procedures." But it just couldn't run R/3, and was loth to change its product for SAP - at the time still largely unknown outside of Germany.

Today, all serious relational databases do row-level locking (and stored procedures). But even with credible alternatives from IBM and Microsoft, Oracle has remained the dominant platform, supporting well over half all SAP installations, thanks to its unmatched scalability and performance to this point. But now, buying from a single vendor will have its attraction for some SAP customers who are willing to a Sybase offering as part of SAP. This has the potential to erode Oracle's share - especially in sectors like banking who are looking to deploy SAP and who already use ASE on mission-critical systems. At the least, it's an intriguing alternative for CIOs and architects to consider, if only to help push down the prices when negotiating a new deal with Oracle.

About the author:

Peter has over 10 years of experience in the SITS industry. He joined Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC) in 2001. He serves as the managing director of PAC's U.S. operations and its partners in Latin America. Peter is also the founder of PAC's global SAP & Oracle Services research teams programs.

On the consulting side, he is involved in U.S. and global projects for software suppliers pertaining to ecosystem assessment, competitive benchmarking, go-to-market strategy in emerging industries, and analysis, planning, and execution of localized partnership strategies.

Peter is often quoted in both IT news and major publications for his views on the application software market. He is also a frequent speaker at IT conferences and PAC Webinars.

Posted by Peter Russo at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

PAC US, Peter Russo - Managing Director

Following three days packed with new announcements, a lot of customer activities, and of course, Sting!, the first leg of SAP Sapphire closes until November, when Sapphire Europe (in Madrid, Spain) and Sapphire Asia (in Beijing, China) begin!

While the first two days of the event focused much more on what SAP is doing today (...or very soon!) with partners and customers, particularly around the cloud, mobility and analytics, the final day of SAP Sapphire focused much more on the long-term. And no one was surprised to see that Hasso Plattner and Vishal Sikka's keynote focuses were on HANA, SAP's massive technology push towards in-memory computing. While much of HANA is focused on its analytical capabilities, SAP made an effort to highlight real-world uses within business applications currently being leveraged by traditional first-movers such as Colgate-Palmolive and Nestle. One great example in the retail space coming in the future will be for merchandise assortment planning, where with the underlying HANA technology, SAP users will be able to perceive and adapt to local consumer dynamics more quickly, giving them a chance to beat the competition to market! In the Colgate-Palmolive example, the company can now analyze its sales trends across 200 countries, by retail location and SKU, in order to more actively adapt to consumer trends.

HANA is still a longer-term SAP technology to follow, it is certainly clear at the end of this year's conference that there are no shortages of new solutions or paths for SAP customers to take today in order to move forward and to gain competitive advantages.

While the last two years may have been ruled by instability and fear, I think anyone who attended Sapphire 2011 is leaving with an even more positive view of the market coming out... since it is one thing to have a brightening outlook yourself, but when seeing all of your peers actively investing in their business, the impetus to move forward becomes even greater. While it always helps to continue to invest in your core SAP ERP; between analytics, mobility and new extensions in the cloud, being an SAP customer today is a great place to be!

About the author:

Peter has over 10 years of experience in the SITS industry. He joined Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC) in 2001. He serves as the managing director of PAC's U.S. operations and its partners in Latin America. Peter is also the founder of PAC's global SAP & Oracle Services research teams programs.

On the consulting side, he is involved in U.S. and global projects for software suppliers pertaining to ecosystem assessment, competitive benchmarking, go-to-market strategy in emerging industries, and analysis, planning, and execution of localized partnership strategies.

Peter is often quoted in both IT news and major publications for his views on the application software market. He is also a frequent speaker at IT conferences and PAC Webinars.

Posted by Peter Russo at 7:07 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

PAC US, Peter Russo - Managing Director

Finally on Tuesday, co-CEO's Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe gave their renewed visions of the market, and how customers can invest for growth through SAP's rapidly broadening portfolio of solutions.

The primary focuses continued to follow SAP's new strategy first introduced at last year's event: "on-premise, on-demand and on-device," however this year, the company was prepared to show the fruits of its developments.

Within on-premise, this continues to center around the extension of SAP's industry solutions, particularly in industries such as retail, financial services and healthcare. For the latter, the company introduced one of its most consumer-oriented applications to date, with e-Care, which is essentially a mobile, subset of SAP CRM functionality, applied to holistic patient care. Under this scenario, the patient controls their own information, allowing access to both payers and providers, in order to improve the level and quality of patient care. In the retail sector, the company also gave a glimpse into its next generation of merchandise assortment planning, leveraging Hana technology, to perceive and correct a retailer's assortment more rapidly. All very powerful technologies, but what is clear is that SAP is emphasizing the business use over the underlying technology!

Within the On-Demand and On-Device portion of SAP's world, what is perhaps most exciting for partners and customer alike, are the opening of the SDK's for both the Sybase Unwired mobile platform, as well as the SAP Business ByDesign. This will allow both customers and partners to begin extending SAP solutions to mobile and to new SaaS solutions in the future. Also tied to this was the unveiling of a new SAP Store, which already houses 40 mobile solutions developed by SAP. While many have pointed to the similarity of the "xApp" concept to the new SAP Store, the former, which failed to gain mass appeal, the ubiquitous use of smart phones and tablets, along with the much stronger Business Objects BI solutions of SAP than before, may help to create a successful new channel and marketplace for SAP applications.

Finally, SAP added a new ambition, which is to offer more "people-centric applications." As mentioned in the new e-Care solution, SAP is now offering solutions that consumer can actively touch and manage, and people-centric solutions go along this line, but are within the enterprise. While SAP's Streamwork collaboration was a first small foray into this space of "social applications," the release of SAP Sales OnDemand, which is based on social interaction in the context of how sales people do there job, will be a major step for SAP in this direction. Additionally, SAP is placing a lot of importance on people-centric applications that are not only social, but also mobile, analytical and integrated to core business processes ... essentially tying together the power of SAP's new portfolio!

About the author:

Peter has over 10 years of experience in the SITS industry. He joined Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC) in 2001. He serves as the managing director of PAC's U.S. operations and its partners in Latin America. Peter is also the founder of PAC's global SAP & Oracle Services research teams programs.

On the consulting side, he is involved in U.S. and global projects for software suppliers pertaining to ecosystem assessment, competitive benchmarking, go-to-market strategy in emerging industries, and analysis, planning, and execution of localized partnership strategies.

Peter is often quoted in both IT news and major publications for his views on the application software market. He is also a frequent speaker at IT conferences and PAC Webinars.

Posted by Peter Russo at 5:17 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Companies that deal with multiple products and prices and complicated price books often face the pangs of not having a comprehensive decision making modeling tool that helps in alleviating the price-leakage, accountability and traceability.

SAP business rules framework can be effectively utilized to provide a mechanism that helps in mitigating these challenges.

Problem statement: 
Handling complicated constrained based pricing rules that are available only in paper price books.
 
Challenges:
  - Practicality of translating requirements into logical functions
  - Complexity of capturing, implementing, and maintaining the rules logic
  - Transparency of the logic between interacting systems

Key Guiding Principles:
  - Ability to abstract the rules from the code to provide ease of use
  - Ability to model various rules and constraints contained within pricing agreements (like   contracts, price-books etc).
  - Ability to apply status based rules for pricing
  - Ability to be able to define a catalog of services/products
  - Provisioning of a modeling tool kit that can be used by a pricing analyst to efficiently  develop the rules necessary to model a price-book / contract.
  - Ability to propose up-selling products/services.

In the subsequent blog, I will throw light on the architecture and design elements that meet above challenges.

Posted by Amit Gupta at 9:46 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

PAC US, Peter Russo - Managing Director

SAP's Sapphire NOW conference kicked off on Monday, and beyond the string of announcements, keynotes and numerous discussions, the energy of the show was clearly upbeat, with nearly 60,000 attendees, and a lot of customer and partner activity particularly on the expo floor. This is a far cry from just two years ago where the feeling was downright depressing, following the near global economic collapse.

What is perhaps most uplifting is what everyone is speaking about in 2011, from a technology stand-point. Compared to 2009 where the "SOA push" continued from SAP and many others, only to fall on deaf ears of customers looking for clear business uses, this year, customers are clearly excited about the possibilities related to mobility, new SaaS solutions, as well as analytics (including Business Objects today, and more forward looking, the promise of Hana). What is also clear is that most companies have come out of the economic downturn, much leaner, smarter and ready to adopt new technologies to create competitive advantages, gain new efficiencies, or to enter new markets.

Today, which as the first day of Sapphire is typically the lighter day for big announcements, SAP began to make it official that SAP Business ByDesign is evolving to also address the large enterprise. Now reportedly with 500 customers, an SDK that is opening to partners (and soon to customers), along with a new "SAP Store" (think iTunes for SAP SaaS solutions), SAP Business ByDesign is looking ready for the major leagues. The first uses for ByDesign for large enterprises will be to support smaller locations or subsidiaries. But since the new SaaS solutions for the large enterprises, such as the recently unveiled Sales OnDemand, is based on the ByDesign platform, it is not difficult to see the solution becoming part of a large enterprise customer's "hybrid" landscape in the future.

Also today, SAP unveiled a new set of upgraded enterprise performance management (EPM) solutions that have pulled together functionality from several earlier acquisitions, such as Pilot Software, Outlooksoft, Cartesis, and ALG, in order to bring EPM to the non-finance users within organizations. The solutions offer a unified UI and the ability for users from supply chain, manufacturing, sales and support lines of business to measure and contribute to meeting an organization's goals.

Tomorrow, it is expected that SAP will unveil its "Unwired" Sybase mobility platform, along with 19 mobile applications to ramp-up the market in areas such as sales, finance, procurement and HR. While this is a start, it will also be interesting how partners and customers can begin leverage the new platform for custom mobility applications.

About the author:

Peter has over 10 years of experience in the SITS industry. He joined Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC) in 2001. He serves as the managing director of PAC's U.S. operations and its partners in Latin America. Peter is also the founder of PAC's global SAP & Oracle Services research teams programs.

On the consulting side, he is involved in U.S. and global projects for software suppliers pertaining to ecosystem assessment, competitive benchmarking, go-to-market strategy in emerging industries, and analysis, planning, and execution of localized partnership strategies.

Peter is often quoted in both IT news and major publications for his views on the application software market. He is also a frequent speaker at IT conferences and PAC Webinars.

He will continue sharing his experiences around SAPPHIRE NOW live from the event. Follow his blogs at http://www.infosysblogs.com/sap/

Posted by Peter Russo at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Enterprise today are targeting mobile workers and field operations for new revenue opportunities and cost efficiencies. These employees, which include field technicians, service specialists, inspectors, and supply personnel, manage a sizeable amount of mission-critical data and represent the front line of interaction with enterprise assets and customers.  However, the application of technology to the highly-mobile field force has proven to be a challenge, especially in complex environments. Large-scale, heterogeneous enterprise often presents a unique set of challenges -   Multiple back-end data sources; need to manage structured as well unstructured data; multiple devices having multiple form factors and operating systems, security, encrption......etc....list goes on......please join us to discuss this topic in ASUG session " Driving greated ROI through Mobility" on 18th May at 1.30pm in Orlando (Content Area: Mobile, Solution Manager)

Posted by Ashish Tewary at 6:58 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Peter Russo - Managing Director, PAC US

In last week's blog post I remarked that key trends for SAP, which I expect to see much of at SAPPHIRE 2011, included mobility and Software as a Service. At the intersection of these two trends is one of today's hottest topics of all: collaboration, or "social" software.

SAP's position in social is not very clear at the moment, and I'd advise it to use SAPPIRE 2011 to rectify that. Indeed I'd be pleased to see it use the event to make some new announcements. It has a stake in the ground with StreamWork, a product that overlaps with, but doesn't directly compete with, products like Huddle, SharePoint, IBM Connections and Salesforce Chatter.

But StreamWork is NOT really a Chatter equivalent as many have idly supposed - it's a collaborative decision-making tool currently best applied to specific projects or situational resolutions. StreamWork is nowhere near being applied across the Business Suite as a collaboration layer, for example. I personally don't think that's the best StreamWork use case anyhow.

SAP also has the social / collaboration layers within SAP Sales OnDemand: this is a CRM (specifically, a "Sales Force Automation") product that was designed from the outset with a social sensibility and an integrated activity stream. It has an alliance (and an investment in) LinkedIn.

One of the current drawbacks of social business solutions is that, while it's generally agreed that better collaboration in (and across) companies is a great thing, there are just so many tools and techniques out there. And, they're developing fast, as ideas from consumer IT (like Facebook and Twitter) are used to enhance their capability and attractiveness. SAP's multi-faceted approach isn't helping. Indeed the clarity of direction of - in particular - Chatter might send potential buyers in a different direction.

So for buyers, a stronger steer from SAP as to which tools to take, where they're heading, and how to implement them, is something that will be very welcome. These may be from SAP or from its partners. Users would love to enhance quality of customer service or efficiency and effectiveness in project planning, for instance. But too many collaboration and KM projects have fallen by the wayside over the years, due to reluctance or indifference from the potential users, who find them too hard to use or of too-limited benefit. The right tools with the right context and processes are critical to their success.

About the author:

Peter has over 10 years of experience in the SITS industry. He joined Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC) in 2001. He serves as the managing director of PAC's U.S. operations and its partners in Latin America. Peter is also the founder of PAC's global SAP & Oracle Services research teams programs.

On the consulting side, he is involved in U.S. and global projects for software suppliers pertaining to ecosystem assessment, competitive benchmarking, go-to-market strategy in emerging industries, and analysis, planning, and execution of localized partnership strategies.

Peter is often quoted in both IT news and major publications for his views on the application software market. He is also a frequent speaker at IT conferences and PAC Webinars.

He will blog on SAP Market and give his opinions around SAPPHIRE NOW live from the event. Follow his blogs at http://www.infosysblogs.com/sap/

Posted by Peter Russo at 7:02 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

The SAP proposition to tomorrow's enterprise

SAP is a unique enabler of the trade of commerce.  SAP in its mission to help the world run better has a portfolio of transformative technologies that can work as enablers in radically improving the top  and bottom lines of any enterprise.  SAP's application strategy is oriented towards delivering applications to customers around the following platforms-

·         On Premise

·         On Demand

·         On Device

The core idea is to deliver new innovations without too much disruption and liberate the enterprise information to a wider set of platforms and a larger set of users  - ex: SAP has developed an "ABAP -Add on" for mobile, Duet enterprise and On demand solution.  It is SAP's belief that these "timeless software" will seamlessly merge into the existing enterprise landscape without disruption.

We see this as an opportunity for enterprises to bring in new thinking and technological transformation into existing ecosystems so that these enterprises can emerge stronger out of the downturn, and go well built into the next generation of business changes in the form of -

·         Increasing organization competitiveness by providing the ability related to instant analysis of data, predictive analytics, and the rapid turnaround of business decision making.  

·         Simplifying the consumption of software for improved ROI and lowering the TCO of IT operations by providing ability to access system and information from cloud

·         Unleashing the enterprise  information to today's mobile workforce improving productivity , increasing operations effectiveness and making business continuity 24x7 a real possibility

SAP has provided the means to achieve these objectives and now the challenge is how to integrate these transformative technologies within organization's existing landscape without causing much disruption. Let's take the case of mobility. Enterprise will find multiple ways to integrate mobility into their business and IT organizations-

1.       Starting with something out of box, like mobile workflow and sales applications on the Sybase Unwired Platform

2.       Second approach can be using Sybase Afaria mobile device management solution to help enterprise's IT organizations manage the growing multitude of employee devices.

3.       Third possibility is building low footprint and low cost micro app that work in online mode. Typical use cases are approval related - Approval of Purchase Orders, shopping cart, expense report etc. using Blackberry or iPhone handhelds. The application connects to required module of SAP ECC backend via the web browser of Blackberry or iPhone.

4.       Enterprise can also mobile-enable their unique business processes for it to work in online (connected) and offline (disconnected) mode. Example can be reporting of incidents that will let field personnel to record the incident using a mobile device. Then, GPS functionality automatically picks up the location of the place where the incident occurred. The mobile application then routes all that data, via a pre-designed workflow, directly to the incident management unit, notifying them of the potential incident. What would have taken days to act on now happens in seconds -- in real time.

Posted by Ashish Tewary at 6:13 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

In some of my previous blogs I have been trying to bring to fore some of pertinent questions and choices that our clients are facing in the Business Objects-BI space, there also certain similar dilemma that they are facing with certain choices in the Business Objects Enterprise-Information Management (EIM) area. One of the many questions  that we  face on a regular basis from our client is on whether to use the Business Objects-Data Federator(BO-DF) in a given scenario and the specific advantages of  the tool as such.

Before we try and answer the question let us get an understanding of what data federation is all about. Data federation is a technique by which data is integrated across multiple systems without physically moving the data from the various sources into a central repository. In other words it is an alternative to an ETL based data integration. Using a federation tool  in the market you can create a virtual data warehouse or a data mart without having to spend a large investment in consolidating the data in one single physical location. Business Objects offers is Data Federator ( DF) to carry out such functions. We are also seeing many of our clients sending us queries on the use case of the tool and the utility. While there are certain distinct advantages that federation based approach offers especially in terms of lowering investments on infrastructure and development efforts it also comes  with its share of challenges like:

•   scalability and performance  in view of large data volumes
• data historization
•  guaranteeing data availability if any one of the source systems are down

Posted by Somnath Mukherjee at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

By
Naresh Ramamurti
Practice Leader - SAP RETAIL

The perception of value lies in the imagination of those who chose to perceive it. The reality of price, unfortunately, is there for everyone to see - on the package!
Over the last few years, in and out of the greatest recession of my time, the Consumer Package Goods (CPG) industry has been plagued with an unprecedented variety of challenges. Rising commodity prices, a fundamental change in US consumer behavior, intense competition from private labels, and the insatiable demands of increasingly powerful Retailers, have all haunted the CPG ecosystem with unfailing persistence. And yet, the cream of the CPG crop has survived, and survived in style! In doing so, the CPG leaders have gone back to the basics - focusing on select leading practices and executing with intense discipline.

Not the least among these leading practices is the renewed focus and emphasis on the "art" of Trade Promotion Management (TPM) - which incidentally happens to be one of the largest cost centers for CPG, occupying anywhere between 10 and 30% of gross sales. A recent survey conducted by the Grocery Manufacturer Association of North America revealed that CPG companies that invested and executed on their TPM strategies achieved higher market share and operating margins, capturing significant sales lift from promotional price reductions.
The concept is fairly straightforward - you "trade" with your Retailers - often giving the Retailer a discount on the buying price to prominently display your products and to advertise your incentives to the consumer. The challenge in delivering value from this concept stems from the need for integrated, technology driven business execution, incorporating all aspects of the TPM ecosystem - from planning, to portfolio development, funds allocation, field sales management, order management, claims management and some. More often than not, companies tend to take a piece meal, fragmented approach to this value chain, resulting in a missed opportunity, an incorrect claim, or worse yet a promotion that does not result in an increase in sales.
SAP offers a fantastic array of solutions in the Trade Promotions space. Fully integrated with the core ERP for financials, and with the CRM and SCM applications, SAP TPM has helped several CPG companies enhance demand and supply planning. Important as it is to run a Promotion, managing and measuring the "Operational Efficiencies" and "Promotional Effectiveness" are equally imperative to eliminating waste, improving cost and increasing brand presence and profits. With recent advances in analytics and business intelligence, SAP is uniquely positioned to help deliver value from TPM investments.
As we emerge from the recession, the challenges will continue to exist. Focusing on leading strategies and effectively managing Trade Promotion initiatives can help CPG companies dramatically improve odds for profitability. Infosys has partnered with some of the world's largest and most successful CPG organizations in their SAP and TPM initiatives. Infosys is a Sapphire level sponsor of the upcoming SAPPHIRE NOW at Orlando. To learn more about how Infosys can help you overcome the challenges in today's complex marketplace, please visit our booth @ Sapphire. For more details on our sessions and forums, please visit http://www.infosys.com/SAP/news-events/Pages/sapphire-orlando-11.aspx 

About Naresh: Naresh has over 17 years of experience in Information Technology and Consulting. His primary area of focus has been on helping customers to better manage their IT investments to meet their business objectives. Naresh has an established track record of incubating centers of excellence - focusing on ERP (SAP and Oracle) in the Retail, CPG and Financial Services industries, in North America, China and Australia.
Prior to Infosys, Naresh was Senior Principal with Oracle Consulting where he spent 9 years. He has a Bachelor's degree in Engineering and a post graduate degree in Computer Science from the University of Illinois.

Posted by Guest Blogger at 7:39 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

By
Naresh Ramamurti
Practice Leader - SAP RETAIL

Customer Centricity and Cross-Channel shopping have been the two greatest trends in RETAIL since 2010. With Apple and Google taking the world's number 1 and 2 spots for global brands this year, these trends have taken a whole new meaning. On the foundation of tomorrow's mobile applications, customers have dynamited the way they interact with retailers - redefining and rewriting the shopper experience from product to point of sale. While organizations around the world continue to grapple with the challenges of reducing their cost of business, Retailers have an exceptional opportunity to take control of the shopping experience - from embracing social networks to crunching core analytics in real time.

 Less than a year ago, business intelligence in RETAIL was largely confined to the two dimensional analysis of operational and strategic data - from various sources - more often than not, "long after" the event trigger had fired. Given the velocity with which customers have taken to mobility, and the resulting cross-channel shopping patterns, the return on investment in traditional predictive analytics, while still significant, is no longer sufficient.

Imagine yourself in the intelligence cockpit of a fashion apparel manufacturer and retailer - here's a sampling of what you might expect on any given Sunday

-             One of your competitors has dropped prices on your best-selling product by a ridiculous percentage (how'd they do that, you wonder!)

-             A barrage of posts (is that what they call them?), about your brand have popped up on Facebook in the last half hour

-             Another announcement of increasing fuel prices (not again!) will invariably impact your cost of doing business -

-             A valuable customer just binged into your marquee website (come in spinner!)

On the face of it, these appear to be disparate, disconnected events - but

analyzing this information, and more importantly, analyzing it in "real time" can

give Retailers an opportunity to make better decisions faster - based on

instant intuitive access to relevant information.

Clearly, HANA appears to be taking the path of coexistence with conventional data warehouses - that will continue to house predictive analytics with pre-defined cubes and dynamic queries.  This combination of offerings provides an unprecedented opportunity for Retailers to combine high volume transactions with analytics to dramatically improve planning, forecasting and real time pricing.

Infosys is a Sapphire level sponsor of the upcoming SAPPHIRE NOW at Orlando. Infosys and SAP have worked on a HANA pilot, please come to our booth 2702 to witness its potential.

Infosys is also presenting 5 sessions and 2 microforums jointly with our clients, for more details, please visit the below link for more detailshttp://www.infosys.com/SAP/news-events/Pages/sapphire-orlando-11.aspx

About Naresh: Naresh has over 17 years of experience in Information Technology and Consulting. His primary area of focus has been on helping customers better manage their IT
investments to meet their business objectives. Naresh has an established track record of incubating centers of excellence - focusing on ERP (SAP and Oracle) in the
Retail, CPG and Financial Services industries, in North America, China and Australia.

Prior to Infosys, Naresh was Senior Principal with Oracle Consulting where he spent 9 years. He has a Bachelor's degree in Engineering and a post graduate degree
in Computer Science from the University of Illinois."

Posted by Guest Blogger at 5:54 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

While in my previous blog at http://www.infosysblogs.com/sap/ I had discussed about the typical questions facing organizations looking at adopting Business Objects, I would now like to help provide a way forward towards navigating through those questions and challenges. Before we get into the details of the path forward let us take a peek into how BO version 4.0 compares with version 3.1 based on our experience in the beta testing phase that we had carried out last year.

·         Version 4.0 as we have seen the product as part of the beta phase certainly provides some key improvements over version 3.1 as far as integrating with BW backend is considered.  Utilizing the BICS based direct  integration of the BO front  end tools  with the SAP BW backend is definitely a step forward

·         Convergence of all the different tools on a single platform via the launch pad is a step forward to make BO 4.0 a single reporting platform. This in contrast to the disparate  stack of version 3.1

·         Launch of the new BO Analysis (earlier called Advanced Analysis) which would be created as a marriage of BEx and the erstwhile BO Voyager is definitely going to occupy the space of a much needed interactive OLAP analysis tool. WebI was being used and sometimes even being abused to fill up that space in the current 3.1 version

·          Enhanced front end features of WebI and Xcelsius is definitely going to provide a lot of additional charting options for better data visualization.

·         The new and transformed version of the universe, the Common Semantic Layer (CSL)   that would allow integration of multi technology data sourcing would definitely be a very powerful tool to integrate disparate sources.

While we can see significant improvements that BO 4.0 is going to come up with, it is still something which has not in General Availability (GA).  However organizations looking at adopting BO on top of their BW landscape may be at different stages of their BO journey and may need to adopt different strategies based on the situation that they are in.  Let me discuss some of the typical situation that organizations are likely to be and

·         The green field: If an organization is implementing BW from grounds up, it should definitely be looking at BO version 4.0 to start the journey given the distinct. I would recommend a pilot phase be planned before implementing it in a big bang manner. This would help establish the basic architecture framework and also give an opportunity to establish best practices for the larger implementation.

·         The End state: In case of those organizations which are already in the middle or nearing completion of rolling out BO on top of their BW landscape could possibly defer the BO 4.0 adoption for some time now. SAP has made some amends to the integration and performance challenges around the integration and today it does work fairly well with certain design principles in mind. Given this picture it would possibly make more sense to be with 3.1 as there are assurances from SAP on protecting the investments on the backend BEx query based integration

·           The 'Mid' state: This is typically organizations which are in Scenario 2 of the Part-I of my blog and which have decided to go ahead with 3.1, done some pilot or a small transformation and is in a dilemma on whether to make course corrections and move to version 4.0.  Although there are no two ways about the overwhelming advantages of a Business Objects 4.0 layer on BW the choice cannot be just based on pure technical considerations. The situation could  be a bit tricky to resolve and I would suggest the organization also looks at the following imperatives for arriving at a decision:

o   The extent to which Business Objects has been  implemented- if it has been a small pilot, a course correction is a relatively easier option

o   Usability - There are certain specific charting and data visualization aspects being offered  as part of the new version 4.0

o   A TCO calculation-costs of upgrade to version 4.0 from version 3.1 at a later point vis-à-vis a direct investment  on version 4.0 now could guide the financial considerations

Posted by Somnath Mukherjee at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

The Business Intelligence market has grown 13% in 2010, to surpass the 10 billion USD mark, it surely continues to be the top priority at most organizations!

BI, as a domain, has seen continuous evolution and marked with regular innovation cycles. So much so that, at times, it becomes difficult to keep pace with the upcoming trends. You may have just finished getting your implementation aligned with one, only to find that something better, that brings you even more business value is already up at the anvil. While this, at times, is a difficult position for the IS team, but considering the additional value that your business will be able to achieve, it is most important to ensure that you keep moving up the maturity curve and make the most of these innovations.

Numerous questions come to mind -

1. Do I need to look at all the upcoming trends?
2. How can I prioritize these trends for my needs?
3. What is the approach that I should use for implementing these innovations? Should I wait and watch or should I take them head-on?
4. How should I address them - for the short term or the long term?
5. Do I change my BI strategy mid-way to address these new dimensions?

Keeping in mind the dilemma that we see most of our customers face, Infosys brings to you a panel discussion on this topic at the upcoming SAPPHIRE 2011 event at Orlando. We will have three industry experts, leading the BI strategy at three large and leading organizations, share with you their thoughts on the current BI trends, how they see the BI world changing and what they would like to see it transform into. They will also share their experiences and recommendations on how you can approach BI and its numerous innovations to help you build tomorrow's enterprise, today!

Be there to get answers to your questions!

Posted by Rakhi Makad at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

2010 was a year of change, even turbulence, for SAP - particularly at the leadership level, with the replacement of CEO Leo Apotheker by co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hageman Snabe. The new leadership brought renewed confidence, which certainly showed in 2010 results. The bold acquisition of Sybase gave a position in mobility, the second largest business application growth topic behind SaaS.

Momentum was maintained into 2011, as shown in the company's Q1-2011 results, where software sales were up by 26%, even if earnings disappointed as operating margin fell from 22% to under 20%.

Now, just over a year on from their appointment, the co-CEOs need to show they can continue to drive profitable growth. "Innovation" has been their watchword, and thus we, together with SAP's customers and the whole ecosystem, are keenly anticipating this month's SAPPHIRE NOW user conference for its new strategy, enhanced by new cloud and mobility solutions, and the usual slew of announcements. Critical areas to watch are:

-        Mobility: with the Sybase acquisition firmly 'under its belt', we look forward to further articulation of strategy, product development and how both partners and customers can begin building solutions on its mobile platform;

-        Cloud and software-as-a-service: now that Business ByDesign appears to be ready for prime time, SAP principally needs to demonstrate that it can build a volume business in this area. But there's more to SAP's SaaS offerings than ByD alone. The recent departure of the head of its large enterprise SaaS solutions area labeled "Lines of Business," John Wookey, has raised questions about the company's direction around SaaS - we are looking for clarification, updates, and more generally, who's grabbed the reins of this business?

-        Business analytics and in-memory database: this is an equally strategic area for SAP, building on the company's much-vaunted "HANA"; however with the recent release of Business Objects 4.0, a major upgrade, there may not be much news to come in analytics;

-        Social media and collaboration: one of the hottest topics in IT right now, SAP has its own take on social/collaboration for business with StreamWork; on its unveiling, this received some criticism for being too specific, and the latest announcements have gone some way to generalizing it: we look forward to learning more, and to see how much customer uptake it has had.

The new products and directions - announced and to come - though surely welcome, will present users and related service providers with challenges around choice, migration and integration. The 2011 conference will produce much food for thought, across the whole SAP ecosystem.

Posted by Peter Russo at 7:46 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

In the current trend, most of companies are exposing their enterprise applications via web & iGadgets.

The audit and controls team aware of these changes and prepared for checking the security threats to some extent.

In future, business users may demand more iFriendly applications with iAdvancements.

There are many known and proven risks from mobile devices like using the found sim card by an unauthorized user, sending e-mails asking for financial help with fake address etc.,

If we consider similar situation for enterprise critical applications, the damage will be exponential.

In future (may be in 2-4 years), the market demands for more easy access to the applications.

Then, the software companies will add new features in pace with mobile product companies (like Apple, HTC, Sony, Samsung, Motorola etc.).

In this fast pace, security controls will be overlooked which is low/medium priority as compare to the business requirement.

The ERP projects sponsor and stake holders have to develop a strategy for implementing strict security controls and advice the PMO in the project initiation and planning phase for establishing the controls and add the compliance for mobile interfaces in project objectives.

These controls shall be set as organizational objectives by top management (These shall be preventive rather than detective).

In this blog, I am not emphasising on the technical aspects. Due importance to security & controls for mobile apps,it shall be included in threats list by project sponsors or enterprise management at enterprise global level.As of now, there are no automatic SOX controls for mobile apps.

Posted by Raghu Duggirala at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

SAP SCM Functionalities like Demand Planning, Supply Network Planning, Production Planning & detailed scheduling and Global Available to promise have been around for quite some time now. These  functionalities have matured over  years, there is a large implementation base, and currently  the incremental functionality changes in these modules with each product release is limited.  Rather,  there is a focus now on additional modules and functionality in SAP SCM like EWM, TM, SNC which needed some catch up with the competing best of the breed modules in market. 

There are sessions this year on Extended warehouse management  (EWM) and Transportation Management (TM) customer implementations, in case you are looking to learn from completed implementations. EWM is the module in SAP SCM for decentralized warehouse management and provide additional capabilites like complex crossdocking, detailed packaging & shipping, 3PL services etc. SAP TM is the end to end solution for transportation process like Order Management, Planning & Optimization, Transportation Execution, Freight Cost Management, Carrier Collaboration etc. Supply network collaboration (SNC) is another module within SAP SCM which has seen a lot of product functionality enhancements in recent past, especially in the supplier collaboration scenarios. There some SNC sessions including ASUG influence council discussion that you can use to learn more at the event.

Personally speaking, I am looking forward to hear about customer experiences on Inventory Optimization and Supply Chain Response Management solutions. Smart ops Inventory optimization, which enables Multi Echelon Inventory Optimization,  has been around for a while  but SAP Supply Chain Response Management is a new solution extension that enables what-if analysis, and last minute adjustments to the demand and supply plans. Sales & Operations Planning is an area where customers have hoped for more than on offer from SAP and this is again something that I would be looking out  at the event.

What is it that you as a Supply Chain Practitioners are looking for at the event ? I would love to hear from you while I will continue my posts on Sapphire next week and during Sapphire. 

Posted by Sachin Shetty at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

In the last one month I came across the questions and predicament facing a couple of our global customers who were deliberating with the idea of implementing Business Objects on top of their SAP BW landscape.

Scenario-1:

A heavy engineering company is looking at rolling out SAP for its Customer and sales service functions across various service centers in mainland Europe. Along with its SAP ECC roll out it was looking at establishing its analytical platform utilizing SAP BW and Business Objects as the front end. It intends to start work the project from the next month. It is at a cross roads and trying to decide on whether it should go ahead with BO version  3.1 or go with the brand new version 4.0.

Scenario-2:

A large US based logistics company is already on a SAP BW BEx platform and had decided to migrate to a Business Objects reporting suite. It went ahead with performing a pilot of moving a few reports and dashboards to BO using version 3.1 and is now ready to launch the full program. However now it is trying to determine whether it should go ahead with the version 3.1 or move the pilot to version 4.0 and then perform the migration.

Both organizations are facing their moment of truth and am sure that they not in isolation. There would be many more corporations trying to navigate through this situation and making the best out of it. Let us try to understand the typical questions that are arising out of the situation:

·         The first and foremost question running in the mind would be on whether BO 4.0 would be in General Availability within the next one month or would there be further delays?

·         BO 4.0 promises to provide a much more seamless integration with SAP BW backend. Would the product be living up to its promise?

·         Should I decide to go ahead with integrating BO3.1 with BW for now and decide to move to BO 4.0 or higher later, how much would be the migration efforts?

·         Would SAP be protecting my investments on BO 3.1 and BW should I decide to go ahead with 3.1 or would I be again asked to move to 4.0 in the immediate future?

·         Would I be better off waiting for a BO version 4.1 or higher?

I am sure there would be quite a few more that could as well be on the above list but I have tried to capture the most popular questions that we are facing with some of our clients who are looking at adopting BO in the immediate future.

Whereas there are no straight forward answers to the above questions we could definitely work out a strategic fit to decide on whether an organization should look at moving with 4.0 or start with 3.1.  

In the subsequent blog I will try to delve into key differentiators of the two versions of Business Objects and the considerations that should drive the decision of choosing between them

Posted by Somnath Mukherjee at 9:48 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

The key to developing IAM integrated solutions is to start small, build a foundation that can be leveraged for growth.

Key Areas for developing the IAM integrated solution

1.       Vision - Objectives

2.       Governance

3.       Roles and Responsibilities

4.       Process: User Management, Access Controls, and Audit

5.       Architecture - Current and future state

Developing an IAM solution poses several challenges to the business in regards to cost, compliance, and constant changes to the business to align with business objectives.

When choosing an IDM solution an organization must choose solutions that can manage not only Enterprise Applications such as SAP but 3^rd party applications that can work together.

By integrating an HR system as a base for user identity, and using and IDM system as the center for all user access on the enterprise, an organization can realize the following benefits:

1.       Centralized identity management

2.       Centralized User Provision

3.       Centralized Audit  and Compliance

4.       Automated Process for Password Reset, User Approvals, etc.

5.       Reduced cost operating cost

6.       Reduced audit cost.

Let Infosys develop your end to end user access solutions, by integrating it holistic GRC framework and IT infrastructure experience.

Infosys is uniquely positioned to provide cost-effective, value added compliance and IT infrastructure consulting services. Infosys consultants bring a mix of audit, compliance, ERP experience and IT infrastructure experience from across multiple geographies where organizations leverage GRC technology. To learn more about Infosys, visit: www.inofsys.com

Posted by Ed Siegfried at 1:22 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )