SAP to buy Sage???

The rumour mill is again in action implying that SAP may buy SAGE.

The new Sage MD Guy Berruyer might already have his hands full as he fends off takeover approaches from SAP and possibly Microsoft.
Sage's shares surged to 8.1p to a year's peak of 266.2p as speculators responded to gossip that SAP, the world's largest business software company, is gearing up for a cash bid worth £5.1billion or 390p a share.. SAP is said to be sitting on cash, even after splashing out £3.7billionn on database-software maker Sybase earlier this year.

Some say SAP would struggle to integrate Sage’s different solutions that they have bought, but this could be a great way to offer SaaS accounting software. The relationship Sage has with accountants might be worth a punt and help SAP push their new Business ByDesign software package.

With such a strong foot hold in the small to midsize software market, the leading suppliers of business software SAP could benefit from taking over Sage as software is seen to compete on some levels.

Shares in Sage Group gained sharply on Tuesday, with traders citing talk SAP AG was interested in making a bid for the technology company.

Both companies have declined to comment…

What do you think???

Top 10 Blogging Tips and Insight from SAP Social Media Webinar and IIS

The latest SAP Social Media Webinar held this morning proved to be insightful and particularly pertinent to activities within IIS. The focus of today’s webinar was blogging and tweeting, the purpose of it and advice on how to devise applicable and interesting content for your organisation and audience.

I actively blog on behalf of IIS via Blogger (as you can see) but we are now looking at integrating a blog within our new company website. This effectively means that we will host the blog on our website which hopefully will yield benefits in terms of search engine optimisation.

Some guidance was given on this but as of yet I’m finding it a tad difficult, but as soon as I have it set up I’ll be sure to share my advice!

What is Blogging?
Blogging is effectively a free publishing tool. It is a lot like a journal but it is intended to be read by others.

No right or wrong
There is no right or wrong when it comes to blogging or tweeting. How you use your blog or twitter account and the content you share is down to your organisations objectives and needs. There is no set amount of times that it should be updated though it is advisable that it isn’t left dormant for long periods of time as subscribers may lose interest.

Uses
You may use your blog or twitter page as a means of providing customer service, special offers, or as a general PR tool to build your brand image and create a human and interactive side to your organisation.

Tie posts in to current affairs
You can customise your Google News page to add a category with search terms that are either applicable to your industry or general customer base. The content you come across can then be reconstructed to make it applicable to your organisation, products or services whilst still holding on to the topical news theme.

Make Content Engaging
Content doesn’t have to be strictly formal, actually the opposite is advised! Your company blog is an opportunity for you to show the human side of your business so personalise the page as much as you can, use your own videos or links to interesting videos or content you find online. This is likely to prove more favourable with your audience.

Make Lists
Lists are liked by all! Well maybe not all but generally people’s attention is be caught by a “top ten list”. There quick and easy to read and straight the point as well as potentially being extremely insightful.

Shocking Content
Causing a bit of controversy can be good for business and gaining attention in the blogging world. You do have to be careful as going too far could harm your business.

Search Engine Optimisation
Blogs are excellent for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and with WordPress, SEO integration is as easy as 1, 2, 3. Plug -ins such as All in One SEO Pack and Google XML Sitemaps makes mastering SEO and pleasing the search engines a cinch.

Make your posts searchable
Make sure your key words and headings are simple and concise and avoid using acronyms. You want people that are interested in your content to find your posts.

Don’t over think it
Your blog should be natural, have a general theme and forming content shouldn’t be stressful, it’s not a dissertation!

Time Zone Management, Free Web Tools!

Never miss a meeting with international clients again. Conducting business internationally can mean more than just a language barrier- there can be a time barrier as well.

This is something which has a habit of causing confusion, potentially missed meetings and unnecessary upset!

With 24 standard time zones, it can be overwhelming to keep track of all your clients’ business hours, and scheduling tasks across time zones can be a challenge.
As it was something that came up this week for myself and another member of the IIS team when I came across an article on Mashable which outlined six free online web tools for managing time differences I was delighted!

If your business depends on knowing what time it is everywhere, don’t worry, as there are plenty of free online tools to help you coordinate, and ensure you never unwittingly call a client at 4 a.m.

Here are the five which I found to be of most use; my favourite was the Time Zone Convertor; quick and easy to use!

World Time Zone
World Time Zone is a handy, at-a-glance map that lays out every region. Divided and color coded, you can quickly see which areas fall into which time zones. It also displays local times for each of the world’s capital cities.

Time Zone Convertor
This website is pretty much as straightforward as it gets when it comes to calculating time differences. There are two clocks. The one on the left displays your local time. The one on the right will do the conversion for a number of major cities. If you simply need to know the time elsewhere in a hurry, this easy-to-use website has you covered.

World Time Server
The World Time Server is another helpful resource for all your international planning needs. The site shows you the current time and date for any city, country or time zone, and has a self-maintained database that adjusts for Daylight Saving Time.

Time and Date
Time and Date has the same features as the sites listed above, plus a few extras. Calendars and holiday observances are listed here and broken down by country. They are particularly helpful for scheduling important deals or conversations since each country has its own civic holidays or widely observed religious ones that differ from the Irish schedule.

Every Time Zone
Every Time Zone is a simple, nicely designed site that is perfect for quickly accessing time zones and date changes. Your local time is generated from your IP address and is displayed as a fluorescent green bar.

Source: Mashable.com; for the full article visit Mashable/TimeManagementWebtools

Retailers optimistic as sales up for third consecutive month!

The Distributive Trades Survey of 20,000 company outlets carried out by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) reveals that 60 per cent of retailers saw the volume of sales rise during September.

The CBI’s distributive trades survey for September showed unexpected strength as the balance of retailers reporting sales up year on year climbed to a six-year high at plus 49%, compared with plus 39% in August.

The increase is also reflected in the volume of orders placed upon suppliers (39%), surpassing last month’s balance of 29%.

Ian Mc Cafferty, CBI chief economic advisor, says: “The bank holiday weekend, combined with the tail-end of summer sales have resulted in a bumper period for retailers.”

It was the third consecutive increase and followed a decent month for clothing and footwear sales in particular, the business lobby group said.

Retailers also expect sales to be strong next month, but economists warned consumers are likely to find life much harder going as the public spending squeeze and rising food prices weigh on sentiment.

They also noted that the official measure of retail sales showed a much weaker picture during August.

The clothing and footwear & leather sub-sectors saw particularly strong sales growth, which are likely to have been boosted by the arrival of new autumn ranges. Solid sales growth was also recorded in the furniture & carpets sector.

Looking to October, a balance of +47% of firms expect a higher volume of sales than a year ago.

Business Challenges which retailers may face include:

•Ensuring visibility and proper tracking of inventory for multi-variant items.
•Creating item codes for multi variant items.
•Efficiently completing inventory reporting and sales analysis by size and colour

Intelligent Information Systems has developed Intelligent Colour Size Matrix which enables you to create and maintain parent and child items via matrix templates within SAP Business One.

Benefits of Intelligent Colour Size Matrix

•Save time creating item codes by creating child items within user defined templates.
•Quickly set up a product range for a new multi-attribute.
•Beat the competition and capture the market with proper inventory tracking.
•Quickly fulfill orders for multi attribute items.
•Improves inventory reporting and sales analysis by allowing any business in need of tracking by the sizes and colours of their merchandise to do so efficiently.

To find out more visit beabetterbusiness.co.uk/IntelligentColourSizeMatrix or check out our Intelligent Colour Size Matrix Demo Video on Intelligent B1.

Sources: Smallbusiness.co.uk; finfacts.ie; nebusiness.co.uk

SAP BI Solutions result in “increased customer base” through increased service provision

SAP NEWSBYTE - September 28, 2010 - Just because an organisation is not-for-profit does not mean it is not for cost efficiency and customer service. Case in point: Marietta, Georgia-based Cobb EMC, one of America’s largest electric cooperatives, relies on business intelligence (BI) solutions from SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) to enhance operational efficiencies, improve overall decision-making processes and better deliver reliable energy and gas at the lowest possible cost to the 435,000 residential and commercial customers it serves.

Previously, the not-for-profit utility’s IT department supported more than 6,000 individual business reports. Today — with SAP Business Objects Enterprise, SAP Business Objects Web Intelligence® and SAP Crystal Reports® software – Cobb EMC has reduced that number by 95 percent. With easy, self-serve access to information, employees have insight into real-time data, and can conduct detailed reporting to drive measurable benefits across the company – from marketing and HR to accounting and operations.

Having data at users’ fingertips means they can quickly and independently resolve issues. For example, with visual dashboards, they can more easily perform critical business analysis like examining and optimising marketing spend. Ready access to daily exception reports and individual bills helps personnel settle customer issues faster, improving quality assurance. As a result, Cobb EMC maintains a 99.9 percent accuracy rate in billing. Employees manage 65 percent of all standard reporting themselves, and the need for custom programming support has been eliminated — resulting in an annual savings of $300,000. IT now responds to requests for specialised reports in a matter of days instead of weeks.

Cobb EMC has successfully used SAP Business Objects BI solutions as the foundation of new services that have increased its customer base. One such offering lets property management companies better monitor and manage gas expenditures at apartment units — a service differentiator that has already generated $5 million in additional revenue.

A "big company" approach to business intelligence is no longer out of small and midsize business' league. Building a big data warehouse or investing in a lengthy project isn't necessary to reap the benefits of all that rich information. Smaller companies can mine their data just like their larger peers, and they need to do just that if they want to compete effectively.

SAP Crystal solutions offer an integrated group of affordable, intuitive business reporting, dashboarding, presentation, and ad hoc analysis solutions that enable individuals in organisations of any size to discover and share insight for optimal decision making.

Sources: SAP AG Newswire; Information Week

To find out more about SAP Business Intelligence Solutions, Crystal Solutions, which can be integrated with SAP Business One which is has been designed specifically for small to midsize companies visit www.beabetterbusiness.co.uk or www.beabetterbusiness.ie

SAP ERP implementation “improved profitability” expected by Air India

The Air India Board on Tuesday approved the implementation of the SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) project.

The implementation of the ERP project is in line with the business objectives and strategy of the company for affecting a turnaround.

When SAP is considered in its proper context as a “change enabler” or “change lever” rather than a “change driver” it is easier to understand how and where it can properly fit into a revenue and profitability context.

SAP is the largest provider of ERP solutions world-wide and has been preferred by more than 115 airlines.

SAP solutions support the core business of airlines in passenger services planning and development and also MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) functions.

The implementation of the SAP ERP package would help Air India in strategic decision-making, monitoring and control systems, the release said.

Besides, integration of key business functions in the erstwhile Indian Airlines and Air India, the package would also help in seamless integration with other systems and ensuring availability and consolidation of critical data and information,

At the same time, the airline could aim for improved profitability by availability of real-time information on route network and profitability, it said.

It would also help in reduction in costs especially in inventories across various areas.

The cost savings an SAP ERP solution can bring a company come from streamlining operations, improved access to data, complete visibility of the organisation, and ultimately increased productivity and efficiency.

To find out more about SAP Business One, a business management solution designed specifically for small to midsize companies visit www.beabetterbusiness.co.uk or www.beabetterbusiness.ie

Source: Economic Times

“Super app” from Sybase and SAP for the Blackberry

Sybase, Inc., an SAP company and industry leader in enterprise and mobile software, yesterday announced the Sybase(R) Mobile Sales for SAP(R) CRM for BlackBerry(R) smartphones -- a new 'super app' that delivers an integrated application experience on BlackBerry smartphones. By extending the SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) application to the expansive BlackBerry smartphone community, Sybase and

SAP are making it possible for sales, service and marketing professionals to experience significant productivity gains through this 'super app'.

The new mobile solution for BlackBerry smartphones from SAP and Sybase provides comprehensive access to up-to-the-minute SAP customer and business analytics data and the ability to seamlessly conduct workflow processes anytime, anywhere. Advanced features like instantaneous alerts via BlackBerry push technology, and integration with the BlackBerry inbox and calendar provide users with a 'super app' experience on BlackBerry smartphones. Enterprises can also further exploit their IT infrastructure investment by improving mobile worker productivity and efficiency, shortening sales cycles, and increasing visibility into performance.

By making available business-critical data on BlackBerry smartphones using the industry's leading Sybase Unwired Platform and the BlackBerry platform, SAP and Sybase are transforming enterprise operations to not only address the short-term imperatives of reducing costs and better decision making in the field, but also helping companies achieve differentiated capabilities in order to compete effectively over the long term.

Sybase Mobile Sales for SAP CRM delivers the type of powerful experience our enterprise customers expect on BlackBerry smartphones," said Jeff McDowell, senior vice president at Research In Motion. "We look forward to future innovation on the SAP, Sybase and BlackBerry platforms to empower the developer community to build 'super apps' for the SAP Business Suite that deliver a true, native BlackBerry experience."

As the world's leading provider of business software with more than 102,500 customers in over 120 countries, SAP enables organisations to maximise interactions across the customer lifecycle by allowing transactions to be consistent and relevant with real-time, accurate information.

To find out more about SAP Business One, a solution designed specifically for SMEs as well as the Intelligent iPhone app, delivering SAP functionality from the iPhone visit www.beabetterbusiness.co.uk or www.beabetterbusiness.ie
Sources: SAP AG Press Release

Small to Midsize companies continue to invest in IT

A global study of over 3,000 SME IT professionals has revealed that many plan to increase IT spending in the second half of this year. Virtualisation technology and investments that optimise existing resources are their top IT priorities.

The survey, from IT management software supplier Spiceworks had a number of significant findings in relation to future software purchase plans of small to midsize companies.

37% of small to midsize companies plan to invest in database software prior to year-end. Planned purchases are primarily via upgrades, continuing the trend we noted during the first six months of 2010 that IT pros are shifting away from filling gaps through new software purchases and toward upgrading existing software and renewing existing IT contracts/licenses.

Planned IT spending in customer relationship management (CRM) software remains consistent with that of the first half of 2010 as 23% of small and medium businesses plan to purchase new, upgrade or renew by the end of 2010.

Other key findings of the survey:

•68% of SME IT professionals plan to use virtualisation technology by the end of 2010
•65% of SME IT professionals plan to keep IT staff levels the same between now and the end of the year
•20% plan to add full-time IT staff before the end of the year
•42% of IT budgets for the rest of the year are allocated to hardware
•35% of IT budgets for the rest of the year are allocated to software
•48% of IT professionals plan to buy new, upgrade or renew at least one IT service

Investment in IT has become critical to small business success. The rate of technology development is driving SMB investment in IT as they recognise that in order to subsist competitively they must take advantage of all the benefits of increased efficiency, productivity, visibility and management that IT can bring them.

The SAP Business One application offers a single, affordable way for small to midsize companies to manage their entire business, from sales and customer relationships to financials and operations. It helps you streamline processes, act on timely information, and can accelerate profitable growth.

To find out more about SAP Business One and how it can help you become a best run business visit www.beabetterbusiness.co.uk or www.beabetterbusiness.ie

Sources: Computer Weekly; Spiceworks Report – The State of SMB IT September 2010

Data Improvement key to growth, innovation and improved customer relationships

“The fewer data needed, the better the information. And an overload of information, that is, anything much beyond what is truly needed, leads to information blackout. It does not enrich, but impoverishes.”

Peter F. Drucker

It’s not more data we need, its better more refined and useful data, rather than an abundance of useless information.

Sybase, Inc., an SAP company and industry leader in enterprise and mobile software, today issued the second installment of results from a new report -- 'Measuring the Business Impacts of Effective Data' -- an extensive study benchmarking some of the world's leading Fortune 1000 enterprises across a wide range of vertical industries by measuring the direct correlation between a company's IT investments and overall business performance.

While the first installment quantifies the relationship between incremental investments in effective data and the key financial indicators of an enterprise's health and profitability, the second installment examines 'Impacts of Effective Data on Business Innovation and Growth.' That is, the impact on a company's ability to drive innovation, organic growth and sustained customer growth -- each of which make financial performance gains possible.

"Business growth attributable to new offerings and new customers are both critical indicators of the competitiveness of an organisation, and this second installment of findings begins to unearth where data improvement impacts are felt the most," said Anitesh Barua, distinguished teaching professor and lead researcher, University of Texas at Austin.

"We have already drawn definitive correlations between improvements in data and key financial performance metrics of businesses today, as outlined in our initial installment. Unlike previous studies, we are continuing to further peel back the onion to more holistically understand how better data influences a company's health and profitability."

Even the most incremental investments made towards improving only two data attributes -- data accessibility and intelligence -- can deliver dramatic impacts on the following key business innovation and growth metrics:

"Every day, we have conversations with our customers about how their data can be leveraged in new ways to generate revenue, whether it be through the development of new products and services or reaching a new market segment," said Dr. Raj Nathan, executive vice president & CMO, Sybase.

"In the end, we always come back to one thing -- empowering employees with effective data so that data itself doesn't become an impediment to business growth. This study deductively shows that simple, pragmatic improvements in data intelligence and accessibility help employees better understand evolving demand patterns, customer preferences and market dynamics that enable companies to both drive innovations to market faster and attract new customers."

Press Release Business Wire 27/09/2010

SAP contributes to Unilever’s saving of £980 million in costs

In recent years, Unilever has moved to “dramatically” cut the number of suppliers it uses, after at one point using 160 vendors for 1,200 applications. That project, alongside the SAP rollout and a company-wide reorganisation, has helped it save £960 million from costs.

Earlier this year the company said its own SAP rollout, with supplier Accenture, was significantly improving “operational execution” and efficiency, as well as dramatically cutting complexity. The most effective cost cutting was being effected in western Europe, it said, the first region to go live with the system.

Unilever is now facing a large SAP integration, following the announcement it will buy TRESemmé shampoo maker Alberto Culver for $3.7 billion (£2.3 billion).
Unilever, which makes related products including Dove soap and Sunsilk shampoo, as well as other household brands, is standardising globally on SAP enterprise resource planning software.

Unilever said it would become the world’s second largest shampoo maker as a result
of the acquisition, emphasising the importance of the UK, US, Canadian, Mexican and Australasian markets.

Unilever boasts a portfolio of over 400 brands. “With 400 brands spanning 14 categories of home, personal care and foods products, no other company touches so many people's lives in so many different ways.” They are leaders in almost every field within which they work.

The world’s leading, largest and best companies are using SAP and yet it is now within reach of small to midsize companies, supporting them on their quest to become a best run business.

SAP Business One has been designed specifically with small to midsize companies needs in mind. Visit www.beabetterbusiness.co.uk or www.beabetterbusiness.ie to find out more

Intelligent Targeter

Enables Sales Targeting From SAP Business One

Intelligent Targeter enables users of SAP Business One to set targets for customers and sales employees.

Functionalities

•Set targets for customers.
•Multiple Measurements.
•Progress Alerts and Reports.

Business Challenges

All Business starts with Sales. One of the elements of Intelligent Essentials is Sales Targeter. This solution enhances SAP Business One around the areas of Sales Forecasting and budgeting. This ensures that your business is monitoring sales performance against the initial budget and the ever changing forecast.

Key Features

•Track sales against Budget and forecast
•Set sales targets by Sales rep for Customers, Customer group or customer properties.
•Measure Sales against individual products, product groups or product properties
•Set the targets by one or all of the Qty, Turnover, Gross Profit

Business Benefits

By setting Sales budgets for the year within SAP Business One each sales person can be monitored against actual sales. The system also enables a user to manage their forecasts for the coming months based on feedback from customers or the level of sales quotes being generated. Every business needs to be able to track sales and ensure that the sales figures are on par with the initial company budgets. Sales Targeter enables management and sales people alike to track their sales to ensure the company is on track to achieve its numbers.

Find out more about other Intelligent Essentials elements at www.beabetterbusiness.co.uk or www.beabetterbusiness.ie

Intelligent Essentials, Making SAP B1 Better!

Intelligent Colour Size Matrix

Create and maintain parent and child items within SAP Business One

Intelligent Colour/Size Matrix enables you to create and maintain parent and child items via matrix templates within SAP Business One. The matrix templates define the item code and description to be assigned to each child item created. The module also allows you to optionally copy parent item price list prices to their child items.

Functionalities

•Creates item codes within a user defined matrix template based on two item variables.
•Assign templates to parent items enabling user to create child items for the parent.
•Defines parent and child items in Item Master Data UDF – Colour Size Matrix.
•Assign multiple templates to one parent item.
•Apply parent pricing tab allows the user to copy selected price list prices from a parent item to all of its child items at any point in time.

Business Challenges

•Ensuring visibility and proper tracking of inventory for multi-variant items.
•Creating item codes for multi variant items.
•Efficiently completing inventory reporting and sales analysis by size and colour.

Key Features

•Customisable user defined colour/size matrix templates to meet your inventory needs.
•Multiple colour/size matrix templates can be assigned to one parent item to create multi-variant child items.
•Apply parent pricing to child items when applicable.
•Leverage standard order processing capabilities of SAP Business One such as special pricing, warehouse, availability check, etc in combination with colour/size matrix as items are processed through ordinary SAP Business One processing cycle.

Business Benefits

•Save time creating item codes by creating child items within user defined templates.
•Quickly set up a product range for a new multi-attribute.
•Beat the competition and capture the market with proper inventory tracking.
•Quickly fulfill orders for multi attribute items.
•Improves inventory reporting and sales analysis by allowing any business in need of tracking by the sizes and colours of their merchandise to do so efficiently.

To find out more about other Intelligent Essentials elements visit www.beabetterbusiness.co.uk or www.beabetterbusiness.ie

Intelligent Essentials, Making B1 Better!

Online sales - the barriers are smaller than you think with Intelligent Ecommerce!

Today’s consumers expect to be able to find everything they need or want online.
Despite this 69% of entrepreneurs have not yet made the move to e-commerce in the UK despite it being an extremely lucrative marketing channel. Many small businesses in the UK have failed to capitlise and enter the online market because they fear the unknown, they don’t know where to begin and a lot of them feel that the market is “out of their league” so to speak.

The most obvious benefit to trading online is that it gives you greater reach to customers and drives sales. In PayPoint.net’s recent report, Powering Small Business Britain, 59% of the over 800 entrepreneurs surveyed identified this aspect as the biggest pull to e-commerce. Consumers look to buy everything online, from their groceries and taxi bookings, to their insurance.

Clearly there are many advantages to e-commerce and this is recognised by small businesses in Britain; the issue, is that entrepreneurs want to go online, but feel that this is not possible for various reasons, such as cost, fraud, or simply apprehension.

With SAP Business One and Intelligent Ecommerce your small to midsize business can enter the world of online trading with ease.

Intelligent Ecommerce provides users of SAP Business One with a robust and easy to use solution to provide information to customers. Using Intelligent Ecommerce companies can provide their customers with an on-line portal. Customers can log onto the website, enter their username and password and view products on offer.

To find out more about SAP Business One, Intelligent Ecommerce and other Intelligent Essentials add-ons which take SAP B1 further visit www.beabetterbusiness.co.uk or www.beabetterbusiness.ie

Intelligent Deferrer

Easily defer income or expenditure in SAP Business One

Intelligent Deferrer provides additional functionality that will allow users to easily defer financial income & expenditure.

Functionalities

•Defer Income. Within SAP Business one, users will be able to select an existing Sales Invoice and for each line item decide to defer the income.
•Defer Expenditure. Equally when it comes to Expenditure, users can decide to defer any line on a Purchasing Invoice.

Business Challenges

•Need to defer income & expenditure to reflect best practice accounting.
•Currently this is a manual & time consuming process in SAP Business One.

Key Features

•Being able to defer both Income & Expenditure easily.
•All postings done correctly and automatically.
•Easy to review deferrals created.

Business Benefits

•Put best‐practice accounting in place.
•Ease of use for users

To find out more about other Intelligent Essentials elements visit www.beabetterbusiness.co.uk or www.beabetterbusiness.ie

Intelligent Essentials, Making SAP B1 Better!

Intelligent Back 2 Back

Enhanced Back to Back Processing Including Real Costing in SAP Business One

Intelligent Back 2 Back provides enhanced functionality to the standard SAP Business One back to back Sales to Purchase Order process that will allow users to handle real world scenarios and improves the link between the Sales and Purchase elements of the process.


Functionalities

•Create a Sales Order.
•Generate a Back to Back Purchase Order.
•Update and Change Purchase Orders –and the effect on Sales Orders.

Business Challenges

•Inflexible and limited back to back process in SAP Business One.
•No strong link between Sales and Purchase Orders.
•Stronger Batch control.
•Customer information.

Key Features

•Direct link between Sales cost & Purchase pricing.
•Handles Split –and alternative Supplier scenarios.
•Allows for real costing on Sales Orders.
•Fully integrated with SAP Business One.

Business Benefits

•Actual costing. Accurate GP.
•Lower stock on hand.
•Flexibility.
•PO’s easily matched to customers

To find out more about other Intelligent Essentials elements visit www.beabetterbusiness.co.uk or www.beabetterbusiness.ie

Intelligent Essentials, Making B1 Better!

Lack of “printer and coffee trips” risk to UK office workers health

British workers are in poor health, with more than 10 million UK male employees overweight or obese.

According to a survey of 8,778 workers by water cooler company Water Wellpoint, two thirds have an unhealthy body mass index (BMI).Nearly a third of respondents have high blood pressure and 59 per cent have a lower fluid intake than is recommended. Female workers don’t fare much better, with 44 per cent of women tested having a higher BMI than recommended, reinforcing data showing that more than half (56 per cent) are overweight or obese.

Rory Murphy, spokesman at Water Wellpoint, says: “We believe poor health is a real issue, both for employers who are trying to tackle sickness absence levels and maintain productivity, and for the coalition government which has made it clear it will cut costs across the welfare system and the NHS.

It’s the long periods of sitting at your desk that may be the killer. Scientists have identified a new threat from our sedentary lifestyles that they call "muscular inactivity".

Sitting still for long periods of time leads to the buildup of substances in the blood that are harmful to health. And exercise alone won’t shift them.

Millions of people lead sedentary lives, spending their days between car, office desk and the couch in front of the TV. While the ill effects are well recognised it has conventionally been thought that they can be offset by frequent trips to the gym, swimming pool or jogging track.

Now researchers say that that is not enough. In addition to regular exercise, office workers need to keep moving while they work, by making regular trips to the printer, coffee machine or to chat with colleagues.

Writing in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Elin Ekblom-Bak and colleagues from the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm say research shows long periods sitting and lack of “whole body muscular movement” are strongly associated with obesity heart disease, cancer and diabetes, and an overall higher risk of death, irrespective of whether they take moderate or vigorous exercise.

Dr Ekblom-Bak said: “Everyone knows about the health benefits of regular exercise. But what we have not been alerted to before is that long periods sitting down carries an extra risk that cannot be dealt with by taking exercise. There are a growing number of studies that show this.”

Dr Ekblom-Bak said that sitting still should be recognised as a risk to health, independently of taking too little exercise.

“It is important to have a five minute break from desk work every 45 minutes. Don’t email colleagues - walk across the office to give them the message. Take a coffee break or put the printer in the next room. I am a desk worker and I try to do it. It is not difficult but sometimes you get lost in your work and you forget about it.”

SAP used as a Twitter aggregation platform for Singapore Grand Prix!

This weekend the world-famous 2010 Formula 1 Singtel Singapore Grand Prix is being held, 25-26 September, will bring thousands of new time visitors to Singapore. The Singapore Tourism Board had partnered with SAP AG to build an online service combining Twitter feeds and geo tagging on YourSingapore.com, the STB’s online one stop visitor information center.

This will help visitors to the website discover Singapore and access relevant, real-time information on events, activities and promotions by the city and local merchants. With SAP BusinessObjects Text Analysis software in the back end, the service will help improve the user experience on YourSingapore.com by processing tweets and filtering searches for special events and offers, listing these by specific street names, city districts and locations. Visitors to YourSingapore.com will get their first chance to test the Web application during the FORMULA ONE night race in Singapore, September 24–26, 2010.

This weekend marks the kickoff of this new Web service on YourSingapore.com and is something which will continue to be used in the regular tourism season allowing merchants around Singapore to tweet about sales, parties and events. The introduction of SAP software via YourSingapore.com will offer users an enhanced experience with intelligent text analysis that will analyze messages, group them intelligently and present them in a user-friendly way.

"This collaboration to aggregate tweets on YourSingapore.com will enhance the experience of visitors to the website and put them at the center of the online buzz in the Twitter space during this season. We invite everyone to join in the conversations at #Singapore GP."

With more than 45 million Twitter users in the key markets of visitors identified by the STB, the need to involve Twitter in the Grand Prix outreach campaign was clear. SAP technology provides a platform that will allow the STB to supplement its tourism Twitter initiative to showcase tweets about the FORMULA ONE race and surrounding events on YourSingapore.com.

"We are constantly looking for innovative ways to help our customers implement SAP technology; in this case, enabling Singapore visitors with useful information through familiar user access," said Krish Datta, president, SAP Southeast Asia.

"This application started as a spontaneous idea, but it quickly morphed into a means to demonstrate the potential of SAP software, and is a great showcase of the flexibility of our solutions. We are excited about partnering with Singapore Tourism Board and look forward to seeing the campaign results."

Source: SAP AG

SAP wins out over Oracle for aerospace firm

Russian aerospace company Proton Perm Motors has selected SAP software over Oracle applications to overcome constraints of its current information systems and optimise production planning, gain better insight into resource utilisation and profitability.

Proton-PM sought to better regulate the business processes and the IT systems running its day-to-day production planning and status reports to keep it on track with its strategic plans. It needed a single, automated information system to improve its enterprise resource planning (ERP), manufacturing and human capital management (HCM) processes. It also sought to enhance its investment potential, strengthen its ties with long-standing and potential business partners, and to expand its product portfolio.

With SAP Business Suite applications, Proton-PM intends to free itself of the restrictions of its existing automated information systems and to optimise day-to-day and discrete production planning in stride with advances in its production equipment. Deploying the software in accordance with manufacturing resource planning (MRP II) standards, the company aims to decrease stock by 20 percent and shorten its production cycle by 15 percent.

"These days, public enterprises of our caliber need world-class information technologies, thus integration of SAP solutions turns out to be not only a strong optimisation project aimed at securing financial stability, but also an efficient tool to enhance our company's reliability with the help of the best global business management practices," said Igor Arbuzov, director general of Proton-Perm Motors, OJSC. "We hope that this will offer us an additional set of competitive advantages and further potential for growth."

SAP Business One is a comprehensive integrated solution designed specifically for small to midsize companies. World class business software from the leading providers of such is now accessible for companies of all sizes; don’t be fooled, SAP isn’t too big for you. Think SAP is too big for you? Think Again!

Visit www.beabetterbusiness.co.uk or www.beabetterbusiness.ie to find out more about SAP Business One, and here from customers who have seen a substantial ROI on their investment in the solution.

Original Source: SAP AG

IIS help SAP Business One customer “take full advantage of the deployment”

When your business is expanding, you need tight control over data and processes. That was the case for Advanced Ventilation Ltd., the exclusive installer in the United Kingdom for domestic ventilation units manufactured by Nuaire. As Advanced Ventilation received more and more orders from Nuaire – and began pursuing new business opportunities – it recognized the limits of its existing business software.

“We were struggling to run our operations efficiently because we were relying on manual processes to manage our data,” explains Jamie McCann, managing director for Advanced Ventilation.

Advanced Ventilation was impressed by the success of other small and midsize companies using SAP Business One. It also liked the fact that the solution could be tailored to address its unique requirements. “We decided to implement SAP Business One 8.8 so we could take advantage of new innovations such as embedded analytics from the SAP Business Objects portfolio,” explains McCann.

For implementation, the company opted to work with Intelligent Information Systems (IIS) Ltd., a local SAP partner experienced with SAP Business One.
McCann appreciated the level of involvement of IIS employees. “By fostering relationships with people throughout our organisation to truly understand our needs, IIS helped us develop and implement the best solution. Moreover, it made us aware of functionality we didn’t know existed, enabling us to take full advantage of the deployment,” explains McCann.
In six months, the company went live with SAP Business One. Now the software is being used by employees in both company divisions.

Because SAP Crystal Reports® software is integrated into SAP Business One 8.8,
Advanced Ventilation employees can access rich graphic reports and forms.

“In the past we based many of our decisions on gut feeling. Because SAP Business One provides access to up-to-the-minute financial information, including cash flow, we can make more informed decisions about our business. Plus we have the control over our finances and planning needed to effectively deploy new companies,” says McCann.

“SAP Business One provides us quick and accurate insight into project status, which helps us stay on track and ultimately boosts customer satisfaction.”
Jamie McCann, Managing Director, Advanced Ventilation Ltd.

SAP AG Case Study

To find out more about Intelligent Information Systems, SAP Business One and read other customer success stories visit www.beabetterbusiness.co.uk or www.beabetterbusiness.ie

Unemployable Traits Influencing UK Small Business Recruitment

"In the long run, there is not much discrimination against superior talent." Carter G. Woodson

Is this quote ringing true? Are individual personality and physcial traits now bearing greater influence on the employability of people?

According to a survey carried out by the largest growing HR Consultancy in the UK www.Reuber.com recruitment by small to midsize companies is still largely influenced by traits which a person employable or unemployable...

When asked the multi-answer question ‘which of the below traits would make you less likely to hire an individual?’ below are the top ten most common answers from respondents:

1. Poor personal hygiene – 68%

2. Negative body language – 64%

3. Poor speech and grammar – 59%

4. Dress sense – 56%

5. Bad attitude – 52%

6. Excessive body piercing or tattoos – 49%

7. Inappropriate sense of humour – 47%

8. Accent – 44%

9. Unattractive – 41%

10.Poor employment history – 38%

Kirsty Burgess, co-managing director of Reabur.com had the following to say about the findings;


“These results demonstrate that despite an increasing amount of legislation protecting applicants from being rejected for reasons other than their skills and experience personal traits still appear to be a distinct factor in making a recruitment decision. Although I appreciate that we are all human this really shouldn’t be the case and therefore it is important that employers use robust recruitment methods. This will ensure a fair process and provide a justification to reject an applicant that will stand up if legally challenged.”

Source: SME Web

SMEs that seek to change are thriving!

"The person who gets the farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore."

Dale Carnegie

There are seemingly plenty of smaller companies in the UK which are successfully increasing sales and posting healthy margins according to Small business growth UK.

A well-run business will nearly always prioritise profitability above basic sales growth. Of course, a company that harbours the seeds of greatness will manage to grow both sales and profits. That's not been an easy task over the past 18-months, but SmallBusiness.uk has spoken to the CEOs of a number of companies which, through bold sales and marketing strategies, have shown admirable focus and robustness amid the wider concerns about the British economy.

What is evident when you look at the customers they have spoken to is that they have grown by taking risks, moving forward, being innovative and responding to their customer needs. They have continually fought to improve their competitive position identifying that standing still and trying to weather the storm of the recession would do no one any good. Failure hasn’t been an option as they haven’t given up. They have been successful as they have been willing to go that bit further and do and offer more than their average competitors.

Change and growth are key characteristics of the strategies employed by the SMEs that have continued to achieve success which in sense are interchangeable. Growth doesn’t just mean physical growth but in the abstract sense can me doing things differently, changing. Change is an environmental constant, and in order for a business to achieve continual success they must endeavor to achieve a fit with their external environment which subsequently means that change a prerequisite to success!

Successful SME companies in the UK this year have included London Food Service, red24, Crayon, Lumison, Node4 and Control Circle. To find out more about their successes and gain insight into the 50 fastest growing and successful companies in the UK Visit Growth Business UK.

SAP Business One can help you change the way your business operates by streamlining processing, integrating business functions, increasing efficiency and productivity and ultimately supporting growth. To find out more visit www.beabetterbusiness.co.uk or www.beabetterbusiness.ie

Measure CO2 impact with SAP!

SAP has upgraded a software-as-a-service application that lets businesses measure their greenhouse gas emissions in a simple manner.

Its Carbon Impact OnDemand 5.0 can now be used in more than 50 countries, while its new features include the ability to obtain carbon emission and energy use data from business application software suites and building management systems.

The software-as-a-service tool also includes modelling functions which allow environmental managers to predict the impact of their plans to cut carbon output.

Peter Graf, chief sustainability officer at SAP, said the application could be highly useful to many businesses.

"Due to the uncertainty and volatility in energy prices, as well as the growing concerns of consumers, NGOs and governments about organisations' energy and carbon costs, companies face a tremendous challenge," he stated.

Earlier this month, a study conducted by SAP's Sybase was praised by IT Business Edge blogger Loraine Lawson for proving the importance of data quality to business operations.

Source: Experian QAS New Zealand

SAP ranked 26th in 2010 top 100 Global Brands poll!

“A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.”

Jeff Bezos

SAP has been ranked 26 in the latest Top 100 Global Brands poll. They have moved up one place from last year, and have moved up from 31st place since 2008.

The value of the SAP brand has risen 5% since last year. There latest campaign, “It’s time for a clear new world” clarifies their shift to customer needs, showing how SAP solutions offer business transparency and accountability. It remains one of the most globally integrated among big IT firms with most of its 50,000 employees now working outside of Germany. SAP has also put a lot of effort into developing their social media community which also reflects and supports their shift to being truly customer centric.

The message behind the SAP brand is "SAP helps to make work become a more personally enjoyable and rewarding experience." This was their mission statement in 2000 which reflects the spirit of SAP and describes how they wanted their customers to see them.

SAP recognised the value and importance of their brand back in 2000.

“SAP's brand strategy has strengthened the ties between users and the software, while uniting the company internally in a mission everyone can support. The SAP brand sets the stage for the development of a community of users who respond to SAP's core values and personality, thus enabling them to find greater satisfaction in their software and their work.”

Intelligent Information Systems recognises the importance of branding and endeavors to reflect the best practices that companies like SAP employ.

The Intelligent Information Systems mission is “to offer the SME market ONE innovative piece of software that will cater to their distinct business needs and provide them with long term profitable benefits; continually creating solutions for our customers, building relationships with them and earning their lifetime loyalty.” From this we have developed our range of standardised add ons for SAP Business One, designed to make it even better. They are akin to the Apple Apps in the SAP Business One world!

To find out more about Intelligent Essentials and IIS visit: www.beabetterbusiness.co.uk or www.beabetterbusiness.ie

Do you have a company or product brand? How has or does your brand contribute to the success of your company? All feedback and insight is welcome!

Sources: SAP AG; Article in relation to brand development 2000
Interbrand

Email becoming counterproductive leading to information overload

Office workers are being overwhelmed by a deluge of unwanted data and are largely becoming less effective as a result of their companies' email practices says research.

In a poll of 1,000 workers conducted by market researcher OnePoll, 70 per cent of employees complained about being sent irrelevant emails or being copied on emails of no interest.

More than a third (38 per cent) of respondents said they now suffer from information overload at work.

Office workers now face the choice of trawling through countless irrelevant emails or ignoring them and potentially missing out on vital messages.

Tim Barker, vice president of EMEA strategy for CRM solutions company Salesforce says: ‘The habit of “blasting out” emails to a large group of people to ensure that there is no chance of leaving anyone out of a message has created a situation where email is now becoming counterproductive.’

BECOME A FILTER NINJA

Outlook and other email software lets you set up filters that show you only the messages that meet your selected criteria.

When you filter your emails by contact or by those which are direct to you the ones which are likely to deserve a faster reply too can be brought to your attention. Filters can be as customised as you like depending on the content or contact of most interest or relevance to you.

REDUCE YOUR CARBON COPY FOOTPRINT

Many of us use the cc line too liberally, copying everyone in our organization who has recently expressed an opinion on the subject we're writing about.

While there are legitimate reasons for using the cc line to keep people in the loop, abuse of the electronic "carbon copy" is a big factor behind inbox bloat.

You can dissuade persistent offenders by politely explaining to them what you need to know. But good etiquette is always best taught through example. Cut down on the cc'ing and trust that others will follow your lead.

GRAB A TECHNICAL ASSIST

Filters are okay, but my email software really ought to be able to do the hard work for me. After all, it has all the information it needs to figure out who are my most important contacts based on the frequency with which we exchange email.

That's the theory behind Gmail Priority Inbox, a feature Google introduced on August 30. This optional way of organizing your Gmail puts your important messages at the top of your inbox.

Original Sources: Computerworld.com, Salesforce.com and Smallbusiness.co.uk, Reuters.com

Be a best run business with SAP

Are You a Best-Run Business?

What is a best-run business?

•Optimises every aspect of operations
•Maximises revenue and minimises costs
•Fully utilises resources and leverages partners
•Beats the competition by consistently delighting customers

Being a best run business is about turning inefficiencies in to opportunities.

Four Steps to becoming a best run business from SAP…

See the Whole Picture to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions
With the right solutions in place to produce meaningful, company-wide data, you can act decisively to align resources and investments with the best opportunities; prioritise both short- and long-term goals; increase productivity throughout the organisation; and generate remediation plans to minimise risks.

Control Your Cost Structure End to End
Setting up an environment that automates and integrates processes can help you unify the day-to-day operations of the business. By solving an immediate need in the business, say integrating sales and marketing activities, and then centralising the company’s fundamentals – financials and supply chain operations – you can establish a collaborative, optimised team across your company.

Minimise Risk and LiabilityThe third step to optimise your business is to embed metrics and reporting into your end-to-end processes – whether you are being measured on financial performance, product quality, delivery standards, service level agreements, regulatory compliance, or technical support and service.

Anticipate Change
The fourth step in becoming a best-run business is to build a flexible business model to manage and embrace changes that will invariably come. When you open a new line of business, expand into a new geography, or decide to offer services in addition to products, your business model must be agile.
You must be able to roll out new processes or adapt existing business processes to suit a global account or new supplier – or extend these processes to new regions. You may also need to change your organisational structure, shifting people’s goals or roles quickly to adjust to new opportunities so the company can quickly support them.

See how you compare in just two minutes by visiting www.sapsmebestrunbusinessprofile.com . See how you can become a best run business or improve your current operations.

As an SME, SAP Business One has been designed specifically by SAP to meet your business needs. To find out more about SAP Business One visit: www.beabetterbusiness.com

SAP worth more than Oracle and has greater market share

SAP (NYSE:SAP) and Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) are the two biggest players in the enterprise application software market.

SAP has a greater share of the Enterprise Resource Planning, Customer Relationship Management, Business Intelligence, and Supply Chain Management markets. They are the clear world leaders in the provision of business software solutions offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses.
SAP leads Oracle in terms of market share

Market Share (2016 projections) ERP CRM BI SCM
Oracle 15% 17% 18% 17%
SAP 24% 19% 24% 25%

A Trefis Forecast estimates that SAP’s applications software business is worth about $62 billion, versus $45 billion for Oracle’s application software business. (Trefis is a US based financial community helping us to understand how a company’s products impact on their stock price.)

To see how you can join SAP's 102,500 customers, 77% of which are SMEs, visit
www.beabetterbusiness.com

Dairyglen - innovation driving this best run business!

“Innovation is the central issue in economic prosperity”

Michael Porter

Wicklow based ice cream supplier Dairyglen continue to achieve success with innovative products in timely response to customer demand.

"The whipped ice-cream market has changed in the last four years," said Philip Delaney, a director of the family run business.

"Consumers wanted more, so we introduced our Smooch brand, which is similar to a McFlurry but comes with a huge range of fresh toppings that are blended with the artisan ice-cream flavours."

He said the best way to get products to retailers was to offer them a retail solution: a branded Smooch unit "which gives the retailer an instant ice-cream parlour".

"We’re introducing our newest products at Shop - which will fill a gap we noticed in the milkshake market - as well as highlighting some of our other brands, including Hawaiian Ice, a sort of posh slushy, Frutina Slush, and our full range of accessories and machinery."

Smooch was first to the market with the mini ice cream parlour and was first again with the introduction of the luxury soft-serve ice cream, the Smooch Deluxe. Dairyglen continues to develop new products, brands, menus, and promotions to stay ahead of the curve.

Shop is Irelands largest three day food and drink trade only event, which takes place in the RDS Simmonscourt in Dublin from September 28 to 30. Advice on how retailers can tap in the now cited upswing will be given at Shop. The event will also be a chance to display the latest products and innovations coming on stream in the Irish market.

"Some 150 exhibitors will be showcasing the latest innovations and products that the Irish market has to offer to about 5,000 visitors, including those from supermarkets, convenience outlets, independent chains and high-end delicatessens," said Leyla Mulvihill, show manager for Easyfairs, the event organiser of Shop.

Some 90 per cent of the exhibitors are Irish.

Dairyglen are an IIS customer who have been utilising SAP Business One since 2004.

Managing Director Philip Delaney on SAP Business One – “I would recommend SAP Business One to any business of our size. People shy away from it, thinking it’s for bigger companies, but it’s not expensive and it’s a comprehensive business tool for any company that really wants to understand how it is operating.”

To find out more about Dairyglen visit: www.dairyglen.ie

See how you can make your business even better with SAP Business One by visiting www.beabetterbusiness.co.uk or www.beabetterbusiness.ie

Original Source: The Post.ie 19th September 2010

Intelligent Essentials - Licensing

Find out more about Intelligent Essentials Licensing.You can readily access information with regard to the licenses you possess with regard to the different elements of Intelligent Essentials and allocate these to specific users within your organisation.

Intelligent Essentials - Making SAP Business One even Better!



Visit www.beabetterbusiness.co.uk or www.beabetterbusiness.ie to find out more about Intelligent Essentials and SAP Business One!

SMEs need to realise that success and sustainability are not mutually exclusive.

SME managers across the UK have traditionally skirted around energy management and sustainability in favour of focus on short-term profit.
But rising energy bills and new carbon reduction legislation are now conspiring to force their hand.

SMEs need to realise that success and sustainability are not mutually exclusive, says Adrian Newton of Energy Solutions by bringing sustainability into the boardroom, companies can not only slash energy costs; they can also boost their bottom line, build their brand equity and reinforce their reputation.

Despite growing interest in corporate and social responsibility (CSR) issues, the UK’s business leaders have, until recently, neatly managed to sidestep any real strategic approach to energy management and sustainability. A recent survey by O2 of senior leaders in the private and public sectors revealed a divergence of views on this issue.

While 46 per cent of respondents said they planned to prioritise sustainability over the next two years, 36 per cent acknowledged that they would move away from it. But the report also showed an emerging consensus that sustainability is good for business, with almost 60 percent of the senior executives questioned saying it would increase market share over the next ten years and 44 percent thought it would boost profits by underpinning a more efficient operating model.
According to Peter Graf, chief sustainability officer at SAP, sustainability is a trend that is “really powered by IT”, especially as SAP provides software that supports all different enterprise areas, from supply chains and logistics to distribution and HR.

“Software is key because software can measure, optimise and improve how business is run."

“IT creates transparency. With software, you can find the areas where you can have the biggest impact [on the carbon footprint.”

To Find out More about SAP Business One, designed specifically to meet the needs to small to midsize companies, visit www.beabetterbusiness.co.uk or www.beabetterbusiness.ie

Original Article: SME Web

Drop in UK Business Failures; SAP Business One can help!

Equifax Business Failures Report: 13.2% drop recorded year on year.

Equifax has released its latest figures on business failures across the UK, showing that despite continuing difficult trading conditions, businesses are doing their best to reverse the negative trend.

In August 2010, there was a reduction in the number of businesses that went bust across every sector compared to the same period last year. Overall there was a 13.2%drop year on year.

There was also an 8.2% decline for August compared to July. Only the Retail sector saw a small increase in failures in August compared to July at 3.2%.

“As was the case at the end of Quarter 2, our Business Failures tracking shows the very close control businesses continue to put on cash flow and costs” explained Nic Beishon, Head of Equifax Commercial Information Solutions.

“Our numbers also seem to suggest that the banks might have been responding to calls to free up their lending criteria to provide new funds to businesses. This could have played a part in helping businesses struggling with cash flow as they chase late payments. More often than not these are good healthy businesses – they just need a helping hand when late payments make it hard to balance the books at the end of the month.”

“Headlines continue to report cuts in headcount as well as some fairly high profile failures. But a close control on debts and cash flow management certainly appears to be working for many businesses. The trend that we saw throughout all of 2009 for failures to increase has definitely been reversed – which has to be positive news for businesses and their employees."

“The speculation has continued about whether we are heading for a double-dip recession, but our Business Failures Report seems to indicate that all the right actions are being taken by UK businesses – and the organisations that support them - to survive in the continuing difficult trading conditions.”

SAP Business One can help support small to midsize companies through the recession allowing them to work smarter, turn downtime into productive time, enhance efficiency and improve visibility across the organisation which can support the maintenance of crucial cash flow. Flourish during the recession with SAP Business One.

To find out more visit: www.beabetterbusiness.co.uk or www.beabetterbusiness.ie

Original Article: SME Web

Software powering sustainability, SAP continues to reduce carbon footprint!

“Sustainable development is a dynamic process which enables all people to realise their potential, and to improve their quality of life, in ways which simultaneously protect and enhance the Earth’s life support systems.”

Forum for the Future Annual Report 2000

According to Peter Graf, chief sustainability officer at SAP, sustainability is a trend that is “really powered by IT”, especially as SAP provides software that supports all different enterprise areas, from supply chains and logistics to distribution and HR.

“Software is key because software can measure, optimise and improve how business is run."

“IT creates transparency. With software, you can find the areas where you can have the biggest impact [on the carbon footprint.”

SAP reduced its global carbon footprint by 15 percent last year, saving the company around €90 million. This comes as the company announced a 12 percent increase in revenues.

The reduction, from 501 kilotons of carbon in 2008 to 425 kilotons in 2009, was well ahead of the company’s annual goal of five percent less than the previous year’s emissions. SAP attributed the achievement to internal measures such as reducing the number of business flights, and the impact of the economic crisis on the business.
SAP’s long-term goal is to reduce its total carbon emissions to the level of 2000 by the year 2020.

This is no easy task, as Dr Peter Graf, chief sustainability officer at SAP, explained: “Our carbon footprint is mainly driven by the number of people in the company. In 2000, we had 24,000 employees. In 2007, we had 50,000 employees. Now, we are at about 48,000."

“We need to reduce the carbon footprint for each employee by more than 60 percent.”

Original Source: Businesszone.co.uk

Torelli contemplates the benefits of SAP!

Torelli is a Boutique Bicycle Company manufacturing premium bicycles, frames, parts and accessories. They are the first company to have their SAP Business One implementation and corresponding business transformation tracked and documented by Information Week.

In a video blog posted this week, Torelli’s Product Design Manager Christian Feldhake describes how with the company’s new ERP implementation, a simple thing like offering a customer free shipping on a product would actually become, well … simple.

When asked by a colleague whether it was okay to extend a free shipping promotion on a phone order, Feldhake explains that currently, only CEO Todd Linscott can authorise the offer on those particular products in question, and the chief executive was off-site at the time, visiting customers. So for the time being, no discount, and consequently, no sale.

But that is all about to change, Feldhake says, thanks to the technology makeover Torelli is receiving this month, courtesy of SAP and Navigator Business Solutions.

"With the new software we're going to have from SAP, we'll be able to go in and put a limit on the amount of discounts, or set predetermined discounts in the software," Feldhake says, taking a break from packing up bike frames to ship out to Torelli's dealer network. As a result, “The salesperson, or the customer directly over the phone, will be able to answer those questions without having to go to higher management.”

That kind of empowerment means that everyone at this small company — and even the customers themselves — will have the information at their fingertips to close deals, and thereby help Torelli meet its goals for success.

Source: Information Week

SAP sales surge by 300% in Latin America

SAP is experiencing soaring demand for its products and services among large businesses and government agencies in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Argentina, according to an article quoting an SAP executive. One of his comments: "We are going from a focus on cutting costs to a focus on growth."

From a news article on Business News Americas' website:

SAP's current average sales transaction to large enterprises in Latin America has spiked 300% in comparison to last year, the senior VP of the company's large enterprise division for Latin America, Felix Feddersen, told BNamericas.

The increases have been most marked in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Argentina, while verticals seen turning up investments include finances, retail, oil and gas, mining and metals and, in the case of Brazil and Mexico, the public sector. . . .

Large multinationals headquartered in regions such as Europe and the US are channeling funds to growth markets such as Latin America. Additionally, booming Latin American economies are accelerating expansion of regional firms, which are seen automating their entire operations.

SAP's Feddersen said the huge jump in sales has been led by customer-facing apps, including CRM and BI, resulting in a 56% increase in revenue from license sales for the quarter and a 35% jump in revenue from software and related services.

SAP Business One “is a great management tool”

Delivering innovative services that allow disabled clients to have a meaningful life is the Bea Fisher Organisation’s mission. Yet when legacy software could not keep pace with the demands of entrepreneurial business entities, the organisation turned to SAP Business One.

“As we developed more sophisticated service delivery methods, we needed to better understand the true cost of our operations. SAP Business One provides the power and visibility that meet our needs.”

George Zaychkowsky, CEO, Bea Fisher Organisation

Bea Fisher needed to improve visibility into service delivery performance and their ability to serve clientele by increasing process efficiency. They wanted to replace their old manual record keeping systems, enhance the efficiency of data entry and report generation in relation to their financials. When choosing software to support their needs a key criterion was that the solution would be scalable so as to support business growth.

SAP Business One was selected due to its robust functionality to support finance, manufacturing and HR process, intuitive report generation and decision support feature. SAP Business was identified as being affordable scalable software that would meet their current and future needs.

The Bea Fisher organisation now has an enhanced ability to generate business intelligent which supports decision making, and the now have increased accuracy when it comes to accounting data and cost estimates for operations. Less effort is now required to produce financial reports and they have the improved visibility into staff performance and service delivery which they sought out to achieve.

“Our management team can use the software to learn exactly what staff members are doing and what care clients are receiving,” Zaychkowsky adds.
“In time, we’ll be able to document the performance of our care providers and use that data to improve client outcomes. The added visibility and insight we have gained makes SAP Business One a great management tool.”

SMEs - Website domain name increasingly important and cheaper than you think!

“If you have a web site, it makes your small business look big.”

Natalie Sequera

The .uk domain name is now 25 years old and is a must for digital business.
Sedo has revealed in its latest domain market study that domain names are more important than ever, especially to small businesses.
Findings from our quarterly domain market study reveal that Britain’s country code top-level domain (ccTLD) still holds excellent value and is one of the most popular extensions traded on the domain market.

The .co.uk domain is currently the second most traded ccTLD, behind Germany’s .de extension and when it comes to the top selling domains, TVs.co.uk represented one of the highest sales of the quarter (including all .com addresses) and was auctioned for £51,000.

While this shows the value businesses are prepared to place on a domain, extended media coverage around the expensive web addresses can make SMEs feel that acquiring decent domain names is out of their price range. The reality is quite different and many web addresses come onto the secondary domain market at a more reasonable price; the median reported sales price of all .co.uk’s is £348 - a price that certainly wouldn’t break the bank and would help a SME ensure an optimal digital presence.

Developing a strategic domain name is crucial for brands to steer their online presence in the right direction. Top words should be identified in the given markets, develop a list of target domains and purchase URLs that available immediately

Keyword domains related to search terms will often rank highly in natural search listings and receive a higher quality value than those run through paid search campaigns.

Good domains will also increase the number of listings of a brand in search engines and assist with link building.

A full domain portfolio will hinder competitors’ online standing in a particular market place and minimise brand damage. Companies such as Sainsbury’s (taste.co.uk), the Times (news.co.uk) and Barclays (bank.co.uk) all use this strategy and it can be very usefully be applied to SME also, when .co.uk domain names are available to buy at an average price of £1,338.

Businesses should consider domain names as a cost-effective way to increase conversion, boost sales and drive traffic in their quest to build a strong and attractive digital presence.

Our domain name represents what we endeavour to do; support you in your endeavors to become a better business with SAP Business One and Intelligent Essentials.

www.beabetterbusiness.com

Intelligent Colour Size Matrix for SAP Business One

The latest addition to the Intelligent Essentials Add Ons from Intelligent Information Systems (IIS)!

Intelligent Colour Size Matrix is ideal for any company who manages inventory with colour/size variables.

The ability to bind together products that vary only in size or colour
is essential for the purchasing and maintenance of apparel for many wholesale or retail operations.

Intelligent Colour/Size Matrix enables you to create and maintain parent and child items via matrix templates within SAP Business One. The matrix templates define the item code and description to be assigned to each child item created. The module also allows you to optionally copy parent item price list prices to their child items.

Functionalities

•Creates item codes within a user defined matrix template based on two item variables.
•Assign templates to parent items enabling user to create child items for the parent.
•Defines parent and child items in Item Master Data UDF – Colour Size Matrix.
•Assign multiple templates to one parent item.
•Apply parent pricing tab allows the user to copy selected price list prices from a parent item to all of its child items at any point in time.

Business Challenges

•Ensuring visibility and proper tracking of inventory for multi-variant items.
•Creating item codes for multi variant items.
•Efficiently completing inventory reporting and sales analysis by size and colour.

Key Features

•Customisable user defined colour/size matrix templates to meet your inventory needs.
•Multiple colour/size matrix templates can be assigned to one parent item to create multi-variant child items.
•Apply parent pricing to child items when applicable.
•Leverage standard order processing capabilities of SAP Business One such as special pricing, warehouse, availability check, etc in combination with colour/size matrix as items are processed through ordinary SAP Business One processing cycle.

Business Benefits

•Save time creating item codes by creating child items within user defined templates.
•Quickly set up a product range for a new multi-attribute.
•Beat the competition and capture the market with proper inventory tracking.
•Quickly fulfill orders for multi attribute items.
•Improves inventory reporting and sales analysis by allowing any business in need of tracking by the sizes and colours of their merchandise to do so efficiently.

Intelligent Essentials the Apps of the SAP Business One World!

Intelligent Essentials are comparable to the Apps for the iPhone; they supply you with new ways to make your SAP Business One solution even better!

SAP Business One is just the beginning. The Intelligent Essentials range is being continually developed to ensure that there is no limit to what SAP Business One can do for you.

The core functionality of SAP Business One is retained and Intelligent Essentials standardised add ons can be readily incorporated into your solution depending on your needs as and when they arise.

Intelligent Essentials provide a hassle free way for you to customise your SAP Business One solution, extending and building upon the functionalities which already exist.

The development of Intelligent Essentials has been, and continues to be driven by our customers. They are designed to meet the varied and distinct needs of small to midsize companies operating in today’s dynamic business environments.

Browse our range of Intelligent Essentials add-ons and see how we can take your SAP Business One solution even further.

Visit: www.beabetterbusiness.co.uk or www.beabetterbusiness.ie to find out more!

SAP rolls out real-time business analytics apps

In a sign of SAP's stepped up attention to the business analytics market, the company released a set of real-time analytics products on Tuesday that are customised for use in various industry sectors and business functions.

The products are based on technologies from the company's 2007 purchase of Business Objects and include new tools designed to let enterprises enable mobile access to business intelligence (BI) applications.

The initial set of products in SAP's new BusinessObjects analytics application family have been customised for companies in the healthcare, consumer products, public sector, financial services, retail and telecommunication sectors.

SAP's new applications are designed to deliver real-time analytics capabilities for line of business functions, such as finance, sales, marketing, planning, risk assessment and customer satisfaction, at companies within these vertical segments.

The products were developed in collaboration with major SAP customers and are designed to work with structured or unstructured data from any SAP or non-SAP systems.

Driving the company's efforts in the real-time analytics market is the growing demand from enterprises for better decision support tools, SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott told Computerworld on Tuesday.

Increasingly, companies are looking for tools that can help them access, analyse and use real-time data to drive improved efficiencies across their sales, customer service, marketing and other business functions, he said. A growing number of companies are looking to push such functionality out to front-line employees to give them the insight and the context they need to make better decisions, he said.

One significant differentiator though could be SAPs growing focus on enabling mobile access to business analytics applications, Smith said. "SAP has been pushing hard to provide mobile access," he said. "It's something that is becoming very important for businesses."

Because SAP's newly released applications are standalone products that can operate in both SAP and non-SAP environments, the company's commitment to heterogeneous environments is driven home to customers, said James Kobielus, an analyst with Forrester Research.

"They are also very much built for rapid deployment and rapid customisation," Kobielus said.

"These products incorporate a lot of content built in an agile collaborative way by SAP and its customers."

Source: Computer world