SAP committed to customer centric innovation

Customer-centric innovation is the core principle of SAP strategy, said Sanjay Poonen, executive vice-president and general manager SAP business and LoB solutions.

“The goal of SAP is to take care of everything behind the scenes, to provide the backbone and nervous system to enable companies to focus on core business”, he said.

SAP are aware and are paying attention to the fact that the needs of UK businesses are changing as they now and in the future are set to increasingly require and demand multi channel software and their strategy is being built in response to this shift.

On-premises, on-device, on-demand, and seamless orchestration of all of these are the four pillars on which SAP's strategy is based, said Poonen.

UK research shows companies will shift gradually to a mix of in-house, mobile and cloud-based applications, which SAP believes is as a result of increased recognition of the cost and business benefits of delivery methods.

According to SAP’s survey of 250 CIOs in large UK companies, on-premises software deployments will fall by 20% to 51% by 2015, as companies demand access to their applications on the go or via the cloud.

Additionally, the survey said, the share of on-demand implementations will increase 11% to 28% and on-device will increase by 8% to 21%.

Another key strategy for SAP is to focus on industry-specific analytics solutions as the firm believes this will be the next wave of demand.

The largest ever attendance at the SAP’s Sapphire customer partner and world tour events this year has indicated to SAP that businesses understand the value of IT.

SAP enhancing Enterprise Support through user groups

With more than 35 years experience in supporting enterprise critical applications SAP is committed to continually investing in tools, processes and methodologies to enable customers and deliver the highest level of support.

SAP has now set up a searchable, online repository of customer benefit cases and best practices. .
The repository of self-service resources, including product roadmaps and expert opinion, was set up to support a methodology to help customers get better value out of SAP's enterprise support.

The repository and methodology were developed in collaboration with the SAP User Group Executive Network (Sugen), a global network of SAP user groups.

Sugen was at the centre of negotiations with SAP that eventually led to a reversal of a controversial decision in 2008 to implement enterprise support for all customers.

SAP and the Sugen SAP Enterprise Support Charter team host regular regional feedback sessions with customers to jointly develop best practices, guided procedures and self-service resources.

SAP said the latest joint venture with Sugen shows the software maker remains committed to continued collaboration with user groups.

The initiative is aimed at helping customers to realise the benefits of SAP enterprise support faster and subsequently reduce their total cost of operations.

"As a result of the dialogue between SAP and the user groups, customers have choice and can now focus on the value proposition of SAP enterprise support," said Tonnie Van der Horst, chairman of Sugen.

SAP Enterprise support has been and continues to be developed to address the various business challenges that business face. SAP offers customers a tiered portfolio of support offerings. The level of support can be selected to meet the individual needs of your business across the entire life cycle of the application from implementation and testing, to maintenance and operations, to monitoring, optimising and upgrading.

SAP is convinced that the value of SAP Enterprise Support can help customers receive the most out of their IT investment, enabling their IT staff to provide transparency and additional focus on business process improvement.

Computer Weekly.com
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Being customer centric is a key priority for all; global leaders SAP consolidate their stance

Enthusiasm reflects confidence, spreads good cheers, raises morale, inspires associates, arouses loyalty, and laughs at adversity ...it is beyond price.

ALLAN COX

The biggest change at SAP in recent months has been the change in leadership; now confident, assertive and highly informed.
In April this year when SAP announced its quarterly earnings they emphasised not only double digit growth but also a return in customer trust made evident by 90% of their customers purchasing their support package.

Though perhaps like many companies existing customers were initially temporarily forgotten or shelved as the economic circumstances took precedence they have come to realise the merits of investing in customers continually and the long term costs of regaining them once lost as opposed to sustaining them by comparison.

You've got to give loyalty down, if you want loyalty up

DONALD REGAN

Never was there a truer quote.

SAP has clearly identified what their customers’ need, where they fit in and how they will drive further customer value.
Adapted from: Evans, B., SAP’s top priorities to become undisputed, Information Week, 17/05/2010, accessed 12/07/2010, Available at: http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/interviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224800105&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_All

99.9% of all successful businesses have one thing in common…they are customer centric!
They know their customers, the business is built around their core customers, employees live, and breathe customers, and the business tracks its customers as part of key performance business tracking.

To find out more and determine how customer centric your business is visit:

http://www.articlesbase.com/strategic-planning-articles/is-your-business-customer-focussed-do-you-have-a-customercentric-strategy-a-simple-checklist-for-your-business-by-ysatisfy-consultancy-829741.html

At IIS we see our customers as our partners in making SAP Business One better.
Our customers are our wealth and we are continually committed to meeting their diverse and ever changing needs. The development of Intelligent Essentials is testimony to this as these standardised enhancements have been developed to compliment and build upon what is already available from the SAP Business One platform.

Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.

HELEN KELLER

SAP Benchmarking - A free hidden gem for SAP customers!

“SAP Benchmarking is a hidden gem ...and one that that many customers do not realise is a free service that is available to SAP Customers around the world. It's easy to participate in, results are confidential and it is your chance to see how your organisation measures up and what you can do to move your organisation to new levels of performance”.

Paul Kurchina, KurMeta Group, 9/07/2010, http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/20025

Looking internally at your company’s performance does have its merits though it is difficult to know how much better your performance could be, should be or how it measures up to your competitors unless you compare it to those of similar companies. Competitive benchmarking involves measuring the company’s performance with that of other comparable businesses against key credentials and comparators such as finance, products and services, organisation, technology, research and development and personnel policies.

The SAP benchmarking program was piloted in 2004, and rolled out largely in 2005. The mission of the program was to develop a forum for SAP customers where year on year performance metrics, and best practices could be readily assessed and contrasted.

To date the program has involved 8,500 participants making it one of the largest benchmarking programs in the world and most notably of all it’s free to SAP customers.

Participants receive a detailed benchmarking study of their businesses processes. Key performance indicators are highlighted within the High Impact Strategies Framework; strategies which are believed to create and have the biggest impact on value creation for the particular business relative to its industry and competitive forces within it.

With over 4,000 survey’s complete the comparable data is all embracing encompassing areas such as financial excellence, customer value life cycle, strategic IT, operational excellence and product and service leadership; moreover, this list is not exhaustive.

The increased competitive pressure within today’s business environments driven by the dynamic, turbulent economic conditions is now compelling organisations to seek new ways to improve their performance and sustain their positions. Measuring of internal performance is no longer sufficient as it can breed complacency and result in positions being challenged, bypassed and potentially pilfered by the competition.

Benchmarking allows for gaps in performance to be identified and then the challenge is how to change the company’s strategies and practices to fill these gaps and reside more competitively.

Businesses should be given every opportunity to excel and reach their full potential. SAP recognise the need for businesses to gain support in improving, building upon successes, strengths and overcoming weaknesses to take advantage of opportunities and minimise threats. According to the now famous business and management consultant, Albert Humphrey, fundamentally this is the basic premise upon which strategy should consistently be cultivated.