Inside SAP March/April 2011

Issue 13 | March/April 2011

www.insidesap.com.au

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

TOP 10

PP 255003/09024

Most influential 2011

CASE STuDY Water corporation goes mobile

sme focus Q&A with SAP’s Helen Masters

Technology Businessobjects 4.0 released

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CONTENTS

10

23

26

29

30

34

Special feature: Top 10 Most Influential People in SAP 2011

Features

Technology

23 Case study: Water Corporation of

32 Business Intelligence:

Western Australia

11 About this year’s Top 10

Managing a fleet of mobile devices

12 Community Contributor: Tony de

was made much easier with the

Thomasis

13 Community Contributor: Paul Hawking

14 Community Contributor: Alisdair Templeton

15 Project Leader: James Stone 16 Project Leader: Sharron Kennedy 17 Partner: Keith Wallis 19 Partner: Mark Alder 20 Partner: Bala Kalimuthu 21 Partner: Iain Macleod 22 Partner: Stephen Hopkins

across a huge geographic area implementation of Sybase Afaria.

26 Window on the future of logistics SAP’s Future Logistics Living Lab opens in Sydney.

Asia-Pacific 28 News from the region 29 Case study: Wildlife Reserves Singapore choose SAP to unify systems

BusinessObjects 4.0 versions released – Freya Purnell

34 Business Performance Management: Measuring the intangible – Scott Taylor

36 Mobility: 10 reasons to mobilise SAP – Danielle Cullen

Events 41 SAUG Plenary 2011 – Tony de Thomasis

42 Event Calendar

Regulars 4 From the Editor

SME focus

6 News

30 Q&A: Helen Masters discusses

39 On the Move

SAP’s strategy for the SME sector

43 Partner Directory www.insidesap.com.au 3

EDITOR

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

Managing Editor Freya Purnell t. (02) 9929 5465 m. 0412 602 579 freya.purnell@insidesap.com.au

From the Editor Welcome to our special Top 10 Most Influential People in SAP edition. Each year, we have sought your assistance in determining who is having the biggest impact on the SAP community in Australia and New Zealand (outside SAP itself), but this year, we refined our process and widened the net to ensure the ecosystem was fully represented – with categories for Partners, Project Leaders and Community Contributors. We hope that this year’s list gives you more of a sense of those who are influencing how SAP is implemented, utilised and improved within enterprises of all sizes.

The profiles of this year’s Top 10 start on page 10, and this year we spoke to them about the emerging trends in the SAP space and their predictions for the coming year, so it is a great way to tap into their wealth of knowledge. We’d like to thank our readers and nominees for their involvement in the process, and congratulate the 2011 Top 10.

The first quarter of 2011 has seen a whole raft of announcements on technology from SAP – whether it is in-memory computing or the new releases of BusinessObjects solutions and GRC products. We look at the details of some of these announcements on page 32. The brand-new Future Logistics Living Lab was also launched in Sydney’s Australian Technology Park, with the support of a range of industry partners, and Elizabeth Kelleher found out how the work being undertaken there will shape logistics in Australia.

Mobility is another buzzword in the SAP ecosystem, and by virtue of the size of its geographical footprint, Water Corporation has already been there, done that and lived to tell the tale. They share a case study on their recent implementation of Sybase Afaria, while Danielle Cullen from Clarimont Consulting give 10 reasons why your organisation should consider going down the mobility path with SAP. For those in the SME space, we spoke to SAP executive Helen Masters about the company’s strategy in this area, and its plans to see the long-awaited Business ByDesign finally hit the Australian market in 2011.

By now you may have visited our new website, signed up for our weekly e-newsletter, or listed your company in our SAP provider directory (it’s free) – if not, go to www.insidesap.com.au. We’re looking to bring you more local, up-to-date content through the website over the coming months, as well as a new-look jobs board, so do send us your feedback as we would love to hear your thoughts.

As always, we hope you enjoy this edition.

Freya Purnell Managing Editor, Inside SAP

4 Inside SAP magazine

Journalist/Editorial Assistant Elizabeth Kelleher t. (02) 9929 5465 elizabeth@flapjack.com.au

Creative Director & Production Manager Justin Knights t. (02) 9929 5465 m. 0425 292 075 justin@flapjack.com.au

Advertising Sales MW Media Darren Matthews t. 02 9029 6028 m. 0411 259009 darren@mwmedia.com.au Stuart Whitmore t. 02 9029 6028 m. 0403 003 703 stuart@mwmedia.com.au

Contributing Writers Tony de Thomasis, Scott Taylor, Danielle Cullen

Published by FlapJack Media Pty Ltd Suite 7, Level 9, 122 Arthur St North Sydney NSW 2060 ABN: 93 142 878 135 © 2011 FlapJack Media Pty Ltd. Inside SAP is published four times a year by FlapJack Media Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced in whole or part without the written permission of the publishers. FlapJack Media Pty Ltd makes no representation or warranties with respect to this magazine or its contents including, without limitation, material communicated by third parties. FlapJack Media Pty Ltd does not warrant that the information available in this magazine is accurate, complete or current. Opinions expressed are those of the respective authors and not necessarily of the publisher. Neither FlapJack Media Pty Ltd nor any persons involved in the preparation of this publication will be liable for any loss or damage as a result of use of or reliance upon advice, representation, statement, opinion or conclusion expressed in Inside SAP magazine.

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Quarterly update NEWS

SAP and solution news SAP AG recorded the best software sales in its history in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to the company’s preliminary financial results. SAP’s software revenues increased by approximately 34 per cent to a1.5 billion in Q4 2010, up from a1.12 billion the previous year. Software and softwarerelated service revenue increased by 27 per cent to a3.26 billion, while the company’s total revenue increased by 28 per cent to a4.04 billion. Bill McDermott, co-CEO of SAP, said the company achieved “outstanding growth in all regions and customer segments”. SAP’s full-year results show a 25 per cent increase in software revenues to a3.26 billion and a 19 per cent increase in software and software-related service revenue to a9.78 billion, up from a8.2 billion the previous year. Overall, SAP’s revenue rose from a10.67 billion to a12.45 billion, an increase of approximately 17 per cent. Jim Hagemann Snabe, co-CEO of SAP, said the result was “clear proof that focusing on innovation and customer value is the right strategy”.

SAP AG’s sustainability report for 2010 showed that in the past year, it has reduced its worldwide emissions by four per cent, from 450 kilotons in 2009 to 430 kilotons. The company said it has achieved these reductions through changes in employees’ commuting practices and the purchase of renewable energy. Over the past three years, SAP has cut its greenhouse emissions by 24 percent from its peak levels in 2007.

Locally, SAP Australia New Zealand (ANZ) recorded its best ever year for the financial year ending 31 December 2010, with total revenue growing by 26 per cent and software and software-related services revenue growing by 32 per cent. SAP ANZ attributed the strong 2010 result to its continuing success in delivering industry expertise in financial services, mining and resources, retail, utilities and public sector. The company also pointed to a 25 per cent growth in BusinessObjects and platform solutions and the strong performance of the small to mid-size segment, which drove an 80 per cent increase in SAP’s indirect business. Key customer wins included Australand, Fairfax Media, CGU Insurance, Murray Goulburn Cooperative, Workcover WA, McGrath Foundation, Auckland Council and Jucy Rentals.

In what was a huge quarter for SAP solution news, SAP AG and Microsoft Corporation announced the general availability of Duet Enterprise in February.

Launching the software, which connects Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and SAP, Michael Reh, general manager and senior vice president, information worker solutions, said the new product provides users with streamlined productivity and better decision-making.

“It is built on project ‘Gateway,’ which enables easy and standards-based access to SAP applications. And together with SharePoint, the software delivers a layer of interoperability that allows customers and partners to focus on creating solutions that drive business growth while helping ensure that all technical integration aspects work reliably together.”

The companies also announced the launch of the SAP-Microsoft Unite Partner Connection program. Created in direct response to partner feedback and requests, it is designed to help members of the SAP PartnerEdge program and the Microsoft Partner Network identify, plan and deliver innovative, cost-effective solutions that capitalise on the full potential of SAP and Microsoft software.

In March, SAP launched the new release of its governance, risk and compliance (GRC) solutions, which has been unified on a single platform. The new release introduces a common look and feel across all applications in the GRC suite, embedded business intelligence reports and dashboards, and a graphical tool to define and depict risks. SAP said the new features will help executives overcome problems resulting from fragmented and disconnected GRC solutions such as poor visibility into risk exposure; reactive, inefficient, costly or manual risk exposures; large time and personnel requirements to manage risk and compliance; and lack of alignment from not having risk and compliance processes embedded within the business.

6 Inside SAP magazine

For these full stories, visit the News section of www.insidesap.com.au

Also launched in February was the SAP Social Services Management for Public Sector package, designed to help government agencies administer and approve monetary benefits relating to social services. According to SAP, the solution streamlines administrative processes and workflows between the front and back office to help staff at the federal, state and local level allocate social benefits in a more targeted manner.

Esker reported its on-demand automation solutions have been granted Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) 70 Type I certification following an independent audit by Ernst & Young. SAS 70 addresses the rules of internal control outlined in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act legislation and enables two types of certification.

The company also announced the release of a new version of Esker on Demand. Developed as a global document automation solution for all business processes, the new version of Esker on Demand also includes new functionality for vendor invoice processing automation, support for five languages, and country-specific features for over 20 countries. It also allows for more complex workflow management, automatic duplicate invoice checking and access through a vendor portal, as well as SAP standard interface integration and a multi-platform connector enabling implementation with any ERP system. “This new version with a strong focus on AP automation brings the automation capability typically reserved for large companies (due to the significant CAPEX investment required) to mid-sized Australian and New Zealand companies, as well as the local subsidiaries of multinationals,” said Christophe DuMonet, managing director, Esker ANZ.

The biggest announcements from SAP came in March, with the launch of the 4.0 releases of business intelligence (BI) and enterprise information management (EIM) solutions from the SAP BusinessObjects portfolio (more on this in our feature on page 32), and the release of the in-memory computing roadmap.

Announcing the roadmap at the SAP Run Better Tour in Boston, SAP said it will deliver a “new reality for enterprise software”, consisting of three key dimensions – providing breakthrough analytics to help SAP customers analyse massive amounts of data in real time; developing new and renewed applications based on in-memory computing technology; and dramatically simplifying customers’ IT landscapes by reducing redundant layers.

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Quarterly update NEWS

Product and industry news Revelation Software Concepts said its free Salt 1.2 platform for SAP software has seen resounding acceptance by SAP software users around the world. Salt is a free SaaS application platform, which powers a suite of mini-apps for developers, Basis and project team members who operate SAP software-based IT systems, which allow users to automate time-consuming processes, such as keeping track of old code snippets, identifying lost or forgotten objects and finding differences across landscapes. Salt 1.2 is the first major upgrade to the Salt project and expands on six of the original utility apps, improves on change intelligence and makes installation easier through the VM Open Virtualisation Format.

Meanwhile, 10seconds Software released a new SAP Service Entry Sheet approval solution, allowing managers to make informed decisions while they’re on the move. ExpressServiceEntry notifies managers via email when they have service entries and sends them daily summaries to ensure they stay on top of their queue. Featuring a rich user interface that allows managers to make informed decisions via mobile phone, this easy-to-use solution lets them release or block a request in just two clicks and notifies the person who created the request when it has been released or blocked.

ASG Group has secured a contract with CITIC Pacific Mining to provide the company with full end-to-end SAP solutions using its new Software-as-a Managed-Service offering. According to ASG, this offering utilises a combination of its infrastructure and service management capabilities integrated with the SAP expertise of the recently acquired Courtland Business Solutions. Steve Tull, general manager, marketing and effectiveness, ASG, said the deal signals ASG’s entry into the cloud computing market, with services to be provided from the companies soonto-be completed data centre in Perth. He said he expected a number of new and existing customers to be attracted to ASG’s newly expanded suite of services, which now also includes Infrastructure-as-a-Managed-Service.

Workcover WA has signed an agreement with SAP Australia to implement SAP ERP 6.0 and SAP BusinessObjects to supports its compensation claim system.

The new SAP ERP system will run the core financial operations of the agency, replacing a legacy Oracle ERP system, which was out of maintenance support and in need of updating, while business intelligence capability will support service enhancement strategies.

Queensland Minister for Health, Geoff Wilson, issued a statement in March on progress to stabilise Queensland Health’s troubled SAP HR/payroll system, reporting that improvements rolled out over the previous three months had reduced staff payroll enquiries by more than 80 per cent, reduced the number of staff receiving incorrect pay by 90 per cent to 243 and cut the number of those receiving no pay at all to 31. The original implementation, which combined SAP with WorkBrain rostering software, was carried out with the assistance of IBM, but the problems resulted in some of the department’s 80,000 staff being underpaid and or not paid at all.

Wilson also gave an update on work on the blueprint to finalise the payroll improvement project by mid-2011, which included a review of the “onesize fits-all shared service approach” and the introduction of a localised payroll model.

In a briefing on the Commonwealth Bank’s core banking modernisation project, CBA CIO Michael Harte said that customers were already seeing the benefits of its massive SAP implementation. He reported that over 53 customer records, 1.2 million term deposit accounts, and 10 million retail deposit and transaction accounts had been migrated to SAP, delivering the benefits of real-time banking functionality, with processing occurring seven days a week. The cost of the project was also upgraded to $1.1 billion at the bank’s recent half-yearly result.

Harte said that the progress delivered so far put the question of whether the bank could successfully execute such a large and risky project well and truly to rest.

Auckland Transport has also implemented a new SAP system, going live on 1 November 2010. The agency, which recently assumed the transport-related functions previously provided by Auckland Regional Council, Auckland Regional Transport Authority and six city and district councils, has successfully run a number of full business processes including payroll runs, finance and procurement processes. With a tight, immoveable timeframe and a limited budget, Auckland’s Transition Agency chose to use an existing SAP environment as the baseline for a new system, and this approach enabled the implementation team to deliver on time. Over the coming months, the agency planned to focus on improving key performance reporting to align with business needs as they emerged.

8 Inside SAP magazine

For these full stories, visit the News section of www.insidesap.com.au

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TOP 10

MOST INFLUENTIAL 2011

TOP 10

Most influential 2011

10 Inside SAP magazine

How we found the 2011 Top 10 Most Influential People in SAP Now in its third year, the Inside SAP Top 10 Most Influential People in SAP has always sought to identify the top influencers in the SAP ecosystem, as voted by our readership.

This year, we refined the process to make it more representative of the SAP ecosystem as a whole.

Through Inside SAP, we called for nominations of those who had been influential in the SAP community over the last year.

We then created three categories, with representatives of all categories to appear in the Top 10: • M ost Influential Partners (for those in the SAP partner community); • M ost Influential Community Contributors (for those who contribute to the SAP community through education, mentoring, technical leadership and so on); and • Most Influential Project Leaders (for those working for or

on behalf of an SAP customer on an SAP project).

Readers of Inside SAP were then asked to vote for the nominee they felt was most influential.

This reader vote accounted for 50 per cent of each nominee’s final score, while the remaining 50 per cent of their score was generated based on a submission by the nominees, covering a range of areas including significant projects undertaken during 2010, awards or recognition received, community involvement and other achievements demonstrating influence.

Our highest scorers were then named in the Top 10.

Because we are comparing different types of influence through the various categories, unlike other years, we have not ranked the Top 10.

Thankyou to all our readers and the nominees for participating in this year’s awards, and congratulations our 2011 Top 10.

Profiles on the following pages by Freya Purnell.

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TOP 10

MOST INFLUENTIAL 2011

Community Contributor

Tony de Thomasis Acclimation

For many in the SAP community, especially those who have read SAP Developer Network (SDN) weblogs or attended conferences in 2010, Tony de Thomasis needs no introduction.

Beginning last year as infrastructure architect at Australia Post, where he grew the SAP landscape significantly and implemented several innovations such as a leading Solution Manager deployment, de Thomasis decided it was time to move on. With the projects he had been working on going live and shifting into production support, he was ready for a change.

“I like to go to different sites and to bring improved ways of doing things,” de Thomasis says.

So joining boutique consulting company Acclimation as NetWeaver Practice Lead was the perfect choice – not only was de Thomasis responsible for building a NetWeaver team from the ground up, but he is now engaged in spreading knowledge and best practices with customers worldwide, and installing cloud-based demonstration systems for NetWeaver solutions. As a business, Acclimation focuses on introducing innovative improvements for companies using SAP, to yield the greatest benefit from their investment.

“Some of the things we concentrate on are using Solution Manager to reduce costs, using the new development tools that you get with SAP more effectively, integrating BusinessObjects into your landscape, and how to get all that stuff in without the pain of disruptive deployment,” de Thomasis says.

But de Thomasis is perhaps best-known for his work as a passionate SAP evangelist. He is a platinum contributor to the SDN, and was its number 1 Australian contributor in 2010.

He is also an SAP Mentor, spoke at numerous SAP events including SAP TechEd Las Vegas and the SAUG Summit, and wrote many articles and webblog entries for various industry publications.

It doesn’t end there – de Thomasis was selected as an SAP lecturer at Victoria University and to run an Expert Guided Implementation presentation for the Application Lifecycle Management roadmap, and was on the Influence Council for SAP Solution Manager.

It’s a measure of his influence that when we speak, he is in New York City for the SAP Run Better Tour, having been flown in from Australia for the announcement of BI 4.0 and the in-memory computing roadmap (see page 33 for his thoughts on this).

12 Inside SAP magazine

While he says finding the balance between his work for the SAP community, paid work and family life is a constant challenge, being so involved in the SAP ecosystem brings many rewards.

“When you speak at an event, or when you put your hand up to run a course or write a weblog, the stuff that comes back at you is the most exciting thing. You get different views and insights, so I like connecting with the people who are using the software and helping the whole ecosystem go forward,” de Thomasis says.

As someone highly connected with the ‘next big thing’ in the SAP world, de Thomasis believes in-memory computing will bring the next revolution, causing a shift as significant as the client server movement was in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.

“This is going to revolutionise the way we do installations and the way we set up our data centres. We’re going to have fewer machines and in the data centre and more machines in the cloud, where you can rent CPU cycles. This is not a five- to ten-year proposition – it’s on the doorstep right now.”

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

On becoming influential “You’ve got to learn your craft properly. You’ve got to have a fair bit of hands-on experience, you’ve got to do your reading and you’ve got to do your certification courses. There’s no substitute for knowing your stuff,” de Thomasis says.

“You also need to reach out to others in the community. Never feel backwards to connect with someone on LinkedIn or Twitter. If you got to an event such as the SAP Australia User Group, it’s always good to introduce yourself to the people in charge and tell them what your interests are, so they can connect you with others. You can start building your reputation that way, by branching out and connecting with others, and sharing the collective knowledge.

“Then if you really feel like it, you can share your thoughts electronically by writing a weblog, a magazine article, or recording a podcast. There’s just so many ways to share information – it’s only limited by your time and imagination.”

And this in itself can lead to great opportunities with SAP, as de Thomasis has found.

“All you’ve got to do is make it known that you’re that way inclined, and SAP will often reach out to you and give you access to knowledge and opportunities that you wouldn’t otherwise had access to.”

TOP 10

MOST INFLUENTIAL 2011

Community Contributor

Paul Hawking Victoria University

Even by Paul Hawking’s standards, 2010 was a very busy year.

As the SAP academic program director in the School of Management and Information Systems at Victoria University, Hawking is responsible for shaping the undergraduate and postgraduate courses the university offers. His close connections with industry through the SAP Australian User Group mean he remains in touch with the changing face of SAP. “What the students love is that I bring the industry and what is happening in the SAP world into the classroom,” Hawking says.

This also gives Victoria University a competitive edge rarely found elsewhere in the academic world.

“We are able to make curriculum material available to other universities around the world, because helping them raises the profile of universities and SAP, and that is beneficial for us in the long run,” he says.

In 2010, Hawking initiated a number of activities to give students practical experience with SAP. The Australian Universities SAP Dashboard competition, sponsored by SAP and Innogence, challenged students to develop a dashboard using SAP BusinessObjects Xcelsius based on the Soccer World Cup. Due to its success, SAP conducted similar competitions in the Americas, Asia and Europe, and it will be held again in 2011.

Another first was a supply chain simulation game, bringing together teams from six universities, each of which were paired with a representative from Linfox, who acted as a team participant and mentor. The daylong event, held in conjunction with SAP, saw university students and industry work together for the first time on a real-life scenario, and was thoroughly enjoyed by the participants. This event will also be held again in 2011.

The focus of these practical exercises is reflective of a shift in course curriculum in recent years to encompass trends in the SAP world, with less focus on the core SAP system and ABAP, and more on CRM, supply chain management and business intelligence (BI).

While BI topped the list of CIO priorities for several years running, it has dropped down the rankings, and Hawking believes this is because companies now have the tools in place but still don’t know how to use them effectively. This is something Victoria University seeks to address with their courses.

“We make sure the students not only get access to the tools to learn in a hands-on way, but they also learn about realisation, KPI measures, and best practice reporting,” he says.

Hawking adds that many students undertaking postgraduate studies are already working with SAP systems

in large companies, so the courses become more like a professional education.

“It brings a whole idea of postgraduate theory and knowledge into a very applied environment, so we attract a lot of consultants.”

Hawking’s influence crosses many boundaries – he utilised his curriculum knowledge in his role designing and advising on content for more than 120 industry presentations at five different SAUG events last year, including Australia’s first SAP Demo Jam competition as part of the 2010 SAUG Summit.

He presented to the SAUG CIO Council on skills shortages, gave workshops for other academics in Germany, India, Singapore and Beijing, co-authored several industry reports and book chapters on business intelligence, and was a prolific blogger and contributor on the SAP Community Network, particularly explaining how material from SAP can be used in the university classroom.

Hawking was identified as a “luminary in the area of IT” by the Global Journal of Enterprise Information Systems, and was one of 20 invitees from industry and academia to attend the SAP International Research Forum in Germany.

But perhaps his proudest moment in 2010 was becoming the only academic in the world to be made an SAP Mentor.

“That was a massive achievement for me,” he says.

Hawking believes there are some exciting changes ahead for SAP. “I think they are putting an environment together now which gives companies a lot of opportunity to innovate – they’ve talked about that before, but I think there are some very applied ways to innovate now with these tools, and relatively simply.”

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

On becoming influential “You really have to have an online presence, and you have to be part of the SAP Community Network, because that’s where the thought leaders are, and where you can understand what’s happening in development. Then you have to take that knowledge and be an ambassador or be able to pull things together to communicate to other people who aren’t part of the community.”

www.insidesap.com.au 13

TOP 10

MOST INFLUENTIAL 2011

Community Contributor

Alisdair Templeton Acclimation

Alisdair Templeton made a splash in the SAP world in 2010 when he, together with Matt Harding, took out the DemoJam at SAP TechEd in Las Vegas with their Super Generic Mobile App. Templeton was already active as an SAP Community Network contributor and conference speaker, but this achievement was not only a highlight for Templeton – it gave his status as an influencer a leg up.

“The DemoJam win has generated a lot of interest in HTML5 mobile apps. I’ve had many conversations since with people who have been influenced by this approach and who are now putting together their own mobility solutions based on this,” Templeton says.

He began the year as the integration architect at Australia Post, and worked on two successful projects there – a large Event Management implementation and an HR rollout to 30,000 employees.

Templeton was keen to return to consulting so then took an opportunity to join Acclimation as a solution architect. He says this role has given him the freedom to pursue different directions in terms of development, such as projects combining WebDynpro and Adobe Forms to facilitate online and offline customer requirements, as well as some more unusual proof of concept work such as integrating Solution Manager and Event Management with Twitter.

“I’ve been able to get away from some of the structure you get in a large organisation, and be able to freely innovate without being constrained,” he says.

The nature of innovation means choosing the right direction can be tough, and so to generate project ideas, Templeton says he spends time looking at trends in the Java and the .NET spaces, which tend to be ahead of SAP, as well as talking to people in different organisations and industries to find out what their struggles and pain points are.

“For example, there’s a lot of talk at the moment about web 3.0 and semantics, and you think, how would that work for SAP? Then you talk to people about building proof of concepts and then projects, and it goes from there,” Templeton says, adding that clients now seem more interested in what they might be able to build in SAP. “Once upon a time, SAP was very much about putting it in and configuring it. Now it’s a much more sophisticated platform. If you take away the Business Suite side and just look at the NetWeaver stack underneath, a lot of the problems

14 Inside SAP magazine

you may not have been able to answer once with SAP, you certainly can do now.

“It’s a little difficult sometimes to convince people who are still on the cost of ownership side, but at the end of the day, well-written software is not going to cost you any more than a badly implemented ERP suite. So people are more willing to get into that conversation now, especially when they realise what they can get out of it.”

Templeton’s approach stems from his original introduction to SAP, as a consultant in the utilities market.

“I was using SAP as a tool to build software with, rather than looking at it as a black box that you configure and drive by tables. Coming into it that way has given me a totally different perspective to what other people have. Having built a lot of stuff with it, you know what the system is capable of, and it has a very robust core,” he says.

He believes the common view of the most significant developments in the next 12-18 months will be mobility, Gateway and analytics products.

“For me, the most important development is going to be that people will recognise those tools are there, but arguably they don’t need to use them. For example, if you want to do mobility, you don’t need the Sybase product. The toolset is sophisticated enough for people to do things themselves, as they understand the capability of the platform without the add-ons,” Templeton says.

He advocates the use of domain driven design as an entirely different way of thinking about software.

“By bringing those types of concepts into your development, people in the SAP community could really drive it forward, as opposed to just being driven by what SAP is doing.

“It’s about really understanding the problems, and then building great software to solve them by embracing a software architecture in its purest form.”

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On becoming influential “To me, it’s all about contribution and sharing, and it’s not just contributing by blogging – I think you’ve really got to get to know the people in the community.

“It’s good if you’ve got something to offer, by being passionate about what you do and to try and extend your learning, so if you get involved in a conversation about a certain piece of technology, you have an opinion.

“It may not be the right opinion and you’ve certainly got be willing to have that knocked down, but get involved in the conversation, and get to know who is involved in the community.”

TOP 10

MOST INFLUENTIAL 2011

Project Leader

James Stone ASICS Oceania

As the founding member of the Australian IT department for sporting goods manufacturer ASICS, James Stone could not have predicted that five years later, he would relocate to head office in Kobe, Japan to help manage the global standardisation of ASICS’ IT landscape. That’s just what happened last year – when in his role as manager, information systems for ASICS Oceania, he was recognised as having established a global best practice SAP environment.

When Stone began this journey with SAP at ASICS Oceania, he says it “was a very large system for what five years ago was a relatively small company”. But it has provided the company with a platform for rapid growth of more than 10 per cent per year. The secret was keeping it simple at first.

“We implemented a very standard vanilla SAP environment, and only in the last couple of years have we started to add the bells and whistles that leverage this investment and the sometimes challenging first couple of years after implementing SAP,” Stone says, adding that he was given a lot of latitude by the managing director when first establishing ASICS’ SAP environment.

“I was given instructions that if necessary, ASICS would consider changing its business processes to suit SAP. I’d come from a business background, so making quick decisions with minimal deliberation helped achieve our aggressive 16-week implementation timetable.”

Then two years ago, a new managing director at ASICS Oceania made IT a strategic pillar of the business.

“Investing in technologies such as online training systems and digital dashboard displays was seen as a representation of ASICS as an innovative technology-focused brand,” Stone says.

The company undertook a significant amount of work on its SAP environment in 2010 – including the implementation of SAP CRM 7, with a fully integrated e-commerce webshop solution and the integration of a storefinder and product selector from SAP BW7 with a new corporate website. The implementation of SAP GRC and an SAP data centre migration and hardware upgrade also occurred when ASICS moved to its new warehouse facility in Eastern Creek, Sydney.

Last year also saw ASICS implement two award-winning solutions – the Anoto Digital Pen solution, integrated with SAP ERP, which was awarded the 2010 SAP Award of Excellence for Best Innovation (with Acclimation), and SAP BusinessObjects Xcelsius dashboard reporting with Fujitsu TELentice, awarded the 2010 SAP Award of Excellence for Best BI (with Fujitsu).

Stone has managed to achieve these results by leveraging the strengths of the SAP channel.

“We have used smaller, innovative partners such as Acclimation and BluLeader when we wanted to move quickly and avoid using traditional project management methodologies.

At the same time, we have had the stability of long-term

strategic partner Fujitsu, for larger business-critical projects such as GRC,” Stone says.

When it comes to getting business buy-in, particularly for some of the more innovative projects, he is an advocate of driving innovation as part of a measured risk approach.

“Introducing some of the technologies that we have is about being forward-thinking, anticipating what the future business needs might be and preparing for them. Being aware of what’s going on in both the IT and commercial industry environments is essential.”

Sometimes it means taking a calculated risk on whether there is a true ROI business case on projects that could yield a winwin situation. For example, when a partner such as Acclimation is looking to commercialise a new technology, ASICS has been willing to jointly participate in projects that deliver new innovative solutions cost-effectively. However, Stone is quick to say that he works on these test projects either entirely within the sphere of IT or with a very small part of the business, similar to a project pilot in a production environment.

Coming from a business background as an accountant, rather than a more traditional route from a development or infrastructure background, gives Stone more confidence in making sound, business-centric decisions.

Fundamentally, he believes in standardisation and consolidation of SAP, and this is the direction ASICS’ IT efforts around the world will take. Looking ahead, ASICS will also be looking at global master data maintenance, BPM and standardised global KPI reporting using BI. “Keeping SAP standard has been a key success factor for us – using the core functionality and then leveraging additional modules as needs arise has kept the SAP landscape ‘clean and functionally rich’. Being able to implement BusinessObjects has been a very nice story for us.”

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On becoming influential “There is sometimes a mentality that SAP projects need to take a long time and be expensive.

Occasionally it doesn’t hurt to challenge this idea.

Smaller channel partners are helping SAP customers adopt new approaches to SAP projects. Selectively taking an alternative approach has suited and been successful for ASICS where supporting rapid business changes has been essential.”

www.insidesap.com.au 15

TOP 10

MOST INFLUENTIAL 2011

Project Leader

Sharron Kennedy AUSGrid

Preparing for the sale of the EnergyAustralia retail business of 1.5 million customers to TRUenergy was the major priority during 2010, according to CIO Sharron Kennedy.

The sale went through on 1 March 2011, with the network distribution business that was retained rebranded to AUSGrid.

Among the preparation required was the consolidation of the organisation’s data centres to two Tier 3 data centres, as well as an IT security program. However Kennedy says the organisation also managed to undertake a major SAP program and successfully deploy a range of SAP initiatives.

“The key areas of focus have been on improving business processes to deliver efficiencies and improve productivity, and the transformation of ‘data’ to business intelligence,” she says.

Among the year’s SAP projects were: • Rolling out a range of BI dashboards to support decision-making related to the capital works program, asset maintenance, financial management and operations; • Using SAP BPC to develop a system for modelling, planning, forecasting, budgeting and reporting of the capital program; • Extending SAP Warehousing functionality; • Enhancing SAP HR to provide EH&S and training management solutions; • Using the SAP GRC module at the heart of an SAP Security and Compliance program to improve system controls, compliance monitoring and user management; and • Undertaking a technical platform upgrade from SAP 4.6C to ECC6, which is due to go live mid-year.

Having first become involved with SAP in the late ‘90s, Kennedy has built her influence through networking, sharing ideas and participating in areas of interest, and says being connected in the SAP world has been important to her success.

“At AUSGrid, SAP has been deployed as our core enterprise platform driving the majority of our business functions, from capital works to asset management, procurement and finance.

We need to get the best out of our investment, share ideas, best practice, and difficulties and lessons learnt from projects.”

Kennedy is currently a member of the Steering Committee for the SAP SAUG CIO Council, which she says is “a really great forum to connect with like-minded CIOs”. AUSGrid is also a member of the SAP Advisory Customer Council – AMI (Advanced Metering) Working Group, as this architecture and technology is of critical importance to the industry and the

16 Inside SAP magazine

organisation going forward.

“One of the biggest challenges for utilities worldwide at present is the industry transformation towards ‘smart electricity grids’, associated in-home customer communications and the incorporation of renewable energy sources into the grid,” Kennedy says. “This convergence of the IT landscape into the real-time operational technology (OT) systems that manage the grid is a challenge in ensuring effective enterprise architecture and careful technology investment decisions.”

Cost reduction, security and improving productivity and organisational effectiveness through best practice processes are other IT challenges large organisations are facing.

Kennedy has also observed a number of changes in the way enterprises are using SAP, particularly as the solution extends towards a true end-to-end enterprise platform.

“Now that many organisations have a well-established SAP platform, I think the focus is shifting towards the business intelligence/BPC functionality to provide effective information and intelligence to support timely decision-making by the business and in turn to input more accurate forecasts into SAP,” she says.

“At AUSGrid we have taken advantage of a range of mobile deployments in order to empower field workers and to capture data accurately at source. I think many organisations are focused on the potential benefits of mobile investment.”

In terms of developments coming out of SAP over the next 12-18 months, Kennedy says she would be keen to see clarity on the mobile roadmap, as well as the incorporation of the Multi-Resource Scheduling custom solution into core product, and further refinement and definition of the Meter Data Management solution. The data storage and warehousing functions associated with high volume metering data would also be an area worthy of consideration, she says.

“I am sure we will also explore opportunities for integration of our OT environment to SAP to improve our outage management, customer contact and our condition-based asset management regime.”

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

On becoming influential “Jump in and get involved in the broader SAP community. There is a range of forums and activities to choose from depending on your area of interest and specialisation. Opportunities will open up when you get involved and get connected.

“I am really honoured to be named in the top 10 and I think it provides the opportunity for making further connections and networking across the SAP community for mutual benefit.”

TOP 10

MOST INFLUENTIAL 2011

Partner

Keith Wallis TAMS CEI

2010 saw TAMS CEI make some major changes – restructuring the business, refining its offerings and hitting the market to get the word out.

TAMS was originally established in 2006 to focus on consulting specifically for the infrastructure, services, mining and capital-intensive industries, and as of 1 April 2011, partnered with US-based group CEI. All this activity has seen Keith Wallis, head of solution strategy and development, maintain a high profile in the SAP community, to be named in our Top 10 for the second year running.

Wallis says the partnership with CEI, which pairs TAMS with a group with similar skill-sets and an established technical team, should see the business start to make a significant impact.

“It’s taken a bit of time to get off the ground and get the right people involved, but now it’s looking good,” Wallis says.

Last year, TAMS CEI undertook a number of SAP Sourcing projects, as well as implementations of the SAP Enterprise Project Connection (EPC) module for Transfield Services and CS Energy. As the sole SAP implementation partner for EPC,

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the company is building up a solid pipeline of projects all over the world in this area.

Work has also been devoted to getting the TAMS CEI Integrated Solutions Map in place, which is designed to enable organisations to realise the value from their SAP installed base, and identify components and solutions to meet all aspects of the asset lifecycle, from the strategic planning process through to enterprise asset management. The roadmap is a combination of standard and enhanced SAP solutions, to be supported in the near future by applications for the iPad, which TAMS CEI is currently developing.

Wallis says they also completed development of an Continued on page 18 ➤

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TOP 10

MOST INFLUENTIAL 2011

enhanced SAP Project Portfolio Management solution, which integrates the capital planning process with the SAP PPM module, and have prototyped a solution aimed at integrating manufacturing processes with the SAP Project System module.

Some of this work reflects new priorities for the business, Wallis says.

“One area we have changed direction is mobility solutions.

We are developing real-time project management solutions on the iPad and other mobile devices. Fundamentally the concept is exactly the same as we were pursuing previously, but it is a bit more mature now,” he says.

A key part of their strategy, Wallis says, has been getting out and about – getting involved in conferences such as Mastering PPM through speaking and assisting with content selection, seeing potential customers, working with SAP to identify opportunities and ensuring people become familiar with the business.

“What we are seeing that is the major differentiator for us is that across the asset lifecycle management and project management space, we can stand in front of executives and tell them how it works, from strategy to maintain and operate,” he says. “Clients have actually openly turned around and said, ‘We now understand how this thing works and we should buy.’”

Wallis argues that in future, rather than pursuing year-long projects with complicated configurations, niche consulting

companies providing either end-to-end or componentbased packaged solutions will be favoured, enabling quick installations, with less appetite for drawn-out projects.

“It is all taking too long. Customers are being burnt and they want quick returns now. The difference with using component-based solutions is going to be able to go from the start to the finish and actually be able to compare your delivery against your strategic plan.”

With all this development work underway, Wallis still finds time to contribute to the SAP community, acting as a mentor and assisting in a program to upskill mothers who have been out of the SAP community while raising their families.

Looking ahead, there are plans on the table for TAMS CEI to undertake a major Australian roadshow and establish offices in North America and Asia during 2011.

“I think you’ll find 2011 is a big year for us,” Wallis says.

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On becoming influential “The key is definitely being in front of executives.

You’ve got to be well-recognised at the conferences, and I think you’ve got be recognised by SAP themselves. If they see that you are adding value and you are going to bring clients to the table, that is when the influence starts to ramp up.”

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TOP 10

MOST INFLUENTIAL 2011

Partner

Mark Alder Plaut IT

While Mark Alder has had a long career in IT with companies such as Computer Power, EDS, and CISCO, he only joined the SAP community in January 2010, when he became CEO of Plaut IT. He has already found the SAP space to be quite different to what he calls pure IT organisations.

“SAP-based businesses have a different relationship with their customer’s businesses. They are much closer to a customer’s strategy, processes and users, rather than just their technology. This influences the type of skills you need. As an example, Plaut has more business professionals than pure technical professionals. That’s the difference I see in the SAP world – you get accountants, manufacturing engineers, supply chain specialists, HR professionals and so on. These folks have a different set of expertise and experiences to your normal technical IT professional,” Alder says.

Under Alder’s leadership, while remaining a pure play SAP business, Plaut expanded the scope of its services in 2010 from its core in specialist SAP consulting to include software product development, business optimisation and support services, and contracting. On the back of this move, the company achieved record revenues with growth of 38 per cent, it expanded its customer base and added new offices in Brisbane and Adelaide.

Plaut also invested in R&D last year to create the Cashtracker product for the detection of accounts payable fraud and duplicate payments. The product has already been sold to a number of major customers in Australia and is being prepared for global distribution.

A key change for the company during the last year has been maturing its partnerships with a variety of SAP ecosystem members, including SAP itself. Alder says joining the ecosystem with its “genuine notion of coopetition” has been a highlight.

“We partner with some organisations to provide a service to customers and sometimes we will compete with them. But it is all done with an openness and transparency and with a focus on what is right for the customer.

I’ve not seen a lot of this level of partnering in the IT community,” Alder says.

He believes we’re currently on the threshold of a massive change in the way customers use IT in general.

“For many years, IT has in many cases failed to deliver on its promise to the end business user. But through the evolution of technology, through virtualisation and ondemand technology, through the ubiquitous nature of mobility, and the ability to be able to genuinely capture and deliver real-time information, there is a profound transformation occurring in the intimacy and value of IT

to customers,” Alder says.

“SAP is at the heart of a customer’s business processes, so it is key in this transformation. It has moved from being a back-office enablement tool, to being a genuine business enabler to the end consumer of IT.” Over the next 12-18 months, Alder hopes to see the SAP ecosystem coming together more to make a contribution back to the community.

“I think you will see the SAP ecosystem much more strongly focused on its role within its own community, whether it is fundraising and charities or supporting educational institutions and developing future talent – for many years, those things have been neglected,” Alder says.

As the skill shortage around SAP intensifies in Australia, having access to good staff is a “huge concern” for many businesses, and Alder believes companies now need to do their part to address the situation.

“Investing in education of the next generation has essentially been neglected over many years as capability was moved offshore. Where is the next generation of Australian IT professionals coming from?” he says.

“I have a deep passion for the Australian IT industry and the professionals within it. I’ve seen the level of innovation and flexibility that we have. As an Australian industry, we can do really great things. One of the reasons for me to come back and work in an Australian organisation is to be able to contribute back into the development of the local IT industry. We need to be supporting and developing future talent.”

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On becoming influential “Listen to your customers and listen to your staff.

The only influence I have comes from the things that I have learned from listening to customers and staff and passing it on. My recognition is a wonderful endorsement of their knowledge and expertise.”

www.insidesap.com.au 19

TOP 10

MOST INFLUENTIAL 2011

Partner

Bala Kalimuthu Revolution IT

LeasePlan, Victoria Police, Australia Post, Officeworks, Connect East, AWB, George Weston Foods, DHS Victoria, Fonterra, Komatsu, GPT and Carter Holt Harvey – these are just some of the customers software testing and application quality management solutions provider Revolution IT’s SAP practice worked with in 2010, led by Bala Kalimuthu, SAP practice principal.

Named in the top 10 for the software category in Deloitte’s Fast 50 Australia 2010, which ranks the 50 fastest-growing Australian public or private technology companies, Revolution IT has 65 SAP consultants, and having served over 30 SAP customers in the past two years, has developed a strong customer base and pipeline of projects.

Appearing in our Top 10 list for the second year running, Kalimuthu says there were a number of project highlights during 2010, including providing 15 SAP quality assurance consultants to work with LeasePlan on the streamlining of its SAP application landscape, through seven critical business imperative programs running in parallel.

“LeasePlan was perfecting its SAP landscape to be the strategic differentiator as a major business asset,” Kalimuthu says.

Revolution IT also won two new engagements from Australian Customs and Origin Energy, and received recognition from NSW Department of Education and Training, for work on aligning their business units with a tactical short-term solution as well as a long-term strategic roadmap.

His focus on delivering significant business value to customers saw Kalimuthu recognised by the Revolution IT Board of Directors with a special award for growing the SAP practice to be the market leader in independent quality assurance space.

However he hasn’t done it alone, and Kalimuthu is a strong believer in the value of his team, which works closely with project managers, support managers, super users, business analysts, enterprise architects, solutions architects, and development team during their customer engagements.

“The support from my team is a crucial thing for me to

20 Inside SAP magazine

be recognised, so I do my best to help them in their career growth.”

Given that independent quality assurance is a reasonably new and very niche consulting space, getting out into the community has been an “absolutely essential” part of Kalimuthu’s role – as well as providing an avenue to build influence.

“From a company perspective, we decided long ago that we should stop selling and start educating customers on the concepts. So from that perspective, the knowledge sharing and community involvement is very important,” he says.

Kalimuthu has been presented at SAP Australian User Group conferences, speaking on topics such as how to maximise the value of SAP Solution Manager for testing.

He has also delivered customised knowledge-sharing workshops on quality assurance methodologies and tools for SAP community members at National Foods, AGL, Woodside Energy and others, and serves as a guest speaker and mentor on the Victoria University ERP Industry Panel.

In his work with customers, he has seen a change in perceptions of SAP as a business asset.

“Customers are not looking at SAP as an operational system, but as a strategic asset and competitive differentiator to grow their business in Australia and in the APAC region,” Kalimuthu says. “For many companies, the current systems they have are not going to support their ambitious growth plans. SAP initiatives will increase because these mid-sized organisations need to have appropriate systems to handle that business growth.

“The other change is that a lot of customers, even in the public sector, are consolidating their various SAP applications into one large system to achieve significant cost savings over the long-term.”

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On becoming influential “Share what you know with the community, deliver business benefits and value to your customers, and support your team in their career growth. These are the three factors that I believe have helped me and my team to become influential.

“I see being part of the Top 10 as a significant recognition of my passion for independent quality assurance, especially in large SAP programs,” Kalimuthu says.

TOP 10

MOST INFLUENTIAL 2011

Partner

Iain Macleod CSC

As ERP solutions director of Tier 1 consultancy CSC, Iain Macleod is a veteran of our Top 10 Most Influential list.

2010 was another busy year for Macleod and CSC Australia’s SAP practice, undertaking a number of major projects including an SAP BI BPC implementation at INPEX, the completion of the SAP technical upgrade project at the Australian Taxation Office, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade SAP upgrade, and a mobility project at Water Corporation of Western Australia (see our case study on page 23).

The highlight of 2010, Macleod says, was winning a large SAP contract with the Department of Defence, which he was personally involved with all the way through the bid process and contract negotiations. Other important initiatives were the recertification of CSC’s global SAP Hosting and Application Management Services accreditations, with the Australian SAP practice representing the APAC region.

“We not only renewed our accreditations, but we achieved certification as a cloud services partner as well, and that was important,” Macleod says.

Having spent over 15 years in the SAP market, Macleod says the last two have seen a major shift, motivated by the acquisitions of BusinessObjects and Sybase as well as a number of smaller players.

“There is definitely a push vertically and horizontally into the market through these acquisitions. While SAP was established as being able to run operational businesses and act as the ‘engine room’ for many companies, I think the boardroom hasn’t always recognised the wealth of data that is there, which can become information to actually run the business,” Macleod says. “With the focus on business intelligence generally, SAP as a product set is far more relevant than it has ever been.”

The acquisition of Sybase has also given SAP legitimacy in the device market, providing much broader go-to-market potential but also a far more important role as well, according to Macleod.

However, this broader product footprint has important implications for the ecosystem. While Macleod believes that some of the newer additions to the SAP ‘family’ haven’t yet found their place in the ecosystem, it has created more emphasis on the systems integration partners in the market.

“SAP has no longer got the headspace and the bandwidth to actually front a lot of these solutions alone, so they are looking to partners more and more to help find markets for sales, and actually convert customers to products,” Macleod says. “So partners are getting more profile because of the breadth of solutions and products out there.”

The diversity of the product base also presents something of a risk for SAP over the next 12-18 months, in terms of how these new additions are integrated into the core ERP product, in Macleod’s view.

“There may be concerns that there’s not enough development and investment in what really was the grassroots functionality in the products versus the diversification. I think a lot of people will be looking to see that the next generation of ERP has taken a step forward and has integrated all those other components into a single solution,” he says.

“I think at the moment they have put a veneer over some of those and branded them SAP, but under the covers are still the old products, and we’ve had instances where customers didn’t realise they needed to upgrade two products independently, as they thought they were all one SAP product set.”

While he acknowledges the growing role of the specialist in the SAP ecosystem, Macleod continues to see a strong role for the big name consultancies.

He says CSC has always recognised where its capabilities are and are not, and has partnered with niche consultancies to present a team model for some larger deals.

“What customers then get is they still have the local, smaller consultancies they can work with, but they have access to the large Tier 1s who can take the risk on a fixed price contract or the integration between the different products.

“I think the collaborative and partnering approach is key, because companies still want a single point of contact and ownership, and responsibility for delivering projects, and you’re not going to get that with half a dozen consultancies working side by side,” he says.

“So I think Tier 1 systems integrators are just as important as they ever were. But they have to change the way they view the market and see certainly Tier 2 and Tier 3 partners as being just as important in the deals.”

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

On becoming influential “Take time and effort to look at what it going on in the market. I’m lucky because I work for a company which has a lot of avenues for research and market analysis.

Form your own opinions, and make that knowledge is visible both to customers and in general to the market, because having a clear and reasoned opinion is more important than sitting on the fence. Network across the ecosystem so that people are aware where your organisation sits strategically – that visibility can help you be seen as a point of reference and knowledge contact.”

www.insidesap.com.au 21

TOP 10

MOST INFLUENTIAL 2011

Partner

Stephen Hopkins HCL AXON

Stephen Hopkins, consulting director, HCL AXON also appears on our Top 10 list for the third year running.

When we spoke to Hopkins last year, the company had just completed the merger between HCL Technologies and AXON Solutions in 2009, with all the attendant upheaval.

This year Hopkins says the focus shifted to growing the Australian SAP consulting team, with a growth rate of 100 per cent achieved during the year – both by developing and retaining their existing employees, and attracting new people across a range of areas.

From a project perspective, HCL AXON completed a large implementation for Ramsay Healthcare, installing SAP ECC6 across 70 sites. Previously, the private healthcare provider was maintaining numerous legacy systems following multiple acquisitions.

“That was quite a professional and personal highlight in terms of customer faith in the work we were able to do – helping them standardise on the new SAP version and consolidate the different systems they had,” Hopkins says.

As a global company, one of the challenges for HCL AXON has been optimising its consulting delivery model, leveraging a mix of onshore-offshore capabilities.

Getting the service mix right and convincing those in the Australian market who may be unfamiliar with this type of model of its merits has been a focus.

Hopkins says it is still “early days” for the adoption of the model.

“I think it is still something people have to get their heads around. There is a mixed response – certain types of work and activities are easily done offshore, like Basis support, but some of the other project work is still a mixed bag and depending on what the value proposition is, it’s sometimes hard to get an uptake on those models,” he says.

During 2010, Hopkins observed clients becoming more mature in their own SAP knowledge and support, and also a greater focus on niche, quick-win projects.

“One thing we’ve noticed is a lot of smaller, sharper projects that are helping enable some specific benefits in the business, rather than a wall-to-wall SAP implementation. They’re trying to pick little areas, such as reporting through business intelligence and

22 Inside SAP magazine

BusinessObjects, CRM, logistics, portals, and webenabling SAP access for customers. So there is more focus on small projects, but projects which are strategic to the business and deliver some benefits.

“Once customers have SAP in place, the next step is to keep finetuning and enabling the business to do better.

People want to get more out of the system – it’s a huge cost to the business and they are trying to standardise.

It’s a value-based and benefits-driven decision.”

Hopkins says it is difficult to see what will unfold over the next 12-18 months, but growth will be a continuing priority for HCL AXON. “I wish I had a crystal ball! It’s hard to tell what is going on, the global markets are crazy right now, so we’re just trying to put our heads down and focus on what we’re doing. We’re building the capability of our staff in certain areas – supply chain has been a focus for us, as well as enterprise performance management and utilities.”

2011 will also see a continuing focus on delivery excellence, Hopkins says.

“We’ll just be getting in there and building the business on the foundation we have. We’re now a year or two post-merger, and I think we are settling in. It’s onward and upward now.”

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

On becoming influential “For a partner, the key thing is understanding what customers want. You need to be aware of SAP’s capability as a vendor and have a relationship there too, but I think it’s primarily got to be driven by customers that appreciate and want to take up the type of approach that you have as a partner – whether it be around good people, transparency, integrity or delivery excellence.

“It’s also about getting involved when you can, whether it’s with your customers or SAP, finding staff that will do a great job, getting to know your people and customers, and building trust with them, and then just keeping at it.”

Water Corporation CASE STUDY

Overcoming the tyranny of distance For Water Corporation of Western Australia, managing a fleet of mobile devices across a huge geographic area was made much easier with the implementation of Sybase Afaria. By Elizabeth Kelleher.

Background The Water Corporation of Western Australia provides water and wastewater services to households, businesses and farms in towns and communities spread over 2.5 million square kilometres in Western Australia. Its Regional Customer Services Group is responsible for the delivery of water services across this vast region, while field service crews carry out field operations, maintenance and asset management activities equipped with hand-held computing devices and laptops. The utility originally deployed a mobile computing solution in 2004 to support the enterprise SAP Plant Maintenance (SAP PM) module, but without any capabilities to support mobile device management.

While the mobile computing application enabled field crews

to transmit basic information to and from the corporate backend system (SAP PM), the platform was no longer supported and offered limited application management support, thus increasing the difficulty of managing devices in the field. Field service crews across Western Australia undertake a diverse set of business processes using SAP Work Orders. To support these processes, crew members used corporate mobile applications other than the Work Order application (for example, spatial tools). However, while these applications were linked to the mobile computing application, they were not based on the same technology.

As the existing mobility platform didn’t support remote upgrades, management and maintenance of Water Corporation’s large mobile fleet with multiple applications was

www.insidesap.com.au 23

A like-for-like mobility replacement wouldn’t have had anywhere near the uptake in our organisation.

Rune Mikkelsen, Water Corporation

a time-consuming and cumbersome process. Rune Mikkelsen, program manager, business initiatives at Water Corporation, says the company only upgraded its PDAs once or twice a year, as a support person had to perform the upgrade on the device.

“For field crews, this involved travel to one of our major regional centres, with some being as far away as 300 kilometres from their nearest base,” he says. “Our annual upgrade process took up to two weeks to complete, and involved several support staff.”

“Besides being a time-consuming and disruptive process in our statewide 24/7 operation, the infrequent software upgrades also resulted in functionality issues as our field crews were not always able to use the latest software version available to them, which may have delivered improved business outcomes or resolved technical issues,” says Mikkelsen. “Our field crews were getting increasingly frustrated as the mobile applications were complicated and difficult to handle. This led to user disengagement, with only half of our user base regularly using their PDAs to full capacity.”

The lack of remote training support capabilities was another reason why Water Corporation decided to investigate a more comprehensive mobile device management solution. Previously, field crews needed to undergo training onsite in regional centres, followed by refresher sessions as changes occurred. The initial training typically took three days. Despite this significant investment in training, remote field staff sometimes had trouble using the application and were unable to effectively obtain assistance when required.

The solution In 2010, via competitive tender, the Water Corporation implemented a new mobile computing solution based on an SAP plug-in from SkyTechnologies, which could be used to write the application, and Afaria from Sybase to provide mobile device management. HP Openview, which was already being utilised by Water Corporation, was selected for monitoring and a standard PDA was chosen for use in the field.

With Afaria, the organisation’s mobile computing support group can proactively manage and secure multiple device types, applications, data and communications critical to supporting field crews. Over-the-air and on-device encryption, together with advanced mobile security features such as mobile firewall and anti-virus, ensure the best protection against security threats and compliance issues.

24 Inside SAP magazine

“We were looking for a robust solution to protect the data on our field service crews’ mobile devices,” says Mikkelsen. “We selected Afaria due to its comprehensive feature set. Afaria was not only the best solution in terms of functionality but also has a low administrative overhead.”

Implementation and challenges Scope creep, managing user expectations, change management and adjusting the business processes to suit the new technology were key project challenges, which were mitigated by a strong buy-in from management to promote positive cultural change, open communication channels for stakeholders and users, and effective management of expectations.

One of the other key challenges in the implementation stage was that the new Sky mobility application and Afaria solution had to be rolled out alongside Water Corporation’s previous mobile computing system, which meant that CSC had to implement while the initial mobile solution and mobile devices co-existed. Geographical diversity also presented challenges for the roll-out, which had to be done in stages.

“We had to manage the training within that process, so we never let anybody go out [into the field] without being fully trained, and then we went back and reinforced that training,” says David Dixon, CSC mobility support coordinator.

Another significant challenge was fleet management – with some of the devices meeting an early demise after being run over by trucks or “drowned”.

According to Dixon, implementing a support strategy that involved on-ground business support, enhanced business support for two years, frequent product evaluation and a governance framework, was central to the project’s success.

Business benefits Water Corporation field staff now use the new mobile application and their devices to provide updates to the SAP system with job status, work performed and event details, as well as information about crew labour allocation and materials usage.

A work order typically changes status between five and 10 times during its lifecycle, with more than 400,000 work orders created annually in the system.

The mobile device management platform also allows the Water Corporation to send work to crews in near real-time when their PDAs are communicating via NextG to the enterprise systems, and it has now significantly grown the number of

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handheld devices in its mobile fleet.

“The success of the Water Corporation’s mobile computing rollout (including Afaria) has been far greater than we had anticipated,” Mikkelsen says. “A like-for-like mobility replacement wouldn’t have had anywhere near the uptake in our organisation.”

Key drivers behind this success were Afaria’s ability to remotely push software upgrades and updates to mobile devices in the field, which means instant access to the latest features and functionalities of the mobile applications, even for workers in the remotest corner of rural Western Australia.

Additionally, Afaria Remote Control offers real-time remote control capability for Windows-based PCs and handheld devices, providing the option to interactively assist in delivering or reinforcing training and business process on the PDA to endusers on new applications, updates and upgrades or troubleshoot specific devices. Using this capability, Water Corporation was able to reduce face-to-face training for new staff to just one day, with further training and ongoing support supplied using this feature. As a result, user engagement has significantly improved and the vast majority of field work orders are now being processed remotely through the mobile system, replacing manual processes. This in turn has led to better visibility of activities and events for field crew at the frontline of customer service delivery.

“With Afaria’s remote connectivity, we can minimise the impact on the end-user and deal with up to 99 per cent of failures remotely. This has instilled confidence in our field crews, who can now obtain assistance when required. This allows the integrity and timeliness of the data the field crews provide to be utilised by the Corporation to keep our customers better informed and provide better service,” says Mikkelsen. “The Sybase solution has enabled us to push two major and multiple minor upgrades of the Sky application to our mobile fleet. Afaria’s flexibility also allowed us to add a devicew asset management component as well.”

Moving forward, the Water Corporation intends to leverage its investment and migrate more applications to the mobile platform supported by Afaria. These include its Operational Data Storage System and a meter reading application.

Another project in the pipeline is customised application access. Having Afaria in place allows extension to additional applications and makes the devices cost-effective.

“We can manage and support a whole range of applications across multiple device types,” says Mikkelsen. “We plan to push tailored application packages to each device, and then to take this one step further by activating individual user profiles for each worker supported by Afaria managing the device configuration.

“The Water Corporation is currently considering purchasing a number of other device types for management and office workers in our organisation,” he says. “These options can now confidently be considered as they previously presented a security and device management risk. We’re evaluating the role that Afaria could provide for this purpose.”

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23892 23892 Inside Inside SAP SAP 105x297 105x297 D4.indd D4.indd 1 1

31/3/10 31/3/10 3:19:51 3:19:51 PM PM

Research FEATURE

Window on the future of logistics The Future Logistics Living Lab opened recently at Sydney’s Australian Technology Park. As a joint venture of National ICT Australia (NICTA), SAP and Europe’s largest application-oriented research firm, Fraunhofer, it provides new perspectives on how logistics could transform over time. Elizabeth Kelleher reports.

The Australian transport and logistics industry is worth more than $150 billion and represents in excess of 14 per cent of Australia’s Gross Domestic Product. As such, an efficient and effective logistics sector is vital to the economy.

Transportation inefficiency and rising costs are the two key logistics management challenges the Australian transport industry faces on a day-to-day basis. One contributing factor is that many road freight trips managed by manufacturers’ logistics functions or their transport partners leave room for improvement, leading to half-empty outbound and/or empty return truck movements over long distances. Technology may provide the answer to address these issues.

Dedicated to addressing challenges such as rising fuel costs, road congestion, carbon emissions and safety, the Future Logistics Living Lab will provide a physical platform for industry and researchers to work together in a cost-efficient and low-risk manner to accelerate the development of innovative technologies that will provide transport and logistics solutions for the future.

Technologies developed and displayed in the lab will be targeted at business processes in transportation management, warehouse management, supply chain event management and global trade services, with opportunities to address pain points such as inefficiencies around interfaces, lack of standardisation, and fragmented visibility of end-to-end transportation processes, including reverse logistics management.

Alongside the three key partners, Victoria University and the University of New South Wales are also involved in the project, together with industry partners Linfox, Hamburg Sud, Casella Wines, Ericsson, GS1 Australia, Gamma Solutions, Google, Tradegate and XAct Solutions.

These industry partnerships provide the strength of the Living Lab concept in driving practical, technologybased solutions, according to Tim Ebbeck, president and managing director, SAP Australia and New Zealand.

“The Future Logistics Living Lab will enable SAP to

26 Inside SAP magazine

innovate hand-in-hand with industry and research to solve real-world problems,” Ebbeck said.

The 200 square-metre lab space, which comprises a demonstration space, event and seminar room and a working area, was officially opened during NICTA’s annual IT project and research festival, Techfest. It will allow participants to showcase ‘hands-on’ prototypes to key customers and stakeholders from government and other research organisations.

An important feature of the Future Logistics Living Lab is its interactive demonstration stations which step visitors through supply chain scenarios, including one that depicts the repeated wine shipment between the bottling station of a winery in Australia and an overseas importer that supplies the wine to a hotel chain, derived from a real-life process.

Industry partner Casella Wines, a family-owned and operated winery in Griffith, NSW, plans to use supply chain modelling such as this to maintain its position at the forefront of the Australian wine industry in both domestic and export markets.

Speaking at the launch, Linfox Logistics CEO Michael Byrne said Linfox, an SAP partner since 1999, planned to use the lab to help it stay ahead of its competitors. “We can’t run our business without sophisticated IT systems,” he said. “I look at things like this lab to help us learn more from different people and gain different experiences from the community. That’s the only way we are going to stay in business. We won’t survive unless we innovate and change nearly every day.”

He said a pressure point for the company is the speed to deployment of IT systems. “Where we would deploy things in nine months such as an inventory linked to an iPad in trucks, our customers such as Coles need those projects done in four months,” he said.

Till Dengel, head of SAP AG’s industry business unit, transport and logistics, said the living lab was both a ‘test bed’ for solutions and a space where researchers could work with industry to drive innovations forward.

Living Lab research projects will target emerging challenges in logistics, and results will be commercialised by the participants leading to new products, processes and services in logistics that will have a positive impact on the competitive positioning of Australia’s businesses.

The efficiency, visibility, traceability and sustainability of goods along the multimodal end-to-end supply chain will be a key focus, as will interoperability, standardisation and removing constraints on export and trade.

XAct Solutions, which specialises in transforming supply chains, including physical infrastructure, transport, logistics and distribution operations, hopes to bring a realworld focus to collaborative efforts between Living Lab participants.

“By collaborating with the Future Logistics Living Lab, XAct Solutions plans to utilise thebest-in-class capabilities of the participants in the lab to formulate innovative solutions to some of the real-world supply chain challenges we see in the market,” said Peter Ramsay, principal, XAct Solutions.

“In particular, we see the advanced optimisation capabilities that NICTA is developing as supporting the next level of efficiency improvements in Australian companies’ logistics operations.”

The current agreement between Living Lab co-founders SAP, NICTA and Fraunhofer runs for three years, with the expectation that they will continue this collaborative initiative after this period.

“Ultimately we want industry to adopt technologies developed by the Living Lab and for industry to be able to quantify benefits gained from those technologies,” said SAP, NICTA and Fraunhofer in a joint statement. “We hope that industry will recognise the value of the lab by demonstrating a willingness to fund Living Lab projects and thereby providing the Lab with a means to grow.”

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

For more information about the Future Logistics Living Lab, and to view its operations through webcams, videos and interactive media, visit www.futurelogisticslivinglab.com.au.

ASIA-PACIFIC NEWS

By Elizabeth Kelleher

Cloud acceleration to redefine the role of the CIO: IDC

SAP APJ posts doubledigit growth in Q4 2010

Use of cloud technologies for IT infrastructure will accelerate rapidly in 2011 as new cloud services are brought to market, according to the IDC report ‘Asia Pacific (Excluding Japan) Cloud Services and Technologies 2011 Top 10 Predictions: Dealing with Mainstream Cloud’.

The report said that with the exception of Japan, the Asia-Pacific region has emerged from the economic uncertainties of 2009 and 2010 with increased enthusiasm for cloud computing as a way of delivering existing and new business services.

However, IDC said that cloud users are beginning to look beyond the basics of Software-asa-Service and Infrastructure-asa-Service to source business services that will enable their organisations to take advantage of recovering markets more quickly.

Tim Dillon, associate vicepresident of research at IDC, said that with the emphasis now on business processes, consulting, design and management, technology will become less of a focal point for CIOs. “The endgame of this trend is an IT framework where business managers can fully manage, procure and consume all the services, processes and systems they require in order to run their business in the best and most agile way possible,” said Dillon. “And in this framework, none of these will be seen as or consumed as ‘IT’ but merely seen as necessary services.”

Dillon said the key responsibilities of the CIO will move beyond validating suppliers in terms of availability, performance and compliance.

“The future role of the CIO will be much more business focused and will become more about managing contracts and relationships. So even for the CIO, technology itself is becoming less and less of a focal point.”

He said that while technology will no longer be the main focus for CIOs, it’s nonetheless at the core of the “transition towards IT being seen as any number of services”.

“All CIOs today should be focusing on how their choice of IT can help the enterprise to get to this point,” said Dillon.

“Any IT deployment, any IT plan and every IT strategy today should be seen in the light of how enterprise IT can be changed from being technology-centric to being business-centric. The CIO should focus on IT that enables this transition towards IT without technology.”

SAP Asia Pacific Japan (SAP APJ) posted strong double digit growth across key markets and business units in the fourth quarter of 2010, boosted by a major focus on China.

Software and software-related services revenue grew by 18 per cent to a424 million, while total revenue increased by approximately to 17 per cent to a492 million.

Overall, in 2010, SAP APJ grew software and software-related services revenue by 13 per cent and total revenue by 9 per cent.

Key customer wins in the region came from the utilities, process (oil and gas) and public cector, with SAP APJ winning most competitive deals in Q4 2010.

According to SAP APJ, China was an important market and a major focus of its growth strategy in the fourth quarter of 2010.

It said that with the acquisition of Sybase, the leader in mobile and database business in China, SAP is seeing a tremendous growth opportunity in China. Other key markets in the region, including Australia, India, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia, also performed well.

In Japan, SAP’s performance continued to be impacted by local economic conditions, but it nonetheless outperformed the competition in Q4 2010 and is gaining momentum.

“Our strategy of focusing on our customers by delivering value and innovation is working,” said Steve Watts, president, SAP APJ. “In particular, the business analytics solution set performed exceptionally well, with the launch of several exciting new offerings including the in-memory based High-Performance Analytic Appliance (SAP HANA).”

Watts said Q4 2010 has also seen Business ByDesign perform strongly in terms of both customer base and pipeline.

Following the GFC, it seems that customers in the Asia Pacific region are looking to grow again, according to Watts.

“They are coming to us to gain better insights, make better decisions, operate more efficiently and become more agile,” he said.

“Our innovation pipeline is creating additional confidence that SAP is in the best position to help them ‘run better’.”

28 Inside SAP magazine

ASIA-PACIFIC CASE STUDY

NTT DATA unites SAP teams worldwide NTT DATA has launched its SAP Global One Team Initiative, which brings all its SAPrelated resources under one umbrella to create a powerful new systems integration team.

The SAP Global One Team Initiative will coordinate the NTT DATA Group’s SAP activities, including its SAP solutions, global roll-out/in methodologies, hosting services and project managers, consultants and developers, and will have a strong focus on innovation.

The initiative spans 29 countries and involves 10 NTT DATA subsidiaries, including Business Formula, Extend Technologies, JSOL Corporation, Intelligroup, Inc, itelligence AG, Keane International, Inc, NTT DATA Asia Pacific, NTT DATA Solfis Corporation, NTT DATA WAVE Corporation and QUNIE Corporation.

NTT DATA said the initiative will provide comprehensive end-to-end SAP services for global companies “as a one stop shop”.

Steve Watts, president, SAP Asia Pacific Japan, said the value of the SAP Global One Team Initiative is “compelling”.

“It brings together domain-specific best practices, skills and resources from highgrowth, successful businesses around the world,” he said. “This synergy allows us, together with our partners, to deliver almost immediate value to customers by enabling them to decide better, operate better and become more agile, by rapidly deploying an optimal SAP landscape.”

Max White, managing director of Extend Technologies, NTT’s Australian arm, said the initiative will benefit customers, employees and stakeholders alike.

“This initiative will open up new business and growth opportunities for Extend via the existing NTT DATA global network, which reaches into the Asia-Pacific region and beyond,” said White. “It also provides us with access to new resources and expertise, which will benefit our current and future customers.

A singular focus on SAP as the strategic enterprise backbone of choice will ensure we deliver unparalleled value to our customers.”

Singapore wildlife parks turn to SAP Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS), operator of award-winning wildlife parks including the Night Safari, Jurong Bird Park and Singapore Zoo, will implement SAP Business All-in-One – including modules for Financials, Materials and Inventory Management, Sales and Distribution – along with SAP BusinessObjects to track its operations.

Previously, the group used SME financial packages and Excel for processing, reporting and analysis.

However WRS finance director, Thang Koon Tee, says, “As operations within WRS grow, there is a need for us to upgrade our existing IT infrastructure in order to operate more efficiently and effectively. It is now important that traditional financial tasks be mechanised and integrated in real time for greater productivity based on best practice standard of procedures.”

The group first began planning to integrate its systems two years ago, and last year the integration of the ticketing system for all three parks provided the impetus the group needed to pursue a more comprhensive overhaul of its systems.

In a media briefing, WRS said through the SAP implementation, the company was looking to integrate the back-end operations of the company’s five departments, which currently run in silos, ZDNet Asia reported.

The objectives for the implementation include providing an integrated view of ticket sales, supporting end-to end management of the supply chain for its restaurant business, and establishing a platform for more streamlined compliance with environmental health and safety regulations.

The prime focus of the project is to allow WRS real-time visibility of its ticketing counters and the revenue generated from the counters. The new system will allow flexibility to integrate the front-end point of sale (POS) solution with the back-end SAP BAIO operational system used by the staff to manage the company’s shops and restaurants. This platform will give accurate data and real-time reports, allowing management to make informed strategic decisions.

The company’s financial tasks will also be redesigned to include higher value-adding activity, rather than the traditional data processing that was performed previously.

While the implementation is expected to yield productivity gains for the group, WRS group CEO Fanny Lai told ZDNet Asia that the move to the new system was more strategic than about cost savings, as it will allow employees to focus on their core competencies in research, education and animal conservation, rather than data entry.

WRS has partnered with ObTech Asia Pacific, as well as SAP, for the project, and ObTech group chief operating officer, Michael Lim, said the group was confident of delivering the All-in-One solution in a way that would improve productivity and ROI for WRS. Kowshik Sriman, managing director, SAP Singapore says, “The plan to transform and modernise its IT system across its three parks reflect the commitment of WRS to efficiency, productivity and transparency that can only be achieved with a well-integrated system and a dedication to best practices. We are delighted that WRS has chosen SAP and we look forward to a very successful project and long-term engagement with them.”

www.insidesap.com.au 29

SME FOCUS Q&A

Q&A with Helen Masters As SAP ANZ’s VP of commercial accounts and emerging markets, Helen Masters is responsible for the company’s channel business, including growing SAP’s market share in the SME sector. She spoke to Freya Purnell about SAP’s strategy in this area, and technology developments including the release of the longawaited Business ByDesign.

FP: SAP ANZ has recently undergone a restructure – what are your areas of responsibility now?

HM: For Australia, I have now taken over responsibility for the direct go-to-market area for a large number of commercial accounts. I also look after our indirect channel team, inside sales, and a new division called customer relationship management, which is a central point of contact for all of our commercial accounts within Australia.

FP: What is SAP’s current strategy for the SME sector?

HM: It’s all about coverage. Partners are local, and they provide a greater knowledge of our customers’ business and their requirements. So therefore we believe that it drives a better outcome for the customer if they engage with our partner network, and we openly promote and encourage our ecosystem to work with small and medium enterprises.

FP: What type of support are you providing to members of the ecosystem serving SMEs? HM: We have put in place a new enablement strategy which encapsulates a partner university. It’s an online solution that enables us to provide a tailored training approach for each of the individual partners, including pre-sale, sale

30 Inside SAP magazine

and consulting training. As they have new employees come online, partners can run them through a complete training profile we have created for them – like an onsite boot camp.

We can also help with some onsite training.

FP: How will that lift their capability level to service the SME market?

HM: It expands their solution knowledge, and we also help raise knowledge of what’s available within SAP – our industry business units, all of our solution advisers, and our support centre. Everything that is available to an SAP employee is also available to our partner ecosystem as well.

FP: What are the key challenges that SMEs are facing around technology and what are you doing to assist with those?

HM: SMEs really want to consume products and services a lot more quickly and cheaply. Therefore our sales and our partners need to provide the solutions that match those requirements. For example, we need to be agile enough to change and deliver results within a 60- to 90-day period.

Previously people saw SAP as this big Germanic company that would take forever to implement a system. But we have now come out with rapid deployment solutions and

We are actively recruiting new partners to help us sell [Business ByDesign], because it’s a different market and a different selling style. our business analytic solutions which are prepackaged, preconfigured solutions that we can deliver in 60 to 90 days. They are quick to deliver an outcome so that customers and prospects can actually see results very, very quickly.

FP: It’s been a year since the SAP Extended Business Program was introduced in Australia – what results have you seen coming out of that program?

HM: This seems quite successful. We have now got a network of business members selling our solutions including our A1 solution and our BusinessObjects solutions. Given the success, we’ve recently extended our program to include our Business One applications, which is our SMB solution. So we continue to invest in the program as it provides a greater market coverage, and it exposes new partners to SAP solutions.

FP: What are the key technology developments coming out of SAP that SMEs should be aware of at the moment?

HM: In our on-premise environment, we continue to invest in our core solutions. We are upgrading our BusinessObjects environment. In our on-demand space, we have released Sales On-Demand, CRM On-Demand, and Carbon Impact On-Demand. Our on-device mobile strategy continues to explode. We have got customers needing to secure mobile devices – for example, their executives are leaving iPads in the back of cabs, so the IT department needs to remotely secure and shut down the devices. Our HANA in-memory computing is the major game-changer for us. This is going to be disrupting traditional database thinking in a huge way. So they are all major initiatives that are coming out of SAP at the moment and are really moving the market forward. Plus our rapid deployment solutions especially for the SME marketplace, implementing something within 60 to 90 days and delivering outcomes very quickly in a cost-effective manner.

FP: Do you have an update on when we might see the Business ByDesign solution in Australia?

HM: We are hoping Business ByDesign will be available here in around Q3 this year, and launch dates will be confirmed shortly. We are actually finalising localisation testing as we speak and we are reviewing the latest release, so it is imminent and it’s very exciting.

FP: What do you think the response is going to be to that product in the Australian market?

HM: Especially for the SME market, I think it will take off.

The Australian and New Zealand market is quite primed for it. The SME market is looking for low-cost, quick turnaround products, they don’t want to spend money on infrastructure, so I think it’s going to be a perfect option.

FP: Do you think people might be a bit cautious, given the history of the product’s launch?

HM: I agree wholeheartedly, but we have already got quite a bit of interest. I am just building a team up at the moment. We’re actively recruiting new partners to help us sell [Business ByDesign], because it’s a a different market and a different selling style as well. So you will see us active out in the market in the next few months, and hopefully in the second half of the year, we’ll be out to market with a vengeance.

FP: Looking forward, what are your predictions on how SMEs will consume technology in the future, and how solutions will be implemented?

HM: I think it’s very difficult to predict. We will continue to see a mix of on-premise and on-demand because a lot of customers feel more comfortable with being able to walk outside their office, touch it, feel it, and see it, whereas others are comfortable consuming in the cloud. We have got customers that use a mix, so with their non-critical areas like reporting, they will use our BI On-Demand in the cloud, but for their financials, they must have on-premise.

Whereas some customers are more than happy to just go totally on-demand and host everything up in the cloud.

FP: If we do see that move to the cloud by many companies, do you think there will still be as strong a role for the ecosystem around system implementation?

HM: Absolutely. The ecosystem will still have a role to play, albeit maybe a different role. Most of our partners are making different styles of transition, but as I said, there’ll still be significant organisations that will either have a mix of both on-premise and on-demand, or will want to just be on-premise consistently. I don’t think we’ll ever see onpremise leave our shores completely.

FP: Any other comments on what you are doing in the SME space?

HM: It is certainly an exciting space for us. It has come through some difficult times, and we are really starting to see a resurgence in the market, which is great.

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

www.insidesap.com.au 31

TECHNOLOGY Business intelligence

SAP BusinessObjects 4.0 uncovered At the recent SAP Run Better Tour in New York City, SAP launched the longawaited 4.0 releases of its SAP BusinessObjects (BOBJ) business intelligence (BI) and enterprise information management (EIM) solutions. Freya Purnell reports.

Designed to respond to increasing globalisation and the growth in mobile technology and social network usage, the new releases are the result of three years of software development, and aim to better equip organisations to assess and act decisively on the torrent of information generated within and outside their businesses.

The solutions Unified on a common infrastructure, helping to reduce IT landscape complexity and speed deployment times, and with a friendly user interface oriented towards self-service, the new BI and EIM releases bring together a range of the technology innovations SAP has been touting as the future of analytics: • Real-time processing through in-memory computing, optimised for use on SAP High-Performance Analytic Appliance (HANA) software; • Access from mobile devices to information anywhere, capitalising on the capabilities of the Sybase Unwired Platform; • Combining structured and unstructured information to blend business and social data, through a new multisource, multi-dimensional semantic layer and a new common authoring experience; and • Providing organisations with a choice of deployment models that best fits their needs and which will reduce the total cost of ownership.

The solution set includes new versions of SAP Crystal Reports, SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards and SAP BusinessObjects WebIntelligence, in

Key elements of the 4.0 releases include: •

•

•

•

SAP BusinessObjects Data Services software for the consolidation and integration of data services into any BI or application environment.

SAP BusinessObjects Information Steward, which gives users the ability to analyse and rate data sources and share KPI scorecards.

SAP BusinessObjects Event Insight to help users understand the impact of business events such as market fluctuations, through scenario analysis and historical comparison.

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence for selfservice, flexible access to trusted information.

32 Inside SAP magazine

addition to the SAP StreamWork application. Integration with SAP enterprise performance management (EPM) and governance, risk and compliance solutions has also been enabled to facilitate seamless visibility of performance and risk.

Dr Vishal Sikka, executive board member, technology and innovation, SAP AG, said this release of the BOBJ solutions had been on the drawing board since the acquisition of Business Objects.

“This product is a perfect example of what the combination of these two companies has been about.

“By combining the beauty and the consistency – bringing in the beautiful user experience for which SAP BusinessObjects software was always famous, the elegant simplicity together with the strength of SAP software, integrated identity management, SAP NetWeaver Application Server and integrated lifecycle management – we have wonderful products to share with our customers. And now with SAP HANA, we also bring the ability to analyse massive amounts of data in real time.”

Steve Lucas, SAP EVP and GM, SAP BusinessObjects division, said the 4.0 releases deliver on the SAP analytics roadmap and vision through tight integration and a common look and feel.

“Over the past three years, we have listened closely to our customers and worked to bring more unity across all our SAP BusinessObjects solutions… We believe that by bringing people powerful, lightning-fast business analytics software in the most intuitive experience possible, they can now easily access unprecedented amounts of information to make better decisions.”

Among the partners involved in the SAP Ramp-Up program for the 4.0 releases were Accenture, Atos Origin, Capgemini, cundus AG, Deloitte, HP, Logica, Siemens IT Solutions and Services and Teradata.

The feedback Carl W. Olofson, research vice-president, application development and deployment, IDC, spoke in favour of the new solutions, saying historically companies have dealt with BI on a project by project basis and have lacked the ability to bring the data together, but that the new SAP solutions provide benefits around data trustworthiness and process timeliness.

“All of these components should provide the basis for an information environment that is nimble and responsive,” he said.

The Business Warehouse roadmap Tony de Thomasis, Acclimation NetWeaver practice lead, was invited to attend the SAP Run Better Tour in New York, and had the chance to ask some of the big questions about the overall SAP BW roadmap.

Which version of BW should I aim for?

“For those customers who are still on BW version 3.5 (and older), you don’t need to be told that you have been out of standard support since March last year. All customers should be aiming for the strategic BW 7.01 release. You will find it increasingly difficult to remain on the long term BW roadmap unless you opt for a Unicode instance,” de Thomasis says.

Which version of BWA should I aim for?

“For those who have already made the investment in BWA technology, you need to be on BWA 7.0. The next version, BWA 7.2, is required for BW 7.3. If you are in the process of deploying the BWA, you should jump directly to BWA 7.2. The BWA 7.2 will run in full BWA 7.2 mode if you pair it with a BW 7.3 system and quite happily run in BWA 7.0 mode if you pair it with a BW 7.01 system.”

Upon the launch, SAP already had reference customers Lionsgate Entertainment Corp, an independent entertainment studio, and Hilti, a technology provider to the global construction industry, ready to talk about their experiences with the 4.0 releases.

Lionsgate evecutive vice president and chief information officer, Leo Collins, said one of the most exciting aspects of the new releases was the ability to use tools like the iPad and smartphones to drive sales.

“We’ve implemented [SAP NetWeaver] BW and [SAP NetWeaver] BW Accelerator – systems that pull data directly out of the core financial systems…. We do have phenomenal amounts of data. We know how every motion picture has done in every theatre, we know all of the expenses at a very granular level, and these new tools we’re getting from SAP allow us to have better revenue streams and better control of costs.”

Similarly, being able to access enormous amounts of customer data in real-time and respond faster to customers was what Christian Ritte, head of PCC, finance, HR and reporting, Hilti, was looking for. After finishing the pilot phase of SAP HANA, Hilti plans to unite this with the 4.0 releases for easy-to-use reporting.

“Complexity can only be addressed by providing better visualisation and we think that with SAP BusinessObjects [software] we can really go a step ahead,” said Ritte.

How do I get onto the in-memory roadmap?

“In its first iteration, HANA 1.0 is aimed at the Operational and Agile Data Marts. This makes HANA 1.0 a good match for highly volatile data which changes frequently or historical data which can be supplemented with external data and modelled on the fly.

“Customers can opt for a side-by-side HANA 1.0 deployment for the BW landscape provided they are on BW 7.3 and BWA 7.2. The BWA will evolve into HANA 1.0 – in fact, HANA 1.0 is able to be run in BWA mode.

“The benefits of deploying HANA 1.0 in an existing BW landscape include a large performance boost courtesy of the improved compression and processing power of the in-memory computing engine, as well as the capability to build customer-specific acceleration scenarios taking data from multiple sources.”

What’s next on the HANA roadmap?

“In its next iteration, HANA 1.5 will be aimed at Architected Data Marts. Subsequent releases of BW 7.3 will begin to unlock HANA 1.5 specific capabilities such as online data store activation in real time.

“The most exciting prospect of HANA 1.5 is the ability to move BW data out of the existing database and run it directly from the appliance. With the compression rates offered, increased performance and reduced database licensing costs, this makes HANA 1.5 quite an interesting value proposition.”

Tony gives a full rundown on this topic in his blog entry on the SAP Developer Network, which you can find here www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/23740 .

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

www.insidesap.com.au 33

TECHNOLOGY Business PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Building the business case: measuring the intangible Scott Taylor discusses how to avoid some of the typical traps when creating a business case for an Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) system.

In the ‘Office of the CFO’, the task of preparing a business case/return on investment (ROI) for the acquisition of a new financial system inevitably has to be performed.

Determining the ROI for a new ERP, for example, where we can measure the tangible benefits and savings is somewhat easier than understanding how to quantify the intangible benefits such as the “enablement of better decision-making” provided by the implementation of a budgeting/forecasting system or a reporting/analytics solution.

This is a bit of a thorny topic and there is much debate and research over the measurement of tangible and intangible savings. For example, no-one debates that having access to the right information in a more timely manner or being able to manipulate and analyse the right information leads to better decision-making – but what is the measurable benefit of this? Many financial professionals believe that intangible assets are relevant to the understanding of a company’s earnings prospects and future cashflows.

In many, if not most, of the projects we do, one of the key drivers is actual ‘manual time saved’ – that is, if we are replacing a very complex and messy spreadsheet based budgeting or reporting application with a sophisticated multidimensional web-based solution, then we can easily measure the time saved when, for example, producing the end of month report pack – a tangible saving.

Unfortunately the first thing that managers under cost pressure do is translate this saving into headcount.

34 Inside SAP magazine

This is, in our opinion, is a dangerous game. Assuming the staff in your finance team are there because they are competent, highly skilled individuals and have an intimate knowledge of the business, a far better approach is to look to where else these skills are better applied. Simply replacing your Financial Performance Management (FPM) systems with new technology and not undergoing a business process review to support and take advantage of the new applications will yield limited results at best.

We have a basic business case/return on investment document available at our website: www.nxg.com.au/ businesscase. It’s not exhaustive, but it’s a good start.

We also have some comprehensive models and ROI calculators, so contact us if you want to explore a more complex and detailed business case.

Scott Taylor is director and principal of NXG Business Solutions. The founding principals and owners of NXG have been involved in data warehousing, business intelligence, budgeting and planning, consolidation and BPM systems, with many client relationships spanning almost 20 years. NXG’s management and commercial skills are based on practical, hands-on experience, with each of the principals having come from the business user community and designed and built BI/BPM solutions for some of the world’s largest companies. Email scott. taylor@nxg.com.au or visit www.nxg.com.au.

Common pitfalls when implementing EPM After a hundred or so EPM/FPM implementations, we have a few recommendations on what to avoid – here are the most common issues, relating specifically to a new budgeting/reporting system.

1. Better technology doesn’t mean better performance management.

Simply replacing what you have today with a new piece of software won’t yield significant performance improvements. ‘New planning’ is a core driver of Business Performance Management, is totally integrated with other management applications and is no longer an ‘island’. Use the project to review business processes and roles and use the savings in time and manual effort to better analyse information.

2. Don’t forget the strategy.

The finance department and the CFO’s role in the setting and measurement of strategy to execution is greater than ever. Modern applications put the power of alignment from the boardroom to the customer in the hands of the CFO. Use the opportunity to go back and review how your reporting is aligned with the company’s strategy and how you can implement behavioural change. Tools such as distributed and shared scorecards, management and operational dashboards, and scenario modelling, allow the finance department to leverage data into planning and budgeting and to allocate resource to initiatives that support corporate objectives.

3. Don’t do too much at once.

The desperation to break free from ‘spreadsheet hell’ can lead to a ‘want it all’ approach when

looking at implementing a new system. In addition, today’s technology allows for quick, rapid start and proof of concept models to be developed with little effort during the functional specification stage.

Giving users, managers and business units the ability to actually see what the finished product and functionality might look is invaluable in sorting out the absolute necessities from the ‘nice to haves’ and to develop a staged approach to the implementation.

4. Look outside the financial world.

The distinction between strategic, operational and financial planning has been blurred forever.

One of the major advantages offered by modern performance management software is the ability to seamlessly integrate data from disparate systems – not just from the ERP. Integrating data from other sources such as sales, marketing, HR or production also offers the finance department the ability to move to a more driver-based planning and budgeting regime.

5. Don’t get lost in features and functions The way you architect and design your new budgeting or reporting system is more about business rules and process than about the technology. The software will do just about anything you want – the question is, what do you want it to do? For example, to what level of consolidation or detail do you distribute to different managers?

You don’t want every manager drilling down into every expense transaction if there is a variance – just because they can! Careful planning and design through hands-on workshops and prototyping will ensure you drive behavioural change in line with strategy.

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

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TECHNOLOGY Mobility

10 reasons to mobilise SAP

Enterprise mobility is forecast to take off throughout 2011. Danielle Cullen presents some good reasons why.

A recent Sybase survey found that more than 90 per cent of companies intend to implement at least one mobile application this year. Almost half of the companies surveyed said that they would implement between five and 19 applications. So why are companies choosing to pursue mobile solutions?

1. Increase workforce productivity More than half of the respondents in the Sybase survey intended to implement mobile applications to increase productivity. This is a key factor expressed by many Australian companies pursuing a mobile strategy. By mobilising core SAP functionality, employees and executives no longer need to be at their desks or logged onto SAP to perform key tasks.

Restrictions such as working hours or physical location no longer affect productivity.

Some of the most popular SAP mobile solutions implemented to date include purchase order, timesheet and expense approval applications for managers. This means that they can easily approve SAP documents while travelling or in between meetings without needing to log onto an SAP system.

2. Reach a wider audience Traditionally SAP systems have had a very internal focus and have provided business functionality for the employees of a company.

SAP mobility turns this around. Applications can be built for customers, suppliers and partners that are easy-to-use and look and feel just like a normal web or smartphone application. But behind the scenes these applications are communicating with

36 Inside SAP magazine

and performing business tasks in SAP in a simple, secure and safe way.

Customers can place orders, edit their account information or view purchase history. Suppliers can use applications that predict when more stock will be required. In fact, almost any external transaction that relies on SAP data can be provided in an intuitive easy-to-use application.

3. Increase sales Providing customers with the ability to buy products or services in an easy and convenient manner is a sure-fire way to increase sales.

According to the Australian Centre for Retail Studies (ACRS), approximately 36 per cent of Australians are making purchases online at least once a month, and 6 per cent are buying online at least once a week. And these numbers are set to increase. Retailers are taking notice of this. According to a Forrester report conducted last year, 69 per cent of retailers are planning to invest in improving website content and 66 per cent will spend more time on online marketing to drive sales and growth.

Online shopping carts that directly lodge a sales order in SAP are an easy way to do this, but companies are increasingly looking at complementary applications to really boost client ratings. A good example of this is a delivery tracking application, enabling customers to see when their goods have left the warehouse and the estimated delivery date.

4. Improved response times A mobile workforce using SAP-integrated applications results in a back-end system that is constantly up-to-date. This facilitates improved decision-making and enables faster response times.

Employee Health and Safety (EH&S) is another area of SAP forecast for exceptional growth over the next 12 months with

the introduction of Enhancement Pack 5. We predict that this will result in a strong focus on mobile solutions for EH&S, enabling executives to quickly respond to incidents that occur in off-site locations with all the details available to them in real-time.

Of course for these types of applications, offline access is a must, with captured data being transmitted as soon as connectivity becomes available to those involved.

5. Market leadership Companies are increasingly using mobile applications as a marketing tool to establish their position in the market and increase market share.

Within Australia, we have seen a flurry of applications from the banking sector as they use mobile technologies to attract and retain customers. In fact throughout 2010, Australian banks experienced triple-digit growth in smartphone transaction volumes, with St George Bank reporting that its smartphone transaction volume within the last year is equivalent to the activity of 40 physical branches.

We are seeing now that enterprise mobility is following consumer market trends with companies starting to offer market-differentiating services and solutions to customers, employees, partners and suppliers.

6. Reduced operational costs Mobile applications reduce operational costs in a number of ways. By working with intuitive and user-friendly interfaces, users can quickly and easily complete complex business transactions without the need to understand the intricacies of the back-end SAP system.

Labour-intensive data entry is reduced by automated business processes such as order creation or timesheet entry. Sixty-three per cent of respondents in the Sybase survey confirmed that cost saving was a key factor influencing the general adoption of new mobile applications within their company.

7. Lower training expenses Most SAP users are ‘lightweight’ users of the ERP system, meaning that they only ever use SAP for simple tasks such as timesheet and expense entry or other HR activities.

As a result, many companies are now choosing to provide easy-to-use applications to do this – accessible from the company intranet or mobile devices.

While this of course doesn’t get around the SAP licence fees, it does reduce the need for expensive and time-consuming training courses to familiarise employees with how to log on and use the standard SAP system.

8. Improved customer satisfaction Mobile is quickly becoming an important factor in measuring customer satisfaction. Customers now expect to be able to find all of the information they need quickly and easily online. And the ability for stores to offer mobile payment functionality is expected to be a key differentiating factor within the next one to two years. Starbucks in the USA offers this service and

recently completed its one millionth mobile sale.

In many cases, the difference between a good or bad mobile experience can determine the ultimate purchasing decision. And it’s not just B2C transactions affected by this. Increasingly B2B customers are expecting the same sort of web and mobile access to information, and the ability to quickly and easily place orders and perform other key business tasks online.

9. Retain and attract a quality workforce High-calibre employees are attracted to companies that implement and move forward with the latest technologies.

It’s not just graduates and Gen Y employees susceptible to this – executives and other workers are increasingly interested in the devices available to them and the user experiences that can be provided.

Increasingly companies are providing smartphones (particularly iPhones) to employees as they are perceived as an important employee benefit and key retention factor. And with a mobile workforce that exceeded one billion workers in 2010, employees now expect to be able to perform key business tasks from their mobile devices.

Companies need to be able to offer their employees the latest technology, and the ability to work from their devices.

10. Real-time accurate information With the first wave of enterprise mobility, applications were introduced enabling field workers to download information onto their mobile devices at the start of each day which they could then access and edit. They would synchronise this the next time they were connected to the main system.

The latest mobile technologies are very different.

Communication with SAP is real-time and in some cases, even predictive. We envisage a wave of ‘smart’ applications being introduced later this year that predict what the worker is going to do and supply the correct information. For example, the geo-location of a mobile sales worker could determine which customer the employee is visiting and then request all of the necessary information from SAP – such as sales history, pricing offers and customer details.

2011 will continue to be an exciting time for SAP mobility. It is a key focus area for many consultancies and customers and also for SAP themselves. As Bill McDermott, co-CEO of SAP says, “Mobility is the new desktop.”

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

Danielle Cullen is operations manager at Clarimont Consulting (www.clarimont.com), a specialist consultancy delivering end-to-end mobile solutions for SAP.

www.insidesap.com.au 37

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Careers ON THE MOVE

On the Move

Brought to you by

The SAP Recruiter of Choice

Our regular round-up of who is going where in the industry. If you have changed jobs recently or hired some new staff, to be featured in our next edition, email us at editor@insidesap.com.au.

Yann Guillaume, Everjoy Consulting

Carol Kennedy, Articulate

Everjoy Consulting has promoted Yann Guillaume to the position of general manager, in alignment with the company’s expansion strategy to increase headcount and grow into new market specialisations to enrich the service capability offering to Everjoy clients.

“For the past four years, Yann has made a significant contribution in developing the SAP recruitment market. We have great expectations for Everjoy Consulting and Yann’s new role will enable us to continue to grow and build into new market specialisations,” said Adrian Everett, managing director at Everjoy Consulting.

Guillaume said, “I am excited about the opportunities for growth that exist for Everjoy and look forward to enriching our service capability for our clients. My new role will enable me to assist in training our consultants, identify new markets and opportunities for the business.”

In addition to his new responsibilities, Guillaume will continue to develop and manage key accounts in the SAP, ERP and IT markets.

Carol Kennedy recently joined Articulate as the national resource manager based at the company’s North Sydney office.

Kennedy was previously the ERP resource manager for CSC Australia’s ERP practice, where she gained invaluable SAP experience.

Tasked with the end-to-end resource management of Articulate’s growing workforce including its permanent staff and contractors, Kennedy has already begun building strong relationships with the existing team, is spreading her network further afield, and has been coming up with new and innovative ways to attract and retain outstanding people.

“Carol brings with her an organised and structured approach to resource management and recruitment,” said Articulate managing director, Mark Arnold.

Eric Goldfarb, CIBER Inc CIBER Inc (US) has announced it has appointed Eric Goldfarb as executive vice president and chief information officer.

Goldfarb was previously executive vice president, executive committee member and CIO at BearingPoint, where he was responsible for redefining the mission of and setting the priorities for the IT organisation. He is a widely published thought leader in the area of applying information technology to business needs, having co-authored several books including Ways to Reduce IT Spending.

On the appointment, CIBER CEO Dave Peterschmidt said, “Eric’s vast experience and industry knowledge are perfectly aligned to ensure that CIBER accomplishes its key initiative of building out a world-class information technology organisation that will support our growth and enhance our business decisions.

“Eric’s proven strategic approach has driven success at several organisations. His efforts have resulted in increased revenue growth, created efficiencies in operating and business processes, expanded market opportunities, enhanced web-based sales training, improved interactive marketing, and led to significant cost savings and higher returns on IT investments.”

Coming soon Watch out for our new-look Inside SAP jobs board – making it even easier for you to find your next SAP contract or full-time role.

Visit jobs.insidesap.com.au

www.insidesap.com.au 39

EVENTS SAUG Plenary

SAUG Plenary 2011

By Tony de Thomasis Every year, the SAP Australia User Group (SAUG) works tirelessly to put together events that appeal to a large audience.

On 9 March, I joined over 200 delegates at the Brisbane Hilton for the SAUG Plenary. Over the next two days, 23 enthusiastic speakers shared their honest experiences of various SAP software offerings with a captivated audience.

The SAP Innovation Update session opened the event with a spark of energy as Andrew Fox, SAP ANZ ecosystem director, and Tim Wilkes, SAP ANZ solutions manager, delivered live demonstrations showcasing in-memory, cloud and mobility offerings. It was refreshing to see the local SAP guys confidently presenting the one- to three-year roadmap for SAP customers. Not that long ago, we might have expected this depth of knowledge and confidence only from an international delegate.

I was privileged to present the keynote session on ‘The Top 10 SAP Priorities for 2011’. The session was conducted by combining a traditional PowerPoint presentation with a variety of social media content including YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. The Generation ‘Y’ trend drew wide reaction from the delegates, obviously fuelled by personal experience with teenagers at home. My presentation must have made an impact, as I picked up a flurry of new Twitter followers by the end of the keynote.

There were several positive comments for the direct and honest presentation approaches of Andrew Moffa, systems analyst, Galaxy Program, Woolworths, and Suzanne Wakeford, 1SAP incident, release and change manager, BlueScope Steel. These first-time SAUG presenters confidently answered several questions posed by an audience intent on avoiding the pitfalls and difficulties encountered during a Solution Manager deployment. The strength of the SAUG is built around SAP customer experience – having first-timer presentations captures the essence of SAUG and promotes Moffa and Wakeford as thought leaders in the community.

The delegates never missed an opportunity to network during the session breaks by congregating around the exhibitor booths to share real experiences with other companies looking to solve the same product challenges. The evening networking event on the Tropicana Deck provided a relaxed and informal environment to talk about the exciting content presented during the day while enjoying drinks and canapés.

There were several other informative customer presentations from the GPT Group, Super Retail Group, Qenos, Rio Tinto, CS Energy and the Queensland Office of State Revenue. The customer content was supplemented by professional partner content from Acclimation, Oakton, Oxygen, Revolution IT and Zer01.

On the afternoon of the second day, around 50 customers attended the Ordinary Members Networking Session. This

Andrew Moffa, Woolworths session was open to customers only – no partners and no SAP attendees allowed. This demonstrates the independence of the SAUG, as much of the information gathered during this session is presented back to SAP as unvarnished and strategic feedback. These days, more than ever, the SAUG has continued to gain influence with SAP, with the company starting to share roadmaps and actively take input for product improvement.

Through the ongoing work of the SAUG, there are now more opportunities to influence and shape current and future SAP product direction, SAP support offerings and the SAP customer engagement model than ever before. The SAUG enjoys a strong strategic partnership with SAP, but enthusiastic participation is the key. The more contributing members, the stronger the collective Australian voice is – there is strength in numbers and you can make a difference.

Another privilege enjoyed by SAUG members is full access to the Knowledge Library, which is a rich source of information including presentations and recorded webcasts from past events, informational sessions, forums and workshops. You can take a look at my ‘Top 10 SAP Priorities’ keynote session, and challenge me if you feel I have missed out on your favourite priority.

Tony de Thomasis is an SAP Mentor and NetWeaver Practice Lead, Acclimation.

The next two upcoming SAUG events are: Public Sector Forum – 5 May, Canberra SAUG Summit – 2-4 August, Sydney www.saug.com.au

www.insidesap.com.au 41

EVENTS

What’s On Each edition of Inside SAP includes a diary of upcoming events for the SAP community around Australia and internationally. To have your event listed here and on our website, email editor@insidesap.com.au.

8th International SAP Utilities

aspx?mode=overview&id=278

Conference 12-14 April 2011 Mannheim, Germany The biannual International SAP Utilities Conference (IUC 2011) is SAP’s main gathering of professionals from all over the globe in the utilities and waste industries. Presentation topics include: the importance of the customer, generation of energy, the intelligent grid, energy efficiency technology, achieving cost efficiency in the water industry, supporting a sustainable waste and recycling business, and moving forward with IT-technology. w: www.sap.com/about/events/search/ overview/index.epx?EventID=7524 Manufacturing 2011 13-15 April 2011 Les Palais des Congres de Paris, Paris, France Manufacturing 2011 will teach you to leverage your SAP solutions for manufacturing to meet or exceed production goals, enhance quality, improve order fill rates, and gain shop floor efficiencies. Offering practical advice on the best ways to use, implement, upgrade, customise, and manage SAP solutions for manufacturing, Manufacturing 2011 will allow you to build valuable connections with other SAP customers and learn how to increase visibility into manufacturing operations.

6-8 June 2011 SAPPHIRE NOW and the ASUG Annual Conference 15-18 May 2011 Orlando, Florida, United States Learn how to innovate with SAP now using the latest business strategies and industry best practices from SAP customers, partners, executives, and industry experts to drive business results across all levels. Executives, IT decision-makers, and business managers will discover new initiatives, solutions, products, and services, and have unique access to the entire SAP ecosystem. w: www.sapandasug.com

Australian CIO Summit 2011 RACV Royal Pines Resort, Gold Coast,

16-18 May 2011

Queensland The Australian CIO Summit 2011 brings together the key decision-makers and gate-keepers of Australia and New Zealand’s IT budgets. Over three days, sponsors will meet and interact with top IT executives through a number of business one-to-one meetings and many networking activities. Strategic summit sessions led by the thought leaders in the CIO and IT community will discuss how the ‘new economy’ IT approaches such as consolidation, virtualisation, cloud computing, social networking, and outsourcing are rapidly becoming the mantras of forward-thinking CIOs.

Sofitel Sydney Wentworth, Sydney Now in its sixth year, Mastering SAP Financials is a dedicated event for the SAP Financials community, Choose from 35 presentations, case studies and sessions from thought leaders include Christopher A. Bowling (Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, USA), William J. ‘Jody’ Billiard, Coke Consolidated, USA), Johannes Le Roux (Satreno, USA), Janet Salmon (SAP AG) and Mary Jane Rivera (HMH, USA). w: www.masteringsap.com/financials CeBIT 2011

overview.cfm?u=europe&s=

Sydney Convention and Exhibition

Hotel Realm, Barton, Canberra This annual one-day event provides a forum for more than 150 public sector professionals to discuss the unique challenges of their SAP marketplace.

Attendees will include representatives from Australian federal, state and local government agencies. Whether you are an SAP program director, a business process manager or a solution architect, this event will hold information that is valuable to your role.

Centre, Darling Harbour, Sydney CeBIT Australia is the leading platform for local and international manufacturers, service providers, distributors, retailers and buyers of ICT to come together and learn how to achieve long- and short-term savings through technologybased business solutions. Covering 28 separate business technologies, CeBIT Australia is a B2B event aimed at driving business outcomes for exhibitors, visitors and conference delegates. With over 600 exhibitors and over 30,000 highly qualified trade visitors from Australia and overseas, this annual event sets the agenda for the Australian ICT industry.

w: www.saug.com.au/Events_Calendar.

w: www.cebit.com.au

42 Inside SAP magazine

w: www.masteringsap.com/bobj

25-27 July 2011

31 May - 2 June 2011

5 May 2011

Sofitel Sydney Wentworth, Sydney Covering topics such as dashboards, nurturing the relationship between business and IT, and mobile BusinessObjects, this event will also feature thought leaders such as George Mathew (SAP BusinessObjects, USA), Ingo Hildefort (SAP BusinessObjects, Canada), Mico Yuk, (Xcelsius Gurus Network, USA), Dan Grew (AstraZeneca, UK) and Peter O’Donnell (Monash University).

Mastering SAP Financials

w: www.sapmanufacturing2011.com/

SAUG Canberra Forum 2011

Mastering SAP BusinessObjects

w: www.australianciosummit.com SAUG Summit 2011 2-4 August 2011 Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, Darling Harbour, Sydney The SAUG Summit is the largest SAP event in the Asia-Pacific region. Covering topics such as business intelligence, cloud computing, Business Process Consolidation, virtualisation, SaaS and SAP and workforce automisation, this annual event showcases the latest SAP products on offer and allows SAP professionals to come together and discuss the future direction of the ecosystem. w: www.saug.com.au/Events_Calendar. aspx?mode=overview&id=279

PARTNER DIRECTORY ReadSoft ReadSoft is a world-leading supplier of Document Process Automation solutions, specialising in Accounts Payable Automation for SAP. Their AP automation solution seamlessly integrates with SAP and has been selected by an impressive range of multi-nationals seeking to improve control, efficiency and overall performance, along with an attractive ROI. We invite you to contact us for a free consultative workshop and to “squeeze more from SAP”.

Esker Australia Esker is a recognised leader in document process automation solutions for SAP. On premise software solutions and SaaS solutions include: sales orders processing; accounts payable; e-Invoicing; e-Procurement; and enterprise faxing and mail services. Customers achieve significant operational efficiencies, cost savings and measurable ROI in less than three months. Since 1997, over 1,700 companies in ANZ have trusted solutions from Esker Australia.

Novell Mixed IT environments are a reality for almost all organisations, but you can’t let this undermine your ability to compete. Through our infrastructure software and ecosystem of partnerships, Novell harmoniously integrates mixed IT environments allowing people and technology to work as one.

With a unique combination of the best-engineered and most interoperable Linux and IT management software, we lower cost, complexity and risk on virtually every platform. Our technical prowess and applied technology give our customers the infinite IT flexibility and agility they need to meet and exceed their organisation objectives. Our internal team, the extend community of open source developers and our ecosystem of highimpact partnerships are truly Making IT Work As One.

Acclimation Acclimation is an Australian-owned specialist in SAP technology consulting services. We focus on the range of SAP's NetWeaver solutions and how they can be leveraged to provide SAP innovation, improve user interaction, improve system performance and lower the cost of managing the SAP landscape. Acclimation delivers the complete lifecycle of SAP NetWeaver services including SAP landscape design and delivery, SAP installations and upgrades, SAP development services and ongoing SAP application support services. Our passion is rethinking SAP technology, so for an innovative approach to running your business on SAP visit our website.

Everjoy Consulting The leading SAP recruitment specialist in the ANZ recruitment marketplace. As an SAP specialist consultancy, you can be sure that your recruitment consultant at Everjoy has a deep understanding of the roles that you require and can work with you to meet your organisational goals and targets with effective people solutions.

For the best people or the best opportunities in SAP, contact Everjoy Consulting today.

Systems and People We specialise in supplying quality SAP resourcing solutions for SAP-run organisations across Australia. We offer a complete SAP resourcing service encompassing SAP recruitment, SAP consulting and contractor management.

We can help you to fulfil your SAP resource needs with the right people, right now; build your internal SAP expertise with highly skilled permanent resources and reduce administration and employment overhead with a streamlined, outsourced contractor management and payroll solution.

Lodestone Lodestone is a global management consultancy, committed to designing and delivering solutions that enable international companies to thrive in today’s complex business environment. We help our clients to define the measurable business benefits that we will achieve together, using our teams of client-focused consultants, who combine a passion for excellence with strong process and SAP skills and deep experience of transformational change in their industry.

NXG We are a professional services practice dedicated to maximising your company’s performance and making use of your existing investments. Our implementation methodologies combined with our highly experienced commercial consultants focus first and foremost on your requirements. Our programs including proof of concept, rapid start and workshops guarantee you can see the outcomes and results before any development begins.

www.insidesap.com.au 43

Passion for Excellence.

Commitment to Delivery.

Lodestone specialises in: Strategy and Business Process helping clients create customer value, improve operational excellence and manage risk.

Solution Definition turning established business strategies and objectives into pragmatic solutions which can easily be implemented. Including the Implementation of our newly SAP Certified Expense Management Solution.

Lodestone is a global management consultancy, committed to designing and delivering solutions that enable international, national and local companies to thrive in today’s complex business environment. We help our clients define measurable business benefits that we will achieve together, using our teams of client-focused consultants, who combine a passion for excellence with strong process and SAP skills and deep experience of transformational change in their industry.

Solution Implementation designing and delivering solutions by leveraging our extensive knowledge and expertise in the delivery of complex programs.

IT Transformation shaping IT to optimise the ability to deliver measurable value to the business during and after Business Transformation.

To find out more about Lodestone call 02 8571 8300, email info@lodestonemc.com or visit us at www.lodestonemc.com