Inside SAP Winter 2011

Issue 14 | Winter 2011

www.insidesap.com.au

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

SAPPHIRE NOW 2011 Thought leaders outline SAP’s next moves

reinventing REtail Why social media and mobility are

PP 255003/09024

crucial to remain competitive

government ICT New bROomS in NSW and Victoria

Case study Luxottica’s REAL ESTATE SOLUTION

INTERVIEW STEVE LUCAS on ANALYTICS

SAVE THE DATE!

Inaugural SAP Ecosystem Regatta for Redkite Friday 11th November 2011 The SAP Ecosystem Regatta for Redkite is open for entry to all members of the SAP Ecosystem who want to challenge themselves to make a real difference to children and young people with cancer.

Schedule of Events: 1200: Meet at MHYC and join your yacht 1300: Starting Gun 1600: Latest Finish 1600: Function Start 1700: Prizes 1715: Charity Auction 1800: Official Close

To enter a yacht, contact: Adrian Everett Adrian.Everett@sapef.org 0414 417 786 If you are interested in becoming an Event or Foundation Sponsor, contact: Marisa Warren Marisa.Warren@sapef.org 0413 494 762

Redkite’s support begins at the moment of diagnosis, and continues throughout long and intensive hospital treatment, to when the child or young person and their family return home to their community.

Telegroups:

Redkite Social Workers Redkite’s professional hospital-based social workers provide cancerspecific counselling, support and information from diagnosis to the return home into the community.

Music Therapy: Redkite’s qualified music therapists provide a supportive and creative environment to assist in pain management and strengthen a child or young person’s ability to cope with treatment.

Red Bags: Redkite’s Red Bags contain practical support items to assist families in hospital during the diagnosis period – including toiletries and information on Redkite’s services.

Telephone and email support: Redkite’s email and telephone support services offer families professional counselling as well as cancer-specific information wherever they are in Australia.

Redkite telegroups are professionally facilitated telephone-based peer support groups available for young people with cancer, bereaved parents and other family members. Telegroups connect people who are at similar stages of their cancer journey, allowing them to share their experiences.

Financial Assistance: Redkite’s financial assistance eases the pressure on families and young people assisting with the costs of travel to and from hospital and essential household expenses.

Education grants and Scholarships: Redkite’s grants can help children and young people keep up with their peers academically and developmentally. Redkite’s Dare to Dream Scholarship Program helps young people reach their full potential.

For more information on Redkite see www.redkite.org.au or call 1800 334 771 The SAP Ecosystem Foundation is brought to you by:

CONTENTS

14

17

20

23

26

34

News in Focus 10 Survey reveals insights into SAP performance issues

12 Major changes to SAP services provider market: Forrester

Interview 14 Bringing consumer experiences to the enterprise: SAP’s Steve Lucas

Case study 17 20/20 vision: Luxottica Retail

Industry sector reports 20 Retail: Reaching out to the consumer

23 Government: New brooms sweeping the halls of government

Technology 26 SAPPHIRE NOW 2011 31 Fleshing out a mobility strategy: Danielle Cullen

Events 40 SAUG Summit 2011 preview 42 Event calendar

Regulars 4 Editor’s note

Asia Pacific

6 Quarterly news round-up

39 News from around the region

13 The Coalface: Stuart Dickinson

40 Case study: Malaysia Airlines

Careers

on a rapid mobility deployment in practice

43 Partner directory

34 Attracting the right talent for your team

36 On the Move

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 Real-time, in-memory, mobility and social media – these are the buzzwords around SAP that keep coming up. And they feature prominently in this edition, as we cover the latest developments in the SAP world. We bring you a wrap-up of SAPPHIRE NOW 2011, held in May in Orlando, Florida, which was the setting for a huge number of announcements on SAP solutions and future directions. We also had the opportunity to speak with Steve Lucas, SAP AG general manager, business analytics, about the opportunities presented by HANA and the future for the BI world when he was in Sydney recently.

Social media and mobility are also areas of innovation in the retail sector, and in our feature on page 20, we find out why some of these developments are so critical for players to remain competitive in what has become one of the hardest-hit areas of our economy. For retailers, keeping track of the practical, tangible aspects is also essential for success, and in our case study on page 17, we find out how an SAP Flexible Real Estate implementation helped optical retail giant Luxottica get the visibility of its real estate portfolio and lease profile it so desperately needed.

The last year has also seen a change of government in both New South Wales and Victoria, with significant consequences for ICT priorities and spending. We look at the impact this will have in the coming years in our feature on page 23.

Finally, it’s not long now until the SAP Australian User Group Summit 2011 kicks off in Sydney – if you haven’t already registered for this event, turn to page 40 to find out what’s in store and why you should mark it down in your diary.

Happy reading. ps. Our next edition will be the bumper annual publication, Yearbook 2012, so if you haven’t yet subscribed in Inside SAP – now is the time to make sure you don’t miss out.

Freya Purnell Managing Editor, Inside SAP

4 Inside SAP magazine

Journalist Nathan Luck t. (02) 9929 5465 nathan@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, Stuart Dickinson, Adrian Everett, 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.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

The #1 Linux platform for SAP applications.

For more information, please call 1800 668 355 or email us at mbartolini@novell.com.

Making IT Work As One™

NEWS ROUNDUP

Welcome to your quarterly news round-up, highlighting key news items over the past few months. For full stories, or to read more Inside SAP news, visit www.insidesap.com.au and sign up for our regular e-newsletter.

SAP news SAP AG posted double-digit revenue growth for the fifth consecutive quarter in Q1 2011, with software revenue of Z583 million (up 26 per cent on Q1 2010) and softwarerelated service revenue of Z2.33 billion (up 20 per cent on Q1 2010). Total revenue was Z3.02 billion, an increase of 21 per cent on Q1 2011, with total growth for 2011 predicted to be 10-14 per cent.

SAP has focused on speed of implementation with the release of its new Rapid Deployment programs, which seek to achieve a healthy balance between low risk solutions and line-of-business demands for quick results.

As part of its quarterly release cycle, SAP has also introduced other easily integrated offerings for areas such as finance, sales, procurement, IT, supply chain, sustainable operations, manufacturing and HR, to enable companies to hit the ground running and maintain the flexibility to evolve.

Analyst firm Gartner has named SAP market share leader in the worldwide business intelligence (BI) market with 23 per cent share of the worldwide market based on revenue, reflecting a 16.8 per cent growth from 2009.

Gartner’s report has the total market revenue for 2010 at US$10.5 billion, marking a 13.4 per cent increase from 2009’s revenue of US$9.3 billion.

BI platforms were found to have a 63.7 per cent market share of total worldwide BI software revenue, while CRM suites were found to have a 20.6 per cent market share and analytic applications and performance management software a 15.7 per cent market share. In 2010, SAP’s combined software revenue for those segments was approximately US$2.4 billion.

SAP has signed a worldwide reseller agreement with iRise for its Enterprise Visualisation Platform, enabling rapid visualisation and verification of business requirements. The partnership will help to accelerate solution design for SAP implementation projects by improving communication between business users and IT departments early in the project lifecycle, as business requirements are developed and validated.

Describing visualisation as a “game-changer” for the design and delivery of business software, iRise CEO and co-founder Emmet B. Keeffe III, said the agreement with SAP will help the company achieve its vision for all software to be visualised by 2020.

6 Inside SAP magazine

From partners HCL AXON has restructured its SAP services sales force with a view to full integration with its parent company, global Indian IT conglomerate HCL. The former dedicated HCL AXON sales team, which was focused on a small number of large deals, has made way for a larger HCL team with existing relationships and credentials with a wider base of clients.

“This is proving to be a successful strategy in terms of increased SAP services sales, and also in the provision of better integrated IT services to our clients,” said Clive Ewin, general manager, HCL AXON Australia.

An upturn in business activity in the WA marketplace, including merger and acquisition growth, has driven Perth-based mid-tier SAP consultancy Martarna’s expansion into the broader SAP solutions arena. Mark Foley, general manager of Martarna, said, “While Martarna’s traditional base has been HR and payroll, we are now expanding into other areas including materials management and logistics, financials and CRM. We are also very keen to offer collaboration and teaming solutions that incorporate new modules such as SAP Streamwork.” Martarna’s most recent engagement is on BHP Billiton’s 1SAP project, and the company is also working on new alliances with existing SAP consultancies.

SAP hosting and services partner Computer Networks, the technology infrastructure arm of the CN Group of Companies, has embarked on a regional expansion program with the opening of new, larger premises in Gosford and a new office planned for Newcastle.

“We are the only Australian company with local SAP hosting certification which lets us present our Central Coast customers with the option of fully hosted enterprise-grade SAP benefits at SME prices,” said Richard Gibbs, group managing director, Central Coast and Newcastle.

Also continuing its expansion into Australia, UKbased Turnkey Consulting has established a new operation in Melbourne to complement its Sydney offices established in 2007. Turnkey delivers specialised services for SAP security, SAP GRC and SAP Enterprise Portal. The Victorian operation will be headed up by former PwC consultant and IT security specialist Ed Davis, who brings over 15 years of SAP consulting experience to the role.

HP Enterprise Services is among the first partners to become an SAP-certified global provider of cloud services for SAP solutions, following an extensive audit process that validates the operational integration of the provider’s cloud capabilities with SAP applications. A range of HP solutions, including application hosting, cloud management, disaster recovery and networking, are covered by the certification, which must be renewed every two years.

“The race to the cloud is causing many cloud service providers to offer Infrastructure-as-a-Service, but leave service levels and risk management to their resourcestrapped clients,” said Kathy Garcia, senior vice president, applications, HP Enterprise Services.

CSC has also signed a global agreement with Panaya Inc to adopt its cloud-based simulation service as a standard technology for analysing, planning and executing upgrades of SAP solutions and support package projects, saying the collaboration will further enhance its ability to deliver SAP upgrades faster, while reducing client cost and risk.

Any invoice. One solution.

Accounts Receivable

§ Eliminate paper, printing, franking § Move to e-invoicing

Accounts Payable

§ Fully integrated solution - digital workflow, OCR extraction, 3-way matching, e-archiving § Pay your suppliers on time and negotiate discounts! § Reduce invoice processing costs by 50%!

Find out more at

www.esker.com.au

NEWS ROUNDUP

Solution releases Stonebridge Systems, an Open Text and SAP official partner specialising in SAP-based content management solutions, has developed an accelerated template solution for customers looking to introduce SAP Employee File Management to their SAP landscape. In order to cater for new and existing clients, the solutions are available with or without the Open Text content server installation.

The SAP EFM (Employee File Management) application by Open Text helps SAP customers to manage paper and electronic documents relating to employees. Designed to organise records for instant accessibility and searching – complying with complex legal requirements for retention and security – HR master data and statements, along with original staffrelated paper documents, are centralised and displayed in the SAP ERP Human Capital Management (HCM) solution.

Certified SAP partner Plaut Australia has officially launched its CashTracker solution, developed locally with Wollongong-based search software specialists, Selera. The solution is designed to address common risks faced by both business and government organisations in ensuring data compliance without traditional audit checks, enabling clients to track and prevent duplicate invoicing within their ERP systems.

According to Plaut, some of its key clients are already trialling the product with significant success. One of these is a large ASX-listed industrial client, which has identified 1.3 per cent of total spend analysed as duplicates and not picked up by internal controls – the equivalent to $2 million in invoices.

Industry trends Results from IBM’s 2010 Global CIO Study show that investing in IT to deliver insight and intelligence is the number one priority to help drive organisational strategy by 2015, with 86 per cent of Australian and New Zealand (ANZ) CIOs agreeing.

Of the study’s 181 ANZ CIO respondents, 92 per cent cited BI and analytics as the key tool to enhance their organisation’s competitiveness, compared with 83 per cent of all CIOs globally, followed by mobility solutions, nominated by 84 per cent of ANZ CIOS. There was a significant jump in the number of ANZ CIOs nominating cloud computing as strategic at 60 per cent, up from 39 per cent in 2009, and indicating plans to implement this technology within the next five years.

ANZ CIOs were also much more willing to consider investment in self-service portals, collaboration and social networking, compared with their global counterparts.

Seventy-seven per cent of ANZ CIOs plan to deploy self-service portals in the future, compared with 57 per cent globally, and 68 per cent of ANZ CIOs are looking towards collaboration and social networking tools compared with 55 per cent globally.

Overall the survey found that a similar number of CIOs and CEOs expect more change and complexity in the next five years, with both groups focusing on insight and intelligence, client intimacy and people skills to drive organisational strategy.

8 Inside SAP magazine

Gartner’s ‘Top Predictions for IT Organisations and Users, 2011 and Beyond: IT’s Growing Transparency’, focused on how the shifting role of IT will affect economies, governments, businesses and individuals.

Gartner has predicted a huge growth in the use of personal devices and tablets by enterprises, with 90 per cent of organisations expected to support corporate applications on personal devices by 2014, and 80 per cent of businesses supporting a workforce using tablets by 2013.

Now your SAP career is in your pocket

Go to www.sapmobile.com.au to get all our SAP opportunities on your mobile – – – – – – –

recruitment

Live SAP jobs as they go to market Instant access Private and confidential searching Search by location, job type, keyword Apply immediately iphone/android/blackberry compatible Best of all it’s FREE

consulting

contractor management

Systems and People Pty Ltd t 1300 897 820 f 1300 897 920 admin@systemsandpeople.com.au www.systemsandpeople.com.au

melbourne • sydney

News in focus

Survey reveals insights into SAP performance issues The average SAP performance problem takes one full person day’s labour to resolve, according to new data from Compuware. By Rafi Katanasho.

Leading organisations have spent hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, of dollars implementing SAP to benefit from world’s best practice in business process automation.

SAP can only deliver the intended return on investment, however, if end users are able to effectively perform their work. Lack of SAP availability or poor performance can lead to productivity losses and even process delays as users revert to manual processes.

Seeking to better understand organisations’ experiences in managing the performance of their SAP applications, Compuware surveyed 101 senior Australian IT executives from medium and large organisations attending last year’s SAP Australian User Group (SAUG) Summit in Sydney and the SAUG Plenary in Brisbane earlier this year.

When respondents were asked how often their organisations experience SAP performance issues affecting end users, the Compuware Australian SAP Performance Survey revealed a broad range of experiences.

Responses ranged from almost daily (21 per cent), to weekly (20 per cent), monthly (25 per cent), quarterly (17 per cent) and never (17 per cent). Altogether, 83 per cent of respondents experience regular SAP performance issues and among 66 per cent of respondents, these issues occur at least once a month. Among 41 per cent of organisations, issues occur weekly or almost daily.

Multiple staff involved in fixing SAP performance issues When asked how many people on average are involved in the troubleshooting, diagnosis and resolution process when an SAP performance issue occurs, a large majority of respondents (69 per cent) indicated that two to five people are involved, with just 10 per cent saying only one person is involved. Not all organisations, however, are so fortunate. At 5 per cent of organisations, on average six to nine people are involved in addressing SAP performance issues. At another 5 per cent of organisations, 10 to 14 people are involved and, at 3 per cent of organisations, 15 or more people are involved.

10 Inside SAP magazine

How o en do you experience SAP performance issues affec ng end users?

21%

Almost daily

20%

Weekly

25%

Monthly Quarterly

17%

Never

17% 0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

Averaging these figures across all organisations, the survey reveals that, on average, 4.3 people are involved in the troubleshooting, diagnosis and resolution process.

This goes some way to explain why SAP performance issues result in a loss of productivity for the business at so many organisations.

When asked about the cost of poor SAP performance, around three-quarters of respondents (74 per cent) reported that it impacts customer satisfaction, while a significant majority (60 per cent) said it results in a loss of productivity for the business. Other impacts to organisations were ‘SLA penalties’ (15 per cent of respondents) and ‘loss of revenue’ (13 per cent).

SAP performance problems identified too late to help end users The survey revealed a certain degree of complacency when it came to organisations being aware of performance issues. On average, across all organisations surveyed, IT staff only become aware of performance issues before SAP end users do 38 per cent of the time.

Many organisations have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in IT infrastructure tools, yet most of the time they are not identifying performance issues before they affect SAP end users. Little wonder that the

On average how long does it take to iden fy the cause of SAP performance issues?

impact on customer satisfaction is the most commonly cited cost of poor SAP performance.

Fixing SAP performance issues: a full-time job When it came to how long organisations take to identify the cause of SAP performance issues, respondents revealed a fairly consistent experience. At most organisations (53 per cent), the time taken to identify the cause of issue is counted in ‘hours’. Nonetheless, it is worrying that 29 per cent of organisations count the time taken to identify the cause of SAP performance issues in days (20 per cent), weeks (5 per cent) or longer (4 per cent).

With a few assumptions, the average time taken to identify the cause of issues can be conservatively estimated at around two hours. Combining this with the average number of people involved in the troubleshooting, diagnosis and resolution process (4.3 people), the average SAP performance issue can be estimated to consume around one person day of labour.

18%

Minutes

53%

Hours 20%

Days 5%

Weeks 0% Months

4%

Longer 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

While organisations display widely divergent frequencies of SAP performance issues, it can be estimated that for the 21 per cent of organisations which experience almost daily issues, the labour required to address them is equivalent to a full-time staff position.

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

Rafi Katanasho is solutions director, application performance management for Compuware.

News in focus

Major changes to SAP services provider market: Forrester Acquisition, consolidation and new delivery models have heralded a significant, rapid change in the SAP services market over the past two years, according to a new Forrester report. Nathan Luck reports.

In its latest Forrester Wave report, SAP Services Providers, Q2 2011, authored by Liz Herbert, the researcher summarises significant changes in the SAP services market over the last two years, with acquisition and consolidation running “rampant” and new delivery models changing the game for buyers and providers.

Recent major developments, some even materialising during the course of the Forrester analysis, suggest an imminent changing of the guard, with established players falling by the wayside and hungry up-and-comers jostling for supremacy.

During the several months of research for the Forester Wave analysis, a number of significant acquisitions took place, including the NTT Data Group acquiring Keane, Accenture securing Ariba’s Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) operations and Atos Origin announcing plans to take over Siemens’ IT business.

Forrester’s analysis points to continued acquisitions by larger multinationals – including Accenture’s acquisition of CAS, IBM’s purchase of Cast Iron Systems, the acquisition of Diamond

by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), and Deloitte buying up ClearCarbon, steady investment by the India-based giants and an increase in Japanese service providers buying up companies as strong evidence the systems integrator (SI) landscape around SAP is experiencing drastic change.

A ‘New Economics’ philosophy in the services market, driven by the economic downturn in 2008, is also evident through the proliferation of cloud solutions, outcome-based pricing and nonlinear delivery models.

“Clients are still trying to do more with less… facing reduced budgets and staff,” said the report. “[They] are even more demanding around results – not just on-time and on-budget but thorough business cases and business results such as lower costs, increased visibility or better reporting.”

Forrester examined past research, user need assessments and vendor and expert interviews to develop comprehensive criteria for the evaluation of strengths and weaknesses of the top SAP services vendors. The set of 65 criteria was grouped into three high-level categories: • Current offering – the ability to provide end-to-end implementation services, from advisory and process consulting through to implementation to support services and

12 Inside SAP magazine

hosting; • Strategy – pricing innovation, relationship and codevelopment with SAP, and investment in the SAP practice; and • Market presence – client base across key geographies, overall staff dedicated to the SAP practice, overall financials for the SAP practice and growth within SAP services.

The report’s 65-criteria evaluation of SAP service providers reveals that Accenture and IBM maintain market leadership with geographical reach and the greatest span of services across the SAP lifecycle of strategy consulting, implementation, support and hosting services. Also included in the market leader category were Capgemini, HP, CSC, HCL Axon, TCS, T-Systems, NTT Data Group and Wipro.

In terms of advisory and strategy consulting and industry expertise, Deloitte and PwC lead this sector, as advisory firms with strong SAP implementation practices. According to the report, “they are well-positioned for business process transformation work as well as to work with firms around key industry or process changes. They both excel at change management and organisational design”.

It also highlights the up-and-coming nature of Indian providers, such as TCS, Wipro, Infosys and HCL Axon, which, as they globalise, are beginning to compete with the established multinational corporations. While SAP support has been the mainstay of their services, they are broadening their offer into higher value consulting and stack hosting at the other end of the spectrum.

Relatively small player CIBER also received an honourable mention as a ‘contender’, making it into the analysis for the first time.

“Key organisation changes in recent months mean that it is increasingly winning large deals and is a notable player in the market,” the report said, adding that it is best suited to clients in the public sector, utilities, retail and manufacturing sectors seeking a full outsourcing solution.

A total of 19 vendors and 186 user companies were interviewed

by Forrester for the 2010 SAP services analysis.

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

COLUMN The Coalface

A rapid mobility deployment in practice

By Stuart Dickinson How times are changing. In 1997 the allconquering Microsoft bailed out an ailing Apple to the tune of US$150 million. Fast forward to today and the roles of David and Goliath are rapidly switching – all thanks to the frenzy surrounding mobility.

After bettering Microsoft’s market capitalisation and its quarterly revenues back in 2010, the Cupertino-based corporation has now surpassed its quarterly profits. In the Apple quarter ending March 26, Steve Jobs and co. stacked up profits of US$5.99 billion, while Microsoft’s most recent quarter managed (only) US$5.23 billion. Apple’s market capitalisation first topped Microsoft’s in June last year.

While Microsoft continues to struggle to gain traction with its Windows 7 mobile platform, some of Apple’s biggest sales over the quarter were iPhones and iPads.

Much of Apple’s meteoric resurrection has grown on the back of our thirst for personal mobile computing, but with the arrival of the iPad there are signs that the buying decisions at an organisational level are also ‘moving mobile’.

I have counselled previously that any company wishing to go down this route needs to support its thinking with a hard-nosed understanding of the business benefits and a solid business case. The mobile device should come last in the decision sequence – after the establishment of the use case for the role and the actual applications to be mobilised.

Oxygen recently completed a rapid deployment of SAP CRM 7.0 at Integria Healthcare which, following some sound implementation principles, has provided the company with a sophisticated mobile CRM solution which its sales

representatives can access on iPads.

The implementation succeeded because the customer developed a clear use case, defined by role, prior to establishing which device the mobilised application would run on.

Due to strong growth across all its geographies, Integria needed a mobile CRM solution that would let its sales reps manage their call cycles and provide them with up-to-date customer and sales information while on the road.

Prior to the implementation, Integria’s sales reps were running their calls with pen and paper. Orders were taken in an order book, and they had no visibility of customer or sales information. Integria’s sales manager struggled to marshal his reps because he had inadequate visibility of their sales activities, and only limited ability to plan their call cycle or assess their efficiency.

The new SAP CRM tool gives him a comprehensive view of all sales activities and will provide big efficiencies around call cycle planning, complaints handling and interaction logging. This will help improve the quality of Integria’s face time with customers and therefore sales overall.

Using our SmartStart implementation methodology, Oxygen completed the SAP CRM 7.0 project in just eight weeks.

Integria had initially engaged with salesforce.com since it seemed the most pragmatic solution. However, after we demonstrated SAP CRM 7.0 and our SmartStart offering, they opted for SAP CRM, which was delivered in an integrated, transparent, quick and costeffective way.

The deployment of the browser-based solution on iPads was an extra bonus for Integria, allowing its sales reps to access the solution on the road. Access to a mobile device has also provided

significant other benefits to the business, with a more coordinated approach to call management, calendaring and email responsiveness now being experienced.

Once the solution has settled in, Integria will most likely increase the footprint of CRM to its customer service, accounts and marketing teams.

The success of the project was rooted in some clear thinking when it came to the advice on managing the implementation of mobility solutions – namely, the business requirements and the context of those requirements was well-understood. The application which most closely matched the business requirement was correctly identified and the business requirements were matched to the role. Finally, a ‘fit for purpose’ device was identified.

In addition, the roll-out started small as a way of assessing effectiveness and productivity. Now armed with this feedback, Integria can choose how they wish to extend the CRM capability – perhaps offering it as a mobile application to other business users.

Apple’s appeal doesn’t rely solely on the invention of their good-looking mobile devices. Apple’s iOS and user interface design has been constantly evolving and remains fundamental to their good reputation.

Mobile deployments need to be highly structured and carefully managed.

Mobility has strong business advantages in the enterprise space, but it also has the potential to pose serious risks if security and architecture issues are not identified and managed to a robust standard.

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

Stuart Dickinson is general manager, solution delivery for Oxygen Business Solutions.

www.insidesap.com.au 13

INTERVIEW BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Bringing consumer experiences to the enterprise SAP AG general manager, business analytics, Steve Lucas, visited Australia recently to help kick-start the company’s go-to-market efforts for the High Performance Analytic Appliance (HANA). He spoke with Freya Purnell about the potential of in-memory computing, how mobility is changing the game, and the future for SAP’s analytic solutions.

FP: Why is in-memory technology considered a game-changer?

SL: We are in a day and age where people have a fantastic experience at home, where you surf the web using Google.

You are the master and commander of your universe – you can query the world’s largest database and do it in real time, and it only takes half a millisecond, and it’s free.

Then you go to work on Monday, and you have no idea how to get information, it takes weeks and it’s not free. That is the core issue – why is it that in the consumer world, it’s free and the experience is amazing, and in the corporate world, it costs money and it’s not amazing?

What we’ve done internally at SAP with our HANA system is take literally all of our CRM information, our entire forecast – every customer, every record, every opportunity, every interaction – and put it in one system. I can open up my iPad and answer any question I have – by product, by quarter – it’s right there instantly available. Even over a poky 3G connection, I can still get this information in real time. That empowerment is what endears people to Google, and I think it is what endears people to HANA – you are empowered, you have all the information and the tools you need and it’s in real time, and that is very transformational.

FP: How will overcoming the current gap in the user experience translate to value for the enterprise?

SL: The scenarios with HANA are really limitless, but I’ll tell you what I see happening right now. One is real-time fraud analytics, from the point of the swipe of the credit card.

That information whizzes through the line and ultimately gets dropped into an SAP ERP system. The problem is that the analysis on whether that was a legitimate transaction doesn’t happen until weeks later, because there is so much information and it has to be dumped into a data warehouse.

We want to literally make that instantaneous, where we can identify fraud at the point of sale. This is a huge opportunity – not just for banks, but for retailers.

14 Inside SAP magazine

The question is, how does HANA do that? We take computing that normally happens on big, slow, spinning disks and big relational databases, and we compress it down to happen inside a computer’s physical memory. It’s like the difference between writing the equation 2+2 = 4 and thinking about the answer. Calculations, data storage, complex analysis is all 100 per cent in-memory, and that makes it unique in the market.

It’s having these kinds of results – for the ability to do anything that has big data and the need to apply complex analysis to it, HANA is just a killer app.

FP: What type of market do you think there is in Australia for HANA? SL: HANA is a database – a very unique database – and we want to win in the database market. So we are bringing a new and unique database technology to the Australian market, and it is cutting edge and next generation, but the beauty is you can discard a lot of your perceptions over the last 20 years about how databases work and how they have to be architected, and move to something new.

A lot of areas in the Australian market – such as retail, financial services and agriculture – gain huge benefits from the analytics scenario in general, but I think any application that you have that uses a database today will perform better and benefit dramatically by having HANA as that database.

FP: How do you see it working in the agriculture industry?

SL: I’ll give you an example of a company we are talking to right now. The current process is that company will sell a fertiliser that has some kind of insect repellent property plus obviously nutrient properties for plants. A good chunk of the time either the fertiliser or the repellent does not perform as advertised. The farmer will say, “Come and look at my plants”, so the organisation who sold him the fertiliser will visit and write an assessment. There’s a tremendous amount of information that is collected, and they’ll record it on a

piece of paper and take photos, go back to headquarters, and put that information in a database. Then you have to go through the excruciating process of comparing that to the last 50 years of crop information to decide whether they owe the farmer something. There’s a lot of number crunching required to be able to do that. This is where the pairing of in-memory technology with mobile devices really becomes the killer app. To be able to put in the claims adjuster’s hands the ability to go out, work with the farmer, take photos, enter the information, and have that real-time analysis done using HANA is an accelerant. I don’t think people associate agriculture and big data, but actually it’s pretty amazing how much information goes into making a simple decision.

FP: How is the mobility piece changing the game for SAP? SL: The reality is that we are headed to a day and age where today it’s called the mobile device, but soon it will just be the device. If you think about SAP, we got our start in the technology world by innovating ERP and then we built these cool line of business applications, but that was really a data-in strategy. Companies needed a place to put their information.

The challenge is that getting data in is very easy – getting it out is not so easy. So we bought BusinessObjects, which became our business analytics organisation, and that’s our data-out strategy. Then we saw this great migration of people putting down their laptops and picking up iPads. It’s like what happened when we went from desktop to laptop. So we acquired Sybase for mobility, and integrated it into the other two components, so regardless of what you are doing you can consume it on a device. This is the new SAP; it is all about ‘information in’ as a system of record, ‘information out’ as a system of engagement, and delivering it wherever you need it to be via a mobile device. And we have of course now started innovating below that stack in the database world.

We want to be able to, as our CTO [chief technology officer] Vishal Sikka would say, free the screens – get them where people need them when they need them, make them compelling, engaging and highly desirable. The vision is a reality, it’s underway. But I think companies and customers need to appreciate that a real-time enterprise needs the right in-memory data model to deliver real-time information tied into your core operational analytic systems wherever you need them to be.

FP: Obviously that approach requires a certain level of cultural change within the organisations that are using SAP. How do you see that evolving?

SL: I think the cultural change that happens with our customers actually needs to happen at SAP first. It starts from within. Since 2008, when the housing market collapsed, I have felt there has been this general undertone of agreement amongst most businesses that they need to change. I think that whole mess was a big wake-up call for a lot of industries.

Our customers are asking us to help them transform.

Bill [McDermott] and Jim [Hagemann Snabe] have really been driving this change [to thinking about SAP as a business

INTERVIEW BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

This is where the pairing of in-memory technology with mobile devices really becomes the killer app.

Steve Lucas, SAP AG

analytics and mobility company]. We spent tens of billions of dollars transforming SAP through the BusinessObjects and Sybase acquisitions into something radically different than what the company was just three short years ago.

Getting our people to believe that then translates into articulating it to a customer. Our customers are demanding of us that we help them transform into something new. If we don’t do it, somebody else will.

FP: Where is the integration with Sybase up to now?

SL: We have a tie-in between the core ERP and line of business systems and Sybase, and we have a tie-in between business analytics and Sybase. The construct of being able to build this integration is there, but it needs to get better, so we are looking at how we make it seamless, so the authentication system I have internally works on mobile devices. These devices are easily lost, so there are extra security tie-ins that we are working on right now, and we are updating and releasing new versions constantly. So I am really pleased with where it is.

FP: What type of feedback are you getting from the market about the BusinessObjects 4.0 release?

SL: It’s both good and bad. The feedback is typically, “I didn’t know you could do that”. It’s great, because it makes you realise what SAP is capable of, but the challenge is that we have to create more awareness with our customers.

The feedback is generally positive, I think there is a lot of excitement and a lot of very positive reactions about it.

FP: Do you see any gaps in the analytic solutions market that haven’t been filled?

SL: I think predictive analytics is a place where we partner today, and we have very good partners. Would I like to fill that gap more aggressively? Yes, because at the end of the day delivering information to people has many flavours.

The predictive analytics market is smaller, but from my standpoint, it’s an area we need to embrace.

We look at predictive as a product, but we also look at it as features. The ability to look at a report and use a generic predictive model to tell me what might happen, that’s predictive as a feature, not as a product necessarily, and we absolutely are interested in doing that. The question is, what

16 Inside SAP magazine

do we do with predictive as a product, which is a smaller user base than predictive as a feature.

I am also fascinated by the world of how you visualise data.

We are working on filling those gaps already with projects underway. If you look at the maturation of information, there are younger generations that I think relate more to infographics and other types of visualisation forms than perhaps pie charts, bar charts and things like that. I am intrigued by it, but I don’t know if there is a lot of money there yet or not.

FP: Will the partnership with iRise start to address that visualisation piece?

SL: Possibly. I think we want to address it natively primarily.

From a company standpoint, we would like to make sure that a market is mature enough and customer advantage is high enough that they want to make an investment. So I am intrigued by them and by a few other companies, but ultimately we need to natively build those features.

FP: What’s next on the analytics scene?

SL: I have been really fascinated by two very simple things in the world now. One is that I always ask myself, why is it that Google seems to magically know what I am going to ask before I type it in. But here is why that happens – you do a query on Google and get an answer. So for example, you go on vacation to New Zealand, and then what happens after that is the most important part – you tweet about it, you put a post on Facebook about it, you blog about it, and that commentary goes back into the database, so the next person who comes along and asks the same question gets a better answer, because the data itself has evolved.

We don’t do that in the field of corporate computing. You look at two charts, and say, that one is good and you move on, and the information remains in your head. So we miss the brilliance of what people bring to the data, and that is what we need to capture in the system. So what I see in our future is a ‘like’ button, for example – the ability for you to say this information helped me get to my goal. That’s where we are thinking, how do we capture the brilliance of people and the conclusions they come to. You can make that conclusion better for the next person and accelerate, and I believe if you do that, you get a critical mass of the data relating to you in ways it has not before.

So in the analytics space, I see sentiment, more mobility, and more social aspects of business intelligence.

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

CASE STUDY Luxottica Retail

20/20 vision A prescription optics specialist with visibility deficiencies – a contradiction in terms?

Three years ago, with 900-plus stores running on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, Luxottica Retail couldn’t get a clear view of the real estate aspects of its business – and it was costing the company money. SAP’s Flexible Real Estate Management application fixed the problem, and then some. Nathan Luck reports.

Background Luxottica Retail’s high-profile complement of brands includes OPSM, Sunglass Hut, Bright Eyes Sunglass Stores, Laubman & Pank and Budget Eyewear.

Luxottica Retail leases all of its stores across Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, with monthly retail payments of over $8.9 million. The company also spends $120,000-$300,000 each on 50 to 100 store fit-outs per annum to achieve its signature design, making the real estate aspect of the business a critical element.

With five brands and around 8500 retail staff, Luxottica Retail was experiencing increasing problems in the complex real estate component of its business, due to data ambiguity and inconsistency as a result of its manuallyoperated systems.

A distinct lack of transparency in critical areas was not only affecting the bottom line, it was leaving the company exposed to external factors that carried hefty financial penalties.

“Trying to analyse and understand our portfolio was extremely frustrating. It was driving everybody absolutely nuts,” says Tony Hess, director of real estate, Luxottica

Retail Australia. “There were issues with data integrity – trying to work on so many spreadsheets makes data inconsistency and accuracy a major challenge.”

Considering the number of stores the company had, risks such as a lease expiring before the company realised could prove not only hazardous in terms of losing the space but expensive in terms of wasted time, lost income and the costs associated with relocation.

“Luxottica really needed to take control of its growing portfolio in terms of both financial visibility and risk mitigation,” says Adrian Vaughan, senior solution architect at Harms Consulting, the SAP implementation partner Luxottica chose to work on the project. “The company has a very streamlined 12-week process for its fit-outs, but it wasn’t able to manage the financials of those projects in any of its existing systems. The project managers were good at their jobs, but there was minimal visibility of project details.”

Key challenges The two key areas the business lacked visibility in were management reporting (including project commitments and

www.insidesap.com.au 17

CASE STUDY Luxottica Retail

expenses and rent-free periods), and critical dates (such as rent reviews and rent increases). The business was also encountering difficulties managing its expanding portfolio.

After evaluating a number of property management solutions, Luxottica found SAP’s Flexible Real Estate Management solution matched its existing functionality and offered much better integration to financials than the available alternatives. The company also found concerns over useability could be addressed with a strategy around Portal, SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence and custom Web Dynpro. Finally, the choice made sense as Luxottica already had an existing investment in SAP with its ERP application and NetWeaver Business Warehouse component.

“Beyond visibility, project management was a governance issue, an audit issue,” says Mark Shaw-Taylor, vice president of acquisitions, real estate and vision services, Luxottica Retail. “There is a host of compliance issues associated with managing the installation of a new store.”

“We had to equal the functionality of the best-of-breed applications out there, and we did,” says Vaughan. “That made SAP Flexible Real Estate Management the obvious choice for Luxottica – given the integration aspects and the opportunity to leverage the core business software.”

Implementation Courtesy of the ASAP Focus methodology that Harms Consulting applied to the project, which is employed to prepare an organisation’s system, data, and people to successfully run new SAP solutions, Luxottica initiated the project in December 2008 and converted to the new system in April 2009.

Using this methodology also helped Luxottica minimise any apprehensions staff may have had about the new SAP software programs, and illustrated how the solutions would alleviate, not exacerbate, the issue of limited availability of business resources.

The five-month roll-out included the implementation of SAP Flexible Real Estate, Portfolio and Lease Management, Rental Accounting, Procurements for store fit-out projects, Licensee Management using real estate contracts, Reporting in NetWeaver BI 7.0 and NetWeaver Portal integration.

The SAP upgrade was integrated with an Oracle database, IBM P595 hardware and an AIX operating system.

Results As Luxottica’s manual procedures were replaced by automated solutions, the company found its overall business processes improved accordingly.

“Previously, when we did our rent payment, there would inevitably be questions from the cost centre managers,” Hess says. “It used to take us weeks to get them answers, but now I can respond within one day.”

The implementation of SAP solutions gave Luxottica a complete view of its portfolio, and a dramatic reduction

18 Inside SAP magazine

in time taken to produce reports. It also facilitated simple visibility of critical dates and store fit-out costs, an efficient and accurate monthly rent roll, the ability to accrue rental increases expenses much more accurately, better management of licensees and a reduction in operational risk.

“Every month, someone would have to work with spreadsheets for various financial tasks – for example, to make real estate payments,” Vaughan says. “That’s all changed. The company now uses the SAP software to maintain the lease contracts and manage all financial data.”

The SAP implementation also allowed revision of other processes such as project procurement and management reporting, lease administration and asset capitalisation of fit-out projects.

“Having eliminated spreadsheets and manual tasks like data entry, everything flows through exactly as planned – if the contracts are maintained correctly,” Vaughan adds.

“We went live with all 900+ stores in one big bang. We had a rent roll of about $7 million per month, and when we did the first reconciliation after the implementation, we were out less than $100, which was quite remarkable and far better than the results we were getting with our previous manual procedures,” says Hess.

“SAP Flexible Real Estate Management has helped us immeasurably. We can now control our rent expenditures and meet our project management requirements for the proper and timely control of fit-out costs.”

Luxottica considers the highlights of the SAP upgrade to be the establishment of a robust real estate system with trusted integrity, accurate, timely and targeted reporting delivered via SAP NetWeaver BI and the ability to address usability issues through Portal-based access, Excel template-based quotation and purchase order uploads, Web Dynpro ABAP Purchase Order Wizards and push reporting (email broadcasting).

So how has the SAP implementation translated to tangible results?

“The first benefit I noticed was in the reporting area,” Hess says. “I can now produce reports in one hour, versus the four days it previously required. So my efficiency has improved commensurately.”

The company also believes its newfound visibility into real estate-related transactions has given it greater negotiating power with its landlords. “We’ve probably minimised rent increases,” Hess adds. “In the past we would have accepted rent increases of 70-80 per cent, based on the information available to us. Now, with the financial reporting coming out of SAP Flexible Real Estate Management, we can project costs six months out and determine what we can actually afford at each particular site.”

Additionally, with $24 million per annum in capital expenditure, Luxottica believes the ability to monitor supplier performance as well as procurement activities allows it to make smarter decisions and subsequently reduce costs.

It used to take us weeks to get [cost centre managers] answers, but now I can respond within one day.

Tony Hess, Luxottica Retail Australia

In terms of risk management, the company also predicts that eliminating the potential for lapsed leases alone will return the implementation investment in less than a year, while also allowing it to accurately calculate the financial ramifications regarding sites it chooses to vacate.

“We have minimised our risks since we implemented SAP Flexible Real Estate Management, due to our complete understanding of the Luxottica portfolio,” Hess says.

He also sees the issue of project managers no longer having to manually collect data for analyses as a major plus. “They now use the solution to ensure they have all the information they need for successful negotiations and tendering of contracts.”

Three years down the track, Luxottica has increased the size of its portfolio by 25 per cent without increasing its head count. The company is experiencing better recovery of

funds owed by landlords, better management of costs in all areas and more robust management of construction costs.

As Australia’s first SAP Flexible Real Estate implementation, the project was showcased by Vaughan and Hess at the 2011 SAP Exchange on Real Estate Lifecycle Management in Chicago in April.

Looking forward What does the future hold for Luxottica Retail? The company is looking to improve real estate-specific budgeting, with data extracted from SAP and manipulated in Excel. It is also looking to explore greater functionality for project expenditure, build a data warehouse of shopping centre information, and integrate real estate information with demographic data.

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

The ICS Structure for Independent SAP Consultants “Sometimes there is a better way”

Independent Contractor Services (Aust) Pty Ltd (ICS) has combined a unique range of products and services to develop an innovative and cost effective independent contracting structure for the I.T. Industry.

Advantages for the SAP consultant:

Advantages for the Company:

No need to set up a costly corporate and/or Trust structure (initial and ongoing costs)

Save on Payroll Tax (except TAS.) and Workers Compensation (except NSW)

The ability to share income with a spouse, company, trust, partnership or children

Elimination of various legislative issues

No ongoing compliance issues; e.g. company accounts, annual returns etc. We always ensure the Contractor is fully compliant under ATO and other legislation

Simplified payroll and reduced administration

Access to a range of support services under the “ICS umbrella program”

Compliance and risk management

Attracting and retaining talent

For a no obligation consultation please contact a representative at your state based office below.

VIC – Peter Watson – 0412 007 209 NSW – Cameron Rudolph – 0417 579 259 QLD – Murray Statham – 0429 997 173 www.icsaustralia.com

Retail SECTOR Report

Reaching out to the customer As an industry heavily influenced by consumer behaviour and trends, it probably comes as no surprise that the ‘next big things’ in technology for retail are mobility and social media – based on their potential to literally reach out and grab consumers’ attention and build loyalty and engagement. Freya Purnell reports.

Having battled through the wilds of the global financial crisis, retailers in Australia and overseas are still facing a tough climate. Consumers are more conservative than ever, opting to save rather than spend, and some of the old ‘hot buttons’ like clearance sales just aren’t working the way they used to to get the cash registers ringing. Add to this the growth of online retailing as a credible competitor to ‘bricks and mortar’ shopping, and retailers must innovate to remain profitable and indeed, viable, over the coming years.

A 2009 report commissioned by IBM and conducted by the Bathwick Group, ‘Rethinking the Retail Technology Platform’, authored by Gary Barnett, found that retailers must constantly deliver improvements to their processes and application platform in order to remain competitive.

“Retail and distribution organisations have to have a continual focus on cost reduction while at the same time offering what customers want in terms of price, product and customer experience. These challenges were present before the arrival of the new economy, now they are amplified,” Barnett wrote.

Barnett concluded that to meet these challenges, retail and

20 Inside SAP magazine

distribution organisations must be able to do more with less so they can offer more for less to their customers.

“This mandate means that IT has to be able to deliver continual incremental change to their business processes in order to: • Drive yet more cost out of the supply chain; • Deliver the right shopping experience – retaining their customer base; •Optimise their merchandising process to create a lean, demand-driven supply chain that is capable of responding to local customer demand; and • Improve their operation to be more agile and adaptable to increasing rates of change,” Barnett wrote.

Capturing consumers’ attention According to CIBER ANZ director of innovation, Michael Niestroy, the biggest buzz at this year’s National Retail Federation in New York, the world’s largest retail conference and exhibition, was reserved for mobility and social media integration.

Stefan Gruler, SAP AG’s global head of trading industries

Retailers are laying the foundations now to leverage some of the e-commerce and social media aspects...

Michael Niestroy, CIBER

(retail), believes this is driven largely by the changing behaviour of customers, and what he calls the mobile revolution.

“The business will always be connected, and they have different channels they can use via mobile. There has to be a new way of interacting, and in that regard we will see completely new patterns,” Gruler says.

“The other trend is globalisation – many retailers do go global, but at the same time, they need to be clear on what is happening in the local space as well.”

Niestroy says we are not necessarily seeing the trend to mobility coming out strongly overseas replicated in Australia – yet.

“It is definitely hot on the agenda for some of the retailers.

However, in most cases, they need to have an e-commerce platform or system in place, which not many of them have,” he says.

Major players such as David Jones are looking to rectify this situation, with the department store giant recently releasing an RFP for the commissioning of a new e-commerce platform – two years after they decided to get out of e-commerce. Niestroy attributes this resurgence in interest in this space to a recognition of Australia’s position as three to four years behind the rest of the world.

“The e-commerce percentage in Australia at the moment is about 3 per cent, whereas in Europe and the US it is 8 and 10 per cent respectively, so there is a huge market being unexplored at the moment by some of the local retailers,” he says. “That money, because of the strength of the Australian dollar at the moment, is being exported.”

For this reason, Niestroy says all of CIBER’s retail customers are looking at some form of e-commerce system – whether that be with SAP or another vendor.

“I think they are laying the foundations now to leverage some of the e-commerce and social media aspects that will be relevant in three to four years’ time because consumers are asking for it,” he says.

Efforts to use mobility in the retail space are considerably more advanced overseas, however, and Gruler cites an initiative by large French retailer Casino Group as indicative of how the world will change with mobile.

Currently in the prototype phase, Casino Group’s SAP system allows shoppers with loyalty cards to be identified as customers, with personalised offers sent directly to their

smartphone, based on the information they have provided to the retailer about their preferences and shopping habits.

“For example, if they only want to buy fat-free foods or support fair trade, we can have offers which cater to that customer. These are elements which are supporting a dialogue with a consumer, which is where the mobile revolution really starts,” Gruler says.

Choosing the channel With multichannel or omni-channel retailing gaining momentum, the rules of the game have changed in the last year, according to Gruler.

“The next generation of consumers are not playing by the traditional rules – they don’t need to go to the shops and buy what’s available. They can choose the channel, they can choose the time they want to buy, they can choose the combination of things they want to see, so that brings the retailer a lot of new opportunities, but at the same time, they need to be ready to react to those challenges,” Gruler says.

He says SAP provides a good platform to base a multichannel retailing strategy upon, particularly when the power of in-memory technology is leveraged. All the information required about product information, stock and sale data, and even product pictures, can be easily stored in the one repository, and utilised by each channel.

“Based on that, you are relatively independent of what channel is being used. That is very much the strength of SAP – we can optimise a demand-driven supply chain, necessary to support personalised offers, and we can understand what the consumer really wants at what time and which quality, so we can deliver at exactly the right time at the right store to exactly that consumer,” Gruler says.

SAP is also looking at how it can assist retailers with a cloud-based offering, either for large retailers which need support for subsidiaries, or for particular applications, such as the social media area.

Marketing in a social media world Also to be considered when looking at how to leverage technology, according to Gruler, is just how networked the consumer is through social meda.

“He is giving feedback to the retailer, and at the same time, he expects something back from them, so therefore he needs to be immediately gratified for what he is doing. He

www.insidesap.com.au 21

Retail SECTOR Report

wants to get the right combination of the best product, the best price, the best quality and the best service,” he says.

One example of how retailers can tap into their consumer community is an SAP solution currently available in the US (and under consideration for the Australian market), which allows an organisation to monitor its brand on all social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, but also specific blog sites.

“It uses BusinessObjects software, text analytics and dashboarding visualisation, so you can monitor what people are saying about your brand online so that when you are doing marketing events or promotions, you can gauge the reaction in your community, positive or negative,” says Merijn Helle, SAP Australia industry principal – consumer and trade. “You can then start to tune your marketing programs very effectively and effect a more positive reaction in your consumer community.”

Enterprise-level efficiency for retailers Retailers are also interested in how they can utilise mobility from a supply chain and business process perspective, to improve productivity and efficiency at the enterprise level.

“For example, in the stores, mobilising replenishment processes, their sales force and also some of the executives by providing them with workflows and multiple data interfaces (MDIs),” Niestroy says. “When it comes to looking at mobilising some of the business processes that they have internally, it is basically sweating the asset that they have in the system – making SAP more user-friendly, as you don’t have to deal with the SAP general user interface (GUI) any more.”

Helle says mobile solutions could also help retailers manage their workforces better.

“There is a very high proportion of Gen Y in that workforce, and they don’t have ready access to a desktop, because they are out on the shopfloor all the time,” Helle says. “We’re now working on a program around viewing their roster, and putting in leave requests or shift preferences, and deploying them to their personal smartphones. That will give retailers a huge productivity boost, and it will be a very easy to use format for those employees.”

Niestroy says retailers are also looking for innovations that address common challenges such as managing the creation of new products.

“Every season, a fashion retailer has to create up to 20,000 products in a very short period of time. We have come up with a solution that allows them to very efficiently create those products in SAP with very little error, because if you create a master record in SAP with insufficient data it will hurt you down the track. It is just becoming a bit smarter with the SAP systems they have implemented.”

The right strategy for local customers?

According to Helle, there are currently more than 20 core retail SAP customers in the ANZ marketplace, with large

22 Inside SAP magazine

implementations at Woolworths and Harvey Norman currently ongoing.

He says that those who have implemented SAP previously have been able to quantify their results, with some crediting it with their survival during the GFC. “Others have said they are getting an 0.82 per cent increase on margin, based purely on the increase in visibility, increase in pricing, and increased sales they are getting because they are ranging and replenishing better in stores.”

This has led to many of these retailers pursuing a ‘why not SAP?’ strategy.

“They have seen it as a platform, as a foundation through implementing ERP for Retail, and are now looking at new things in terms of technology,” Helle says.

“One of the biggest areas is BI, so if we look at some of the new Rapid Implementation solutions we are implementing, we have a particular scenario called Sales Analysis for Retailers, which allows retailers in real time to analyse their point of sale (POS) data, look at basket analysis and the spread of sales from the day, and use that data to be a better retailer.”

And as the mobility use cases start to stack up, SAP expects further success in the retail sector – based on the results they can gain.

“Within the past month, we have had some innovations around new solutions like promotions management, which is very well-received by our customers, so there is a big interest in how we can use those solutions much more effectively in the future. If you look to the NZ market, where it has been said that close to 50 per cent is done through promotions, you do see how relevant our solutions are to improve the business performance of our customers,” Gruler says.

“One of the customers tells us that just by using those mobile scenarios he will increase, through customer loyalty and personalised offers, the sale per customer by 50 per cent.”

As for how others in the market perceive the SAP mobility strategy, Niestroy says it is still early days for customers to truly understand what is on offer.

“SAP’s mobility strategy is centred around Sybase, and I think up until now they were coming more from a technology perspective. So that didn’t necessarily relate very well to some of the business process owners in retailers, because they were approaching it from a mobile device management perspective, rather than the business processes,” Niestroy says. “That has changed since SAPPHIRE, where I think 30 or 50 mobile apps have been presented which address certain business processes, some of which will be relevant for retailers.”

One thing is for certain – innovative retailers will be taking every opporunity to continue to compete in what will surely be a tough market in the future.

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

Government Sector report

New brooms sweeping the halls of government Both New South Wales and Victoria have had a change of government in the past year. It’s out with the old, and in with the new – but what does that mean for ICT spending? Freya Purnell and Nathan Luck report.

At the Victorian State elections in November 2010, the Brumby Labor government was defeated by the Liberal/ National Coalition, led by Ted Baillieu, while in March this year, the Keneally Labor government in New South Wales suffered a widely anticipated crushing defeat. While election years inevitably bring a loss of momentum during caretaker periods, a change of government also raises the issue of whether the new leadership will take a new approach to priorities and programs, and accordingly, if existing projects will be continued or turfed onto the scrap heap. We look at the indications from the new Victorian and New South Wales governments on what will stay and what will go in the ICT space.

The Victorian experience In October last year, the previous government announced an ICT action plan worth $100 million, with the aim of creating ICT jobs and reinforcing its status as the IT hub of Australia.

However, the most recent Budget, handed down in May for 2011/12, delivered very little in the way of commitments to ICT projects. This continues a pattern established over the past few years, according to Dr Steve Hodgkinson, research director, IT – Asia Pacific for analyst firm Ovum, and former deputy CIO for the Victorian state government.

“Over the last two budgets, there have been fewer major ICT investment commitments. We saw a high in about 2008 to 2010, when the value of the contracts peaked, and since then it’s been steadily declining,” says Hodgkinson.

“That’s on the back of major projects that are coming to an end or more recently being put on hold, and a drawing up of new commitments in the budgets to ICT-enabled transformation projects. So there is a dramatic slowdown coming in terms of the aggregate value of the Victorian state government’s ICT investment.”

According to Hodgkinson’s analysis, commitments to new ICT projects reached a peak in 2008/09 at around $500 million, but were cut back to a much lower level of

www.insidesap.com.au 23

SECTOR report Government

“There’s only so much you can do with creeping incrementalism before it starts to cause problems with critical service delivery.”

Kevin Noonan, Ovum

around $80-90 million in last year’s budget.

If analysed in terms of contracts rather than budget commitments, in 2009/10 the aggregate IT procurement peaked at around $850 million (including project and operational services such as outsourcing contracts), but Hodgkinson believes the numbers for the current year would be significantly lower.

This manifests in several ways – the first of which is that new ICT-enabled transformation projects are not being kicked off, and those that are already in progress have been placed under review or put on hold, including troubled projects such as public transport smartcard system myki, HealthSMART, the redevelopment of the police LEAP system and education’s Ultranet.

“It’s all part of a new government wanting to have a good look under the covers about their projects, their business value, and how they should be continued. But the processes of doing that have appeared not to have been very quick or decisive,” Hodgkinson says. “There are a lot of people sitting on their hands waiting, wondering what to do on all the major projects, and that in and of itself is leading to contractors not having their contracts renewed and decisions being put on hold.”

Another significant factor in the spending slowdown is the creation of CenITex, as a shared infrastructure services agency for many government departments.

“We’re seeing a dramatic aggregation of most ‘business as usual’ operational IT expenditure into CenITex. The explicit goal of that is to leverage economies of scale and reduce duplication in order to cut costs and improve service levels, so that will also lead to a slowdown in the aggregate ICT procured,” Hodgkinson says.

This is motivated by budget pressures within the Victorian state government, as well as the government effectively ‘cleaning house’ before they decide “how they should treat ICT as a driver of productivity and reform”.

In the wake of the Victorian budget, Ian Birks, chief executive of the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), told Computerworld Australia that while there did seem to be less spending on ICT than in previous budgets, the government was very focused on productivity improvement, which he felt would lead to increased ICT investment in time.

However, after a number of problematic projects, there is

24 Inside SAP magazine

also a sense that some of the drivers of big IT projects have been switched off.

“The Victorian government is now more gun-shy than they were previously in the sense that they are less confident about the merits of big IT project investment,” he says.

As the industry waits to hear from the government about how it plans to move forward, Hodgkinson says the climate is very similar to that in Canberra following the Gershon Review. While it is not clear when the wheels of motion will start again, he expects mobilisation of expenditure towards the end of 2011.

“My guess would be that we’re not going to see any big new ICT projects this year, because in the main it’s a phase of consolidation of the major projects that are already in flight, scaling some things back, cancelling things that are not deemed to be prudent and getting on with focusing on delivering the things that are already on the books,” Hodgkinson says.

The situation in NSW During the NSW election campaign, Greg Pearce, shadow minister for financial management and the opposition’s spokesperson on ICT, criticised the former government for not using ICT effectively.

During a speech to the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) in Sydney late last year, Pearce reportedly said his view was that ICT “needs to be more front and centre for government, and that it’s a key driver for economic growth and productivity”.

“The current contracting and tender processes are widely considered to be too costly, too slow, poorly designed, poorly specified, uncommercial and that’s a focus of mine,” Pearce said.

In a policy paper released prior to the election, Pearce also said he would establish and maintain a whole-ofgovernment ICT strategy, including reconsidering plans to consolidate existing data centre infrastructure in favour of a cloud computing and virtualisation strategy. The paper indicated he would also consider changes to government ICT procurement and information security standards as outlined in a report by the Auditor-General in 2010.

Despite these bold statements, the O’Farrell government has been taking a ‘steady as she goes’ approach, which is much better news for the industry than a series of knee-

jerk reactions, according to Ovum research director, public sector, Kevin Noonan.

“It’s important to note that they haven’t come in on their first day and do a massive suspension of projects. Instead, they’ve taken a fairly careful approach in looking at the type of things that needed to change, and they are going about it in a reasonably systematic way,” he says.

The groundwork for a new plan has also been underway for some time. For several years, according to Richard Wanden, account executive, NSW government for CSC, the shadow ministry has been actively soliciting ideas and listening to industry about what they could do to improve ICT utilisation.

Among the possibilities under consideration, according to Noonan, is consolidating the responsibility for IT together within the Department of Finance and Services.

“Rather than simply making cuts, they’re really now searching for more effective ways of increasing productivity and doing business where savings will follow, rather than making savings the first objective, which sometimes has undesirable consequences,” Noonan says. “There’s only so much you can do with creeping incrementalism before it starts to cause problems with critical service delivery.”

NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell has also talked about consolidating the proliferation of websites and interactions across agencies, “so that not only is government more efficient in the way that it does its business but it’s also more sensible for the community”, Noonan says.

“He is also talking about using mobile phone apps to do the serious business of government, not just be the icing on the cake. For example, it’s a simple step forward to put public transport timetables onto an iPhone, but it’s a much more fundamental change to tell the public where the ferry actually is at a given time.

“It’s about doing things differently and harvesting the savings, which can in fact bring more money for IT in the long run.”

Wanden says he would expect the NSW Government to embark on some transformational projects driven by customer-centric principles, drawing on some of the best practices from other jurisdictions overseas.

“I think this government is open to that – in their position papers prior to the election, they were always saying that there had been under-investment, so they know they need to invest,” Wanden says.

He adds that these transformational plays need to be made across the whole of government.

“You can’t just fix one part and not the others, and that implies purchasing in much larger volumes than we’ve ever been used to, such as 100,000 seat deals as a minimum,” Wanden says.

With a whole-of-government expenditure review currently underway, targeting $1 billion in savings per annum across the budget, some of the more lowrisk opportunities for transformational plays may be

considered, resulting in savings accruing immediately.

“My understanding is that they are looking to do a similar thing to the Gershon report, where they look to make permanent a number of contracts that they had. But I believe they will also think quite seriously about why they have all these contracts – is it that they can’t and shouldn’t try to do these things themselves, and should they be buying services on an outsourced basis?,” Wanden says.

According to Intermedium’s Budget IT tool, 45 new ICT projects were funded in the 2010/11 NSW State Budget, worth a total of $539 million over four years. With the next NSW Budget scheduled for September, in April Intermedium reported that ICT vendors would have to wait an extra three months before any new projects were funded, with others expected to face cuts.

Among the projects expected to be under particular scrutiny were: • a $7.19 million Technology and Infrastructure upgrade for the NSW Ambulance Services; • the $11.4 million allocated to the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages ‘LifeLink’ project; • $417.4 million to be spent on IT projects at Sydney Water Corporation; and • projects worth $594 million at the Department of Health.

One of the major projects considered essential and therefore safe was the Learning Management and Business Reform project at the Department of Education and Communities (including components for an Enterprise Information Management System, the SAP-based Human Resources and Payroll Systems, and the Student Administration and Learning Management System), listed as being worth $243 million in the 2010/11 Budget.

Two areas also expected to be on the priority list for government are security and cloud computing at the enterprise level.

“The Auditor-General of NSW’s report in October 2010 said number one, we don’t have a whole of government framework for security, and number two, we have no enforced standards. If you are looking at transformational programs in other areas of ICT, this is one of those areas which is a possibility,” Wanden says.

And for all levels of government, the enterprise cloud market is the area to watch in 2011, according to Noonan.

“Local companies are speaking the language of government – service level agreements (SLAs), data sovereignty, and negotiating contracts,” Noonan says. “The opposite case has been a very big problem for government and we have already seen a number of government documents coming out raising concerns, particularly on data sovereignty issues. Any supplier needs to understand that typically the government sector has specific needs and sensitivities about client data, and a ‘one size fits all’ approach just won’t work.”

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

SAPPHIRE REVIEW

SAPPHIRE NOW 2011 SAP’s annual SapphireNow conference staged in Orlando Florida in May featured the who’s who and the what’s new for the world’s biggest software company. Nathan Luck reports Co-CEOs on convergence Co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe discussed the recent acquisitions and convergence of platforms transforming SAP into a one-stop shop offering end-to-end solutions.

With innovation being one of the key themes of the conference, the pair discussed the pace and complexity of innovation set by Apple for the consumer market in terms of both new categories and new versions, and how it differs from enterprise software.

“There is one big difference. In the consumer world, everyone accepts that once a new version comes along, you throw away what you already have. That’s not true in enterprise software,” said Hagemann Snabe.

The commitment around speed of innovation has been a key focus, according to Hagemann Snabe, with the company very explicitly defining innovation as not just the launch of the product, but its consumption as well.

“We believe there is an opportunity to add categories, but we are adding them in non-disruptive ways, so it’s not throwing what you already have away, it’s extending what you have. We benefit from the fact that the core that we have is already very modernised, service-oriented architecture which enables us to extend that core in much more rapid cycles,” Hagemann Snabe added.

The value of Vishal Sikka’s vision of ‘Timeless Software’ is now being realised, where different layers in the enterprise software stack can evolve at different speeds, and the company is demonstrating this ethos with three new categories added over the past 12 months.

“This new innovation is changing the game for customers,” said McDermott. “Avon is a prime example.

When you have 6.5 million sales reps calling on customers, if you move from a paper-based and catalogue-based world to a truly digital device world, where all the choices the buyer can make are captured in that digital device, the buying experience is beautiful and the selling experience is beautiful.”

McDermott added that companies can now possess all the real-time analytics that need to be performed in a boardroom to see how things are going on the front line on a moment-by-moment basis.

“Finally there is the demand-driven supply chain, where everything from your inventory replenishment all the way through to the supplier network is handled – you now have

26 Inside SAP magazine

an end-to-end connected company. Only now has technology come together at the enterprise level where this end-to-end innovation is actually possible.”

Speaking on the significance of rapid deployment solutions, Hagemann Snabe said, “It’s the core of this notion ‘How can we make software easier to consume?’ The rapid deployment solution is created to accelerate the implementation in the on-premise world. We have seen with the rapid deployment solution where we pre-configure industry-best practices so we can go out and install an on-premise CRM system in weeks, instead of months, and many times this year we have already beaten on-demand versions based on TCO, because it is much faster, and it’s much cheaper. Accelerate the adoption and simplify the consumption.”

Timeless Software explained Kaj van de Loo, SVP Technology Strategist for SAP, gave a presentation on creating real value from rapid innovation through ‘Timeless Software’.

Talking about how this concept enables companies to adopt innovative products in existing system landscapes, van de Loo said, “It’s our way of designing our products in such a way that they can evolve gracefully over time. It’s also our way of bringing innovation to you without disrupting existing systems.”

As an example, Van de Loo outlined a typical SAP landscape – ERP system, Business Warehouse, applications like NetWeaver tying them together and Solution Manager.

“How do we open up these systems in such a way that we give people access to this data without changing the underlying system? The answer to that is the Gateway that we spent the last two to three years designing and that we are now releasing as a product. It was designed specifically to make consumption of data and functionality in the Business Suite easier independent of what front-end technology you want to use with it.”

Van de Loo added that the Gateway is designed to be like a firelane between the somewhat complex world of SAP applications and the simple world of modern UI technologies, and a relatively simple way of developing, for example, mobile applications, or applications in Sharepoint.

“What we have achieved with the Gateway is that the mobile developer or Sharepoint developer never has to leave their native habitat – the development environment they are comfortable with.”

Real-time in action Dr Vishal Sikka, member of the executive board, technology and innovation, SAP, outlined first-hand testimonials given by companies such as Casino and Unilever on the benefits of SAP real-time computing technology and how it transformed their businesses.

“We have been rethinking the world of retail together with partners and customers,” Sikka said. “Features that enhance and streamline the purchasing experience.”

Casino, an international retail group with 200,000 employees across 11,000 stores in nine countries, relayed SAP’s assistance in providing the company with a “precision retailing approach – multi-channel, consistent, personalised customer experience with interaction, in real-time on a oneto-one basis”.

Warren Burns from Unilever said new SAP technologies have given the company the ability to take processes that are important differentiators, own them entirely, and build intuitive user interfaces over the top of traditional ERP and CRM processes or tools.

Key announcements

Actor Gabriel Byrne opened the event

Bridgette Chambers, CEO, Americas SAP Users Group

SAP and Microsoft integrate virtualisation and cloud After naming Microsoft ‘SAP Global Technology Partner of the Year’ at SAPPHIRE NOW 2011, the two software giants announced plans to improve integration with enhanced access for .NET developers and improved interoperability between the companies’ cloud and virtualisation technologies to promote application innovation and flexibility without disruption.

This level of access will help redefine the SAP/Microsoft developer landscape with shorter development cycles, lower costs and openness into core applications. Microsoft and SAP are also planning to provide integration between upcoming landscape management software from SAP, Microsoft System Center and Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V technology, bringing greater agility for cloud management and deployments.

“Building on the successful partnership with Duet Enterprise, SAP and Microsoft plan to offer interoperability and a native development experience, so that a .NET developer can easily build applications in visual studio that run across the SAP and Microsoft platforms,” said Sikka.

“Interoperability is a core advantage that SAP and Microsoft can deliver to the customers we both share.”

Gateway vastly extends reach to new users SAPPHIRE NOW also served as the lauchpad for SAP NetWeaver Gateway technology, an open, standards-based framework for extending the reach of business software to an exponentially larger number of users, developers and environments, enabling customers to free up their SAP applications from the confines of the desktop and access them from any environment, tool or device. The technology also enables developers to create new applications using the

development tools of their choice.

“Using this technology framework, companies will have the ultimate flexibility to develop and deploy solutions geared for the way their people work that are easy to build and simple to use without disrupting their existing IT landscapes,” said a company spokesperson.

Innovation for Business Suite customers The road map for Innovations 2010 was delivered this time last year, and the announcement of the general availability of the software across all core SAP Business Suite 7 applications was made at the 2011 event.

The enhancements enable customers to switch on new software features for unique industry and line-of-business processes, without disrupting operations to undergo system upgrades.

The software was shipped to over 450 customers during the ramp-up phase, more than 100 above target, with customers running ERP 6.0 now able to activate more than 300 new business functions including: • Master Data Governance: ensuring consistency of data on suppliers and materials despite complexity of business networks, environments and processes; • Shared Services Framework: for increased process efficiency and significant cost savings across financial and human resources (HR) operations; and • Convergent Charging: with new features that further support the mass billing demands of utilities and telecommunications companies, simplifying the complexities of managing multiple products, divergent pricings and widespread promotions.

www.insidesap.com.au 27

SAPPHIRE REVIEW

“Over the past 18 months, SAP has been releasing technologies enabling the rapid creation and deployment of mobile apps through our platform and development tools,” said Dr. Raj Nathan, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, Sybase. “Now we have several new packaged mobile apps that will drastically reduce the costs and time needed for organisations to implement a mobility strategy. Enterprise mobility is a phenomenon that transcends all borders in the workplace and SAP is out in front of this trend as it revolutionises the mobile space by making mobile the new desktop.”

SAP and Sybase plan combined ERP, Data Management Solution

SAP CTO Dr Vishal Sikka SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott

Next-Gen Sybase Unwired platform targets one billion people SAP announced the launch of the new Sybase Unwired platform 2.0, which offers the most expansive enterprise mobility solution for developing and managing the entire lifecycle of native and web apps across key mobile device platforms.

“The latest releases help businesses of all sizes better respond to real-time business dynamics through cost-efficient, simplified deployment, development and management of native and webbased mobile applications on a wide array of device types,” said a SAP spokesperson. “Built on proven technology, Sybase Unwired Platform and Software Developer Kit are designed to enable customers to create user-friendly applications that mobilise business processes and workflow and real-time access to back-office systems across the enterprise to help improve efficiency, responsiveness and overall productivity.”

Mobile productivity boosted by new real-time mobility apps SAP and Sybase also launched a series of new mobile apps built on the Sybase Unwired platform, aimed at mobilising business processes and business information across key industries including manufacturing, consumer products, utilities, high tech, oil and gas, and retail.

28 Inside SAP magazine

In a combined solution to maximise value with greater efficiency, providing instant access to critical business information and lower costs for SAP Customers, SAP has announced its ERP application will be the first Business Suite app to run on the high-performance Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) – the same high-performance relational database management system (DBMS) that powers Wall Street.

The companies’ plans foresee SAP ERP releases being certified out-of-the-box with the latest Sybase ASE inmarket releases, and the lifecycle of Sybase ASE being fully synchronised with SAP maintenance policies to simplify release and deployment planning for customers.

“SAP solutions enable enterprises to execute and optimise business and IT strategies by delivering a platform that runs essential, industry-specific and business-support processes,” said Sanjay Poonen, president, global solutions, SAP. “With more than 30,000 customers, Sybase ASE is a proven leader in enterprise database management. Sybase ASE is a great alternative database for the large base of SAP customers looking for options to improve operational efficiency and reduce overall costs.”

Business analytics vision with EPM solutions In the analytics area, the 10.0 release of SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) solutions now enables customers to be more productive, agile and risk-aware, allowing users across the company to contribute to managing enterprise performance by moving EPM best practices beyond the finance department to managers throughout the company.

The EPM solutions open the next chapter of SAP’s business analytics vision, which is to enable people to make timely decisions that are well-informed and guided by corporate strategy, the current state of the market and the company itself, and takes advantage of SAP’s in-memory technology to provide increased agility and more detailed scenarios.

Among the new features included in this release are BI workspaces with embedded EPM content, delivery to mobile devices, business area scorecards for areas such as CRM, ERP and HR, and deeper integrated between EPM and GRC applications.

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

ASIA-PACIFIC NEWS

By Nathan Luck

SAP APJ software revenue up 31 per cent India, China and Japan excelled for SAP in the first quarter of 2011, achieving exceptionally strong growth of a97 million in software revenue.

SAP Asia Pacific Japan’s (APJ) software and software-related services revenue for Q1 2011 grew by 18 per cent to a335 million, while total revenue saw a corresponding 18 per cent growth to a400 million.

“This is a great start to 2011,” said Steve Watts, president, SAP APJ. “We are seeing the entire Asia region becoming as focused on managing domestic market growth as it has previously been on export-led growth. Our closest competitor in this region achieved only 5 per cent growth in application software revenues in its most recent quarter, while we achieved 31 per cent growth. Our indirect channel business also showed robust growth of 40 per cent this quarter.

“APJ customers are looking to grow their businesses and move closer to their customers through mobility and real-time computing. They are seeing SAP as the only company with the technology, solutions and partner ecosystem to help them execute on their vision. By focusing on gamechanging innovations, we are seeing an accelerated sales pipeline,” Watts said.

SAP APJ reports winning all head-to-head competitive deals in the category of a2 million plus, with key customer wins in the region coming from all lines of business across a wide variety of industries.

SAP’s green car initiative embraced in India SAP Labs India, in collaboration with Mahindra REVA, has launched a unique ‘Go Green’ policy, encouraging its employees to switch to electric vehicles with an attractive monthly cash incentive and a host of benefits such as free charging points, reserved parking spaces and routine maintenance and service.

Aligning with SAP’s sustainability vision, the innovative global ‘Future Fleet’ policy initiated by SAP AG saw the first batch of vehicles recently handed over to four employees

by VR Ferose, managing director, SAP Labs India and Chetan Maini, chief of strategy and technology, Mahindra Reva Electric Vehicles.

Benefits include a ‘Green’ allowance, an electric vehicle government subsidy; extended warranty and servicing period (from 24 to 36 months) from Mahindra REVA; and free charging points and reserved parking spots provided within the campus.

Readsoft delivers HR automation to Malaysian conglomerate A major Malaysian conglomerate has chosen ReadSoft to deliver an automated solution to centralise and optimise its Human Resource (HR) processes in a shared service centre environment. The agreement, worth US$650,000, covers the processing of HR service requests, which will be integrated into its existing SAP system.

The solution involves the

implementation of the ReadSoft Document Capture Suite and its SAP-certified solution Process Director to automate processes such as leave applications, recruitment and internal transfer, achieving significant control and visibility into its HR processes and strengthening both quality control over involved processes as well as efficiency in request handling.

“We are very happy to be chosen to

be part of this automation project,” said Jan Andersson, president and CEO of ReadSoft. “ReadSoft once again brings a major breakthrough in refining customers’ core processes and making them even more efficient in a competitive market.

With major conglomerates under our belt, we are now the established choice for document and process automation for large corporations in this region.”

Chinese and Indian universities launch Business ByDesign education Held at the SAP Labs China Shanghai campus, the successful ‘SAP Business ByDesign Education at Chinese Universities’ event featured over 40 academic participants from 21 of the most prestigious existing and prospective University Alliances member schools.

As one of the newer solutions to be added to the SAP portfolio, the event was designed to demonstrate how education on Business ByDesign could fit into the universities’ existing teaching platform. Three ByDesign pilot member schools from China also shared their experiences on the ByDesign solutions and how they could incorporate it into their education programs.

The pilot schools concluded it is easier for universities to

teach Business ByDesign compared to the traditional ERP system, the system interface is well localised in Chinese, and the software is suitable for information systems and business schools to teach to their students, providing comprehensive enterprise business management solutions.

At SAP Labs in Bangalore, an inaugural SAP ‘train-thetrainer’ Business ByDesign enablement workshop for pilot universities in India was held. SAP Labs trainers Sanjeev Mehta and Nazaneen Jalaludeen trained the participants on Business ByDesign implementation and how the solution could be integrated into their curricula.

Attending were 15 participants from seven UA member schools across India, and two colleagues from SAP Labs China.

www.insidesap.com.au 29

ASIA-PACIFIC CASE STUDY

Malaysia Airlines replaces legacy finance and procurement systems in SAP implementation SAP and HCL AXON have partnered on phase 1 of Malaysia Airlines’ (MAS) RM320 million (A$120 million) global ERP implementation, replacing legacy systems in the areas of finance and procurement to streamline operations and maximise business efficiencies.

First announced in July last year, the two-phase upgrade, set for completion in the third-quarter of 2012, will integrate the national carrier’s finance procurement and human resource functions, along with its engineering and maintenance (E&M) operations at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport and Subang Airport. The ROI expected from the project is estimated at over RM120 million (A$37 million) per annum.

At the time of the announcement, Malaysia Airlines managing director/CEO Tengku Dato’ Azmil Zahruddin said, “The ERP project will transform our business processes. The centralising of all data and the ability to obtain real-time information will enable greater cost efficiencies, improve decision-making and employee productivity, as well as optimise our cash management.”

The implementation has seen many existing stand-alone MAS E&M legacy systems replaced with SAP industry-specific solutions and iMRO v4.0, which provide additional choices and flexibility. The system manages all MRO functions including maintenance planning, engineering operations, quality control and supply chain. The scope covers the entire MAS fleet, incorporating 115 aircraft, 319 engines, and some six million parts, with SAP serving about 3000 users including aircraft mechanics.

“E&M is expected to be a major revenue generator for MAS. The simplification and streamlining of processes, better control

of parts inventory, and the automation of systems will drive E&M’s efficiency, enabling it to contribute to MAS’ P&L,” Azmil said.

The ERP implementation is part of a much broader Business Transformation Plan, initiated by MAS in 2008, to help the airline to compete in the challenging years ahead.

On the project, HCL AXON’s global head of travel and transportation, Patrick Grubbs, said, “As a key SAP partner in Malaysia, we are excited to embark on this benefits-led project with MAS. With the implementation of the iMRO solution developed by our local team and endorsed by SAP, we look forward to supporting Malaysia Airlines as they move forward with their Business Transformation Plan.”

HCL AXON will also provide post go-live support services following the implementation.

SAP South East Asia president, Krish Datta, said, “Our experience with industry-leading airlines around the world will allow us to effectively help MAS establish a strong technology foundation, drive towards planned business transformation, accommodate growth and adapt to market changes.”

WMS distributes SAP BPM suite TaskCentre Orbis Software has appointed WMS Software to distribute TaskCentre – the Business Process Management (BPM) Suite for SAP Business One – to the Asia Pacific region, which includes more than 100 SAP Business One channel partners across India and Asia.

“WMS was recommended by SAP India as the ideal candidate to become a distribution partner for TaskCentre for SAP Business One,” said Sven Theophil, senior account manager for Orbis Software.

“WMS Software is an established and

30 Inside SAP magazine

respected consultancy and will bring a wealth of experience and expertise to our TaskCentre for SAP Business One channel expansion program. We are confident that over the coming months we will see the rapid adoption of TaskCentre for SAP Business One within this strategic marketplace.”

Saurabh Saboo, CEO for WMS Software, said, “TaskCentre for SAP Business One will add significant value to the overall SAP Business One proposition and therefore we are expecting a significant uptake of

the product by the SAP Business One partner community.

“Over the last three months we have been working closely with Orbis Software to ensure that both the technical and commercial offerings are aligned with local market conditions, and we are now well positioned to formally introduce TaskCentre for SAP Business One to the channel partner community.”

The announcement followed Orbis Software’s expansion into Latin America.

TECHNOLOGY MOBILITY

Fleshing out a mobility strategy Embarking on an SAP mobility strategy requires some technical decisions to be made early on. Here Danielle Cullen explores the key focus areas for SAP customers.

The first stage in embarking on any SAP mobility strategy is to determine the what, where, who, how and why (see box, opposite).

Once these decisions have been made, there are some key technical considerations that follow shortly after. These include the types of applications to develop, whether to implement a Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP) solution, and how to handle security.

Web vs. native applications There are essentially two different types of mobile applications – web and native. So what’s the difference between them and why choose one over the other?

Web applications are basically mobile-optimised websites.

They can be developed to recognise the type of device calling them (for example, iPhone, BlackBerry, PC) and to change the screen layout accordingly.

Web applications are often used when there will be a variety of different devices accessing the application – for this reason they are popular for customer-facing applications.

They are also often cheaper to develop than native applications. There are a few additional technical considerations – web applications need to be hosted somewhere (just like normal websites) and the technology used by the web application to talk to SAP also needs to be decided (for example, Java or .NET).

Native applications are developed for specific operating systems using a native programming language (for example, Objective C for iPhone and iPad developments). Unlike web applications, they can take advantage of much of the inbuilt hardware such as cameras and GPS locators which may be useful for certain SAP-integrated applications such as online incident recorders or work order management tools.

Native applications also tend to perform better than web applications (no waiting for a website to load each time) and can be designed with the hardware in mind, leading to a more user-focused and less generic solution.

As a general rule of thumb, many companies who are developing internal applications for a specific device type (for example, workflow approvals for BlackBerry users) tend to pursue native application solutions.

Web applications are more commonly chosen by companies who have a variety of in-house device types, or who wish to reach a wider audience – for example, by offering online shopping carts to customers.

MEAP solutions As enterprises embrace further-reaching SAP mobile strategies, more companies are looking at MEAP solutions such as those offered by Sybase, Syclo or Sky Technologies.

These solutions are used as a type of middleware and are an alternative to building solutions that talk directly to SAP from the ground up.

The advantage of implementing MEAP solutions is that access to the SAP servers is controlled and consistent, and they provide a central repository for mobile development work. Many MEAP solutions offer development tools to actually build applications to interface with them – often leading to a quicker, more simple development process

www.insidesap.com.au 31

TECHNOLOGY MOBILITY Embarking on SAP mobility Before starting on any SAP mobility project, consider the following: once the MEAP is installed. And most MEAP providers offer accompanying Mobile Device Management (MDM) software, allowing companies to easily roll out (and roll back if necessary) applications to users.

And the disadvantages? Well, these solutions can be expensive compared to building individual applications.

Not all mobile devices are supported by all MEAPs and the in-built development tools do not always allow for the same build quality as stand-alone solutions.

Also, applications built using MEAP solutions are often limited to internal users only (that is, employees over whom the company can control their mobile device) and so may not be the best solution for companies wishing to reach customers, suppliers and other external users. Plus there are extra hardware considerations, and an extra level of development and support is required for these types of solutions.

MEAP solutions can provide significant benefits to customers wishing to implement a large number of mobile applications for internal use as quickly as possible. In such scenarios, the advantages far outweigh the drawbacks.

However, companies with a different target audience, and different goals and objectives, should consider carefully if this solution is the right one for them.

Application security Security is naturally a significant focus for companies embarking on a new SAP mobility strategy – and ties in closely with MDM. It’s essential that data cannot be accessed from mobile devices if they are lost or stolen – yet, at the same time, applications should be easy-to-use for legitimate users.

Of course, the level of security required also depends on the type of application being delivered. A simple application showing customers their nearest store location needs no security at all. On the other hand, an Incident Report Tool used by managers would need the highest level of security possible.

SAP mobile applications talk to the SAP servers using an SAP username and password (when a direct non-MEAP solution is in place) – however, this also poses problems.

Many companies now implement Single Sign On (SSO) and so users do not know their username and password.

Their logon is often linked to their network username and password – which requires an extra level of verification if the application is being accessed outside of the network, that is, by a mobile device outside of the office. Furthermore, it can be cumbersome for the user to enter so much data each time the application is accessed, and does not tie in with the way that many other applications in the market work.

We often use a multi-tier approach to application security, and the type of application being built will generally determine the security approach taken. For example, if the application performs a relatively simple and safe operation, then very few, if any, security measures are required.

However, for more sensitive applications that require a greater degree of security, one solution often recommended is

32 Inside SAP magazine

What: What applications are to be developed? What functionality will be offered?

Where: Where will the applications be accessed from?

Can we assume near-constant online access or does offline access need to be offered?

Who: Who will be accessing the application? Will the users be employees, customers or some other party?

How: How will the application be accessed? Will all users have the same device type, for example, BlackBerry or iPhone? Or will there be a diverse range of device types including PCs, laptops and mobile hardware?

Why: Why is the application being built? Is the goal to increase productivity or sales? Is it being used as a marketing tool? Or is there some other reason driving the development? to have a registration process the first time the user accesses the application.

In this case, the first time the user opens the application, they register their device with SAP and create a unique fourdigit pin number. All subsequent use of the application simply requires the user to enter the pin number. The SAP credentials and device ID are sent to SAP automatically on each request and if these credentials are verified, then the request is processed. In this way, we can provide greater convenience for the user and a higher level of security for SAP and the organisation.

This solution is also elegant for lost or stolen devices. When a user attempts to access SAP a simple check to determine if the device has been registered as lost or stolen determines if data is permitted to be retrieved – and can even send a message back to the application to instruct it to wipe itself completely from the device.

This solution is just one example – however new security models are being developed and released all the time. As more SAP customers embark on SAP mobility strategies, it is predicted that an increasing number of ‘plug and play’ security models will be released to the market.

Considering these technical factors when starting out on the SAP mobility journey is important. While many companies in the future will likely have a combination of web and native applications, using MEAP and non-MEAP solutions, and even different security models for different applications – understanding the options available at the start and making good, informed decisions will ultimately lead to more robust, cohesive and effective mobile solutions.

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

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

Careers attracTION

Attracting the right talent for your team In the face of stiff competition to secure the best SAP resources, a best practice talent attraction strategy might make all the difference, as Adrian Everett explains.

As we move forward into the new financial year, it is no surprise that one of the key challenges for organisations undertaking SAP projects remains that of talent attraction. For those selling services, how do you grow without additional resources to sell? For those looking to lower overheads or increase revenues through improved efficiencies, how do you achieve this if SAP resources are already tied up on other projects?

If you want to attract the right talent for your organisation, you need to ensure that your strategy meets the goals of your organisation. In this article, we explore the various avenues by which to attract talent, and ultimately to define a best practice process by which to attract the best SAP talent for your organisation.

Internal referral/networks Nearly all companies now have an internal referral bonus available to their employees for successfully referring someone to their organisation for employment. If your organisation doesn’t have one – put one in place now!

While this is the easiest and most cost effective way to attract talent, be aware that the reach of this is limited to those people who your employees already know, and also that your employees are still in contact with. As such, its reach into the marketplace is limited. Further, people like to work with people of a similar mindset, and objectivity can be lost during the selection process due to personal relationships and history.

Some tips when hiring a candidate from an internal referral: • Do not involve the referring employee in the interviewing or decision-making process; • Complete reference checking as per normal; and • Conduct a reference from the site where the candidate worked with your employee.

34 Inside SAP magazine

Advertising directly Advertising on job boards (such as Seek or MyCareer) gets high visibility in the marketplace, however our opinion is that it is of decreasing value in the talent attraction process, and useful more as a branding exercise.

SAP expertise is a highly skilled area within a niche and mature marketplace. Having been in high demand for a number of years, SAP professionals are aware they receive multiple calls from recruiters each day, and as such are less likely to look at a job board when considering their next position. It’s well known that job board advertising only reaches active candidates (as opposed to passive candidates who are currently engaged and not searching for new opportunities) – however, if the active candidate pool is significantly reduced due to excess demand on the market, then advertising directly can become a quality issue when considering the response.

Internal recruiters Many organisations utilise the services of an internal recruitment consultant, an employee of the company who is dedicated full-time to recruitment, with a view to following best practice and in many cases, to minimise the

Sign-Off to Internal Recruiter / HR expense of using recruitment agencies. In many cases, use of an internal recruiter is coupled with a preferred supplier agreement (PSA).

A PSA is positive for an organisation to have in place in that it helps to define the terms under which your company will engage with agencies when considering their candidates.

Often these PSAs are put in place by procurement or human resources without considering the specialised nature of the SAP marketplace. If your PSA is not geared towards having SAP specialists on the panel, then remember that the keyword is ‘preferred’ and don’t let this limit your access to the SAP candidate marketplace as a result.

A well-connected and experienced internal SAP recruitment consultant will ultimately save your organisation direct costs associated with recruitment.

However, no matter how good the internal recruitment consultant is, they simply cannot compete with the resources or reach of a specialist SAP recruitment agency.

As such, at times your organisation may experience delays in the supply of talent, potential reductions in quality of available talent and potentially an increased attrition rate.

In a worst case scenario, your organisation can be forced to rework a project or piece of work and wear the costs resulting from a poor quality hire.

Some tips when employing an internal recruiter: • Ensure the recruiter has adequate training to understand your business, current SAP projects and ultimately how to assess quality of candidates effectively.

• Allow your recruiter to spend time with each manager within the SAP business to understand their needs and pressure. This can vary across modular and technical areas.

• Avoid basing the remuneration of an internal recruiter on direct placements alone. This discourages the facilitation of other sourcing strategies and can have an impact on the quality of candidates available to the business.

Agency recruitment Agencies offer a good reach into the so-called passive candidate marketplace both domestically and internationally. Through the selection of the right recruitment agency to assist in your talent attraction strategies, you will maximise the reach across all candidates and ultimately get the best hire. It’s no different to the pride you have in your organisation’s goods or services – it’s what your organisation does best.

Of course the agency charges a fee for the service – they are a business just the same as you. However when you consider the potential to increase your reach, reduce time qualifying resumes or conducting reference checks,

Engage Agencies (2 max)

Advertise Directly

Internal Referral

Filter Response Shortlist Resumes

Pre Screen Candidates

Interview & Reference Offer & Acceptance

Inform Unsuccessful Candidates

and ultimately to ensure your delivery to the business or customer, then the fee stops becoming a cost and becomes an investment which provides a definable return on investment (ROI).

While admittedly, as an agency recruiter I might be biased, I strongly believe when utilised in the right part of the recruitment process and for the right roles, agencies are very much a worthwhile investment.

I recently had to provide resources to a consultancy who was effectively reimplementing a solution for a customer – at their cost. It cost the consultancy over $100,000 to do this, and all because they avoided a recruitment fee on a key resource at the initial outset of the project.

Best practice Each of the methods outlined above has pros and cons associated with it and as such, best practice is to pursue a blended solution, allowing your organisation to benefit from the pros of each while minimising the cons. This will maximise the return on your investment efforts and ultimately attract the best talent for your organisation.

Through experience working with a range of end-user and consulting organisations, it is our recommendation that a process similar to that outlined in the diagram above be adopted as best practice assisting you to stay ahead of your competitors to attract the best possible talent for your SAP projects and requirements.

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

Adrian Everett is director of Everjoy Consulting, the leading SAP recruitment agency in Asia Pacific, demonstrating clear ROI to customers looking to attract and retain SAP talent. For further information about how Everjoy Consulting can assist your organisation, contact adrian.everett@everjoy.com.au.

www.insidesap.com.au 35

Careers ON THE MOVE Careers ON THE MOVE

On the Move

Brought to you by

The SAP Recruiter of Choice

Here we bring you ourofregular of who is going where in the industry.

If Our regular round-up who isround-up going where in the industry.

If you have changed you changed jobs recently hiredtosome new staff, email at jobshave recently or hired some neworstaff, be featured in our nextusedition, email us editor@insidesap.com.au.

By Nathan Luck. at editor@insidesap.com.au.

Wendy Hill and Peter Sertori, SAP Yann Guillaume, Everjoy Consulting

Hopkins, Plaut CarolStephen Kennedy, Articulate Australia Carol Kennedy recently joined Articulate as

Former of communications SAPGuillaume ANZ, Everjoydirector Consulting has promoted for Yann to the position of Peter Sertori, has been promoted to director, business expansion strategy the national Formerresource manager based at the general manager, in alignment with the company’s influencer and analyst relations, SAP Asia Pacific company’s HCL North AXON to increase headcount and grow into new market specialisations to Japan (APJ).

Sydneyconsulting office. enrich the service capability offering to Everjoy clients.

With his new role focusing on sourcing and Kennedy and was “For the past four years, Yann has made a significant contribution in engaging key influencers and thought leaders in the previously the ERP operations developing the SAP recruitment market. We have great expectations for enterprise software market across the APJ region, resource manager director, Everjoy Consulting and Yann’s new role will enable us to continue to Sertori will be designing and implementing an for CSC Australia’s Stephen grow andmodel buildto into new SAP’s market specialisations,” said Adrian Everett, influence expand communities of ERP practice, Hopkins, has managingindirector at Everjoy Consulting. wherejoined she gained influence the region.

Plaut Guillaume said, “Iwith am excited about the opportunities for growth invaluable SAP as He will be working third party experts, Australia that exist for Everjoy and look forward to to enriching our service experience. industry analysts, customers and partners delivery manager for New South Wales. capability the for knowledge our clients.base Myof new will enable TaskedInwith the end-to-end resource strengthen SAProle products and me to assist in this role, Hopkins’ key focus for management Articulate’s growing to training our consultants, identify new solutions, to provide SAP with insight intomarkets strategy,and opportunities for 2011 is of engaging with customers workforce itsdelivery permanent staff roadmaps and market trends, as well as customer the business.” refineincluding the service model and and contractors, Kennedy has already and partner priorities.

Sertori will continue to be ensure customer-centric outcomes.

In addition to his new responsibilities, Guillaume will continue to begun building relationships based in Australia.

Hopkinsstrong has diverse expertisewith in develop and manage key accounts in the SAP, ERP and IT markets. the existing team, is spreading her network “Peter has been with SAP for five years and has consulting, information technology, further afield,management, and has beensales, coming up with a great deal of knowledge about the company, our project customer innovative ways to attract and customers and our partners. He is the right person to take on this role and we are new and relationship management, logistics and Eric Goldfarb, CIBER Inc SAP’s knowledge networks across the region retainfinance. outstanding people. thrilled he will be helping us build

CIBER Inc to (US) announced it has appointed “CarolAtbrings with herHopkins an organised by listening andhas educating our stakeholders and key influencers,” said Steve HCL AXON, built and Eric Goldfarb as executive vice president and structured approach to resource management Watts, president, SAP APJ. and led a regional team of over 50 chief information officer. and recruitment,” saidwas Articulate managing Wendy Hill has been appointed as Sertori’s replacement as head of consultants, and responsible Goldfarb was previously executive vice director, Mark Arnold. communications, SAP ANZ. for the successful sale and rolling president, committee member and Formerlyexecutive Asia Pacific marketing communications manager for Verizon implementation of SAP ECC6 for CIO at BearingPoint, where he was responsibleand executing internal and Business, Hill will be responsible for developing Ramsay Healthcare – a private hospital for redefining the mission of and setting the across the ANZ region, reporting external integrated communications strategies with nearly 70 sites. priorities for the IT organisation.

He and is a regionally widely locally to Tim Ebbeck, MD SAP ANZ to Ian Brown, head of Prior to HCL AXON, Hopkins was published thought leader communications, SAP APJ.in the area of applying information technology regional manager for SAP services toBeginning business needs, having co-authored Ways to her career at NCR in 1992,several Wendy books brings including nearly 20 years’ partner, Consulting Principles, and Reduce IT Spending. experience in the IT industry. She established a boutique PR agency, Bird & has held a number key account Watch outoffor our and On the appointment, DaveinPeterschmidt said, “Eric’s Hill Public Relations withCIBER partnerCEO Jeff Bird 1996, specialising in enterprise leadership roles within the healthcare new-look Inside SAP vast experience and industry knowledge are perfectly aligned to ensure technology and telecommunications.

In 2006, Wendy joined former agency industry. that CIBER accomplishes its key initiative of building outmedia a world-class jobs making client, Cybertrust, with responsibility for analyst relations, management “Plautboard has been–caring for its it information technology organisation that will support our growth and and internal communications, moving to Verizon when it acquired Cybertrust in customers, team andfor community even easier you tofor enhance our business decisions.

2007. more than 10 years, and I am really find your next SAP “Eric’s proven approach hastodriven success at several “Wendy brings astrategic wealth of experience SAP and we look forward to her excited about my new role,” Hopkins contract ortofull-time role. organisations. efforts have resulted in increased growth, internal fresh perspectiveHis being incorporated into our successfulrevenue public relations, said. “I hope make a contribution created efficiencies in operating and business processes, expanded market communications and marketing programs,” said Ebbeck. “From her time at to further build on Plaut’s reputation Visit jobs.insidesap.com.au opportunities, sales training, improved interactive Verizon, as wellenhanced as runningweb-based her own consultancy for over a decade, Wendy has for successful delivery and exceeding marketing,high andlevel led to significant cost savings and higher returns onas ITwell as developed skills in all aspects of corporate communications, customer expectations. I look forward investments.” developing successful regional campaigns for a global company.” to working with the experienced Taking up her new position in May, Hill said she is looking forward to consultants on the Plaut team and contributing to SAP’s success. She will continue to be supported by global PR further developing the delivery www.insidesap.com.au 39 agency Burson-Marsteller. capability.”

Coming soon

36 Inside SAP magazine

Ben English and Nicole Andary, SAUG

Mary Vidovich, Systems and People

Several new team members have also joined the SAP Australian User Group (SAUG).

Ben English will be working with the SAUG as business development manager, and will be responsible for building membership, working closely with SAP and industry partners to the benefit of members and helping ensure that the SAUG Summit remains the premier SAP event.

With 20 years experience working in senior business and marketing roles with blue chip organisations including Microsoft and IBM in the UK and Australia, English has led marketing teams to success on a number of significant projects including establishing Tech.Ed as the largest technology conference in the region; leading the marketing and media engagements for Microsoft during the industry’s security crisis; and designing the first partner digital marketing engagement program for IBM Europe.

English holds a degree in Mathematics and Computer Science, a diploma in Strategic Marketing and an MBA from Warwick University.

Meanwhile, Nicole Andary replaces Andreane Laurin as events manager. Prior to joining SAUG, Andary worked in the public sector for over five years and for a number of private companies prior to this, with over 10 years’ experience managing events and marketing communication programs. With a genuine passion for events, Andary is looking forward to working with the SAUG to continue to develop an exceptional experience for its members.

Systems and People has recently appointed Mary Vidovich to the position of account manager, to manage a key selection of its clients to assist them with short- and longterm SAP resourcing solutions.

Vidovich began her career in the SAP resourcing industry in 2005 and has spent the last six years working specifically in the Australian SAP market.

She has previously held the positions of SAP resource consultant and senior SAP recruitment consultant.

Vidovich’s skills range from SAP market mapping and networking in the SAP community through to extensive candidate knowledge, candidate and client care and event coordination. When working with clients and candidates, her passion is customer care and delivering a professional, personalised service at all times.

Ed Davis, Turnkey Consulting UK-based SAP security company Turnkey Consulting has appointed former PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) consultant Ed Davis to head up its newly-established Melbourne operation.

Davis has more than 15 years of SAP consulting experience in Australia and Europe.

Before joining Turnkey Consulting, Ed was a senior SAP HR consultant at SAP Human Capital Management (HCM) specialist, EPI-USE Australia, where he undertook major projects for both private and public organisations. Previously he spent 10 years providing consultancy to Royal Dutch Shell in the UK and the Netherlands, and was a senior SAP risk management consultant at PwC.

Moving jobs? Hiring new staff?

Spread the word – we’d love to hear about them.

Send your ‘On the Move’ news to editor@insidesap.com.au

www.insidesap.com.au 37

Careers ON THE MOVE 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 Justin Broughton, Harms Nigel Birtwell, CIBER Australia at editor@insidesap.com.au.

Consulting

and New Zealand

Nigel Birtwell has been appointed chief Justin Kennedy, Articulate Yann Guillaume, Everjoy Consulting operating officer for CIBERCarol Australia and Broughton Carol recently joined Articulate as Everjoy Consulting has promoted Yann GuillaumeNew to the positionbringing of Zealand, with himKennedy 25 years’ has relocated the national resource manager based at the general manager, in alignment with the company’s expansion strategy experience in the international software from the UK to company’s North to increase headcount and grow into new market specialisations to and services vendor space and a deep accept a newly Sydney office. enrich service capability offering to Everjoy clients. understanding of the SAP ecosystem. createdthe position Kennedy was Withcontribution a wealth of in expertise in SAP past four years, Yann has made a significant as“For SAP the technical previously the ERP systems, courtesy of developing the SAP recruitment market. We have great expectations forsix years as an account executive based in architect and resource manager Auckland and two years as a field operations manager covering four Everjoy Consulting and Yann’s new role will enable us to continue to principal for CSC Australia’s statesAdrian in the Everett, resource sector, Birtwell will be based in Sydney and will grow and build into new market specialisations,” said SAP NetWeaver consultant at Harms ERP practice, report to CIBER ANZ MD Jon Bucktin. managing director at isEverjoy Consulting.

Consulting.

His role to achieve the very where she gained On the Bucktin said, “As the management team Guillaume said, “I am excited about the opportunities forappointment, growth best value from emerging technologies, invaluable SAP planned for our next chapter of growth across ANZ in 2010, that for Everjoy and look to enriching our service buildexist customer confidence and forward deliver new experience. became clear a newwith recruit on board to take capability forthe our clients.

My new role will enable itme to assist in that we needed solutions to ANZ marketplace.

Tasked the end-to-end resource ownership of streamlining operations across the business and a focus management of Articulate’s growing With more than 27 years’ experience training our consultants, identify new markets and opportunities for on building out a new foundation of back office systems and processes workforce including its permanent staff in the IT industry, including 14 years the business.” that can best support our professional services teams in the field. and contractors, Kennedy has already with SAP UK,toBroughton has a specific Guillaume will continue to In addition his new responsibilities, Nigel fits well with the team in allbuilding respectsstrong and we look forward begun relationships withto interest in every layerkey of the technology develop and manage accounts in the SAP, ERP and IT markets. working together to deliverthe onexisting our strategy for success.” team, is spreading her network stack, enhancing the development of his further afield, and has been coming up with career in technical architecture design new and innovative ways to attract and and configuration of enterprise VMWare Andrew Fox and Doug Gibson, Eric Goldfarb, CIBER Inc retain outstanding people. installations.

CIBER Inc (US) has announced it has appointed SAP ANZ “Carol brings with her an organised and “Justin is a great addition to our team, Eric Goldfarb as executive vice president and structured to resource management SAP ANZ has appointed Andrew Foxapproach and particularly as we increase our focus on chief information officer. and recruitment,” said Articulate managing Doug Gibson into newly created roles to application management services and Goldfarb was previously executive vice director, Mark Arnold. help deliver its mobility and in-memory mobility,” executive said Detlev Harms, managing president, committee member and products to its growing customer base. director at Harms Consulting.

“Theresponsible CIO at BearingPoint, where he was Fox has been with SAP for over five newly created the principal underlines for redefining missionrole of and setting the years and has moved into the new role our commitment to organisation. excellence as He ouristeam priorities for the IT a widely of head oftechnology mobility and cloud solutions grows.” thought leader in the area of applying information published withinWays the ecosystem team. Gibson to business needs, having co-authored several booksfrom including to returns to SAP in the position of director, Reduce IT Spending.

Watch out for our On the appointment, CIBER CEO Dave Peterschmidt “Eric’s analytics, having been high said, performance new-look Inside SAP vast experience and industry knowledge are perfectly aligned to ensure Sales Director at Acxiom since March that CIBER accomplishes its key initiative of building out a world-class jobs board – making it 2009. Prior to that he was director of the information technology organisation that will support our growth and even easier for you to product solutions group at SAP Australia, enhance our business decisions. having been with the company since 2007. find your next SAP “Eric’s proven strategic approach has driven success at several For all the SAP jobs, check “Both Doug and Andrew bring a wealth contract or full-time role. organisations. His efforts have resulted in increased revenue growth, outefficiencies the new-look Inside SAP of experience their previous roles within SAP and we look created in operating and business processes, expandedfrom market Visit jobs.insidesap.com.au forward to using this expertise to help develop and integrate our injobs board opportunities, enhanced web-based sales training, improved interactive marketing, and led to significant cost savings and higher returns on IT memory and mobility product suite into our existing customer base www.jobs.insidesap.com.au investments.” and for uncovering new opportunities,” said Tim Ebbeck, president and managing director for SAP ANZ.

Coming soon

Looking for a new job?

38 Inside SAP magazine

www.insidesap.com.au 39

EVENTS SAUG Summit

Powerful Connections: Reaching the summit This year’s SAUG Summit, to be held in in Sydney from August 2-4, is shaping up to be an event not to be missed for the SAP community. In response to member feedback and changes in SAP’s organisation and product portfolio, there will be significant modifications to content and format as well as new workshops, and the introduction of an InnoJam. By Nathan Luck.

Global leaders Headlining this year’s Summit program are global SAP AG keynote speakers Kaj van de Loo, senior vice president of technology strategy, and Jeffrey Word, vice president of product strategy, who will provide an update on SAP’s technology strategy straight from SAPPHIRE, including execution, adoption and impact.

Renowned global enterprise analyst Ray Wang, principal analyst and CEO of the Constellation Research Group, will again visit Sydney to present a keynote address on insights for getting the most out of SAP technology, and from the largest SAP user group in the world, Bridgette Chambers, CEO of ASUG, will share her insights into how to leverage the user group to get a better return on investment (ROI) from SAP. As SAP progresses its strategy of on-premise, on-demand and on-device solution delivery, the number of users across enterprises will exponentially increase. Chambers will also present a strategy to determine how and to what extent this will increase returns across these enterprises, based on the concept of ‘Timeless Software’ and eight principles for nondisruptive and sustainable evolution to deliver ROI to the customer base, and explain why total cost of ownership is no longer the only valid benchmark for market leaders operating in a timeless world.

Local stars With many SAP projects being multi-year, complex undertakings requiring unique technical talents, how do leaders keep people focused and understand the ‘vision’?

What are some of the key success factors in delivering a project? How do you motivate and get a project to Go-Live successfully? Former Coles CIO Peter Mahler will present his views on how to manage, motivate, and inspire teams on large IT transformation projects, and argue that leadership style, attracting and retaining skills into your organisation,

40 Inside SAP magazine

developing team dynamics, sustaining the team and defining success by explaining the journey are all essential components.

John Goldrick, mobility solutions management, SAP ANZ and Dan Getcliffe, mobility delivery lead, SAP APJ will provide a rundown on business mobility strategy, while Business Objects 4.0 will be covered by Sanjiv Bansal, SAP solution manager, who will share the BI roadmap, and Lion Nathan’s Chris Allan will speak on the company’s roll-out of the new solution.

Delving further into mobility, John Moy, SAP user interaction and mobility architect at Australia Post, will discuss the company’s history of mobility and current SAP consumer and enterprise mobility use cases, as well as its challenges, learnings, future directions and strategies.

In-memory in action HANA (High Performance Analytic Appliance) is a hot topic for SAP at the moment, and along with a ‘hands-on’ workshop to give attendees expert practical instruction on these products, Jeff Word will discuss the need to understand the real-world benefits of in-memory computing.

“Real-time analysis of business data has the potential to create points of differentiation and opportunities for competitive advantage in many areas. The challenge now will be developing the agility to exploit this knowledge in a timely manner,” says Ben English, business development manager, SAUG. Several Australian companies have already pioneered the way with SAP in-memory computing using Business Warehouse Accelerator (BWA). A joint presentation at the Summit will see these customers share their experience of running SAP’s BWA on highly optimised infrastructure to support real-time analytics and decision making, addressing the fundamental business issue – does the ability to translate data into actionable insights really result in smart innovative

decision-making for business value and competitive advantage? This will provide some key insights into the capabilities and potential of in-memory technology and the promise of HANA, while Keith Murray, IBM’s global product manager for SAP inmemory computing, will explore the business imperatives and opportunities presented by HANA.

Getting hands-on SAP mentor Tony de Thomasis will team up with Eddie Andia on a Solution Manager workshop, while those interested in BI will have the chance to learn from SAP Canada director of solution management, Ingo Hilgefort, who will show attendees how to use the new BI 4.0 products

as part of your SAP landscape.

“The workshop will provide you with practical guidance and best practices that you can leverage right away at your own company. You will learn about topics such as data connectivity for SAP ERP and SAP NetWeaver BW, user management, data security and Portal integration,” English says.

A brief demo of the 4.0 versions of SAP Crystal Reports and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer will also be included in the workshop.

As well as the workshops, the agenda has been enhanced to include a technology stream to cater for those wanting to get deeper into tech issues, and a specific industry stream has been developed that draws heavily on the varied experiences of SAP customers to deliver sessions tailored to key industry sectors including utilities, public sector, and retail/consumer products.

To register for the SAUG Summit, visit www.saug.com.au.

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

InnoJam comes to town

By Tony de Thomasis Based on the interest and success from SAP TechEd 2010, the Innovation Weekend concept has now been grown into a scalable program known as SAP InnoJam. SAP InnoJam is a community event where IT managers, business process experts, and software developers gain up to 30 hours hands-on experience with some of the latest and most sophisticated innovative technologies from the SAP Labs including HANA, Gateway, cloud-based offerings and of course, business intelligence.

Collaborating in teams, ideas will be taken from concept to working prototypes using real technologies in real time.

Completed prototypes will be presented and rated against other teams. If your prototype is hailed as the most innovative, you have a chance to win a spot at the upcoming SAP TechEd DemoJam! The InnoJam program was trialled successfully during the recent Developer Kick Off Meeting (DKOM) in Waldorf, Bangalore,

Shanghai and Palo Alto in March.

Some of the exciting outcomes can be viewed on the InnoJam YouTube Channel.

What happens at SAP InnoJam 1. Tech Fire: SAP technology experts present their specific SAP products, technologies, and tools.

2. Biz Fire: Business experts present real business cases.

Participants select the business case or scenarios that they want to work on.

3. Innovation Slam: The fun begins! Design, build and test.

Participants collaborate within their team to create the solution for their selected business case using any of the presented technologies.

Several technology experts will be available on-site to assist the teams.

4. Innovation Fire: Participants present their solution within a six-minute timeslot.

5. Jury Time: Members of the Jury vote and announce the winning team.

SAP InnoJam is a great way to: • Submit a real life business requirement to a team of experts • Stay up-to-date on SAP technology strategy, solutions, and developments • Get hands-on experience with SAP technologies • Network with other customers, partners, and SAP’s own development experts • Be part of the winning team and get the opportunity to compete at DemoJam The Australian InnoJam will be held as part of the SAUG Summit on 30 and 31 July 2011 at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, Darling Harbour.

This year we will be joined by Kaj Van de Loo, Matt Harding – participant in the Las Vegas InnoJam 2010 event, Alisdair Templeton – winner SAP DemoJam Las Vegas 2010, and several other passionate SAP practitioners.

Tony de Thomasis is NetWeaver practice lead at Acclimation and an SAP Mentor.

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, email editor@insidesap.com.au.

SAUG Summit 2-4 August 2011 Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, Darling Harbour, Sydney With a theme this year of ‘Powerful Connections’, the SAUG Summit 2011 provides the ideal forum to harness the collective power of the SAUG community. In three intense days, 70 high-profile speakers will cover everything from traditional ERP to exciting developments in mobility, HANA and business intelligence. There will be four industry and technology streams, an Innojam and more (see page 40 for a preview). w: www.saug.com.au/Events_Calendar. aspx?mode=overview&id=279 Mastering Business Intelligence with SAP 22-24 August 2011 Johannesburg, RSA A solution-focused event for the SAP Business Intelligence community. Engage with a select group of SAP partners through immersive networking opportunities, and attend 35 presentations in three tracks, workshops and special sessions in six tracks over three days. w: www.masteringsap.co.za/bi Mastering SAP Project & Portfolio Management 29-31 August 2011 Novotel Manly, Sydney Hear from SAP project and portfolio management (PPM) thought leaders including Gerald Steele (SAP America, USA); Tom Martin (GyanSys Inc, USA); Mario Danieli (Engen Petroleum Ltd, South Africa); and David Dhaliwal (Hydro One Networks Inc., Canada), on current business challenges and trends in the areas of contract, resource and document management, integrating third party project management tools, implementing the full PPM suite, financial forecasting, mobility solutions and identifying the roadmap for upgrades and enhancements. w: www.masteringsap.com/ppm SAP TechEd 2011 Las Vegas 12-16 September 2011 Las Vegas, USA SAP’s technical education conference provides essential training for IT professionals who develop, implement, optimise, and upgrade SAP systems. This annual

42 Inside SAP magazine

conference is the fastest way to get up to date and build practical skills on a wide range of SAP solutions and developments. w: www.sap.com/aboutsap/ events/search/overview/index. epx?EventID=7773 SAP for Utilities 18-21 September 2011 San Antonio, USA A leading forum for utility professionals to network, share ideas and experiences, and to explore critical SAP for Utilities solutions.

This year the focus will be being smarter about engaging customers, determining and focusing on priorities, planning investments and managing risks over longer time horizons, analysing intelligently, enabling agile execution and broadening your portfolio of energy and conservation options. w: www.sap-for-utilities.com Mastering Business Intelligence with SAP 26-28 September 2011 Grand Hyatt, Melbourne A uniquely curated three-day program where business and IT people from organisations using SAP as a critical enabler for their reporting and analytics come together, faceto-face, to immerse in a thriving community.

Mastering Business Intelligence with SAP is thoughtfully designed to encourage you to look outside of your organisation and your industry, be a place to capture perspectives, engage in brave and important conversations, and pinpoint new and different ways to improve both professionally and personally.

oil and gas organisations will unite at the first annual Best Practices for Oil & Gas conference, focusing on visibility and situational awareness, and opening up discussions around the key issues the oil and gas industry is facing today. w: www.sap-oil-and-gas.com/about_the_ event.htm SAP TechEd 2011 Bangalore 19-21 October Bangalore, India SAP TechEd is the essential technical training and networking conference for IT professionals who develop, implement, optimise, and upgrade SAP systems. With hands-on workshops and in-depth lectures, learn in an interactive environment directly from the experts who develop cutting edge technologies at SAP. w: www.sapteched.com/india/ SAUG 38th Plenary 8-9 November 2011 Park Hyatt, Melbourne Offering insights into the latest SAP technologies, current business issues and best practices, this event will benefit all SAP customers wishing to maximise their SAP investment now and into the future. Last year’s Plenary attracted over 260 attendees, the largest SAUG event held in Melbourne, including 94 companies, 33 speakers and 12 exhibitors over a packed two days. w: www.saug.com.au/Events_Calendar. aspx?mode=overview&id=345

w: www.masteringsap.com/bi

SAP TechEd 2011 Madrid

Mastering Supply Chain Management

Madrid, Spain New in 2011, SAP TechEd will be co-located in Madrid, providing a great opportunity to both build practical skills and hear the latest announcements from SAP.

with SAP 17-19 October 2011 Grand Hyatt, Melbourne Mastering Supply Chain Management with SAP is the only event of its kind in the region, designed specifically for SAP customers, consultants and partners in the SCM community. w: www.masteringsap.com/scm SAP Oil & Gas 23-26 October 2011 New Orleans, USA Upstream, midstream and downstream

8-11 November 2011

w: www.sapteched.com/emea/ Mastering SAP Plant Maintenance 21-23 November 2011 Jupiters Hotel, Queensland A three-day program where business and IT people from organisations using SAP for their plant maintenance come together, face-toface, to immerse in a thriving community. w: www.masteringsap.com/PM

PARTNER DIRECTORY

Brick Consulting An innovative SAP recruitment solutions provider, we establish partnerships with both our clients and candidates every step of the way in their recruitment activities. With our core strength being our complete immersion within the SAP Market, we specialize in delivering customers with time and cost effective ondemand solutions."

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.

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.

Compuware For nearly 40 years, Compuware has delivered software, experts and best practices to make your applications work well and deliver business value. Our people and software ensure that critical technologies work like they should – all the time – for 7,100 customers around the globe.

KABA Kaba Australia is your security partner for access control, key systems, door hardware, safe locks, physical access systems, access management and workforce data management systems. Kaba also offers door automation and lodging products through our specialist partners across Australia.

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