Inside SAP Issue 12

Issue 12 | December 2010

www.insidesap.com.au

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

CHARTING HER OWN COURSE Award-winning project manager Elaine Silver on what makes an SAP project hum

TAKING VEGAS The path to SAP DemoJam glory is paved with obstacles – Tony de Thomasis takes us on the journey

LIFE SCIENCES INSIDE THE GLOBAL PHARMA INDUSTRY

CASE STUDIES DI BELLA COFFEE; REDGROUP RETAIL

MENTOR HOW MUCH DO YOU INVEST IN YOU?

CONTENTS

12

19

20

22

24

32

Columns 12 Mentor: Graham Robinson asks how much do you invest in yourself?

14 The Coalface: Stuart Dickinson warns against getting carried away with mobility

Interviews 16 P rofile: Charting her own course Award-winning project manager Elaine Silver shares what makes an SAP project successful.

19 B usiness Intelligence: Joshua

industry and how this is impacting on organisations’ needs for business systems.

SME focus 24 Case study: Freshly roasted Di Bella Coffee’s implementation of SAP Business One has positioned it to cope with rapid growth both in Australia and overseas.

35 Innovation: On the road to SAP rockstar status – Tony de Thomasis

38 C hange management: 10 tips to conquer organisational change hurdles – Sarah Arnold

40 Retention: Adrian Everett discusses

ROC Asia’s push into China

key changes in the pharmaceutical

SAP project team members – David Drake

26 News from the region 28 Case study: REDgroup Retail

20 Automation: Jan Andersson on why

22 Life sciences: Jürgen Bauer explains

33 Applications: Free software for

Careers

29 Q&A: Sandy Eastman discusses

Industry sector report

Brian Pereira

Asia-Pacific

Greenbaum makes some radical suggestions for tackling data overload. there are still opportunities in the document process automation space.

32 A pplications: CMS in the cloud –

chooses SAP for Borders integration

Technology 30 Business Intelligence: Enterprise performance management – how can I ensure my organisation gets it right? – Giuseppe Dal Col

how to keep your staff from moving on to greener pastures.

42 On the Move

Regulars 4 From the Editor 6 News 44 Event Calendar 45 Partner Directory www.insidesap.com.au 3

EDITOR

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

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

From the Editor As a new year rolls around (and indeed, a new decade), it’s that time of year when we reflect on what has been achieved over the past 12 months and look forward to the next year. What are your key priorities for 2011? Does your ‘shopping list’ include convincing your organisation of the benefits of cloud computing? Leveraging infrastructure-based shared services? Increasing SAP usability? Investing in real-time analytics? Upskilling your staff to deliver new solutions? Managing mobile applications and devices? We’d love to hear what’s on the agenda for you, to help us serve you better – so email me at editor@ insidesap.com.au and let me know what your key priorities are for 2011.

One of our priorities for the coming year is taking Inside SAP to the next level in terms of both content and delivery, so it can continue to grow as a valuable resource for the ANZ SAP community (and beyond – we received requests for copies of the 2010 Yearbook from more than a dozen countries around the world). First up, as we resume publishing in a quarterly print format, we thought it was the right time to give Inside SAP a facelift. As well as a new masthead and design, we have introduced some new features in response to your feedback in our 2010 reader survey – including new sections focusing on the SME market and the Asia-Pacific region. We’ll be featuring more content from SAP experts, including some new columnists, as well as more case studies and interviews to give you a diverse perspective on the SAP world.

We will also be launching a brand-new Inside SAP website in January, again with a fresh new design and plenty of additional features and content, so make sure you visit www.insidesap.com.au to sign up for our e-newsletter and be notified when the new site launches.

To this edition – award-winning project manager Elaine Silver shares her thoughts on what makes an SAP project successful, we hear how Di Bella Coffee has implemented SAP Business One to cope with their astonishing rate of growth, and we speak to Lodestone partner and life sciences expert, Jürgen Bauer, on the changes driving the pharmaceutical industry. Analyst Joshua Greenbaum gave his views on what will be required to leverage the avalanche of data many organisations now collect, and ReadSoft co-founder Jan Andersson told us why there is plenty of opportunity in the automation market – plus plenty more.

I hope this edition gives you some great insights and food for thought as you firm up your plans for a successful 2011.

Freya Purnell Managing Editor, Inside SAP

4 Inside SAP magazine

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

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

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

Contributing Writers Sarah Arnold, Giuseppe Dal Col, Tony de Thomasis, Stuart Dickinson, David Drake, Adrian Everett, Brian Pereira, Graham Robinson

Published by FlapJack Media Pty Ltd Suite 7, Level 9, 122 Arthur St North Sydney NSW 2060 ABN: 93 142 878 135 © 2010 FlapJack Media Pty Ltd. Inside SAP is published six times a year by FlapJack Media Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced in whole or part without the written permission of the publishers. FlapJack Media Pty Ltd makes no representation or warranties with respect to this magazine or its contents including, without limitation, material communicated by third parties. FlapJack Media Pty Ltd does not warrant that the information available in this magazine is accurate, complete or current. Opinions expressed are those of the respective authors and not necessarily of the publisher. Neither FlapJack Media Pty Ltd nor any persons involved in the preparation of this publication will be liable for any loss or damage as a result of use of or reliance upon advice, representation, statement, opinion or conclusion expressed in Inside SAP magazine.

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NEWS

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.

News from SAP At the beginning of October, SAP AG announced the creation of a Mobile Business Unit to support its on premise/on demand/on device strategy, in which the recently acquired mobile software specialist Sybase plays a key role.

The Mobile Business Unit will operate under the leadership of Sybase CEO and chairman, John Chen, and will be responsible for developing mobile business applications, accelerating the mobilisation of SAP solutions to all devices via a new software development kit and delivering a single mobile development and deployment platform to give customers access to all applications and data securely across all devices. SAP corporate officer and executive vice president Bob Stutz has been appointed general manager of the newly-created Mobile Applications Group, and will report directly to Chen. He will oversee the direction and development of packaged native mobile applications across SAP and Sybase, and work to accelerate the innovation of mobile experiences within SAP and within the SAP ecosystem.

In mid-November, SAP New Zealand strengthened its ecosystem with the addition of two new Business One partners, Passage Software and Enabling New Zealand. Passage Software, which is offering clients full implementation services, including consulting, data conversion and in-house hosting, has already lined up Lusty’s Lloyd Loom Furniture Group as its first SAP Business One customer. Enabling New Zealand is SAP’s first trans-Tasman business partner in the SAP Business One space.

Graeme Riley, managing director, SAP NZ, said the organisation is delighted to be joined by two local businesses of the calibre of Passage Software and Enabling New Zealand. “We look forward to working with them to drive clarity and value for New Zealand businesses through the integration of core business functions.”

Early November saw the release of SAP AG’s third quarter results, which showed a 12 per cent rise in net profit off the back of a 20 per cent increase in software and software-related revenues. SAP’s preliminary financial results show that its third quarter software and software-related revenues increased to a2.32 billion, up from a1.94 billion in the third quarter of 2009. Software revenues amounted to a1.76 billion, up from a7.48 billion, while total revenue increased by 13 per cent to a8.41 billion to leave the company with a net profit of a501 million. Major contract wins for the third quarter of 2010 included Jiangsu Electric Power Corp., China Central Television, Chemical Company of Malaysia Berhad, Punjab State Power Corporation Ltd., Applied Industrial Technologies, Fossil, American Express, Eskom Holdings Limited, TNK-BP, Nedbank Group Limited, Standard Bank of South Africa Limited, Mercuria Energy Group Holding, Iberdrola and the City of Johannesburg.

Continued on page 8 ➤

6 Inside SAP magazine

C

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

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WINNER Australia’s Got Innovation Demo Jam

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NEWS

At the SAP TechEd 2010 event in Las Vegas, Nevada, SAP detailed its shortand mid-term product and partner plans for managing virtualised and cloud infrastructures. SAP announced that it is collaborating with some of its key technology partners, including Dell and IBM, to create new reference infrastructure for best-of-breed virtualisation hardware. According to SAP, having this support on reference architectures in the areas of virtualisation, application performance and management and security will make it easier for customers to deploy the solutions that are best suited to their unique needs. SAP also announced that it is designing a landscape management solution to help reduce the capital investment and operational costs of SAP systems. The new solution, which is being developed with the help of more than 40 customers and partners, is expected to provide a unified view and management of the virtualised infrastructure and the SAP landscape layer and will be available in the fourth quarter of 2011.

SAP AG ended November on a low note, with a jury in Oakland, California ordering it to pay US$1.3 billion in damages for illegally downloading rival Oracle’s software.

The trial, which began last month, stems from SAP’s admission that its former US subsidiary, TomorrowNow, downloaded documents and software from Oracle’s servers without authorisation. Co-chief executive Bill McDermott apologised for the patent infringements on behalf of SAP, which argued that it was liable for no more than US$40 million in damages. In a statement, SAP said it was disappointed by the verdict and will pursue all available options, including post-trial motions and appeal.

“This will unfortunately be a prolonged process and we continue to hope that the matter can be resolved appropriately without more years of litigation. Our focus now is looking forward, helping our customers be best-run businesses, and extending our legacy of industry leadership well into the future.”

New solutions released ReadSoft launched its new Process Director platform, designed to improve the handling of documentdriven or request-driven processes within SAP, to the Australian market in November. Already released in Europe and the US, Process Director is an SAP-certified ABAP add-on, which can provide full purchase to pay and order to cash automation within the familiar SAP environment.

The solution was developed in response to requests by customers for automation of other document types, after ReadSoft brought out its accounts payable automation solution.

Stefan Reiss, solution manager, SAP for ReadSoft globally, said, “We thought it would be better to have a document or process independent tool which has the right capabilities for many other processes – a one-stop shop basically.” Process Director allows organisations to track and control processes, maintain an audit trail, improve data quality, and gain visibility around the volume of requests – with full integration into SAP.

8 Inside SAP magazine

November also saw the launch of the SAP Business One iPhone application, which enables small businesses to check on inventory and customers, access reports, receive alerts and process approvals while they’re on the move. According to SAP, the mobile Business One application, which is free to those with a professional user license of 8.8 patch level 12 or higher, will give users real-time access to data and allow them to easily navigate, respond and trigger remote processes. Users can also receive alerts on specific events, such as deviation from approved discounts, prices or credit limits, manage customer and partner data and access detailed information about current products, including purchasing and sales price, available quantity, product specifications and item pictures.

Top tips for recruiting and retaining the right people in SAP Recruiting, then retaining the right people in SAP can be a daunting and challenging experience in a candidate-scarce, competitive SAP market.

SAP-run organisations all seek people who have the right SAP skills, fit within their culture and contribute to maximising the benefits of their SAP investment. If it wasn’t hard enough to find them, then the challenge is to keep them!

Finding, then keeping, the best SAP people, is possible. Read on for the top tips from the Director of Australia’s leading SAP Resource Provider.

3 Don’t hire at the last minute The future can’t be predicted, but planning your SAP resourcing for the next twelve months will prepare you for the challenges you see coming and those you don’t! Involve your SAP resource provider early – they have visibility of contractor end dates and those seeking opportunities in the permanent market with the skills you require. Prior planning is the key to securing the right SAP resource at the right time, so partner and be prepared.

Leanne O’Connor Director – Systems and People

4 Clearly define your SAP requirements

1 Find an SAP specialist Would you use the local mechanic to service your Mercedes? Then you wouldn’t engage a general IT company to source you the right SAP people.

As an SAP specialist focuses exclusively on the SAP marketplace, they are best placed to find you the right people in SAP. Premium candidates engage an SAP resource provider who understands the SAP product, the SAP industry, their individual capabilities and how to match them with the right role. An SAP specialist has the right SAP people.

2 You can try yourself, but...

Twenty percent of candidates are actively seeking opportunities, so this means that eighty percent will not see your vacancy!

The best SAP candidates are often working for someone else (including your competitor!) and may not be looking for a new role. With an extensive network of active and passive SAP candidates, an SAP specialist can source the best SAP people, not just those looking now. In addition, the time spent internally on recruitment tasks is considerable and often fruitless, distracting you from your core business. An SAP resource provider will streamline the process, saving you frustration, time and money.

Having a comprehensive job specification (yes, even for contract roles!) demonstrates professionalism and will always attract interest and commitment from prospective candidates. Clearly articulate your company vision, current and future SAP landscape, salary and start date. Having a clear recruitment process and timeframe allows management of candidate expectations. When competing in the open market for SAP resources, it’s crucial to give candidates a great impression of your organisation from the outset.

5 Move quickly when you need to To secure your desired candidate, be prepared to make decisions quickly. In a scarce market, SAP candidates have multiple opportunities.

You might be perfect for each other, but more often than not, timing is everything. By having formal approval to recruit before you commence the process and by tightly managing timeframes from shortlist to hire, will ensure you don’t have nightmares about the one that got away!

6 Build a diverse and challenging SAP landscape

Implementing a diverse range of SAP technologies will attract great employees to your organisation. Are you using ECC6 and could enhance the user experience with WebDynpro functionality? Not only would you gain business improvement benefit, you would have happy ABAPers learning a new skill. If your organisation is still on v4.6, it’s time to upgrade!

7 Look inside and out It’s great to look outside for SAP talent. You get to choose from a broad pool of SAP skills and experience, then select the best person to bring a fresh perspective, new skills and industry experience to the team.

As good, is to promote from within.

This demonstrates a great company culture, boosts morale and builds employee loyalty.

Importantly, it gives the opportunity for employees to further their SAP career without leaving your organisation. Is there a SAP super user that could become your next SAP super star?

8 Consider the inexperienced With a shortage of SAP talent in the market, consider hiring IT graduates with the right motivations and attitude, and teach them SAP. Many universities now offer SAP studies as part of their curriculum and in conjunction with SAP, participate in the SAP University Alliances Program.

This program develops highly qualified graduates who will contribute to the core SAP competencies of their future employers.

Recruit for attitude. Train for results.

9 Look abroad The challenge now and in the future for all SAP-run organisations is a skills shortage within Australia. The first SAP offshore installation was in the early 70’s, the first in Australia was in the late 80’s, so they had at least a 15 year head start! There are highly skilled candidates offshore, so be open to sponsoring them into permanent positions, and for contract positions, engage SAP resource providers holding a DIAC labour on-hire agreement.

For more information on recruiting and retaining the SAP talent you need – contact Leanne O’Connor on 1300 897 820 Systems and People Pty Ltd t 1300 897 820 f 1300 897 920 leanne.oconnor@systemsandpeople.com.au www.systemsandpeople.com.au

melbourne • sydney

recruitment

consulting

contractor management

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NEWS

In recruitment At the beginning of November, Everjoy Consulting launched an industry-first Contractor Retention Program (CRP), which will help to secure contractors in key project positions and ultimately reduce the risks associated with losing key resources as projects go live. Created in response to the shortage in the ICT contractor market, Everjoy director Adrian Everett said, “Across the industry we have noticed an increasing number of ICT contractors who are changing contracts prior to their cessation, often in pursuit of higher rates. We wanted to proactively reduce the risk of our customers being affected and CRP will help to resolve this rising occurrence.”

Everyjoy has also recently launched an executive search and selection division, Everjoy Executive Search Pty Ltd, which will service the Asia-Pacific region. The new division will service all senior level roles with an initial focus on the ICT and professional services markets.

Michael Gardner will take on the role of managing director of Everjoy Executive Search. He brings over 20 years of international executive management experience to the role, most recently as managing director of Performance Solutions Group International and RWD Technologies Australia and New Zealand. “I’m excited by the opportunity to develop and run the Everjoy Executive Search business, and build on the strong base already created by Everjoy Consulting,” said Gardner.

In education Paul Hawking, senior lecturer in Information Systems at the University of Victoria was named by the SAP Community Network as an SAP Mentor in October.

Hawking, who was honoured with the title at SAP TechEd 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada, is only the fourth Australian chosen by the 65,000 active members of the SAP Community Network to be an SAP Mentor, and is the first from academia. He joins Tony de Thomasis from Acclimation, Matt Harding from Aurora Energy and Graham Robinson from Yelcho Systems Consulting in a group of just of 98 individuals worldwide. As an SAP Mentor, Hawking will now be offered unique opportunities for access to SAP senior management, early access to information on products and programs and greater visibility in the online communities as well as at SAP events such as SAP Tech Ed. He said that he will continue to try to bridge the gap between universities and the SAP industry.

In October, Victoria’s Holmesglen Institute announced the creation of a new SAP-focused Bachelor of Information Technology. Designed in response to demand for graduates with SAP knowledge and practical on-the-job experience, the new degree will be made up of 16 subject units, 10 of which will cover SAP products from the front-end user benefits through to the

10 Inside SAP magazine

construction of the database design. Each intake of students will specialise in one particular area, such as HR and Payroll, Supply Chain and Logistics, Customer Relationship Management or Financial Services. Students will also be given the opportunity to gain on-the-job experience through relevant 14- to 16-week industry placements within companies who run SAP software.

Sharon Berman, course leader, Holmesglen Institute, believes the SAP-focused degree will be the first of many across Australia.

“We saw a gap in the education sector and believe that this course could be the first of many to roll out in Australia,” said Berman.

In late 2010, SAP Australia announced it will offer studentpriced, fully-featured editions of SAP Crystal Reports and SAP Crystal Presentation Design Software for the first time, through distribution partner Scholastic Australia.

With SAP business intelligence software increasingly being used in the coursework of almost all Australian universities, Scholastic will distribute the SAP products via a national network of campus bookstores, IT campus resellers and educational software specialists.

Scholastic will assist SAP to identify the main university campuses where SAP business products are used under license for teaching students and promote the availability of SAP student editions to lecturers and students in time for first semester 2011.

According to Wayne Cooper, media and technology manager for Scholastic Australia, “These new student editions demonstrate SAP’s commitment to the tertiary market and delivering value products to students across Australia. We’re delighted to help deliver these products to market.”

Lodestone posts strong growth in 2010 Lodestone Management Consultants finished 2010 with yearon-year revenue growth of more than 30 per cent, and a 25 per cent increase in staff over the same period.

According to Lodestone partner Bradley Burt, this growth has been driven by a strategy the company began pursuing in late 2009.

“Our strategy was to engage with larger organisations and secure larger multi-phase, multi-year projects,” Burt said.

“Historically, when we started the business six years ago, we began working on smaller three- and six-month projects. But as the company has grown, and particularly being part of a global company with a strong Asia-Pacific presence, now we are much more able to engage with companies who operate either in the region or globally.”

Some of Lodestone’s project wins during 2010 include AsiaPacific SAP roll-outs for Johnson and Johnson Medical and Olympus, and a finance consolidation project for Fairfax Media in Australia and New Zealand, with these projects expected to continue over the next two years.

Lodestone is also working with the Department of Human Services in Canberra on its SAP consolidation project, and the business is about to start a supply chain transformation project with New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra.

Within Australia, Lodestone is looking to expand its business

in Victoria, with the company recently recruiting former HP and SAP staffer Dave Moores to its Melbourne office to spearhead the business’s expansion into this market.

“He is very well-known and highly regarded in the Melbourne market, and is working on a large pipeline which we’re sure will result in some significant projects for us in Melbourne,” Burt said.

In keeping with its focus on becoming a major player in the Asia Pacific market, Lodestone also opened an office in Shanghai in 2010, adding to its presence in Singapore where around 60 consultants are based.

Burt is positive about the business’s opportunities in China, as well as the advantages of having an office in the region.

“Having such a strong Australian presence, we’re able to offer quality management consulting to Asia which complement our local resources in the region. Particularly in places like China, SAP skills are still evolving,” Burt said. “For example, with our project for Olympus we’ve transferred five consultants from our Sydney practice to Singapore because large organisations need quality people in team lead roles.”

Burt said he also expects the company’s Expense Management Solution, which was enhanced with new user interfaces and certified by SAP in 2010, to provide good revenue growth over the coming year.

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COLUMN MENTOR

How much do you invest in you?

By Graham Robinson I am always interested in discussions about SAP skills.

Aside from the specific subject of SAP certification, there are ongoing discussions around issues such as: • How do I identify the skills I should acquire?

• How can I best acquire these skills?

• Where can I best acquire these skills from?

• What role can the online community play in my skills acquisition?

• What role should I play in the online community to exercise and promote my skills?

These are important considerations for any professional no matter what field they work in.

Investing in skills There is, however, one more issue that I would like to add to the debate – how much should I invest in my skills?

Actually I would argue that the term ‘skills’ is a little narrow because it seems to me to cause people to focus just on technical skills. As an independent consultant I own and run a Small Business Of One – a SBOO if you like. So for me it is not just SAP specific skills or technical skills I need to have.

Some of the other skills I need for

12 Inside SAP magazine

my SBOO – and I – to be successful include: • Marketing skills: so my potential clients are aware of my brand, my capabilities and my talents.

• Public relations skills: so my clients, and potential clients, always see me and my SBOO in a positive light.

• Interpersonal skills: this is more than being able to establish and maintain good working relationships. I like this breakdown of interpersonal skills (http://sydney. edu.au/science/uniserve_science/ projects/skills/jantrial/interpersonal/interpersonal.htm) by the Science Faculty at Sydney University.

They see interpersonal skills as an amalgam of networking, teamwork and leadership skills.

• Project management skills: even if I am the only person working on a project – especially if I am the only person working on a project – proper organisation and control helps to minimise the total cost of ownership for my clients and maximise the profitability for my SBOO. • Presentation skills: this includes speaking in front of large and small groups, producing correspondence and documentation and simple things like understanding appropriate dress and behaviour.

• Business administration skills.

There are plenty more but you get the idea.

Of course investment in my skills is also investment in my business – and vice versa.

So back to my question. How much do I invest in professional development? Notice I have dropped the term ‘skills’ for ‘professional development’.

Time vs. money I know ‘time is money’ but for me measuring my investment in time rather than money makes sense. It is of little difference to me if the time I spend on professional development is on behalf of a client – and therefore possibly billable – or not. Sure some time is more expensive than others – SAP TechEd requires a week away and therefore more expensive than if I was researching a particular problem for a client – but time is the unit of measure that works for me.

I started my SBOO about seven years ago. One of the reasons I chose to leave the joys of employee life for the joys of an SBOO was that I felt I needed a better work/life balance.

So I determined that, over the course of a typical calendar year, I would work towards spending 60 per cent of my time on client work and 20 per cent on professional development.

The remaining 20 per cent would be

My experience tells me that I must have been mad to think I could only spend 20 per cent of my time on professional development.

for living! Recreation, vacation, time with family, and so on.

These were notional numbers that I thought reasonable at the time. I felt it was important that I didn’t set my expectations – or those of my bank manager – too high. I didn’t want to plan for full-time work when the truth was I had no idea if anyone would want to engage me. I also felt it important that I specifically plan for professional development as I knew it was vital to my long-term success and that of my SBOO.

Breaking down the work So my business plan, if you want to call it that, was that I would aim for an average three billable days in a five-day work week. One day would be for professional development and the remaining day would be for me.

My professional development investment covers many activities.

Obviously formal and informal training is included, as is reading technical journals, articles, books, and so on. Seven years ago the majority of this reading was paperbased – now almost all of it is done using online resources.

Attending conferences and events is clearly part of my professional development investment. No matter whether I am presenting or in the audience these are opportunities for learning, networking and keeping upto-date with industry trends, what my potential clients are up to and what my competitors are up to. They are also marketing opportunities for me.

I count my networking time as part of my professional development time.

Whether it be interacting with people online or offline, participating in the SAP Community Network (SCN) forums, keeping in contact with my

peers using social media tools, or just making time for regular catch-ups with people I regard as intelligent and influential, it is all an investment in myself and my SBOO. At times I can spend a lot of time tinkering with and understanding pieces of technology that I think will be of value to me. It might be investigating little known or understood pieces of the SAP technology stack to see how I can use them at my clients. Maybe it is just satisfying myself that a certain piece of software works the way SAP says it will. All of this is investment in myself and my SBOO. So how do the numbers stack up? Is my budgeted 20 per cent professional development time enough? Is it too much?

My experience tells me that I must have been mad to think I could only spend 20 per cent of my time on professional development.

The reality is that it is considerably more. How much more? Well I don’t actually know, because I don’t count it accurately enough. Maybe I am afraid to. I suspect it is above 35 per cent and it would not surprise me if it is over 40 per cent.

I have really come to understand and appreciate how much time it is because for most of this calendar year I have been booked solidly by a client that is taking 100 per cent of my time – plus a fair bit more as well.

Suddenly I find I don’t have time to check the latest SAP Developer Network (SDN) blogs regularly. I can’t get up at 4am for SAP Mentor calls and have to rely on finding time for the replays. (Guess what?

Listening to replays takes just as much time as the original call.) I have had to totally drop the Friday

Morning Report. Enterprise Geeks podcasts – usually compulsory listening – are sometimes played out of order weeks later. My SDN forum activity is almost at a standstill. The only tweets I read are the direct ones to me and then it might be a day or so later that I see them.

And I am missing it.

Restoring the balance I have been reminded that investing in myself, staying current with the latest news, spending time to properly understand new technology, making regular contact with my peers, and all the other things that I have been doing is an amazingly positive personal experience. And it is very valuable to me professionally, to my clients and to my SBOO. So last week I did something I never could have believed I would do.

I turned down some work in favour of using the time for professional development. That’s right! I rejected money, income, dollars, financial gain, profit, in favour of my own professional development.

I’ve got to say it was hard. It is extra hard because I know many people who are struggling to get enough work at the moment. But I am sure I did the right thing.

So, how much do you invest in you?

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

Graham Robinson is an independent SAP technology consultant with Yelcho Systems Consulting and an SAP Mentor. This column first appeared as a blog on the SAP Community Network. Visit www. sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/ pub/wlg/19855 to read the comments on Graham’s original article.

www.insidesap.com.au 13

COLUMN THE COALFACE

Mobility – but don’t forget the reality check

By Stuart Dickinson One of the best things about working in the information technology industry is... yes, the technology.

I speak with the nagging sense of personal guilt which comes from being an IT professional who has succumbed to non-rational buying decisions – leading to simultaneous ownership of both a BlackBerry and an iPhone, and a laptop bag which just got a little bit heavier with the addition of an iPad. I am not alone. Mobility is the buzzword of the day. The proliferation of appealing mobile devices, faster broadband, and cloudbased applications all conspire to add appeal and glamour to the ability to use technology any time, anywhere, free of the physical constraints of conventional networks.

Industry growth forecasts add fuel to the fire. Last year Cisco announced – with understandable enthusiasm – that based on its Visual Networking Index (VNI) Mobile forecast for 2006-2013 – global mobile data traffic will increase 66-fold by 2013 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 131 per cent over that period.

Gartner’s most recent forecast on global IT spending saw a reduction in year-on-year growth across the entire industry from 5.3 per cent to a forecast year-on-year growth of just 3.9 per cent. The reduced forecast is linked to the current Euro debt crisis. But at the same time, Gartner is forecasting 9.1 per cent growth in hardware fuelled by growing demand for mobile devices and PC upgrades

14 Inside SAP magazine

linked to Windows 7.

Everyone wants to be mobile and many of us have been guilty of buying the latest mobile gadget without really thinking through just what the business benefits will be.

This is harmless enough on a personal level, but buying decisions at an organisational level must be underpinned by a hard-nosed understanding of the business benefits and a solid business case.

The mobile device should come last in the decision sequence – post the establishment of the use case for the role and the actual applications to be mobilised, not first as is often the case. Deploying the right device to meet the use and business case requirements will often make or break the actual business case.

Clear use cases, by role, need to be defined prior to embarking on enterprise mobile applications.

Not every role has the same requirements for mobile application access.

I suggest a six-step plan to ensure that the horse is placed firmly in front of the cart when it comes to advising on and managing the implementation of organisation-wide mobility solutions.

1. Understand the business requirements and the context of those requirements – go out on the road with the end-users to understand and ‘sanity check’ perceived requirements against real requirements.

2. Identify the application which most closely fits the business requirement.

3. Resolve the deployment, security and architecture issues.

4. Match the business requirement to the role and then establish what type of device meets the requirements.

5. Start with a small pilot to assess effectiveness and productivity or improvement results.

6. Finally, plan and manage large scale deployment based on a business case understanding of the costs relative to benefits.

The hype around mobility has been fuelled by the relatively uncontrolled nature of early deployments of mobile email – along with the proliferation of appealing devices – which have created the misperception within organisations that this creates a foundation for mobile access to enterprise applications.

The reality is that mobile deployments need to be highly structured and carefully managed.

As with all technology deployments, the business requirements have to be paramount and the cost benefits of mobile deployments need to be fully understood upfront. Mobility has strong business advantages 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 bottom line is that mobility decisions have to be made without any emotional attachment to cool devices.

Follow good process. A reality check after the fact will likely be one you won’t want to cash.

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

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PROFILE ELAINE SILVER

Charting her own course Elaine Silver has steered SAP projects across a wide range of industries, and this year her efforts with Carter Holt Harvey were rewarded with the 2010 SAP Customer Award of Excellence for Best Project Manager. She spoke to Freya Purnell about what she has learned about critical factors for a successful SAP project and why going sailing is sometimes the best antidote to project pressure.

Originally hailing from the UK, Elaine Silver began her career as a contract project manager when she moved to Sydney in 1998, after an 11-year stint with IBM in Western Australia – first in systems engineering, then technical account management and project management. At the time, Y2K fever reigned and it was a great time to be a contractor.

“If your CV stacked up and you didn’t have two heads, you got hired,” Silver says.

She first worked on a Y2K remediation project for Colonial – at that stage comprising an independent bank, funds management, stockbroking and life insurance arms – which she describes as a good “coming of age”, because it was such a high visibility, high risk program of work.

“What I learned from that was how to make rapid decisions on minimal information through a combination of trusting your instincts and trusting your people, but learning to ask the right questions,” Silver says. “There aren’t many questions you have to ask: what else have you considered, what makes you sure, and is there anything else I need to know? That enables you to get a good assessment of how much homework people have done and therefore whether you can trust the recommendation they’re bringing you.”

Having wrapped up the program in June 1999, Silver moved straight to Optus to manage its GST program. It was another essential project with a very firm deadline. She says these elements help to contribute to a successful project, and form part of her ‘shopping list’ of critical success factors when she is

16 Inside SAP magazine

choosing her next project. “[Those two projects] were absolutely top priority, and they had a fixed deadline which focuses the mind wonderfully – it gets rid of all the ‘nice to have’ stuff. It means that the project gets the support it needs, it gets the people, and it gets the priority. So although people tend to sometimes shy away from projects with high visibility and high risk, by their very nature they’re actually designed to be successful because the organisation needs them so badly,” Silver says.

Moving into SAP After a variety of engagements including data centre consolidation and mobile number portability, Silver was engaged

by SAP to deliver a portfolio of project improvements, and she has worked in this area ever since, with implementation, upgrade and data consolidation projects for the Ministry of Transport, the Department of Commerce, Transfield, the Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA), Carter Holt Harvey (CHH) and Energy Australia.

The shift to SAP didn’t present too much of a challenge – apart from the question of terminology.

“The skills are transferable; the methodologies are all much the same, but they call things by different names, so what SAP calls a blueprint, everyone else calls a design phase; SAP calls it realisation, everyone else calls it build and test. I guess my linguistics background – I studied French, German, Spanish and Latin at school – has helped my ability to translate,” Silver says.

Some of these projects were notable for different reasons.

The Department of Commerce program, which included a technical and functional upgrade, as well as the migration of two departments away from Mincom systems onto SAP, was part of the ramp-up program for ECC 5. It attracted a great deal of interest from SAP as a leading edge program for public work services, supplier relationship management and lifecycle contract

management, with some of the customisations made fed back into the standard product.

“Being on the ramp-up program was excellent – we had SAP’s full attention, because they really wanted it to work. All the developers were available at the drop of a hat,” Silver says.

Some of the contributing factors to the success of this large program were ensuring the benefits of moving to a single ERP were well-understood by all parts of the organisation, and very strong executive sponsorship – the latter also the highlight of an upgrade project to ECC 6.0 at the RTA in 2007/08.

Silver says dual project sponsors, Rod Tout, RTA director, corporate services and reform, and Paul Hesford, director, finance and commercial development, took a tag-team approach to providing support – with Hesford even spending half a day a week in the project office.

“We knew we could rely on him being there, and the project team felt totally valued and supported,” Silver says.

This was particularly valuable when the team ran into trouble on the crucial cutover weekend, when a rollback was required as a portion of the upgrade had to be reversed and redone. Stomach sinking, Silver received a call from Tout asking about whether the cause of the rollback was a technical problem or human error.

“I had to tell him it was human error, thinking he was going to tell me I couldn’t manage my way out of a paper bag. Instead he said, ‘Alright, great – if it’s human error, it’s just going to take time to fix because you know what the problem is. If it is a technical problem at this late stage, there is a chance we might not make it.’ It was just brilliant that we had that kind of support,” Silver says.

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But the Carter Holt Harvey (CHH) project was one of Silver’s most challenging roles yet.

“It was a really tough gig. I took over halfway through the project and they had been without their project director for about six weeks. So while they had been managing to the plan they had, they knew they were behind in a number of areas,” Silver says.

Good governance is another of Silver’s project success factors, and even though the CHH project had run off track, the company had asked an external organisation to undertake a review of the project and its health. This gave Silver the confidence to join the team.

“They shared that review and the problem areas identified right at the start. So good governance isn’t about shoving things under the carpet and hoping they’ll go away – it is about the steering committee being engaged, asking difficult questions and being willing to admit that maybe some mistakes have been made that now need to be fixed,” Silver says.

“We were in recovery mode from the minute I arrived, but again, we had backing, sponsorship and commitment and a very pragmatic set of business process owners who were willing to do whatever it took to get the project back on track. We did a replan and we stuck to it, but it did get harder before it got better,” Silver says.

She adds that the project was successful not only because of the support and sensible decision-making, but also because of the enormous goodwill of the people on the project.

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This job is all about helping people to do things they never thought that they were capable of.

As with many tough projects, having a bit of fun was also essential. And during the cutover weekend, which happened to fall at Easter last year, the team kept things as enjoyable as possible with hot cross buns and Easter eggs, visits by the FiveMinute Angels to provide staff with short neck and shoulder massages, and holding a celebratory BBQ on the day of the GoLive.

This was also the project for which Silver won the 2010 SAP Customer Award of Excellence for Best Project Manager – an honour which she says she was “gobsmacked” to receive.

“It was just amazing.”

What makes a good project?

Apart from strong sponsorship and a need by the organisation for the project, Silver says her ‘shopping list’ also includes projects that are worthwhile, achievable and funded, and clients who are realistic, pragmatic, helpful and accountable.

“I expect to be held accountable. I similarly need to know that someone else is on the block with me and is accountable to the Board or the managing director, because that enables me to operate in a climate of trust – and I can’t operate any other way,” Silver says. “If you are choosing a sponsor I would also choose the person not with the most to gain, but with the most to lose from the project’s success or otherwise.”

She is also a strong believer in getting the right engagement model in place for a project, and sees problems often presented by fixed price contracts.

“You have to have a really well-defined scope, a strong design, a business that is never going to change its mind and will sign off everything really rapidly, and all the resources are going to be available on time as well. Quite often it doesn’t go according to plan, and fixed price is the one where people most often go back to the contract and start arguing,” Silver says.

Her preference is for the shared risk/reward model – basically time and materials with a cap.

“That works really well because it keeps everybody honest and it establishes a spirit of collaboration and partnership,” Silver says.

The right skills When it comes to what makes a good project manager, Silver says flexibility, adaptability, being organised and hard-working, and enjoying the work are critical. But mainly, it’s about interacting with people, not technology.

“This job is all about helping people to do things they never thought that they were capable of. Projects are good in that they are a bit of a pressure cooker – you get the best and worst behaviour from people under those circumstances,” she says.

18 Inside SAP magazine

“You have to be patient, and having empathy and recognising where people are having difficulty, being willing to sit alongside them and understand the problems from their perspective, are all important.”

Communicating up and down through the organisation is also key.

“A lot of my job is removing roadblocks – so I have to be able to go upwards and explain this is the problem we have uncovered, here is the impact if it’s not solved, here is what I recommend, and here is the evidence that I have gathered. You need to be able to articulate those issues quickly because you don’t get much time with senior people.”

Switching off Constantly working in the ‘pressure cooker’ of the SAP project world can take its toll, and Silver admits that sometimes the most difficult part is at the beginning of project, particularly in large bureaucracies.

“You basically do what I call grinding to a start – it’s like pushstarting this 18-wheeler uphill and eventually you get enough people behind you that can actually get it moving,” she says.

“I know that however big or difficult a project might appear at the start, we just have to build a plan collaboratively with the team. Given enough time, human beings are incredibly creative and they will come up with very practical solutions. The clever part is getting them all in the room at the same time.”

However she says 12-15 months is about the limit for maintaining the high level of intensity required by large projects, and enjoys the flexibility being a contractor provides in terms of being able to take a break between jobs to recharge.

So when she’s not working, Silver enjoys reading, cooking, yoga and sailing – hitting Sydney Harbour up to three times a week.

“I love sailing not only for the freedom and open air, but also because I am unreachable when I’m out there – and I’m not in charge.”

She also plays poker, which is an “interesting complementary activity”.

“It uses the creative and lateral side of my brain. I am very strong right-handed normally, but when I play, I use my left hand. I’ve also observed there are more left-handed poker players than there are in the general population.”

Most of all though, Silver says her enthusiasm for her work is the best defence against burnout.

“I just really love what I do and I’m passionate about it. I get a tremendous sense of achievement and take personal pride in what we are doing.”

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INTERVIEW

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

New thinking needed to tackle ‘data overload’ Enterprises need to radically change the way they approach data management as volumes grow exponentially, according to analyst Joshua Greenbaum, who visited Sydney in October 2010 to speak at the Mastering Business Intelligence with SAP conference. Freya Purnell reports.

Joshua Greenbaum, principal analyst at the US-based Enterprise Applications Consulting, spoke about the growing challenges associated with understanding and using the everincreasing amount of data within organisations.

“It was very simple once upon a time when everything was relational data coming out of the R3 system and the data itself was well understood. Now we have this mass influx of data coming from all points… We see data as absolutely fundamental to companies, so there’s a complexity in the quality and quantity of data and a complexity in the analysis which really requires the beginning of a culture of information,” Greenbaum says.

He argues that the technology is way ahead of the cultural adjustment required to maximise and leverage the use of data from disparate sources within the organisation.

“This is classic with technology – we learn how to split the atom and then we figure out how to stop blowing ourselves up,” Greenbaum says. “What’s interesting talking to a crowd of data practitioners is that they’re not sitting in the boardrooms. They’re the ones who understand data but they don’t necessarily have the broad authority they require.”

To tackle the data conundrum, companies may need to tap into different skill sets and perhaps even re-examine their business structures.

“One of the more radical proposals to address this is the creation of a Chief Data Officer role, whose job is really to mirror the functions of the CFO on the data side,” Greenbaum says.

He believes managers also need to be skilled in the manipulation of data.

“We don’t have, as a western cultural imperative, the need to learn statistics to become well-versed in the value of data,” he says. “So your number one priority should be to hire smart people who know how to use data.”

And for this, companies may need to think outside the box.

“As the global financial crisis unfolded, there were thousands of hedge fund managers out of work and those guys really understand data. In a blog post I joked that they should

come and use data inside companies the way they used data inside markets. Because that’s the kind of understanding of information that is needed. But it needs executive sponsorship and all those things that make any great idea successful in any corporation.”

Failure to adapt to this new environment could have dire consequences for enterprises, Greenbaum says – whether it is failing to meet compliance requirements or losing sight of ‘the wisdom of the crowd’ in terms of consumer response to your organisation.

“If you have more complex processes which are datadriven, simple mistakes can be costly. Then there’s just the basic competitive aspect – you need to be on top of this increasingly complex quantity of data because it’s really driving business success. Failure to do that means you’re no longer competitive.”

But with so many opportunities for greater use of data analytics, there are two clear dangers – total stasis or panic.

“Either one can be dangerous, because you can overreact or underreact to your peril. So it takes a measured approach,” Greenbaum says.

While he believes the role of the CIO is to pave the road for greater utilisation of data analysis – and there are considerable opportunities for CIOs to be recognised as business leaders if they get it right – they can’t do it alone.

“It’s got to come from the line of business managers, in the trenches, working the problem all day long,” Greenbaum says.

From a purely practical perspective, the infiltration of cloud computing into enterprises of all sizes creates exciting new opportunities. Previously a barrier to entry was the firepower required for complex data integration and number-crunching, but the cloud could change that.

“If you build this into a cloud-based application, then the provider of the service doesn’t have to replicate this every time they do it in-house, and the consumer of the service doesn’t have to buy a room full of supercomputers to crunch these complex simulations or analysis.”

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www.insidesap.com.au 19

INTERVIEW AUTOMATION

The drive for automation It’s been 20 years since document process automation specialist ReadSoft began working to lighten the paper load for organisations. Freya Purnell spoke to co-founder Jan Andersson on his recent visit to Australia about why there is still room for improvement in the automation space.

Although it has grown to now have subsidiaries in 16 countries, ReadSoft began as a two-man start-up. President and co-founder Jan Andersson was working for a company providing solutions to the mail order industry, where typically hundreds of people were employed by companies simply to key in data from order forms and catalogue requests. Seeing an opportunity to create software that could capture information directly from documents, he and co-founder Lars Appelstal put their heads together over a few beers and decided it couldn’t be too hard to create. They were wrong.

“It was very hard actually to build this software. It took us a number of years to do, first in parallel to our normal jobs,” Andersson says.

Originally based in Sweden, the company more or less doubled in size throughout the ‘90s, and diversified into accounts payable automation. Today the company has an install base of around 600 SAP customers worldwide, many of which are large international organisations.

However, despite the progression of the technology over the last 20 years, the fundamental drivers behind the original creation of the software remain the same, and organisations have been slow to capitalise on the automation opportunity.

“Most companies haven’t automated their document-driven processes. There is huge untapped potential to do that in most organisations still,” Andersson says.

He believes a lack of knowledge about the capabilities of the technology has acted as a barrier to adoption.

“The technology has progressed over the years, but if you were to take a poll among C-level executives about what you can do this kind of technology, most would say, it’s scanning, it’s imaging, it’s archiving the image, but further than they don’t actually know,” Andersson says.

Now that the technology has progressed past pure capture to process to pay and order to cash automation through new solutions such as the Process Director platform for organisations using SAP, the value, especially for large organisations, comes from being able to eliminate manual processes and creating a technology base for efficient organisational models.

20 Inside SAP magazine

But it is the push towards shared services, especially in the public sector, that will perhaps provide the greatest impetus for document process automation. Andersson says he is impressed to see how advanced Australian government in particular is in its adoption of automation technology.

“I think what they are doing is in the leading league.

Looking internationally, there are still only 17 per cent of Fortune 1000 companies that have adopted this technology as their main solution to process documents,” he says.

This compares with approximately 50 per cent of New South Wales State government organisations which have adopted automation.

ReadSoft Oceania managing director Frank Volckmar believes the strong interest in moving to shared services in Australia can be attributed to concerns about an ageing population and in future, shortages of staff willing to take on lower-level administrative positions. Even when the shared service centres are established, there are still workflow and data storage issues that need to be addressed.

“Each of those business units that you service with a shared service centre still needs to be in control and have access to their own information and their own documents. To allow that access to happen, you need the technology approve the various stages in the document process flow to feed into the ERP solutions, and it all has to be integrated and work as one unit,” Andersson says.

Both Andersson and Volckmar believe that an increased drive for efficiency and a competitive edge through faster turnaround times and better cash management will also increase interest in document process automation.

Looking forward, a growing dependence on electronic transactions, sustainability concerns, and the exponential growth of the volume of information held by organisations will be factors influencing the growth of this space.

And far from being a novelty, 3D may also make its mark in business applications and user interfaces, Andersson predicts.

“It will only be a matter of time before we can benefit from the better visibility of multidimensional display of both graphics and text.”

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www.insidesap .com.au Issue 12 | Dece mber 2010

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CHARTING HER OWN COURSE

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TAKING VEGAS

The path to SAP De moJam glory is paved with obstacles – Tony de Thomasis takes us on the journey

LIFE SCIENCES INSIDE THE GLOB AL PHARMA INDUS TRY

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INDUSTRY SECTOR REPORT FEATURE

industry were “big blockbusters – usually chemistry-based, manufactured in large volumes for large patient bases”, he says. With the emergence of new technology, biotech-based pharmaceuticals have allowed medicine to be targeted at much smaller patient groups with complex conditions. A 2009 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Pharma 2020: Marketing the future, found that the global market for specialised medicines, which accounted for 44 per cent of worldwide prescription drug spending in 2008, could be twice the size of the current market for all prescription drugs by 2020.

Industry challenges

Inside life sciences In recent years, the global life sciences market has come under competitive pressure as it moves from manufacturing ‘blockbuster’ drugs to more specialised medicines. To gain an insight into some of the business challenges facing pharmaceutical and biotech companies, Freya Purnell spoke with Jürgen Bauer, partner and global life sciences leader, Lodestone Management Consultants.

Lodestone Management Consultants has a strong global life sciences practice, working with many of the large pharmaceutical companies, generics manufacturers and smaller biotech companies on business transformation and systems integration projects, and Bauer says the company has observed a significant shift in the industry in recent years.

Throughout the 1990s and into the early part of this decade, most of the products in the pharmaceutical

22 Inside SAP magazine

But this move is not without its challenges for pharmaceutical companies.

“You have strong competition from generic manufacturers because many of the blockbusters are coming to the ends of their patents. It is now more difficult to get a product to market – they require far more complicated research and development processes, as well as more demanding supply chain and manufacturing processes,” Bauer says.

Fewer products are being manufactured as pills in blister packs – instead being replaced by vaccines and fluid-products which must be temperature-controlled during delivery.

These changes also carry increased regulatory requirements in terms of reporting and product traceability.

And not only are the products more difficult to distribute, but the utilisation of new manufacturing technology means a greater reliance by pharmaceutical companies on contract manufacturers – and smaller profit margins.

“Integrating contract manufacturers in a more complicated supply chain is one of the key challenges that life science companies are facing,” Bauer says.

The PwC report also highlighted the impact this shift to specialised drugs will have on the industry’s marketing and sales operations, which will need to be smaller, more agile and more adept at managing health outcomes through a range of health management services, including increased negotiation with medical specialists.

Supporting systems So what are life sciences companies looking for from their business systems?

“Transparency, integration and the ability to manage collaboration across multiple parties that are involved, such as third party distributors and contract manufacturers,” Bauer says.

SAP offers the SAP for Life Sciences solution portfolio for this market, and Bauer says the advantage of the standard SAP product is the high degree of flexibility and customisability for easy implementation of various process requirements.

“With SAP being the business process standard in the industry, you therefore have the ability to be very integrated, and exchanging data across companies becomes

For all your Automated Document Processing

easier, allowing companies to gain agility and provide the traceability across their product portfolio.”

However, he says the major challenges for standard software in general are in two major areas – serialisation and being able to drill down to the level of the individual product ingredient to manage it through the supply chain in integration with quality systems; and in the area of clinical trials.

SAP’s standard product does not cover the area of clinical development, and Lodestone has seen such demand in this area that it has developed an SAP-certified solution to manage the supply chain for clinical trials.

This includes tracking the product in either open, blind or double blind randomised trials, both into the market and back out when the trial is complete, and satisfying the appropriate regulatory requirements throughout the process.

While trials in the past were often tracked using custom developed solutions, a push for better supply quality, better management of the product portfolio and cost pressures have all been factors forcing pharmaceutical companies to look to a standard solution.

Lodestone’s Clinical Trials Supply Management Add-On Suite has been certified as ‘Powered by SAP NetWeaver’ as an ABAP Add-on for the SAP Supply Chain Management (SAP SCM) application for integration with ECC 6.0, and enhances the existing solution in two key areas: clinical demand planning, in order to increase clinical forecast accuracy; and packaging and distribution execution, in order to configure the many process variants that are required for the handling of investigational medical products in clinical trials.

“We are currently working with six of the big 10 pharmaceutical companies to either deploy the solution or to develop the concept of extending ERP or standard SAP solutions into the clinical development space,” Bauer says.

Another key issue for the industry, Bauer says, is stemming the flow of counterfeit products – the market for which is estimated at anywhere between US$75 and US$200 billion a year. While it is clearly an enormous commercial issue, it is also an ethical one, with hundreds of people dying every day – 90 per cent of them children – because of counterfeit products.

While Bauer says no one yet has the solution to this product, it is likely to come from two areas.

“On one side it is enabling companies to control their supply chain and their products, and the second piece is the ethical responsibility to deliver pharmaceutical products at an affordable price into countries where they cannot currently afford these products, and that’s obviously where you have the major market [for counterfeit items].

“It is a huge issue, and regulators, pharmaceutical companies, distributors and technology companies need to work together to see what can be done in the future.”

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SME FOCUS CASE STUDY

Freshly roasted

Di Bella Coffee has adopted SAP Business One to better equip the company for fast growth as it expands within Australia and overseas. But like many SMEs, the implementation presented challenges in managing a major IT project while continuing business as usual, and building new processes from the ground up. Elizabeth Kelleher reports.

Background Di Bella Coffee is Australia’s fastest growing boutique coffee company, appearing on BRW’s Fast 100 list, which recognises the fastest growing companies in Australia in 2006, 2007 and 2009. Founded in 2002 by Phillip di Bella, who was also recently named Young Entrepreneur of the Year by Brisbane Business News, Di Bella Coffee wholesales freshly roasted coffee to over 1200 cafes nationally and prides itself on delivering quality coffee, unparalleled service and competitive prices. Di Bella Coffee’s head office and roasting warehouse is based at Bowen Hills in Brisbane, where it also operates a drive-through for retail customers to purchase caféquality coffee, food and drinks without leaving the comfort of their car. It has roasting warehouses in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney, and an online store – mydibellacoffee.com – where customers can purchase freshly roasted coffee and have it sent to them on the same day. Most recently, the company expanded its operations into Shanghai, China, incorporating an eastern twist to cater to the evolving Chinese coffee market.

In preparing for its international expansion, the company realised that its current system was no longer providing an efficient way to manage its finances. “Di Bella Coffee has grown so quickly in an eight-year

24 Inside SAP magazine

period,” says Gianna di Bella, who as co-owner of Di Bella Coffee led the project. “We have and will always continue to focus on the customer but we realised that we needed to keep tight controls on our inventory and manage our stock levels – QuickBooks, our previous system, did not allow for that.”

She says the company needed “something more substantial that could integrate several business processes especially now we need to balance our wholesale and retail businesses, with roasting our coffee beans to order, as well as the online store. We needed to make sure that our systems were working together to deal with rapid turnover of inventory in each of the business models.”

Di Bella says the company investigated numerous systems, but decided to go with SAP Business One because it had the functionality to support the business as it continued to grow. “It also had different language capabilities which was an added bonus given we were opening a branch in China,” she says.

Neil James, business development manager at Enabling, which partnered with Di Bella Coffee for the implementation, says because the Di Bella team’s original perception was that an SAP implementation would be time-consuming and expensive, he had to spend some time convincing them of the suitability of the Business One product.

They had limited formal processes in the business and the overall uptake in terms of getting their people to use it quickly was going to be easier with Business One.

“It’s designed for the SME market, it’s designed for business that are growing rapidly and need scale, but it’s actually more of an out-of-the-box solution,” James says.

The flexibility of the Business One product means that it can support the business’s growth in the long-term. “[Di Bella Coffee] saw this as a long-term decision, and in the end the fact that they wouldn’t have to change for some period to come was an important criteria for them.

They determined this was the solution that was going to give their business the support they needed over a long period of time,” James says.

He says Enabling also felt that SAP Business One would provide the easiest transition from QuickBooks and minimise disruptions to the day-to-day operations of the business.

“They had a business that was rapidly growing in a number of different directions and one of the biggest challenges they had was putting in place processes that supported their growth,” says James. “We felt that the Business One product was probably the easiest transition for them. They had limited formal processes in the business and the overall uptake in terms of getting their people to use it quickly was going to be easier with Business One.”

Implementation and challenges The project began in July, with Enabling undertaking a lengthy consultation process to determine the exact needs of the business.

“Our process is really about understanding the business in quite a lot of detail initially, so we completed that process fairly early on,” says James.

He says the project then stalled momentarily as Di Bella Coffee learnt to juggle its day-to-day business activities with the demands of the project.

“The business still had to continue and their business is growing rapidly, so that put them under pressure on a daily basis,” he says. “So we needed to give them time to run the business, but also start to get the information together in a way that we needed it.”

James says the new system also required some data that wasn’t necessary in their previous QuickBooks system, such as stock codes. “Having stock codes wasn’t necessarily an important criteria for the other system,” says James. “But clearly in ours it was, so a lot of those structures and processes had to be built from the ground up.”

From Di Bella’s perspective, the biggest challenge was getting the information out of the old system and into the new one.

“Previously, we had never properly tracked purchasing items, and had never even done a proper stocktake, so SAP Business One forced us to look at our entire business processes and implement changes, controls and rules,” she says.

“There were plenty of challenges as a lot of the information was lacking, but the Enabling consultants were fantastic.”

Just as in all major SAP implementations, getting staff to adapt to the new system was a challenge, according to James. The fast-paced business environment in which Di Bella Coffee operates made this particularly difficult.

“This has been a leap in systems to keep up with where they are, so there’s been quite a big step,” says James.

“But overall the business has responded fantastically well and they’ve been incredibly supportive. It’s been driven from the top down, driven by the joint MDs.”

Results As a result of these challenges, Go-Live occurred on 18 November 2010 – several weeks after the initial target of September. However, Di Bella is pleased to report that it went off without a hitch. She says the implementation has allowed Di Bella Coffee to manage numerous warehouses, control split hold agreements with its suppliers and improve accountability amongst its staff.

“It has been a great testament to our staff being able to come together for a greater good of the business and it has created a synergy between each of the departments. It’s been great because it makes each department have to work with the others and realise that their processes impact on another department’s procedures or activities.”

As Di Bella Coffee prepares to take on the lucrative instant coffee market with an espresso concentrate, Di Bella says the company will now look at increasing its mobility by connecting SAP Business One to its iPhones.

She is confident that the new system will help Di Bella Coffee to continue along its path of rapid growth.

“The reports that we are able to generate from the system give us the data that will assist us with making better business decisions,” she says. “I believe it has helped us create processes and procedures that will assist us to grow in a controlled way in the future.”

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

www.insidesap.com.au 25

ASIA-PACIFIC NEWS

By Elizabeth Kelleher

Singapore Tourism partners with SAP for Grand Prix

IT spending up in 2011 across region

The Singapore Tourism Board partnered with SAP AG to build an online one-stop visitor information centre to coincide with the launch of the 2010 Formula One Singtel Singapore Grand Prix.

Using SAP BusinessObjects Text Analysis software in the back end, YourSingapore.com combined Twitter feeds and geo-tagging to help users access relevant, real-time information on events, activities and promotions by the city and local merchants.

The website, which leveraged best practices developed by SAP Research during a similar deployment in Australia, used intelligent text technology to analyse messages, group them intelligently and present them in a user-friendly way.

The technology aggregated tweets based on hash tags, Twitter accounts and keywords, and then displayed them in an interactive and relevant manner on the YourSingapore.com campaign page.

Chang Chee Pey, director, brand management, Singapore Tourism Board, said the aggregated tweets on YourSingapore.com would “enhance the experience of visitors to the website and put them at the centre of the online buzz in the Twitter space during this season”.

Krish Datta, president, SAP Southeast Asia, said SAP is constantly looking for innovative ways to help its customers implement SAP technology.

“This application started as a spontaneous idea, but it quickly morphed into a means to demonstrate the potential of SAP software, and is a great showcase of the flexibility of our solutions,” said Datta.

A Gartner Inc survey of more than 1500 IT leaders from around the world has found that 44 per cent of organisations in the Asia-Pacific region expect their IT spending to increase in the next budget year.

A further 72 per cent of those respondents expect an increase in IT spending of more than 10 per cent, while 36 per cent expect an increase of more than 20 per cent.

Derry Finkeldey, principal research analyst at Gartner, said software spending in the Asia-Pacific reflects an upbeat outlook and a strong focus on improving customer service in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

The survey also found that enterprise software implementations and upgrades are the focus of IT investment, with 85 per cent of organisations budgeting for implementations in the current year. All respondents said they were investing in data consolidation or expansion, while 34 per cent said they are planning high-growth spending in cloud computing in 2011.

“Most organisations are still learning when it comes to cloud service initiatives,” said Finkeldey. “But this doesn’t mean they are not thinking about it – data centre initiatives such as virtualisation are currently higher on the priority list than cloud, but these initiatives are the necessary precursors to a move towards cloud computing. We are seeing that the money is now shifting from traditional IT budget categories to new types of spending.”

Fujitsu teams up with SAP APJ on IaaS Fujitsu has extended its partnership with SAP Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) with the roll-out of a comprehensive Infrastructure-as-aService (IaaS) solution, which incorporates infrastructure, data centre and SAP infrastructure services.

Designed for SAP customers who want to focus on their core business while external experts manage their SAP infrastructures, this solution allows users to pay according to what they subscribe to and eliminates capital expenditure.

According to Fujitsu, SAP customers can expect cost savings of 30 per cent or more, while ensuring that service levels are met across all aspects of their SAP landscape.

Fujitsu’s SAP IaaS offering also includes administrative and value-added services, including transition services, monitoring and administration, provisioning and reporting and call centre

26 Inside SAP magazine

support.

Achmad S. Sofwan, chief operating officer, Fujitsu Indonesia, said Fujitsu’s longstanding relation with SAP has allowed it to become one of the few vendors with a global partnership in service, technology and hosting.

“With our latest SAP IaaS offering, SAP customers can look forward to cost savings and more importantly, optimisation of resources to focus on their core business.”

According to Charles Ferguson, vice president of SAP OnDemand, hosting and outsourcing, SAP APJ, “these new capabilities enable us to define an entirely new consumption experience of software solutions. In addition to the high degree of efficiency, cloud computing results in massive cost reduction for our vendors, customers and partners.”

Enter the Gartner BI Asia-Pacific awards Nominations have opened for the Gartner Business Intelligence Excellence Award for the Asia-Pacific, to be presented at Gartner’s Business Intelligence and Information Management Summit in Sydney on 2223 February 2011. The award recognises organisations in the Asia-Pacific that demonstrate excellence and innovation in the use of analytics, business intelligence or performance management initiatives.

Nominations close on 21 January 2011, with the top three finalists to present their case studies at the event. Summit attendees will vote to select the winner, who will receive a trophy and two passes to the 2012 Business Intelligence and Information Management Summit.

“Business intelligence products have reached a stage of maturity, but it’s what organisations can do with them to improve their decisionmaking and the impact they can have on a company’s business that’s important,” said Ian Bertram, managing vice president and business intelligence research team manager for Gartner.

“It’s the combination of people, process, performance metrics and software that leads to real innovation. BI will remain one of the fastest-growing software markets despite the recent economic downturn.

When competitiveness depends on a great combination of strategy and execution, organisations continue to turn to BI as a tool for smarter, more agile and efficient business.”

Leading Bollywood producer chooses SAP Mumbai-based Eros International Media Ltd, a leading producer and distributor of Bollywood film content, will use SAP ERP and the SAP BusinessObjects Edge Planning and Consolidation application to transform its business and achieve better financial planning and consolidation across its worldwide operations.

Eros International Media Ltd, which has a content library of over 2000 films and a distribution network that spans 50 countries, is pursuing aggressive growth in multiple lines of business and, realising the limits of its existing IT applications in unifying financial data, sought an overarching IT solution that would improve financial planning, reduce time spent manually creating reports and enable the company to better manage its diversified media business.

The SAP solutions, which will replace Oracle Hyperion and Oracle Financials software, will be implemented with the help of SAP partner Invenio Business Solutions, who will provide additional media industry expertise.

Kamal Jain, group chief financial officer – India, Eros International Media Ltd, said Eros International Media’s investment will accelerate its growth initiatives and help it compete in international markets.

“SAP will enable timely access to and analysis of large amounts of information to help us see more clearly across lines of businesses and geographies.”

Sanjay Poonen, executive vice president and general manager, business user and line-of-business sales, SAP, said, “The Indian media and entertainment sector is poised for exponential growth with technologies including digital screens, video on demand, blu-ray disc and other output formats. Eros will be able to align its plans across the organisation to enhance results and provide quality entertainment to consumers worldwide.”

ERP via the cloud with NEC SAP has announced it will collaborate with Japan’s NEC Corporation to deliver portions of its ERP application via NEC’s cloud infrastructure.

Designed to reduce the capital investment and operational costs of an IT-transformation based on SAP solutions, the software will be delivered as a service and managed by NEC experts in SAP-certified cloud-oriented data centres.

Planned features for the subscription-based offering, which will be available to Japan-based companies in high-tech and manufacturing-related industries, include financials, sales and distribution and materials management.

Yukihiro Fujiyoshi, senior executive vice president and member of the Board, NEC Corporation, said by leveraging domain-specific knowledge regarding the deployment

of SAP solutions, NEC can deliver instant value to SAP customers who can’t afford to disrupt operations for system upgrades or experiment with new technologies.

“The combination of NEC’s cloud-enabling infrastructure and SAP deployment know-how and solutions allows customers to streamline their operations and explore new business opportunities,” he said. “This solution helps customers to realise business benefits and helps ensure the health of their enterprise much more quickly.”

Doug Merritt, executive vice president, On-Demand Solutions, SAP said: “This partnership further underscores our commitment to establishing a successful ecosystem in the area of cloud computing and thus expands our offering to the advantage of our customers.”

www.insidesap.com.au 27

ASIA-PACIFIC CASE STUDY

REDgroup Retail chooses SAP for Borders integration Major bookseller REDgroup Retail undertook a major project to integrate the recently acquired Borders book chain in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. By Elizabeth Kelleher.

Background and challenges REDgroup Retail is a leading retailer of media and entertainment products, including books, magazines, DVDs, CDs, stationery and confectionery, in the Asia-Pacific region. In addition to its 320 Angus & Robertson, Whitcoulls, Bennetts, Supanews and Calendar Club stores in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, the company recently acquired the operations of the Borders book chain (32 stores) in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore from North American Borders Group International.

The acquisition came with a commercial clause requiring all IT and operations be transitioned across to REDgroup Retail within a 12-month time frame. With a brand worth $400 million, an ageing fleet of Point of Sale (POS) hardware and a US custombuilt POS and enterprise resource planning environment, this was no straightforward project. It would also require REDgroup Retail to integrate a company the size of its own existing business into its operations, with some stores six times the size of its existing premises.

REDgroup Retail managing director, Peter Kalan, designed the project to allow each business to retain its own distinct brand while moving onto common software and infrastructure platforms.

“You can’t acquire 30+ stores from a company on the other side of the world and simply switch operations on and off in a matter of weeks. It takes serious consideration, design and planning to ensure the least disruption possible to the core business of trading,” he said. “We had to implement the right hardware, software and, technical and project management skills to deliver a successful project.”

Solution REDgroup Retail had already worked with Triquestra and its Infinity Retail Management Software, which it has used since 2001 in its 260 Angus & Robertson stores. Having gained strong Board-level confidence from the existing project, Triquestra was entrusted to deliver the retail upgrade for the chain and the Borders integration. This retail upgrade, which involved implementing new hardware and software across 330 lanes, ran

28 Inside SAP magazine

concurrently with the SAP upgrade and included the design and build of an integration between SAP and Infinity.

New Zealand-based Tango managed the migration of REDgroup Retail’s SAP operational environment to new hardware and software platforms, including reuse of existing servers and implementation of new servers, implementation of a new Storage Area Network (SAN), an operating system upgrade to Windows 2003 64-but Enterprise Edition and reorganisation of the SAP Oracle database. Tango also established a new SAP test environment and implemented the latest version of Solution Manager to facilitate daily system monitoring and proactive fault resolution.

Tango also managed the migration of the 32 New Zealand, Australian and Singapore Borders stores from the Borders legacy ERP system to REDgroup’s SAP and Infinity Point of Sale platforms, including the implementation of SAP’s PI middleware platform using Java plug-ins to enable SAP to integrate with the new POS and warehouse management systems.

The Triquesta project took five months, with four teams replacing hardware, installing software and training staff in all stores across Australia, New Zealand and Singapore within a space of seven weeks.

“In one location, Triquestra facilitated the training of 125 people in just three days,” said Kalan. “Success is shown in that one year on, no-retraining on Point of Sale has been required across the entire REDgroup retail chain.”

Results The project has allowed REDgroup Retail to benefit from a centralised group technology environment, with a single common information platform, while preserving the unique operations and processes of each brand.

“During the roll-out we did not miss a single hour of trading,” said Kalan. “And it goes without saying that for a retailer, trading is a business-critical operation.”

The whole strategy has given REDgroup Retail operational ownership of its Borders acquisition and opened up regional strategic growth potential. “In a strict timeframe, we’ve delivered a technology infrastructure that places the group in an advanced position with regard to our overall IT strategy, and this was supported by a robust product roadmap.”

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

ASIA-PACIFIC Q&A

ROC turns to Asia Specialist SAP HCM consultancy ROC has turned its attention to Asia. ROC Asia CEO Sandy Eastman told Inside SAP all about learning to do business in China.

ISAP: Could you tell us about ROC Asia’s expansion into China?

SE: We started in Australia first and then opened in Singapore about a year ago. Everybody kept saying “don’t go into China”, because it takes a lot to get set up and you could potentially put in a lot of money and never get a return. I didn’t really have an interest in expanding into China as a result, but then people in Singapore kept suggesting that it was the right move. So it was a matter of waiting for the right moment to do something in China, knowing full well that it’s not a place you just walk into and start doing business. It was July when we really made the move.

ISAP: What kind of opportunities does China offer in terms of Human Capital Management?

SE: I think they’ve always been very cognisant of HR. Ten to 15 years ago the Chinese government was bringing in professors from top universities, especially the University of Melbourne, to teach them how to manage people because they are growing so fast that they do not have enough experience. They really do need to train managers up and there is a lot of HR that’s required, and then they also have to have as much automation as possible because it’s just too labour intensive. They’ve got very different rules in terms of paid leave – it’s to do with seniority and so forth – and because it’s attached to a person, not a union, you’ve got to manage each person individually. Only a system could do that.

ISAP: In what ways is the SAP market different in China?

SE: Australia is comparatively very small. There are not as many opportunities because there are probably about five main players who have really got a hold on the companies that are big enough to buy SAP. You get to China and it wouldn’t matter if all of us went up there, there would still be enough work for everybody. You don’t understand the size of China

until you get off the plane in Shanghai, and for an hour-and-ahalf you drive through the city. The size was just… something that until you’ve seen it, you cannot absorb it.

ISAP: What factors did you need to take into account when expanding into China?

SE: There are a couple of things you have to know. First and foremost is the tax and how you will pay it. You really need to have an address before you actually set up the company. We’re using Servcorp, which is an Australian firm that allows you to rent an office from them and have a legal address for tax purposes. You also then need to have a telephone number and someone answering the phone at that address as well.

The other reason you need an address before you set up operations, is because you need to have business cards printed. Everybody expects to see an address that is local, so you can’t be giving them Australian business cards. You need to have Chinese on the back and English on the front and what’s important to anybody in Asia is that when you hand cards out you hand them out with both hands, with your thumbs on each corner, so it is facing the person. They look at your title first and your address second. It’s got to be a really good address, which is where Servcorp comes in because they have their offices usually in the bank district, usually on the 22nd or 32nd floors of buildings.

ISAP: What type of support did you receive for the expansion?

SE: We were fortunate enough to have partners that were already there. We had a German partner that’s been there for five years, so we wouldn’t have been able to do it without them. And also SAP offered help, but the best thing to do if you’re thinking of entering this market is to get an export grant, which Austrade is very, very helpful with. They will advise you on the tax situation. It’s very difficult writing a contract because it has to be in English and in Chinese, so you really do need to get assistance.

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

www.insidesap.com.au 29

TECHNOLOGY BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Enterprise performance management: how can I ensure my organisation gets it right?

By Giuseppe Dal Col Enterprise performance management (EPM) refers to an integrated management approach that links strategic goals directly to the operational and financial activities necessary to reach those goals. From an application perspective, EPM encompasses a suite of solutions that are targeted at an organisation’s decision-makers, including those that coordinate the budgeting, reporting and consolidation activity. EPM solutions provide insight into budgets and seek information from the actuals in order to facilitate variance analysis through different reporting tools. In general, an EPM suite offers tools for effective budgeting, financial consolidation and reporting, profitability management, strategy management, and decision support. EPM solutions are an extension to Business Intelligence (BI) and leverage OLAP (On Line Analytical Processing) technologies. The key differentiator between BI and EPM is that whilst BI may provide the analytics to assist an organisation in setting its goals and monitoring progress towards them, EPM goes further and leverages that information in order to guide the organisation to its goals.

As performance management systems have been around for many years, one might believe that by now most organisations have figured out how to get this right.

Why is it then that we still often come across executives that are unhappy with their existing systems? This begs questions such as, “What makes a truly effective enterprise performance management system?” and “How can I ensure that my organisation gets it right?”

Getting it right There are a few basic concepts that are at the heart of successful enterprise performance management. yy L eading organisations adopt a well-defined and clearly communicated organisational strategy. yy L eading organisations align all activities from top to bottom within an organisation. If any activity is found not to add value, this activity should be outsourced or eliminated. yy L eading organisations effectively close the gap between organisation, processes and technology. Closely aligning these elements greatly enhances overall organisational performance. yy L eading organisations adopt a specific set of key performance measures (ideally more than 10, but should be less than 30) covering a diverse set of performance

30 Inside SAP magazine

categories (for example, trailing, leading, financial performance, productivity, growth and innovation, customer/employee satisfaction, efficiency, and so on).

A clear business strategy is essential if you want your organisation to excel. Extraordinary financial results flow from a clear strategy supported by a detailed plan on how to implement it.

Having performance measures that are closely aligned to organisational mission and strategy is very important. A disconnect between these tend to not only cloud an organisation’s mission, but also makes it much harder to effectively mobilise and lead an organisation towards the achievement of its key strategic goals. There needs to be a perfect alignment between all activities of an organisation that bear a direct relationship to the business strategy. The glue that sticks this all together is found in a performance measurement system that ties and aligns every aspect of the organisation – from the boardroom right down to the factory floor – to the overall strategy.

While ensuring that performance measures are closely linked to strategy is critical, having the right mix of performance measures is just as important. Performance measures adopted should be representative and inclusive of all key performance categories that could have an impact on the achievement of overall organisational strategy. Not only is the right mix between financial and non-financial measures required, but there should also be a good balance between leading, lagging and current measures. Without a balanced approach to measures, an organisation will degrade over time.

Lagging indicators, such as most financial KPIs, measure the output of past activity (such as last quarter’s revenue).

With such lags, the problem arises as to what action might be appropriate to alter the direction of the organisation’s performance. A correction might be inappropriate where current performance has already significantly altered from that measured in the past, and may result in overcorrection. Lag indicators are probably the least useful as key performance measures, as the purpose of

Organisations that focus only on financial performance measures constantly look over their shoulder, examining past performance.

performance measures is to allow for the adjustment of processes and behaviour in order to get better performance.

Organisations that focus only on financial performance measures constantly look over their shoulder, examining past performance.

Current performance measures are much more useful. An example would be today’s sales or production output – if production levels are less than expected, then corrective action can immediately be taken to ensure that the problem is diagnosed and corrected.

Leading indicators measure activities that have a significant effect on future performance, and are predictive of desired results or outcomes. Leading measures can be manipulated to affect financial results, and are particularly useful measures when it comes to assessing whether the organisation is on track to achieve long-term financial goals.

Leading performance measures could include customer satisfaction measures, growth and innovation measures, and productivity, to name just a few. By their very nature, leading performance measures are sometimes difficult to define, but they are powerful measures and their use is indispensible in steering an organisation towards its overall strategic goals.

Avoiding some common pitfalls yy Resist the temptation to have too many performance measures. Many organisations tend to have too many performance measures, and in many cases some of these measures may even be conflicting when viewed in the context of achieving the best result for the organisation.

Take, for instance, an organisation that simultaneously focuses on measures such as cashflow, earnings per share, operating and net profit. Earnings per share can be increased by buying back shares, even if profit remains the same, but is this achieving the best result for the organisation? Operating profit can be increased by the automation of manufacturing processes, however cashflow will be decreased by the purchase of the new equipment, so is this achieving the best result for the organisation? yy Where there are too many measures, executives and middle managers often find it hard to focus their attention. Thus the results of organisations with too many performance measures are often nowhere near their apex. Having too many performance measures can be counter-productive and are nowhere near as effective as having a specific, balanced set of measures which cover a diverse set of performance categories and are properly synchronised to optimise overall results for the organisation. yy A nother common failure is that performance measures are often not properly communicated throughout the organisation, or are communicated in isolation. This leads

to the achievement of performance measures in isolation, which once again fails to achieve the best overall result for the organisation. yy It is very important that performance measures are accurately aligned with and support organisational strategy. Having performance measures that are not properly aligned with overall organisational strategy is self-defeating at best. Such measures tend to confuse employees, often lead to inefficiencies, and tend to dilute overall focus across the organisation. This in turn makes it much harder for senior management to successfully navigate the organisation towards its strategic goals. yy Guard against performance measurement systems that mainly emphasise short-term financial measures, as these often create long-term problems for organisations. For example, short-term profitability can be improved by cutting back on R&D activities. However, down the track this short-term focus is sure to impact negatively on the organisation’s position as an innovator in the market, leading to loss of market share and eroding long-term financial success.

The benefits of having an effective enterprise performance management system in place are enormous. A successful enterprise performance management system effectively closes the loop between business strategies, performance measures, and business actions, allowing the organisation to be more accurately steered towards both its strategic as well as operational goals. Decision-makers enjoy immediate access to mission-critical information, allowing them to quickly capitalise on the changing dynamic of today’s competitive global marketplace. By synchronising the communication of goals, strategies and measures, collaborative management is enabled, allowing individuals to collate information prior to action and coordinate decisions at strategic, tactical and operational levels to ensure opportunities are capitalised and resource utilisation is optimised. These are just some of the benefits that flow from an effective enterprise performance management solution – there are countless more. The obvious question at this time is just how satisfied are you that your organisation is ‘getting it right’ – unless you are currently enjoying significant benefits such as these and more, it may well be time for a review of your current enterprise performance management solution.

Giuseppe Dal Col is EPM practice lead with Innogence.

This article first appeared in Business Intelligence with SAP ®, published by Innogence. If you would like to receive a copy of the publication, email enquiries@innogence.com.

www.insidesap.com.au 31

TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS

CMS in the cloud Cloud computing is redefining the content management system (CMS) industry. With cloud computing, updating and processing electronic data becomes more scalable, cheaper and faster, thus reducing or eliminating the demand for an on-premise CMS, as Brian Pereira explains.

Cloud computing is a web service that enables users to access data hosted by a remote server. You may be aware of several examples of current cloud-based solutions such as BPOS and Microsoft Productivity in the Cloud (SME), Salesforce.com, SAP and Microsoft.

Cloud-based services allow companies to increase system capacity and bring new capabilities to their CMS without spending much on infrastructure or the maintenance of that infrastructure. In a conventional IT setup, a company runs its own CMS or ERP, including the server, firewalls, storage network and hardware. With a cloud-based CMS, an organisation does not have to bother with licensing issues, training new IT staff and updating the hardware. For most companies, signing up for pay-per-use and subscription-based services is more economical than acquiring or leasing IT facilities and another huge benefit of cloud computing is that you can access your data from anywhere as long as you have an internet connection.

What prevents some companies from embracing cloud computing? Cloud computing is still in its early stage, but as the benefits of cloud-based services become more evident, and the implementation of the Australian Government’s National Broadband Network (NBN) plan proceeds, more providers are in the race to profit from the complex needs of enterprises which include secure data storage, spam filtering and customised software functionality, among others. As with any new system implementation, there are some key considerations for businesses when choosing to utilise cloud computing.

Legally, a business must consider its stance on data sovereignty (the US Patriot Act and the Australian Privacy Legislation in particular). In other words, is data in the cloud secured? Is your customer and employee data protected? How much will the additional governance and security cost?

Technologically speaking, businesses must consider the high costs and expensive network links that will be required to connect to the hosted environment. A business must assess the speed and availability of network connections as well as service levels and support offerings of the host.

The main business concerns are likely to be based on how much it will cost the business if these systems were unavailable.

Can all functionality that a business requires be provided in

32 Inside SAP magazine

the cloud solution? Will the data be split across locations or be replicated? Is your organisation ready (that is, will staff be comfortable giving up their hard drives)?

Although SAP and Microsoft apparently had some hesitation over making their CMS technologies cloud-ready, they are recognising the need to adapt to the irreversible impact of cloud computing.

Under the management of John Wookey, executive vice president, large enterprise On-Demand for SAP, the company is tailoring its CMS technology to balance cost, system reliability and competitiveness. Recently, SAP announced its plan to launch a cloud-based ERP service running on the Vblock platform backed by EMC, VMWare and Cisco. This Business ByDesign on-demand offering is likely to hit the Australian shores in early 2012.

Levi Strauss & Co., which participated in the 2008 trial for this project, was amazed by the huge cost savings brought by the cloud service. The global implementation of the SAP system had a dramatic effect on the earnings of the company in the second quarter of 2008, according to its SEC filing.

As part of its cloud strategy, SAP is making some of the lightweight extensions of its on-premise ERP available on the cloud platform. Known as the River project, this initiative has led to the development of Carbon Impact 5.0, which is scheduled to run on Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud. The application is expected to operate on other platforms soon, according to SAP CTO Vishal Sikka.

Despite the growing popularity of cloud computing, many still doubt that it would eclipse on-premise CMS. He argued that cloud computing does not guarantee the same level of security provided by an in-house IT system. This is especially true amongst large corporations with thousands of CMS users.

For CMS providers like SAP and Microsoft, integrating cloudbased services with their conventional on-premise products seems the best way to go. Like technology, cloud computing is a reality in Australia with the advent of the NBN… let’s not get caught behind.

Brian Pereira is chief executive of CN Group.

TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS

Free software for SAP project team members – a revolutionary concept?

Salt Apps for SAP Solutions is a free platform created by Revelation Software Concepts to house miniapps of value to SAP project team members. David Drake discusses the background to Salt Apps and how it could help your team.

Since 1997, Revelation Software Concepts has been developing SAP add-on software, including our wellknown SAP change control technology Rev-Trac, which is now in use all over the world to control changes across even the most extensive and complex SAP landscapes.

However, around 12 months ago, I seeded a new idea for a platform that could be used to house a growing number of simple and easy to use, yet valuable, mini applications (apps) that would be of great value to SAP project team members. In addition, it was decided that the platform and apps should be very easy to access, and made available for little or no cost. A unique if not revolutionary idea for any SAP third-party software vendor to consider, but as of October 2010, we made such a platform available to the SAP community for free: Salt Apps for SAP Solutions.

My personal vision for Salt is that due to its availability and value, it should eventually make its way into every SAP project team members’ hands in every SAP install around the world.

The technology To fulfil the vision to provide software that is easy to install, easy to use and easily updatable, the key was to develop and deliver the product as a ready-to-run appliance that simply clips into the SAP environment with no fuss. This new approach allows users to download the software from the web, run the virtual appliance, connect it into their SAP environment and simply use it. Importantly, because we plan for the collection of available apps to grow, this approach allows for periodic delivery of new apps without creating other problems for users common to installing new software around SAP environments, such as provisioning, security, and so on.

Delivered as a virtual appliance and downloadable

from the web, most companies have had Salt up and running in just a few hours.

The initial collection of apps Each app is purpose-built, designed to target specific 'pain points' as an easy-to-use tool that on its own may not constitute a stand-alone software product, but together with the other apps as a collection, provides a potent set of integrated software tools. Take, for example, the initial set of Salt apps which are built around ‘Version Vault’, an app that creates a searchable, Continued on page 32 ➤

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TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS Over time, Salt Apps is expected to be communityinfluenced, with many ideas for new and desired apps coming from the Salt user community itself.

accessible, centralised custom code version repository, external to the source SAP systems. Add apps like ‘Code Ferret’ and ‘Matrix’ that build on and utilise this repository, and a powerful toolset emerges.

The ‘Code Ferret’ app (a favorite with ABAP developers) provides the speed of a Google-like search over all custom code, enabling, for instance, a search of the SAP production system for the keyword ‘BREAKPOINT’ with sub-second response times, all in a few clicks. And the ‘Matrix’ app provides a unique method of viewing the version status of all objects across the landscape, enables full landscape comparisons and drilldowns, thus delivering an easy way to identify potential version issues before they create problems.

This initial collection also includes apps such as ‘WIP Window’ (reveals work in progress), ‘Cold Case’ (identifies abandoned change) and ‘Match Box’ (shows version differences).

Salt Apps Dashboard: The Salt Apps dashboard displays the collection of apps.

Free and for nothing Making Salt freely available to everyone is a radical step, but essential to the vision. Making sure we could have Salt available for free was part of the plan from the beginning, and we have never had a problem investing generously in this idea, even though there is a risk we may never get a dollar out of it. In fact, it’s the company’s expectation that most Salt users will pay absolutely nothing for their use of the product.

Matrix App: The Matrix App compares your custom objects across multiple SAP systems by analysing every object in every system.

The future Over time, Salt Apps is expected to be communityinfluenced, with many ideas for new and desired apps coming from the Salt user community itself. Already the Salt development team has gathered a fistful of great ideas and it’s expected that as the community grows, so will the ideas and suggestions for new apps. Salt is available for use for free on up to three SAP systems and can be downloaded from www.saltapps.com.

David Drake is CEO and founder of Revelation Software Concepts.

34 Inside SAP magazine

Code Ferret App: The Code Ferret App allows you to rapidly search all custom code across your SAP systems.

TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION

On the road to SAP rockstar status In 2010, Tony de Thomasis was part of a team that took out the SAP DemoJam at the SAP TechEd event in Las Vegas. He shares the ‘behind the scenes’ experience.

I attended my fifth consecutive SAP TechEd event in 2010. I am continually drawn to this event for the opportunity to collaborate with industry specialists and to load up on innovative ideas and industry trends. It’s not only the things you learn from experts – but also the people you meet and the connections you make which makes this event so special to many SAP practitioners.

Every year, I have made the SAP DemoJam a mandatory part of my SAP TechEd schedule. For those not familiar with the DemoJam concept – it’s like X-Factor for SAP techies. Six hopefuls are chosen from hundreds of entries submitted from SAP customers, partners and employees.

The rules are simple: each contestant has the stage for six minutes – no slides, no sales, original live content only, no smoke and mirrors. Thousands of cheering techies determine the winner with the help of the DemoJam Applause-O-Meter. The loudest cheers determine the ultimate winner. I have always been deeply impressed with the quality of technology on show and dazzled by

the technical showmanship of the DemoJam finalists.

I never really stopped to think exactly how much preparation goes into each DemoJam entry – but I was about to learn this first-hand in 2010.

The DemoJam master class of Las Vegas 2010 My story starts in a café with Acclimation’s lead solution architect, Alisdair Templeton, and Matt Harding, chief architect at Aurora Energy. Over coffee, we were brainstorming ideas for a potential DemoJam entry. Like all good rock and roll stories, a couple of ideas were scribbled down on the back of a napkin. We talked about these ideas – but it was not until a chance lunchtime discussion with Kaj van de Loo, SAP chief technology strategist, on 14 July that we discovered the missing spark. Kaj shared with us his vision of the SAP roadmap for enablement and innovation. The main elements of the strategy that we picked up on included Project Gateway, complementary applications and cloud computing.

The first requirement was to install an SAP Web Application Server on the Amazon Cloud – this would give Alisdair access to share programming effort with Matt from Tasmania. Over the next several weeks, Alisdair and Matt used their knowledge of ABAP WebDynpro, HTML5 and JavaScript to build a Mobile Continued on page 36 ➤

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TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION Gateway framework to communicate with older SAP instances in the landscape. This generic framework would allow a device-independent mobile user interface with offline storage, application cache and the integration of rich media. Once the framework was in working order, we used our experience in the mining industry to come up with an Operation Health and Safety use case. The safety incident-recording mobile application with offline capability would be the first application we would build using the Super Generic Mobile Framework.

After several weeks of coding and testing, the Super Generic Mobile Application DemoJam entry was submitted on 31 July, after a couple of all-nighters from Matt getting the video ‘just right’ and the agonising wait ensued. On 8 September, Craig Cmehil, SAP DemoJam official, informed Alisdair and Matt of the good news: they had made the shortlist from a field of over 200 entries – the first Aussies to ever make the cut. Craig then asked for a full remote run-though of the DemoJam entry on the week of 20 September. Now the preparation required for DemoJam 2010 started to hit home. To be selected was one thing, but to build a DemoJam-worthy performance was going to take a more collaborative effort.

We decided to run an Innovation Garage in the Acclimation office on 18 September as a way to inject another dose of innovative energy into the DemoJam entry. The format for the Innovation Garage is loosely based on the Innovation Weekend adopted for SAP TechEd 2010. We opened up access to the Acclimation offices in Melbourne and provided full access to all the tools a good technician could wish for: yy Whiteboards and flipcharts; yy Several high-end laptops (AlienWare and MAC were the order of the day); yy Phone lines (open to call international if required);

yy Fast, unobstructed internet access (no firewalls, no filtering, no restricted sites); yy All the gadgets (iPad, iPhone3, iPhone4, HTC Android); yy Catering (pizza, sweets, fruit, soda and beers); yy Entertainment (Xbox 360 Guitar Hero on a large screen and appropriate music to innovate by); yy Resident support staff (for those last-minute installs and support requirements); and yy Face-to-face interaction (Matt Harding from Tasmania was flown in).

By the end of the Innovation Garage, the collaboration, open sharing and Google-style work environment produced some stunning results. The six-minute rehearsal in front of the whole Acclimation team drew a healthy dose of applause and pride. We all realised the entry was worthy of any contest. Alisdair and Matt went on to impress Craig with an encouraging late-night audition.

The DemoJam roller coaster was locked and loaded, and ready to leave the station.

In the next four weeks, we frantically finalised our flights to Las Vegas as we counted down the days until the official DemoJam night on 19 October. We all had our day jobs to attend to – but the anticipation of the Aussie assault on DemoJam 2010 created a wave of excitement which swept along everyone in contact with us. We worked hard out of hours between work, sleep and spending time with our respective families on and off over a few weeks. On several occasions, I would log onto our Cloud WAS system to see that both Alisdair and Matt had been logged in and had been tinkering for hours. I would often get the urgent midnight request from Alisdair for a system reboot to enable his profile changes to take effect or a 1am call from Matt asking for a web service to be enabled. This is the price of delivering innovation – short sharp bursts of activity without the red tape which bogs down large companies.

Kai Van de Loo, Craig Cmehil, Matt Harding, Alisdair Templeton and Oliver Bussmann

36 Inside SAP magazine

Several miles later, we all cheered as the SUV turned off the Interstate 15 and cruised past the historic landmark at the top of the Strip – Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas.

The day finally arrived for our 14-hour flight to Los Angeles, then a road trip along historic Route 66 to Las Vegas. The six-minute DemoJam session was practiced several times during the road trip, as we recorded many faux safety incidents along the way to test the Geocoding and offline capabilities of the Super Generic Mobile Application. While tucking into our In-N-Out burger for lunch, we hoped that the hole-in-one which Alisdair shot at the mini golf range might be an omen for another historic moment. Several miles later, we all cheered as the SUV turned off the Interstate 15 and cruised past the historic landmark at the top of the Strip – Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. In around 48 hours, the time for DemoJam 2010 would be upon us.

DemoJam 2010. It was fitting that the first SAP official to be photographed with the winners was Kaj van de Loo. He congratulated us on the great business use case – and offered to support us should we wish to run an SAP Innovation Week in Australia. We will be sure to take up this fantastic offer – please watch for further details in my next article.

After the win, Alisdair and Matt became instant rockstars, encountering a wall of people asking for a chat or an interview in between lectures. Winning the DemoJam was a wonderful experience – but as Michelangelo once said, “If people only knew how hard I work to gain my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.”

The SAP TechEd official check-in kit

Tony de Thomasis, NetWeaver practice lead – Acclimation, has been working with SAP software since 1986 with large companies including National Australia Bank, Telstra, Coles Myer, BHP Billiton, and Australia Post. He can be contacted by email at tony.dethomasis@ acclimation.com.au.

For those who are inspired to craft their own entry for the upcoming DemoJam, you have less than 10 months to prepare – dates for SAP TechEd Las Vegas 2011 are 1215 September. If you can’t wait that long, make sure you check out the Aussie DemoJam event which forms part of the Mastering SAP Technologies event in March 2011.

For those interested in a first-hand behind the scenes DemoJam 2010 digital diary, please check out Tony’s YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/ user/SAPDemoJam2010. Should you require more information about the Super Generic Mobile App or wish to discuss your ideas for innovation please feel free to contact Tony at the email above.

Soon after we checked in and picked up our official SAP TechEd badges, Craig welcomed us into the large hall with over 100 SAP technicians listening to the format of the Innovation Weekend. I enjoyed seeing the pride in Kaj van de Loo’s eyes as I told him about the spark he provided us for the DemoJam entry. As we mingled with the other brilliant technicians, a discussion with Ingo Hilgefort (BOBJ evangelist) resulted in the programming of an RSS feed from the Super Generic Mobile Application to BusinessObjects On-Demand. We had incorporated a BOBJ dashboard into the DemoJam entry the day before it was to go live on stage!

The next day as most of the 5500 SAP TechEd attendees spent time in lectures and hands-on classes, the DemoJam contestants spent an entire day in the Venetian Ballroom learning the finer points of the DemoJam machine. The DemoJam production team explained how to walk on and off stage, where to stand, how to talk and where the cameras would be – it was like being on the closed set of a movie production. By 4pm, you could see the excitement being replaced with anxiety as the 8pm start time just couldn’t come around quickly enough.

Later that night, the Venetian Ballroom filled to nearcapacity as the DemoJam machine took control. Craig whipped the crowd into a frenzy as each contestant went though their six minutes of glory. The competition was very good this year, with so many exceptional mobility offerings. The cheers from the crowd helped to reduce the six entries down to three, and another round of cheering saw many spectators on their feet as the entry from Australia was voted a clear favourite and winner of

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

Do you have a burning technical question?

In our next edition, we’ll be including a new Q&A feature, with a panel of SAP experts available to answer your tricky technical questions. Send your queries to editor@insidesap.com.au and we’ll do our best to find you the answer.

www.insidesap.com.au 37

TECHNOLOGY CHANGE MANAGEMENT

10 tips to conquer organisational change hurdles The technical implementation of SAP may not always be perfect, but it is now very well practiced and often seamless. So why wouldn’t your SAP implementation be a resounding success? To thrive with SAP, a business must make the implementation about their people, not just the technology, as Sarah Arnold explains.

System implementations gain strong support for the technical preparation of a business, with professional services such as analysis, configuration, architecture, integration, data migration and testing seen as a prerequisite. The preparation of personnel often lacks an equivalent level of support and investment.

For successful adoption of SAP, the business should: yy Have ‘change leaders’ (both formal and informal) who support SAP and actively promote it amongst their personnel. yy Ensure all staff in the organisation understand the value SAP will add to their organisation and are excited about being made more productive by SAP. yy Make highly relevant and sustainable learning products

38 Inside SAP magazine

accessible with practical business process and scenario context. yy Enable users to competently and confidently use the system to perform their daily duties. yy Encourage personnel to actively find ways to improve the way their organisation works with SAP. yy Have local champions or super users in place to provide peer support and answer difficult ‘how to’ questions.

In order to reach this ideal state, the following business adoption factors are essential.

#1 Your people make technology successful Acknowledge that your people’s ability and desire to use new technology enables its success. Become peoplefocused and not just technology-focused. Obtain sponsorship from management and establish a budget for the preparation of your personnel for the introduction of SAP. Business adoption can cost between 10 and 20 per cent of an implementation budget.

#2 Pervasive business engagement Engage your people top-down and bottom-up. Develop a message that focuses on the outcomes for your people and deliver it consistently. Business engagement should be continuous, sincere, and not simply a milestone in a plan.

#3 Invite participation and generate interest Develop a participative climate with your organisation to encourage interest and involvement. This can help to foster acceptance and ownership of SAP. This can also

System-based training, in the form of procedural instructions, can be embedded in a business process framework to provide real-life context.

be a medium for personnel to highlight concerns and challenges, which can focus effort in a timely fashion and ultimately result in the right solution for your business.

#4 Capitalise on best practice and experience Participate in user groups to capitalise on best practice and other’s experience. It is commonplace to adopt technical lessons learned, but there is a wealth of business adoption lessons that should also be considered. Think about what worked well in the past and leverage those experiences.

#5 Consider an effective partnership early Obtain early input into your SAP implementation from a specialist who can help you formulate a business adoption strategy as part of Project Preparation or Business Blueprint. Collaborate with them so that a strategy that closely reflects the vision and goal of your business is devised. This strategy will give you a clear understanding of how and when to prepare your people for SAP. The result is a realistic, cost-effective and pragmatic change management and training program.

#6 Subject experts make information relevant Leverage your business subject matter experts. They have the skill and influence of peer leadership amongst your teams and can provide invaluable input to business adoption activities. They have deep insight into the extent of the change and how it will affect daily operations. They have access to resources that can make the difference when creating a change management and training program which is meaningful and relevant to your organisation. The key is to commit some of their time each week to supporting the change management and training efforts by developing a realistic resource plan.

#7 Resource change and training just-intime Adopt a just-in-time resourcing approach for change management and training activities to ensure your budget survives project duration. The business adoption strategy will still need to be formulated early by a change and training manager and integrated with the overall project plan, but their team can be judiciously mobilised to suit

scope, project timelines and desired outcome.

#8 Focus on the business, not the system Process and role-focused learning, rather than systemfocused learning, is critical to the success of any SAP implementation. System-based training, in the form of procedural instructions, can be embedded in a business process framework to provide real-life context. This context enhances user adoption and reduces the time to competency.

#9 Make information easily consumable Training and performance support material is most effective when accessed just enough, just in time and just for each role. Consumable modules of learning content can be effectively delivered in a blend of face-to-face and self-paced modes. Modular electronic materials are reused for both modes and can be accessed through contextsensitive help while the user is actually performing an SAP transaction.

#10 Provide operational performance support Commit to ongoing end user performance support for sustainability. Successful implementations maintain training, coaching and performance support throughout a complete business cycle. This support can be delivered by an extended project team, or by super users set up in a business-as-usual support team.

Change management and training initiatives have a significant level of influence in the process of user uptake and acceptance. Addressing these business adoption factors with an experienced change management and training partner enables organisations to not only survive an implementation, but to thrive with SAP. The independent magazine for SAP professionals

Sarah Arnold is the ERP practice director at Articulate (www.articulate.com.au). She was voted number 6 in InsideSAP’s Top 10 Most Influential People in SAP for 2010, and specialises in helping clients apply Articulate’s proven change management and training methodologies to meet their business adoption outcomes. Continue your discovery and Thrive with SAP™ by contacting Sarah on 02 9008 9999 or thrivewithsap@articulate.com.au.

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CAREERS RETENTION

Keeping your pastures green

In a recovering marketplace, employees you once thought were loyal often get attracted by your competitors and may move on to what they perceive as greener pastures. Adrian Everett discusses how you can keep your team strong and committed.

Attrition is a natural occurrence for any organisation, no matter how wonderful your value proposition to your workforce may be. With the SAP marketplace picking up at a rate of knots, it is essential to be proactive in your retention strategies or you risk seeing key resources move to your competitors at great expense to your organisation.

Control growth – choose employees with care It is essential that the focus on employee retention begins during the initial employment screening process. While a strong market means increasing client demands and a decreasing pool of available candidates, do not let this compromise your quality focus when interviewing and employing additional resources. Is it worth risking the costs associated with attrition and at the same time potentially compromising your brand by taking on a resource that you have doubts over?

Constant communications We’ve all heard it before, but it is essential to have constant communication with your employees from an organisational direction and strategic level down to individual roles, job descriptions and responsibilities.

Communicate policy changes, customer wins, growth figures, successful Go-Lives, pipelines, partnerships, new products… everything! The greater the communication, the more your employees will feel a part of your organisation and direction and you will build greater

40 Inside SAP magazine

employee loyalty and retention as a result.

It’s not all about money Money is an obvious contributor to employee attraction and satisfaction, but you must realise that in terms of retention it is not necessarily a major contributor. Always ensure you are financially rewarding your employees in line with the market but consider that the employee satisfaction is driven by other key factors including benefit programs, work/life balance, training and career development, management, culture and more.

In some instances, however, money can be the motivator. We have observed a significant increase in counter-offers to retain key employees when they look to move on, a practice where studies have clearly shown that the employee in question is still likely to leave within six months of receiving a counter-offer or salary increase as a result of resignation. Consider your employees’ remuneration long before it reaches the point where they resign and reward appropriately – it will take significantly less of an increase to keep an employee satisfied during an employment relationship as opposed to the potential costs of cessation.

Control hours As a recruitment consultant, one of the most common complaints from employees when they approach us to find work is in relation to the number of hours worked on a project. While we all have customer commitments

to uphold, it is essential that project hours are controlled – even as Go-Lives are approaching. At the very least, it is essential to recognise the hours your consultants are putting in by offering time in lieu, however passing this cost to the customer is not always the easiest to position.

If a Go-Live is approaching and the project is behind, it will be far more effective to address this with additional resources as early as possible. Your employees will feel supported and appreciated – you have, after all, put their health, wellbeing and work/life balance first.

Employee empowerment This is the SAP industry – a group of highly skilled and intelligent professionals who are enabling major business transformations in companies of all sizes. Allow your employees the respect of managing their own work (who enjoys being micromanaged?), but further, enable each employee to contribute to the direction of the team, project or even the company as a whole. Ensure that the success of a project or engagement is communicated and that employees are recognised for their contribution.

Career development/goals Why is it that some SAP consultancies in Australia can have salary bandings that are significantly lower than then rest of the market, but still attract and retain employees?

Simply due to the fact that the salary is substituted for other benefits including training, mentoring, project opportunities, promotions and similar benefits, all aimed at providing the employee with the opportunity to develop their career over the long-term. Ensure that your offering to your employees not only considers the immediate remuneration benefits, but the long-term goals and development of each employee on an individual basis.

Appreciate and reward Everybody likes a pat on the back, whether formally or informally, for the good work they are doing. It is absolutely essential the employees at all levels are recognised for the work they do and rewarded accordingly.

It is as simple and informal as the word ‘thank you’ – however other methods of appreciating your employees can be through mentions in company newsletters or in some cases through more formal awards (such as at your Christmas party). Of course nothing speaks louder than a bonus in terms of reward for performance!

Contractor retention tips Contractors are engaged to assist organisations through a defined body of work, or for a defined period. However more and more contractors are being lured away before the end of the contract which can be costly – especially during critical stages of a project.

• Include the contractor in communications and events. Sounds simple, but surprisingly often the value of including contractors in team events can be missed.

• Ensure the contractor is including in project team meetings, planning and status reporting. The more information the contractor has about the project, the more committed they will become.

• For long-term contractors, include them in training and development. This can be internal or external, but will differentiate your organisation from the many others out there offering similar contracts.

• Incentivise the contractor with milestones.

For example, Everjoy Consulting has a specific Contractor Retention Program (CRP) which ties contractors into key project milestones and allows the contractor to share the success of the project – therefore minimising the chances of losing contract resources at critical times.

• Empower the contractor with input into project planning and approach. They have been across many different customers and are likely to have valuable insight and ways of overcoming project challenges.

Post-employment reputation At the end of the day, despite taking all the steps above, employees will, from time to time, move on. The SAP industry in Australia and New Zealand is relatively small and our networks span multiple regions and companies.

When an employee does decide to move on, it is essential that you consider your organisation’s brand and continued reputation in the marketplace and ensure that the departing employee leaves with only positive words to say about their experience with you. Ensure all obligations in relation to the termination are met, assist with references for their new employer and recognise that at some point in the future, you may want to talk with this individual again.

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

Fair treatment It is essential that all employees in an organisation are treated fairly and objectively by the organisation’s leadership at all times. The emergence of ‘favourites’ or ‘tall poppies’ in any organisation will foster a resentment amongst others in the team and over time the compounding effect of this often means that an organisation will lose more than one employee at a time.

Adrian Everett is managing director of Everjoy Consulting. Established in 2006, Everjoy Consulting is a boutique recruiting business, with specialisations across the following verticals: ERP (SAP/Oracle), Enterprise Performance Management, Application Development, Infrastructure, Media, Advertising, and Collections. For more information, visit www.everjoy.com.au.

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CAREERS ON THE MOVE

On the Move

Brought to you by

The SAP Recruiter of Choice

Here we bring you our regular round-up of who is going where in the industry. If you have changed jobs recently or hired some new staff, email us at editor@insidesap.com.au. By Elizabeth Kelleher.

Michael Yandell, Zer01 Group Specialist governance, risk and compliance consultancy Zer01 Group has appointed Michael Yandell as principal consultant for Sustainability, Health, Safety and Environment (HSE). He joins Zer01 from Ajilon in Melbourne, where he established and built their HSE service offering.

Yandell has significant SAP and project management experience and has delivered solutions across a range of industries, including mining, chemicals, utilities, transport and manufacturing. He will draw on his comprehensive knowledge of sustainable business and system capabilities to drive Zer01’s health, safety and environment practice forward.

Robert Pedler, CEO, Zer01 Group says the company is delighted to have him on board. “He brings additional leadership to our sustainability/HSE service line and builds our presence in the Victorian marketplace,” says Pedler.

Claire Armstrong, Everjoy Consulting Boutique recruitment firm Everjoy Consulting has expanded its footprint in the SAP marketplace by appointing Claire Armstrong as senior consultant for SAP recruitment. Armstrong, who previously worked at Cubic Resources, joins Yann Guillaume and Everjoy director Adrian Everett in the SAP recruitment team.

Everett says the company sees Armstrong’s appointment as an opportunity to strengthen its ability to provide innovative recruitment solutions. “It will ultimately position our SAP recruitment team as one of the strongest in the Asia-Pacific region.”

Armstrong says: “Everjoy is one of the truly unique recruitment consultancies that bridges the gap between traditional recruiters and allows me to be a trusted advisor to my customers. I joined Everjoy for the capacity to truly partner with my clients and deliver tailored recruitment solutions that address their needs.”

Bob Diss, Progress Pacific Tier-two SAP consultancy Progress Pacific has appointed Bob Diss as Victorian state manager to oversee its newly established Melbourne operations. Diss, who has 14 years’ experience in SAP both locally and internationally, has previously held senior roles at CIBER, Investor Finance and Oracle. He will be responsible for increasing the company’s presence in Victoria’s supply chain, warehousing, medical supplies, financial services and insurance industries.

Diss hopes to use his experience in SAP to drive Progress Pacific’s growth in the region. “Having such a lengthy career in the ERP space has provided me with many experiences in relation to the successful delivery of implementations that will be invaluable for driving Progress Pacific in the Melbourne marketplace.”

42 Inside SAP magazine

New appointments at StoneBridge Systems StoneBridge Systems has announced three new senior appointments based in Melbourne to spearhead and support continued growth for the organisation in the new year.

Athol Hill joins StoneBridge as practice manager for SAP xECM solutions, where he will be responsible for building SAP skills to complement StoneBridge’s Open Text expertise.

Hill has 10 years of experience in the SAP space and was formerly leading a small consulting company, which he grew the business to a multi-million dollar concern.

Steve Harris joins StoneBridge as the company’s lead for .NET CMS solutions.

Harris has more than 10 years of experience in implementing .NET CMS solutions among government and large enterprises and was most recently lead architect at English Heritage in the UK. Morgan Ritchings joins StoneBridge as the practice lead for Open Text Web Solutions.

Ritchings, who has over five years of experience working with the Open Text platform, joins the company after spending a number of years as an independent contractor.

“We are excited to attract three high quality individuals who between then have 40 years of experience to help support our growth plans and enhance our inherent strengths in the ECM marketplace,” says Craig Broadbent, director at StoneBridge Systems.

Ana Condon and Mark Anderson, CN Group CN Group has made two senior hires, with Ana Condon appointed as group CFO and Mark Anderson appointed as group HR director and general manager of the Queensland business.

The appointments were made as CN Group more than doubled in staff from 30 to 82, opened a Queensland office and won several deals on the Gold Coast and Brisbane with the Queensland Eye Hospital as its cornerstone customer.

Condon has over 24 years’ experience in the accounting/service industry, having started her career as an accountant assistant for W.L. Gore and Associates, investors of the Gore-Tex fabric. She joins CN Group from Pluim Constructions where she was CFO for 10 years.

Anderson has more than 15 years’ experience in a variety of senior HR roles in the Australian technology industry. He was previously head of operations for HCL Axon across the Asia-Pacific, Japan and the Middle East, and began his career as a meteorologist with the Royal Australian Navy, serving with distinction for 10 years.

CN Group CEO Brian Pereira, says, “On the back of a very successful first half, we needed two high calibre executives in HR and finance to join our management team. Mark has worked with us in the past and been critical to our growth, with his knowledge of the best SAP talent in Australia being second to none. Ana’s finance pedigree and knowledge of the Central Coast and Newcastle/Hunter region will help us grow our local offering while ensuring we maintain the highest standards of financial reporting and compliance.”

Krista Smith, Systems and People Krista Smith has recently been appointed to the position of account manager at Systems and People, and will be based in the Sydney branch office, working closely with Tim O’Toole, client services manager.

With vast SAP resourcing experience, Smith will focus on building and developing client relationships within the northern region, along with providing end to end recruitment solutions for clients and candidates.

Using a thorough and organised approach, Smith brings innovative ideas to address the challenges faced by organisations in finding the right SAP people.

Smith will be leveraging Systems and People’s current reputation as a leader in the provision of SAP resources, to establish a strong presence in the New South Wales and Queensland SAP marketplace.

Roger Bellis, SAP AG SAP AG has appointed Roger Bellis as senior vice president of global talent, leadership, and organisational development. Before joining SAP, Bellis was group director of human resources at a global FTSE 100 business, and before that held leadership positions at Barclays Bank plc, Scottish Power plc and Unilever.

In this role, Bellis will lead a newly created global HR function, which is responsible for driving organisational, talent and leadership development throughout SAP AG. Programs driven by this unit will focus on honing leadership skills, providing advanced learning opportunities and improving the effectiveness of organisational changes. He will report directly to Dr Angelika Dammann, chief human resources officer at SAP AG. “Human resources is a key element in SAP’s transformation and corporate growth strategy, and Roger is a master at helping companies make the most out of change,” sayss Dammann. “As we continue the process of simplifying the organisation, accelerating innovation, improving customer focus and further empowering our workforce, Roger will play a crucial role in our success.”

Hubertus Kuelps, SAP AG Hubertus Kuelps has been appointed as head of SAP global communications.

Based in Walldorf, Germany and reporting directly to SAP co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe, Kuelps will be responsible for the company’s communications activities and engagement with SAP stakeholders, including employees, media, analysts, customers, partners and governments.

He joins SAP after 11 years at Allianz SE, where he most recently served as head of communications for Allianz America and its Californiabased subsidiary Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company. Prior to that he was chief operating officer of Allianz Life Insurance Malaysia and head of communications at the German American Chamber of Commerce in New York.

In a joint statement, McDermott and Hagemann Snabe says: “Hubertus brings a comprehensive global perspective — coupled with first-hand experience in many key markets and regions around the world. SAP is transforming to accelerate innovation and make customers run even better with SAP, and communications will play a key role in helping the company achieve these goals. The Board is confident that Hubertus is the right person to lead our world-class communications team and will be an asset to the company and our brand.”

www.insidesap.com.au 43

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 freya.purnell@insidesap.com.au.

International Conference on SAP Solutions

Financials 2011

for BI in Manufacturing and Consumer

8-11 March 2011

Industries

Las Vegas, Nevada, US This conference is an opportunity for SAP professionals to learn how to improve stewardship and value creation and to better leverage information to improve risk management, decision-support, and forecast accuracy. Financials 2011 will feature expert-led sessions, customer case studies and specialised networking opportunities. Registered attendees will also be able to attend Human Resources 2011 and Government, Risk and Compliance 2011 at no additional cost.

8-10 February 2011 Amsterdam, Drenthe, Netherlands Find out how to transform the way your organisation works by connecting people, information and businesses at SAP’s inaugural international conference on business performance optimisation for manufacturing industries. This conference will look at how business operating in the manufacturing and consumer industries can reduce costs, improve efficiency, control risk and make informed decisions more effectively.

w: www.financials2011.com

w: www.sap.com/australia/about/events/ search/overview/index.epx?EventID=7453

International SAP Conference for Financial Services 2011

Visual Business Intelligence Workshop

21-23 March 2011

23-25 February 2010

Grand Connaught Rooms, London, UK This conference is the only international conference focused on SAP software for financial services. Join 300 like-minded industry professionals to discuss the latest suite of SAP solutions for the financial services industry, and experience a range of interactive workshops, visionary keynotes, SAP solution updates, and customer case studies from across retail banking, central banking and insurance. This event promises to equip you with all that you need to understand the range of SAP solutions for the financial services industry.

Bayview Eden Melbourne, Victoria Stephen Few, leading educator and author in data visualisation techniques, is delivering a three-day workshop on presenting and analysing quantitative business data. Key concepts that will be covered include: table and graph design for effective communication, dashboard design for at-aglance monitoring and visual data analysis for discovery and understanding. All attendees will receive a copy of each of Stephen’s three books: Show Me the Numbers, Information Dashboard Design and Now You See It. w: www.altis.com.au/education/

w: www.sap.com/australia/about/events/ search/overview/index.epx?EventID=7453

visualbusinessintelligence.php Logistics and Supply Chain Management SAUG 37th Plenary

2011

9-10 March 2011

22-25 March

Hilton Hotel, Brisbane, Queensland Each year, the SAUG Plenary in Brisbane covers pertinent local topics including innovative customer experiences and the latest SAP updates. Attendees will be able to hear about new concepts and exchange ideas with 200 delegates representing more than 90 Queensland companies. As users of SAP technology, you will have an opportunity to network with your peers and discuss the challenges you face in the current marketplace.

Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin, Orlando,

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Florida, US This conference covers strategy, best practice, updates and skills development for teams that use, evaluate, deploy and support SAP Supply Chain Management Solutions. Guaranteed to teach you to leverage your SAP SCM solutions to ensure your customers get the right products, this conference will teach attendees how to standardise and automate business-critical processes to reduce costs and save time.

Offering expert-led sessions, customer case studies and specialised networkingopportunities, this event also allows guests

to visit Manufacturing 2011, Procurement and Materials Management 2011, and CRM 2011 at no extra cost. w: www.sapscm2011.com Manufacturing 2011 13-15 April Les Palais des Congres de Paris, Paris, France Manufacturing 2011 will teach you to leverage your SAP solutions for manufacturing to meet or exceed production goals, enhance quality, improve order fill rates, and gain shop floor efficiencies.

Offering practical advice on the best ways to use, implement, upgrade, customize, and manage SAP solutions for manufacturing, Manufacturing 2011 will allow you to build valuable connections with other SAP customers and learn how to increase visibility into manufacturing operations. w: www.sapmanufacturing2011.com SAUG Canberra Forum 2011 5 May 2011 Hotel Realm, Barton, Canberra This annual one-day event provides a forum for more than 150 public sector professionals to discuss the unique challenges of their SAP marketplace.

Attendees will include representatives from Australian federal, state and local government agencies. Whether you are an SAP programme director, a business process manager or a solution architect, this event will hold information that is valuable to your role. w: www.saug.com.au/Events_Calendar. aspx?mode=overview&id=278 SAUG Summit 2011 2-4 August 2011 Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, Darling Harbour, Sydney, NSW The SAUG Summit is the largest SAP event in the Asia Pacific region. Covering topics such as Business Intelligence, cloud computing, Business Process Consolidation, virtualisation, SaaS and SAP and workforce automisation, this annual event showcases the latest SAP products on offer and allows SAP professionals to come together and discuss the future direction of the ecosystem. w: www.saug.com.au/Events_Calendar. aspx?mode=overview&id=279

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

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

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

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

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

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

Systems and People We specialise in supplying quality SAP resourcing solutions for SAP-run organisations across Australia. We offer a complete SAP resourcing service encompassing SAP recruitment, SAP consulting and contractor management. We can help you to fulfil your SAP resource needs with the right people, right now; build your internal SAP expertise with highly skilled permanent resources and reduce administration and employment overhead with a streamlined, outsourced contractor management and payroll solution. We are Australia’s SAP Recruiter of Choice.

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.

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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