Inside SAP Year book 2012

Issue 15 | Spring 2011

www.insidesap.com.au

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

Yearbook

2012

Your essential Resource

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SAP provider directory and profiles Case studies on ERP, BI, mobility and more Expert comment on market trends

BILL mCdermott how he sees the future for SAP

Technology optimising your SaP system

SAP SALARIEs What are your Skills worth?

Foreword

Partnering for success 2011 has been a year of innovation for SAP. We have amazing new customers and eager partners on board and have established SAP as an essential part of the overall success story for the companies that work with us. Mobility solutions are helping to liberate the enterprise, and SAP’s customers and partners have access to the business intelligence they need to maintain a strategic competitive advantage.

New technologies, like SAP HANA, can now be run on pretty much anything, SAP apps are running on Apple devices and we are ensuring that what we are offering is not only innovative but also relevant to businesses and the way they operate.

The SAP Community Network, SAP’s professional social network, is really coming into its own in Australia. The community is bringing customers, partners, employees and experts together in new and exciting ways. The community has over 2.5 million members worldwide, gets between 1 and 1.5 million visitors a month and receives anywhere from 3000 to 4000 posts every day in discussions, blogs and wikis.

These growing communities form an essential part of the SAP ecosystem, which is a key focus area for us. It is designed to meet the current market need for a more collaborative approach to business.

SAP and its partners can now deliver unparalleled customer value by placing the customer at the centre of a dynamic universe that includes SAP, customers, partners and individuals. Customers gain access to partner solutions and services as well as SAP Communities of Innovation, allowing them to achieve breakthrough results and improved return on investment.

The SAP ecosystem delivers value to our customers and partners through three core capabilities: industry-focused excellence, community-powered results and orchestrated co-innovation. SAP’s customer-focused ecosystem offers a universe of possibilities to customers and partners striving to achieve more for their businesses.

With the SAP community continuing to develop in Australia we are also seeing more and more people joining our user group, SAUG. The latest meeting in Sydney was the biggest we have ever held with over 650 people in attendance.

In 2011, SAP has been focused on building its vibrant community and ecosystem to help the businesses we work with run better.

Tim Ebbeck, president and CEO, SAP Australia and New Zealand

4 Inside SAP magazine

CONTENTS

8

13

18

27

30

41

4

From the Editor

Features 8

Roundtable: Market barometer

13 Interview: View from the top – Bill McDermott

16 Summit: A whole new world – Ray Wang

18 Customer Awards of Excellence 20 Top 10 Most Influential 2011 27 SAP salaries – the bananas of the IT world

Technology 29 Ensuring high performance from your SAP investment

30 Why upgrade? The benefits of modernising your SAP platform

Case studies 35 Taming the beast: OrotonGroup 38 Restoring data integrity: Eli Lilly 40 Bright sparks successfully engaged: ElectraNet

41 Overcoming the tyranny of distance: Water Corporation of WA

44 Keeping it simple: Valley Longwall International

46 World-class shared service powered by world-class software: Orica

48 A peerless platform: Peerless Clothing

49 From financial services to natural resources: recent projects by CSC

Company profiles 52 BackOffice Associates LLC 54 Oxygen Business Solutions 56 CSC 59 Sky Technologies 60 Perafel 61 Lodestone Management Consultants

62 Consulting Networks 63 SUSE 64 Acclimation 65 Systems and People 66 Tata Consultancy Services

67 Revolution IT 68 BPSE Consulting 69 Stream 70 Esker 71 Innogence Limited 72 Compuware 73 Kaba Workforce Management 74 Brick Consulting 75 ReadSoft 76 Revelation Software Concepts 77 Everjoy Consulting 78 Excel4apps 79 Evolution Future Solutions 80 TridentGLOBAL 81 BCS Technology International 82 TIK Consulting 83 Speller International 85 Provider directory

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 There’s no doubt that 2011 has been a watershed year in SAP’s evolution.

With the launch of SAP HANA, new releases across the product spectrum but perhaps most notably in the BusinessObjects portfolio, and the Sybase solution set becoming an entrenched part of SAP’s offering, it has also been the year when its on-premise, on-device, on-demand strategy really started to gain traction, and both customers and critics alike now have more of a sense of what SAP is all about.

I had the rare opportunity to sit down with SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott on his recent visit to Sydney, to talk about the journey he and fellow CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe have taken the company on during their time in the top job, and McDermott’s vision for what’s next in enterprise software.

Many of you will also now be looking forward to 2012 – your key priorities for the coming year, and how you might achieve those objectives in a changing world.

As I write, the European debt crisis which has caused so much instability in the global economic environment is moving towards a resolution of sorts.

And while concerns remain over whether the US economy will find its feet again, Asia continues to thrive. Even though the outlook remains uncertain, Australia is in an enviable position, and this confidence has translated into a greater willingness for organisations to really look at how they are running their businesses, and how they can gain competitive advantage and create more value for customers and shareholders, as our industry panellists discuss on page 8.

So if that’s on your agenda for 2012, we hope the Yearbook will help you on that journey. Designed to be your information resource on SAP throughout the year, it contains a host of case studies and other articles on successful SAP implementations, and our provider directory and profiles will help you find the perfect partner to assist you with your next project.

If you’re receiving Inside SAP for the first time, I would encourage you to visit our website at www.insidesap.com.au – there you can subscribe to the quarterly magazine or our free weekly e-newsletter, to help you stay up to date with all things SAP and help you run your business better.

We hope you find the Yearbook 2012 valuable.

Freya Purnell Managing Editor, Inside SAP

6 Inside SAP magazine

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

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Thankfully you can be absolutely certain of your SAP transformation program with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). TCS has built a reputation of delivery excellence based on world-class SAP solutions that are delivered on time, within budget and consistently implemented with superior quality. So, it comes as no surprise that we pioneered the concept of the Global Network Delivery Model. Developed world class Innovation Labs and SAP Solution Accelerators. Achieving a level of delivery excellence that provides greater value, quality and speed to market for our SAP customers. Enabling our clients to experience certainty.

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Forecast

ROUNDTABLE

Our experts Kevin Killey SAP practice executive, IBM Global Business Services Guhan Bala Associate partner, IBM Global Business Services Iain Macleod ERP solutions director, CSC Hernus Carelsen Chairman, Innogence

Market barometer With the global economic climate still uncertain, we spoke to some major players in the Australian and New Zealand SAP market to find out how IT investment is holding up, how SAP’s current strategy is playing with customers and why companies are changing the way they conduct projects. Freya Purnell reports.

ISAP: What impact have market conditions had over the last 12 months on CIOs’ priorities for IT spending?

KK & GB: Our experience has been that CIOs have been asked by their organisations to focus on investments that deliver return on investment (ROI) in the short- to medium-term horizon rather than longer term, more strategic initiatives. The only exception has been in the mining industry where there is still a long-term focus.

The ‘two-speed economy’ is also very much reflected in how organisations in different industries are making IT decisions in terms of spend and priorities. As the market becomes increasingly competitive, IT spending which acts as an enabler to better customer service is also getting some traction.

IM: I believe that the local market conditions over the last 12 months have been heavily influenced by the wider global economic concerns. While there are a number of industry sectors which are actually showing strong growth, many multinational organisations have had to align with a global/regional cost and risk management focus.

The result has been a high drive for cost reduction and operational efficiency for operations and ongoing application management, while the size and volume of projects have been lower and smaller respectively. There has also been evidence of the two-speed economy model within the SAP market – manufacturing, distribution and retail have experienced low demand, whereas the natural resources, government and

8 Inside SAP magazine

financial services sectors are much more active. The ROI and total cost of ownership (TCO) focus continues, as has been the approach for the last couple of years, with returns or saving within the financial year often a major factor on decisions to proceed with any projects or investment. From a solution perspective, then the push for on-demand or cloud-based SAP solutions has been very evident, although the adoption rate may not have matched the market hype in reality. There also seems to be a shift to more individual user consumption and solutions, although still within generic enterprise-wide business to business processes, with a focus on business intelligence (BI), mobility and increased multiple device usage by SAP perhaps driving this trend.

HC: Priorities have shifted towards initiatives that will help companies survive the next recession.

ISAP: How do you think this might change in the year to come, and what are the factors that will influence this?

KK & GB: This trend is likely to continue over the next 12 months, with strong IT investments in the growth sectors of the economy. New IT projects in the other sectors are going to be more difficult to get approved as they compete with other investment priorities within organisations. There is already some evidence of some organisations delaying decisions until the global situation becomes clearer.

IM: I am not sure that we will see any dramatic change to this over the next 12 months, with the same financial

Many organisations are also of the view that they need to better leverage the ERP investments that they already have in place before expanding the footprint.

Iain Macleod, CSC

and efficiency drivers being key across all sectors. There may be a shift from in-house to outsourced or third party service providers for operation and application management support to realise some of these returns, so more demand for tenders and bids for the systems integration and consulting organisations. Accordingly there may be less demand for contractor and internal roles in the market. With regard to solutions and services, I expect there will continue to be a focus on mobility, reporting and analytics, procurement and on-demand areas for the SAP market, with potential for more shared services and common business process solutions in the public sector, to drive efficiency and a consistent solutions adoption approach, across state governments in particular.

HC: It’s hard to say. The global economy is the biggest factor. IT investment will follow global economic sentiment.

ISAP: In terms of technology releases, what is the most significant to come out of SAP recently and why?

KK & GB: Certainly there is a lot of buzz around SAP HANA, although many organisations are still trying to understand what it means to them. The benefit they see is better decision-making with more up to date, even real-time, information. However the return on investment in terms of cost versus benefit is still something many organisations are working through. Hence we’re seeing a focus on a ‘proof-ofconcept’ approach by most organisations considering HANA in order to better quantify potential business value from investments in these new technologies.

IM: With reference back to the early point on the push on mobility and analytics by SAP, the way in which these have been combined for individual tailoring and use within an enterprise business framework has opened up much more targeted and specific solutions for senior and middle management in organisations. I believe this has taken visibility and deployment for many of the solutions into the most senior roles within the commercial and public sector markets. Making SAP solutions relevant to all levels of an organisation, from a transactional, process and business management perspective, has been a consistent ‘go to market’ message.

HC: HANA. This is a real game changer for SAP. It solves two major problems: database speed and data redundancy.

ISAP: What feedback are you getting from your customers regarding SAP’s on-premise, on-device, on-demand strategy – is it resonating with them?

KK & GB: There is certainly a lot of interest from customers

in this area especially in certain industry sectors. However many organisations are also of the view that they need to better leverage the ERP investments that they already have in place before expanding the footprint. In some sectors, offerings such as on-device are certainly attracting strong interest as part of many organisations focusing their IT spend on not only improving but innovating customer service.

IM: I think that the message has been very clear and consistent to the market by SAP over the last 12 months, but I am not so sure that has translated into deployed solutions, projects and real investment as yet, or at least not the volume expected. The on-device aspect appears to have been the most successful in terms of market understanding and the implementation of projects or solutions. We have seen this in our own customer portfolio, with a number of SAP and mobility projects being deployed. The on-demand I see as part of the wider cloud-based services model that is being pushed generically across the whole IS market.

My view is that this is more likely to be adopted as part of an enterprise-wide on-demand model, rather than for just the SAP landscape and solutions. Where there is a very large SAP infrastructure footprint, or perhaps as a proof of concept, there could be an earlier adoption for just the SAP solutions.

The on-premise component is probably more aligned to the majority of existing customers, and how to leverage more from their investment in SAP, with additional solutions and products and improvements for already implemented functionality. I would expect the outlook to be similar for the next 12 months, with customers aligning more with ondevice and on-premise than the on-demand direction.

HC: Yes, it is in line with their own priorities.

ISAP: What are the key challenges your customers are facing at the moment, and what are you doing from a technology perspective to help them tackle these?

KK & GB: Our experience with clients is that many organisations have a dual focus of driving cost savings and revenue growth through increased customer focus or production capacity (depending on the organisation).

CIOs, like everyone else in the organisation, are having to demonstrate that their spend has a strong link to facilitating achievement of objectives in these focus areas or the money is going to be spent somewhere else. The challenge is that CIOs also have a requirement in many organisations to rebuild basic infrastructure, which is increasingly difficult to justify because of the longer return on investment horizon.

How are we helping customers tackle the challenges? Well, most customers are aware of the breadth of capability and

Forecast

ROUNDTABLE

technologies that IBM offers in addressing their enterprise IT challenges, so let’s mention an important area that may not be quite so visible. Many SAP systems were developed years ago, even the ‘dot com’ businesses are now dealing with systems that are 10 years old and based on outdated technologies. As a result, CIOs are delivering a wider portfolio of projects and often larger, transformational projects to rejuvenate the business. However, managers are very aware that their teams are already working long hours, and adding more people increases complexity. Tackling this complexity requires real-time responsiveness in governance and project management techniques that flies in the face of traditional hierarchical decision-making processes. So to tackle that issue from a technology perspective, for example, we offer a platform based on our rational technologies that allows for faster peer-to-peer, in-context collaboration across the business and information technology project members, independent of where they are based or what role they perform.

IM: The key challenges are really not that different from the same challenges that have been in many businesses for the last three years. Streamlining and improvement in core business processes, with IS solutions being a key component of realising this goal, but not a silver bullet on their own to achieving it.

The economic conditions continue to challenge organisations to ‘do more with less’, so reduce operational and cost bases while improving efficiency or productivity.

From an IS and SAP perspective, this is probably focused on increased use of tools, automation and low-cost resource models to drive operational costs down. Technology in itself will not address these, but adoption of technologies such as mobile platform-based solutions, increased reporting and analytics across KPIs and business operations, as well as the adoption of industry best practice solutions for procurement, inventory management, logistics and management of assets can. However, adoption of these must be undertaken with strong business process alignment, data quality focus and organisational change management to be successful.

HC: Our customers are storing excessive amounts of data and yet they feel they have limited access to quality information. We turn data into sensible information. As an example, we help our customers to identify the sets of data that are critical for decision-making, and then we implement systems and processes to guarantee the accuracy of the relevant data. We also help our customers to archive the less important data.

ISAP: Are you seeing a willingness in the market to take on major projects, or are customers favouring smaller projects instead?

KK & GB: We are seeing two levels of activity. The mature

10 Inside SAP magazine

clients with stable ERP platforms are expanding and organically growing their footprint through smaller projects in areas such as SAP BusinessObjects and mobility. In addition, there are those organisations that have not started the ERP journey or have ‘first generation’ ERP platforms that are in the process of considering large-scale transformation programs. The jury is out as to whether some of the larger programs in early stages are likely to be impacted by the global economic issues. Some of the larger programs are in the government sector and therefore potentially less impacted by these macro issues.

IM: There has been reduction in the volume of large, complex SAP implementation projects that were being undertaken through the late ‘90s and early 2000s, and that has been the case for a quite a period now. However, in the last two or three years, there have been a number of very large SAP and SI projects for major business transformation programs across a number of large multinationals, large enterprise and federal and state government agencies. These are usually resulting from a significant business change or review, such as merger, divestment or a major shift in the business model for the organisation. So projects of this nature that have been launched are actually larger and more holistic than in the past, but in smaller numbers than perhaps in the past. There does appear to be a big leap from these to smaller, shorter and higher volume of projects targeted at a specific business process or domain.

These smaller projects often have very tight scope, cost and schedules which are hard-wired to business outcomes and objectives. So there is a return to the 12-month realisation of a ROI and TCO reduction type of business case.

HC: Our customers are clearly trending towards smaller projects.

ISAP: Are you seeing any trends in terms of engagement models and resourcing SAP projects?

KK & GB: Engagement models vary across organisations but certainly one big criteria for many organisations are models which reduce risk and are outcome focused. The engagement models are also more structure towards a ‘partnership model’ between the client and the SI rather than models where the clients cede all control to the SI in how projects are structured and managed.

IM: Trend in industry sectors are quite different from a resourcing perspective, with a new skills shortage emerging in WA and ACT around natural resources and public sector projects, while in others such as manufacturing and retail potentially the opposite over the next 12 months. Where skills or people are scarce, there is an increased contractor or market rate ahead of inflation trend, but not across all skill sets. So the skills shortage seems to be in more niche, specialist

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Forecast

ROUNDTABLE

and new product areas, rather than across the board. This is not necessarily a new trend, but just a different cycle of the usual peak and trough model, although more granular and in different phases across industries and skill sets. There has also been a shift to more fixed price, fixed scope and fixed schedule tendering by both commercial organisations and government for procurement of solutions and services, so pushing risk and accountability out of the business to consulting firms, SIs and outsourcing organisations.

HC: We have noticed two opposite trends. Either complete outsourcing, or customers priming their own projects while engaging multiple niche consultancies. We are also noticing a trend towards shared risk/reward projects.

ISAP: Looking at the availability of SAP skills in the Australian and New Zealand market, what challenges do you face with this and has there been any change over the last 12 months?

KK & GB: Our experience has been that the market for good skills is very tight, and has tightened over the last few months. There are a lot of people claiming to be SAP consultants but the good experienced ones are hard to find. Many organisations have been forced to search internationally for skills especially in the newer niche areas of SAP. This has also contributed to instability within organisations as good talent is cannibalised. Organisations are increasingly being forced to be more imaginative in how they attract and retain good staff.

IM: I would probably highlight the previous observations on resourcing as a continuing trend over the next 12 months, some skills in high demand and with limited availability, but very specific to certain locations and industry sectors.

Recognising this is one thing, addressing it is more of a challenge! Flexibility with staff on travel and working models has to be tailored more at an individual level, rather than a generic organisational policy, while looking at ways to bring in new people and skills from overseas is also a good avenue given the economic issues in the US and Europe. So getting highly skills and experienced people in the market from these locations is proving more effective than in the past.

Most importantly though is looking after the key and talented staff that are already in the organisation, ensuring they are engaged and motivated to stay with you. This is probably the most effective resourcing approach to take at present, and again must be much more targeted and specific to an individual, and their career, skill needs and aspirations, than the common ‘broad brush’ approach that may have been adopted in the past.

HC: As SAP BusinessObjects is taking off, we are experiencing a shortage of skills in this area. Otherwise the demand/supply situation has remained fairly stable over the last 12 months.

12 Inside SAP magazine

ISAP: What’s the next big thing in enterprise IT? KK & GB: What is extremely clear is that any ‘next big thing’ – be it evolutionary such as the maturing and escalating application of technologies like HANA, on-device mobility and cloud, or indeed revolutionary – must be both enablers and drivers to support organisations’ objectives to adapt to change, competition and complexity. To find out what that enterprise IT agenda is, or put another way, what will drive ‘the next big thing in IT’, IBM recently conducted face-to-face interviews with 3018 CIOs in 71 countries and 18 industries, including 181 respondents from ANZ. Through these conversations and by applying rigorous statistical and textual analysis of CIO responses, we have gained deep insight into the issues that technology leaders are facing and that enterprise IT evolution must address.

The 2011 IBM Global CIO Study that shares this insight is available at www.ibm.com/theessentialcio.

IM: Well we keep being repeatedly told that it is cloud-based services and solutions which will change the way the whole IS market, not just SAP, will be positioned in the market.

So I fully expect that to be the major shift over the next five years. However I do think the pace of adoption to this model is still unclear. The challenge with it is making it a viable business and commercial model which will work for both providers and consumers, not just consumers.

The technology is not an issue, that is already there and will continue to mature, but I am less convinced of the commercial viability for all the stakeholders.

One way that it could get much quicker adoption and market is where generic and non-competitive industry- or sector-wide solutions can be adopted by multiple organisations. This will provide the volume for the commercial viability, and yet also remove any concerns or reservations from a date, security or loss of competitive edge perspective from individual organisations.

Government and the public sector would seem to be a potential target, as would perhaps industry areas such as training and certification, safety, standards adoption or adherence, and so on.

In addition to everything cloud, I believe there will be a continued trend to move enterprise solutions and applications to be more flexibly and specifically consumed to meet individual roles and devices. Therefore there will be a continued increase in deployment of applications and business process to mobile devices, tablets, and so on, where they can be configured at source to fit with an individual’s user interface or usage preference.

I think sustainability is also going to see rapid market growth and increased focus in Australia, with the introduction of the carbon tax, and the various compliance, reporting and financial implications that will have across all organisations over the next three to four years.

HC: In-memory computing.

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

Bill McDermott Interview

View from the top SAP AG co-CEO Bill McDermott visited Australia recently, and Inside SAP had the rare opportunity to sit down with the man himself and get his perspective on his achievements to date in the top job and how an ambitious strategy is paying off. Freya Purnell reports.

FP: How satisfied are you with what’s been achieved so far during your time as co-CEO? BM: I’m very satisfied with what’s been achieved so far.

We are ahead of schedule in terms of our ambitious plan.

At the time Jim and I became co-CEOs, we worked really hard on the strategy of the company, and we set a bold vision that we would be a a20 billion software business by 2015. We said we would have 35 per cent margins and we have a billion people in the world using and loving our software. On all those metrics, we are ahead of schedule.

FP: When you were setting the strategic direction for the company, what were the most challenging parts of that process?

BM: First of all, we became a very successful company doing mySAP or SAP Business Suite. We became very good in 24 industries, that was a great business and it took SAP a very long way. But we realised there is a new world out there, and we have to catch the wave. We did our research and determined that there were three things that were really going to change everything.

One was this idea of big data – the amount of data in the world doubling every 18 months has presented tremendous challenges for businesses, but also great opportunities that they could harness.

The second change is mobility – we saw 6.5 billion mobile workers globally starting to move to the device with applications. This was not only going to change how they behaved in their personal life, but they were also going to bring their own device to work, and it was going to have profound implications on how enterprises and their workers related to each other.

The third thing is the cloud – there was going to be a structural shift in the world from buying more hardware and services to investing in innovation and areas that could actually change the way you run companies.

So we staked our claim on that strategy. In doing so, we actually doubled the addressable market from a $110

billion market to a $220 billion market. Believe me, that changed everything as it opened people’s eyes up to the possibilities.

FP: Looking at the mobility area, that has expanded very quickly. Did you expect that there would be such a strong take-up in the mobile context?

BM: I really did. The research was absolutely unequivocal, and we believed mobility would change everything.

Devices are selling faster than any technology in the history of mankind. So to us, it was perfectly logical that there would need to be an unwired platform software layer that would tie together these workers, these devices and the business process in one structure. We saw every company having a mobile business strategy as a priority, and that’s been true. Also it has to be secure, because you can’t have an enterprise out of control with multiple devices not on a common platform and not secure in today’s world. So we really believed in it right from the start.

www.insidesap.com.au 13

We are going to bet everything we are and everything we do on innovation and we are not going to get distracted by others and their strategy.

FP: How do you think this strategy has changed your position relative to your competitors?

BM: We chose to innovate the future and we really did that in openness with our ecosystem, because we don’t believe that any one company can be all things to all people. So we trusted the ecosystem, we trusted our own ability to innovate and grow our business, and we trusted our customers. We trusted that they wouldn’t be fooled by this idea of ‘wrap and trap’ which others are trying to do with the integrated stack idea. We are going to bet everything we are and everything we do on innovation and we are not going to get distracted by others and their strategy. I think this innovation of the future versus consolidation of the past was a defining factor in putting together the new SAP. Because we could be out there buying legacy companies, firing people, improving our margins on old tired technology, but that’s not going to help our customers move the needle. So we leave that strategy for someone else.

FP: How has your on-premise, on-demand, on-device strategy been received by customers?

BM: One of the big learnings that we have all had, including the SAP executive team, is an appreciation for the consistent core. When you are in the boardroom with CEOs, what they are saying is that the power of SAP is the consistent core, because I can link all the operations of my company, from my supplier network to the way I manufacture goods and services, to the way I govern and manage my finances from a risk and compliance perspective, to the way I relate to my customers and the way I create new strategies. I can connect all these things on an end-to-end basis because SAP made an integrated business process platform tailored to my industry with best business practices, and I leverage that every day I run my company.

14 Inside SAP magazine

We haven’t stopped innovating in this regard. We keep innovating through the enhancement packages. [CEOs] love that, because if you really think about mobility or the real-time enterprise with HANA or even putting things in the cloud, the magic is when you have an end-to-end fully integrated company where everybody works in a disciplined way to deliver value for the customer. So if you don’t have the consistent core, and you have legacy systems or homegrown systems or acquired systems from another company with different code bases, different technologies and they don’t integrate very well, it’s tough to fully leverage the process and the data to outpace your competition. So more and more I think we have learnt how powerful and real the consistent core was.

FP: Are you seeing more willingness to choose SAP for all the different elements such as business intelligence and mobility, or are they still looking at taking a ‘best of breed’ approach, for example?

BM: I think it depends. The best-run businesses have decided to standardise on a common platform, and consolidated the application layer to a consistent core.

If most of the functionality is there, that’s good enough.

Whereas others have chosen to have a ‘best of breed’ approach in some components of the enterprise, and then try to integrate it and see what happens. That’s obviously a viable option – the only thing with that is if you are the CEO, and the sales department is happy because they have the CRM on-demand application that gives them their contacts and their pipeline, but it doesn’t integrate very well into the demand-driven supply chain, clarity around financials, and how you are provisioning services to drive customer loyalty.

The smartest ones seem to see the benefit of an end-toend consistent system, which is why we have come out with on-demand applications of our own. So what we

Bill McDermott Interview

have done is given customers choice. If you want those on-demand applications, we will provide that. They are completely harmonised at the process, data, and security layer with all your consistent core applications and now you can put it all out on device, so it can be best-run across every domain.

FP: What do you see as the main challenges affecting enterprises today?

BM: The bottom line is that they have got to grow. The fact of the matter is I really encourage executives this time around not to be misguided because of the crisis of the moment. We have learnt from past crises that crises don’t last, leaders do. Leaders have a plan, they don’t have excuses.

I encourage executives to invest in the downturn. All the best-run companies, when things are more difficult, invest in their IT and their innovation layer, so when they come out of the crisis, they are much better off, they are much stronger, and they are further ahead than the competition. I think that the economic scenario is going to be challenging at the consumer level, and at the housing level. But businesses have to make smart investments in capital expenditures on things that will make them better, help them run better and be more innovative.

FP: What impact do you think HANA will have on SAP’s footprint and the way customers perceive the company?

BM: It’s breathtaking. First of all, it makes everything so much faster. In boardrooms today, the board of directors get their 17-inch binder FedExed to them ready for their board meeting. Even if they had time to read it all, which they don’t, they wouldn’t. When they get to the meeting, what they really want is to ask very strategic questions on the mission-critical items and they want answers in realtime. So now the CEO can have HANA in the boardroom to ask questions like how are my products selling in Asia?

Why is Brazil not performing as well as New York City on the trade promotion? What product lines are hurting me, which are helping me? Now you can get instantaneous answers from HANA. The other thing that CEOs want to do is look at the sales and operating plan for their company. Let’s just assume they have a new product they are bringing to market. They might ask: “What if we were to get 15 per cent growth out of this new product versus 10 per cent?

Let’s draw that simulation up right now in real time and think about all the scenarios that surround it. If we get an extra five points of growth here, we will have to hire people, we will have to train people, we will have to build out different coverage models and training for our customers, and by the way, our shareholders will get this much more margin and this much more revenue.” This is the kind of planning mix they are going through in real time. In the past, this took them weeks or months.

Sometimes they never got it done – now it’s instantaneous.

A lot of these companies don’t have a good data management strategy. They have a lot of data but it sits in corporate vaults with terabytes of data, but they are not necessarily getting at the data in a framework where they can simply ask a question, they will get immediate answers. HANA does that.

FP: How successful do you think the integration of the Sybase as a company with SAP has been to date, and what are you hearing from customers about that?

BM: I think we made a great move in retaining John Chen and his whole executive management team, and keeping Sybase tied to SAP and our systems, all of our IP, governance and controls so we are two companies moving as one, but also keeping it separate enough where we respected the 70,000 customers that Sybase has. Now, we have an opportunity to, number one, make sure that those customer relationships remain intact and strong without breaking or fragmenting the relationships. We have the up-sell and cross-sell potential because Sybase’s database was not certified on SAP Business Suite, and now it is.

So all the Sybase customers now have choice. I think that helped their customers out and clearly the SAP customers now have choice. Obviously we have HANA, but Sybase also makes a great database – 46 out of the top 50 banks and investment banking firms in the world run Sybase, for example.

So we looked at it in terms of the customer relationship and if we were customers, how would we want to be treated? That’s why we kept the process and systems together, but the customer relationship side separate.

What I hear from customers is that they are more and more interested in mobility, which is why we have one team that sells mobility across both companies. They are more and more interested in knowing what their choices are on the data strategy because they have the Sybase ASE and the IQ and HANA. And now, we are making those messages clear, we have also maintained complete connection with the ecosystem. Customers, though, should have choice. So I think all of those things have really helped us stay true to the strategy, which is innovation-based open network system, and being completely obsessed with what the customer wants.

FP: So that’s a different approach to what you did with BusinessObjects, isn’t it?

BM: Yes. FP: Why is that?

BM: One is a practical reason. BusinessObjects had 17 per cent margins. So if your company has 31 per cent margins, and you are acquiring a company that has 17 per cent margins, if you don’t find synergies in the business case you would be acquiring a company that would be

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Bill McDermott Interview

There is no reason SAP shouldn’t be considered the Apple of the business software industry in terms of its ability to innovate and delight customers with a user experience that’s unmatched in the industry. very dilutive to your financial picture. So there was a practical reason for integrating BusinessObjects. Sybase had margins that were commensurate with SAP’s. So on a practical basis, that’s just a fact of finance.

The other piece was that I think we learned from BusinessObjects that these companies have very important relationship functions, they have different selling functions, they have different relationship styles, and in some ways, they might even have certain entrepreneurial qualities that you want to maintain. So it’s finding that right balance between being together and yet at the same time, being innovative and creating value for customers.

FP: Looking at BusinessObjects, Sybase, HANA, all these different strings to the bow for SAP, does that involve a recalibration of how SAP as a company thinks about itself?

BM: Absolutely. That’s why we believe this innovation strategy is the right one. Because you have your consistent core which we expect to grow solidly for many, many years to come. If you look at BRIC, if you look at fastmoving markets all around the world, they haven’t necessarily made the transition to the consistent core.

In the States or even UK or France or Australia or even Germany, there are some companies that have not standardised everything on SAP. So there will be plenty of room to grow out the consistent core.

But then you get HANA – real in-memory computing is going to completely transform the IT industry. You add on mobility, which is the fastest growing technology in terms of sales in the world, and then you add the cloud into the equation, where it’s not just our cloud with Business ByDesign, but we are also supporting everyone else’s cloud. For example, IBM chose to support SAP CRM with a rapid deployment solution, which it provisions to customers in 30 days or less at economics that are lower than the price point of software-as-a-service providers. So this is super-exciting.

FP: What’s your vision for the future of SAP? BM: Unlimited. I think the bottom line is that SAP needs to recognise that we can and will be the most innovative business software company in the world. By doing this well, in areas such as in-memory computing, mobility, the cloud, all leveraging the consistent core, there is no reason that SAP shouldn’t be considered the Apple of the business software industry in terms of its ability to innovate and

16 Inside SAP magazine

delight customers with a user experience that’s unmatched in the industry.

Looking at the kind of people we have attracted to the company, it’s become the place to be. I just met with 35 students that come from the best universities all over the world, and they said, “I came to SAP, I could have gone to very well-known Silicon Valley companies, and I really wanted to be at SAP.” I asked them why, and they said, “If you look at it, 50 per cent of the revenue streams of SAP are in the bank because of the consistent core. The new areas, whether it’s mobile, in-memory computing, or the cloud are completely disruptive to the status quo. Yet, you disrupt things without disruption.” It’s innovation without disruption because it’s all bolted on to the consistent core, and that’s what they find to be super-cool. You get the stability of success but you get the innovation that goes along with disruption and new ways of doing good work, and I think that’s why we are going to be around for a long, long time.

FP: Are there any gaps in the solution set that you still want to fill or other acquisitions you have your eye on?

BM: Every day you want to fill more and more. Innovation is a race without a finish line. So we will continue to build out our own organic innovation, always building functionality into industry and small, medium and large businesses. We also have a tremendous ecosystem.

For example, in mobility we have literally the biggest systems integrators in the world, whether they are in India, Asia, the United States, Latin America or Europe.

They are basically building mobile applications on top of devices standardising on the Sybase Unwired platform.

We love it when the ecosystem develops SAP as their standard because they create new markets for us as well as for them. It would be just wonderful to see so many entrepreneurs get the hang of it, that SAP is the standard and open, and they can innovate on top. So our own functionality plus what they do is going to take us to new heights.

Now, we do M&A; we have not shied away from it in the past when we saw something that could move the company forward, where it was truly a breakthrough innovation, it would make us number one in the category and we could do something very, very special. Those are not easy to find, but if we run across one, I don’t think we would be shy.

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THOUGHT LEADER

It’s a whole new world Hands up all those who have used Facebook or LinkedIn? Have an iPad? Dabbled in Google Docs?

There is transformational change afoot in the way consumers use IT, and companies should be taking advantage of these trends, according to enterprise strategist and disruptive technologies expert Ray Wang.

The enterprise software you’re currently using was probably best practice when it was designed in the 1980s and implemented throughout the 1990s and 2000s, but in the meantime a huge shift in how and where we work has occurred, according to Constellation Research Group CEO and principal analyst Ray Wang, who spoke at the SAUG Summit 2011.

“Enterprises face massive and unprecedented levels of change,” he said. “You are now dealing with five generations of workers who all have different perspectives on how they expect information to get to them, and what interfaces they use. Don’t forget that, because it changes how we adopt technology and how we put it to use.”

Business models are also being shaken up – just as selling laptops is not about the machines themselves, but getting the service contract to support and maintain them, the same thing is now happening to enterprise software in a “freemium” world.

For businesses, with such rapid change in technology adoption, planning is also nigh on impossible, and long-term business planning should be scrapped in favour or iterative strategy development, according to Wang.

“Three years ago, you wouldn’t have envisaged two Harvard kids would be in a dorm room going to create Facebook and taking over the world in social media. You just can’t plan for these things,” he said.

Against this backdrop, consumers are becoming used to a phenomenal IT experience in their personal lives, and a much less satisfactory one when they get to work.

“IT that I can procure as an individual is much better than what can be provided by the business,” Wang said.

In many cases, people from the business side are now bypassing IT altogether and taking matters into their own hands. While technology spending is up 22 per cent across the organisation, often it is not IT who is making these purchases.

The rise in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has made it easy for others to BYO solutions.

So what is the answer? Wang said there are five consumer trends dominating IT in the enterprise at the moment: mobile enterprise, social business, cloud computing, advanced analytics,

and video and unified communications.

“It’s about taking these great disruptive technologies, these great consumerisation of IT elements and finding the business value, and then work out how you can pay for it,” Wang said.

With so many consumer IT developments catching the attention of individuals, organisations also need to take what they can from the buzz and adapt it to the enterprise environment.

“There is a freemium component out there and we need to find out how to get that goodness into the enterprise,” he said.

Organisations should now be asking how they can use new technologies from SAP, such as HANA, Business ByDesign and Gateway, to get the information they have in their system out and to use it in new ways.

“This is the stuff that shifts things from just being departmental IT and takes the business where it wants to go.”

The future will see the rise of engagement apps – or in SAP parlance, “people-centric applications”. They will be role-based, offer a rich user interface, be context-aware, have a business process focus, and connected to enable collaboration. While this might be five or 10 years away, how do organisations move to this exciting new environment from where they are today, bogged down with old, complex, inflexible systems? And perhaps more importantly, should they start down this path at all?

“It’s our job to figure out what makes sense for our organisation with a sense of business value. But you have to dream a bit and share with the business side of the house so they know you are thinking about this and can plan accordingly, so we can map these things out,” Wang said.

“Business has to get work done, and IT has to create efficiencies and standardisation. You can’t have one without the other, but you have to do it in a way that if you go so far ahead on the business side, people don’t collapse under the weight of all these applications and all this disparateness, but it is not so standardised that the business reaches a point of frustration and goes out and make their own decisions. That’s the lesson learned here from the consumerisation of IT.” With four paths to optimising an SAP landscape – staying with the status quo, upgrading to new SAP, freezing the old SAP and augment it with ‘best of breed’ products, or modernise SAP and add best of breed – Wang challenged organisations to think about which option will best suit the pace of change in the business.

“Think about the partnership back to the business. It’s more important than ever, not only for funding, but also in terms of business strategy.”

Ray Wang was a keynote presenter at the SAUG Summit 2011 in Sydney. Visit www.saug.com.au for information on upcoming events.

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SAP awards CUSTOMER AWARDS

SAP honours customers and partners in 2011 awards The annual SAP Customer Awards of Excellence celebrate the success of SAP customers and partners, and with over 100 submissions received, the 2011 awards were the most hotly contested yet.

The winners of this year’s SAP Customer Awards of Excellence were announced on 20 August at the Sydney Opera House.

Introduced in 2001, the awards have showcased many outstanding SAP implementations that have successfully aligned IT with business strategies and recognised the key role played by SAP partners.

Past winners have included companies of all sizes and industries including retail, mining, utilities, consumer products, agriculture, financial services and insurance.

Submissions were judged by an independent panel, which included Tim Ebbeck, president and CEO, SAP Australia and New Zealand (SAP ANZ); Brett Proposch, IT application manager, Officeworks Superstores; Stephen Phillips, CIO, Transfield Services and Nicole Kennedy, delivery assurance director, SAP ANZ. The judging criteria included the customer’s effective use of resources; their relationship with the implementation partner and SAP; their ability to understand and adapt to changing market conditions; and the achievement of set business objectives.

There were 19 categories in the 2011 awards, and the winners were: Best Business Intelligence Solution Customer: Transfield Services Limited Partner: Innogence Project: PIFO Budget and Forecast, PIFO Management Information Reporting Best BI with Channel Partner Customer: Clifford Hallam Healthcare Partner: Avantis Information Systems Project: CH2 Gateway

Partner: Air New Zealand Project: LMMP and Customer: Jemena and United Energy Partner: Accenture Project: SmartNet Program Best Run Finance Customer: AGL Energy Limited Partner: Tata Consultancy Services Project: Revitalising Business Systems Best SAP ERP (Dual winners) Customer: Auckland Council Partner: Deloitte NZ Project: Auckland Council/ATA ERP Project and Customer: Origin Partner: Wipro Project: Retail Transformation Best SAP ERP with Channel Partner Customer: Pacific Hydro Investments Pty Ltd Partner: Oxygen Business Solutions Project: Project Fundacion Best SAP NetWeaver Customer: Australian Broadcasting Corporation Partner: Stream Technologies Project: eProcurement in the SAP NetWeaver Portal

Best CRM Customer: Integria Healthcare Pty Ltd Partner: Oxygen Business Solutions Project: Sales Enablement Project

Best SAP Upgrade (Dual winners) Customer: National Australia Bank Partner: Infosys Australia Project: NAB SAP Upgrade Project and Customer: Ausgrid Partner: Fujitsu Australia Project: Ausgrid SAP Upgrade Project

Best Innovation (Dual winners) Customer: Air New Zealand

Best Value Realisation Customer: Department of Immigration and Citizenship

18 Inside SAP magazine

Partner: Plaut IT Australia Project: Revenue Receipting Project Best Visibility Customer: QR Limited Partner: SAP Consulting Project: Group Reporting Solution CEO Award Customer: Commonwealth Bank of Australia Partner: Accenture Project: Core Banking Modernisation Best Project Manager Winner: Nina Genikis Project: Ausgrid SAP Upgrade Project Best Solution Architect Winner: Colin Davidson Project: Pepsico Australia/New Zealand trANZform

Clockwise from top left: The team from TATA Consultancy Services and AGL Energy accept their award from SAP ANZ CEO Tim Ebbeck; CBA’s Dave Curran accepting the CEO Award; representatives of Accenture with Ebbeck; the team from Air New Zealand; the team from Integria Healthcare and Oxygen Business Solutions.

Best Project Sponsor (Dual) Winner: Frank Calabria/Phil Craig/Olaf Pietschner Project: Origin Retail Transformation Project and Winner: Hugh Gleeson and Cameron Dorse Project: Jemena and United Energy SmartNet Program

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TOP 10 2011 MOST INFLUENTIAL

Top 10 Most Influential 2011 Now in its third year, the Inside SAP Top 10 Most Influential People in SAP seeks to identify the top influencers in the SAP ecosystem, as voted by our readership. This year, we introduced new categories for different types of influencers – Community, Partners and Project Leaders. Freya Purnell profiles the Top 10.

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

He began last year as infrastructure architect at Australia Post, but with the projects he had been working on going live and shifting into production support, he was ready for a change.

So joining boutique consulting company Acclimation as NetWeaver practice lead was the perfect choice – not only was de Thomasis responsible for building a team from the ground up, but he is now engaged in spreading knowledge and best practices with customers worldwide, and installing cloud-based demonstration systems for NetWeaver solutions.

De Thomasis is perhaps best-known for his work as a passionate SAP evangelist. He is a platinum contributor to the SDN, and was its number one Australian contributor in 2010. He is also an SAP Mentor, spoke at numerous SAP events including SAP TechEd Las Vegas and the SAUG Summit, and wrote many articles and webblog entries for various industry publications.

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

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

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

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

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

In 2010, Hawking initiated a number of activities to give students practical experience with SAP, including the Australian Universities SAP Dashboard competition, and a supply chain simulation game.

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

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

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

Hawking’s influence crosses many boundaries – he utilised his curriculum knowledge in his role designing and advising on content for more than 120 industry presentations at five different SAUG events last year.

He presented to the SAUG CIO Council on skills shortages, gave workshops for other academics in Germany, India, Singapore and Beijing, co-authored several industry reports

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TOP 10 2011 MOST INFLUENTIAL and book chapters on business intelligence, and was a prolific blogger and contributor on the SAP Community Network, particularly explaining how material from SAP can be used in the university classroom.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To generate project ideas, Templeton says he spends time looking at trends in the Java and the .NET spaces, which tend to be ahead of SAP, as well as talking to people in different organisations and industries to find out what their struggles and pain points are.

“For example, there’s a lot of talk at the moment about web 3.0 and semantics, and you think, how would that work for SAP? Then you talk to people about building proof of concepts and then projects, and it goes from there,” Templeton says.

“Once upon a time, SAP was very much about putting it in and configuring it. Now it’s a much more sophisticated

platform. If you take away the Business Suite side and just look at the NetWeaver stack underneath, a lot of the problems you may not have been able to answer once with SAP, you certainly can do now.”

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

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

The secret was keeping it simple at first.

“We implemented a very standard vanilla SAP environment, and only in the last couple of years have we started to add the bells and whistles that leverage this investment and the sometimes challenging first couple of years after implementing SAP,” Stone says. Then two years ago, a new managing director at ASICS Oceania made IT a strategic pillar of the business.

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

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

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

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

At the same time, we have had the stability of long-term strategic partner Fujitsu, for larger business-critical projects such as GRC,” Stone says.

When it comes to getting business buy-in, he is an advocate of driving innovation as part of a measured risk approach.

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TOP 10

MOST INFLUENTIAL 2011

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

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

The sale went through on 1 March 2011, with the network distribution business that was retained rebranded to AUSGrid. Among the preparation required was the consolidation of the organisation’s data centres to two Tier 3 data centres, as well as an IT security program. However Kennedy says the organisation also managed to undertake a major SAP program and successfully deploy a range of SAP initiatives.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TAMS was originally established in 2006 to focus on consulting specifically for the infrastructure, services, mining and capital-intensive industries.

All this activity has seen Keith Wallis, head of solution strategy and development, maintain a high profile in the SAP community.

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

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TOP 10 2011 MOST INFLUENTIAL the company is building up a solid pipeline of projects all over the world in this area.

Work has also been devoted to getting the TAMS Integrated Solutions Map in place. The roadmap is a combination of standard and enhanced SAP solutions, to be supported in the near future by applications for the iPad. Wallis says they also completed development of an enhanced SAP Project Portfolio Management solution, which integrates the capital planning process with the SAP PPM module, and have prototyped a solution aimed at integrating manufacturing processes with the SAP Project System module.

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

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

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

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

“SAP-based businesses have a different relationship with their customer’s businesses. They are much closer to a customer’s strategy, processes and users, rather than just their technology.

This influences the type of skills you need. As an example, Plaut has more business professionals than pure technical professionals,” Alder says.

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

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

“We partner with some organisations to provide a service to customers and sometimes we will compete with them. But it is all done with an openness and transparency and with a focus on what is right for the customer. I’ve not seen a lot of this level of partnering in the IT community,” Alder says.

He believes we’re currently on the threshold of a massive change in the way customers use IT. “For many years, IT has in many cases failed to deliver on its promise to the end business user. But through the evolution of technology, through virtualisation and on-demand technology, through the ubiquitous nature of mobility, and the ability to be able to genuinely capture and deliver real-time information, there is a profound transformation occurring in the intimacy and value of IT to customers,” Alder says.

“SAP is at the heart of a customer’s business processes, so it is key in this transformation. It has moved from being a backoffice enablement tool, to being a genuine business enabler to the end consumer of IT.” Bala Kalimuthu, Revolution IT LeasePlan, Victoria Police, Australia Post, Officeworks, Connect East, AWB, George Weston Foods, DHS Victoria, Fonterra, Komatsu, GPT and Carter Holt Harvey – these are just some of the customers software testing and application quality management solutions provider Revolution IT’s SAP practice worked with in 2010, led by Bala Kalimuthu, SAP practice principal.

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

Kalimuthu says there were a number of project highlights during 2010, including providing 15 SAP quality assurance consultants to work with LeasePlan on the streamlining of its SAP application landscape.

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

Given that independent quality assurance is a reasonably new

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TOP 10 2011 MOST INFLUENTIAL

and niche consulting space, getting out into the community has been an “absolutely essential” part of Kalimuthu’s role.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“SAP has no longer got the headspace and the bandwidth to actually front a lot of these solutions alone, so they are looking

to partners more and more to help find markets for sales, and actually convert customers to products,” he says.

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

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

Stephen Hopkins, HCL AXON (Since the Top 10 was determined, Hopkins has left HCL AXON and joined Plaut IT.) Stephen Hopkins, consulting director, HCL AXON also appears on our Top 10 list for the third year running.

In 2010, the company had just completed the merger between HCL Technologies and AXON Solutions, with all the attendant upheaval. This year Hopkins says the focus shifted to growing the Australian SAP consulting team, with a growth rate of 100 per cent achieved during the year.

From a project perspective, HCL AXON completed a large implementation for Ramsay Healthcare, installing SAP ECC6 across 70 sites.

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

During 2010, Hopkins observed clients becoming more mature in their own SAP knowledge and support.

“One thing we’ve noticed is a lot of smaller, sharper projects that are helping enable some specific benefits in the business, rather than a wall-to-wall SAP implementation. They’re trying to pick little areas, such as reporting through business intelligence and BusinessObjects, CRM, logistics, portals, and web-enabling SAP access for customers. So there is more focus on small projects, but projects which are strategic to the business and deliver some benefits.

“Once customers have SAP in place, the next step is to keep fine-tuning and enabling the business to do better. People want to get more out of the system.”

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The Top 10 Most Influential first appeared in the March 2011 edition of Inside SAP.

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Salary survey CAREERS

SAP salaries: the bananas of the IT world There seems to be no let-up in demand for SAP professionals. But could the industry be headed for another resourcing crisis? Freya Purnell reports.

Fruit prices might have gone up 2 or 3 per cent this year, but in the last six months, the price of bananas have increased by 400 per cent. That’s a bit like SAP salaries.

Peoplebank CEO Peter Acheson says SAP professionals are in very strong demand, being driven by an increasingly broad roll-out of SAP solutions across major sectors.

“Salaries and contracting rates year-on-year are up over 10 per cent roughly. That is nearly two and a half times the overall IT salary increase,” Acheson says.

Everjoy managing director Adrian Everett has also observed very strong market conditions across the board over the last 12-18 months, with a robust increase in demand across industries and locations.

“The difficulty really is the age-old problem of quality candidate supply,” he says.

He believes that despite global economic uncertainty, confidence has improved in the Australian market.

“They are not taking disruptions to heart as quickly as they have in the past, and they are also remembering the reasons for taking on SAP projects in the first place,” Everett says.

“So whether it’s process efficiency or increasing mobility solutions to drive sales through a mid-level workforce, overall people are seeing the benefit of continuing their SAP projects regardless of market or international impact.”

Sector by sector In line with the themes of Australia’s two-speed economy, the strongest sectors for SAP salaries are resources and the public sector, with utilities and financial services also supporting demand.

“The resources sector has stepped back into the market and is very, very active in terms of hiring IT people in general but also SAP people,” Acheson says.

“We are seeing a large market growth for the bigger-end projects from the likes of Defence, BHP, and Rio, which are taking massive numbers of resources on high rates and for very long periods of time, which is creating a gap in the rest of the market,” Everett says.

In financial services, the Commonwealth Bank core banking modernisation project over the last few years has sucked some SAP skills out of the market as well.

In addition to these large projects, many organisations are implementing smaller projects such as mobility, business intelligence (BI) and SAP BusinessObjects Planning and In addition to these large projects, many organisations are implementing smaller projects such as mobility, business intelligence (BI) and SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation (BPC) solutions, according to Everett.

Acheseon agrees. “In a lot of instances, companies may have installed SAP five years ago but they are adding functionality to the core platform. Essentially, it’s a combination of new implementations and progressive upgrading of the platforms.”

In terms of functional areas, GRC and security, BI and BPC are all hotspots.

“We are also getting massive demand for traditional HR/ Payroll skills across a range of industries, for CRM and mobility solutions, especially Portal solutions, and backend FI/CO. Everyone is engaged and there is plenty of opportunity,” Everett says.

With a swag of new technology developments, SAP professionals will do well to take note of what the next big thing will be.

“The buzz is all about HANA. We will see how SAP goes to market with that in the next 12 months, but I think this push by SAP has really enhanced that BI demand and the presence of BI solutions in the forefront of the CIO’s mind.

Then mobility, particularly with the acquisition of Sybase, will be the future of SAP for the next few years,” Everett says.

A bare market With a shortage of good SAP people, the classic laws of supply and demand are now operating in the Australian market to push up salaries for both permanent staff and contractors.

Organisations are looking to mitigate risks with permanent salaries containing an at-risk component, according to Everett, but contractor rates are “a little bit out of control”.

“They are increasing potentially to levels which aren’t necessarily sustainable,” Everett says, adding that they are pushing even higher than before the GFC. “In particular locations people are taking advantage of shortages – in Canberra and Perth certainly people are almost exorbitantly increasing their rates. I think on the whole there is a lot more activity from the consultants in terms of realising the demand that was out there. We are seeing an increasing willingness to move and change roles,” Everett says. “So we have seen instances where people are leaving projects earlier or not seeing their contracts through, which is obviously disruptive to the current employer. There is a trend of people moving simply for a few extra dollars, which is not ideal.”

www.insidesap.com.au 27

Salary survey CAREERS

Everett says Australia and New Zealand companies are still looking overseas rather than taking on junior staff, particularly given the relative attractiveness of the Australian economic climate. There is currently a focus on US citizens and even expats returning to Australia.

“Obviously it’s an uncertain market over there at the moment, and with the dollar at or above parity, so it is quite appealing for them to come to Australia,” Everett says.

Making the most of the current conditions So if you have those coveted SAP skills, what can you do to capitalise on these conditions? Before you start rubbing your hands together, make sure your skills are bang up to date.

“One of the things we always recommend is that people continue to invest in their development and be exposed to the new modules of SAP so that they remain current and therefore strongly marketable,” Acheson says.

“That progressive ongoing training is really important, and it is something that often gets forgotten when we’re in strong markets. Invariably what can happen is if the technology and software has moved on and you haven’t kept current, you could end up in an environment where it can be difficult to find work and you can’t command the value that perhaps you could in the past.”

Acheson also recommends keeping an ear to the ground on which customers have major SAP implementations underway, and which modules of SAP they’re implementing.

“If you’re been working for three or four years on a particular module or version, you can expose yourself to one of the newer modules and then target employers you know are doing projects in that area.”

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

Peoplebank Salary Survey: SAP professionals – September 2011 Permanent Salaries

Contract Rates

Junior

Intermediate

Senior

SAP ABAP

$65,000

$95,000

$120,000

SAP Basis Administrator

$60,000

$100,000

$120,000

$600

$800

SAP Functional

$70,000

$100,000

$130,000

$750

$1,200

NSW

VIC

From

To

Per day

Per day

$600

$800

Per day

Per day

SAP ABAP

$65,000

$90,000

$120,000

$650

$800

SAP Basis Administrator

$85,000

$110,000

$130,000

$650

$800

SAP Functional

$85,000

$105,000

$130,000

$650

$1,000

ACT SAP ABAP

$70,000

$90,000

$125,000

SAP Basis Administrator

$70,000

$80,000

$95,000

SAP Functional

$68,000

$90,000

$120,000

$65,000

$75,000

$100,000

WA SAP ABAP

Per hour

Per hour

$60

$100

SAP Basis Administrator

$65,000

$80,000

$110,000

$60

$100

SAP Functional

$80,000

$110,000

$140,000

$80

$125

Per hour

Per hour

QLD SAP ABAP

$75,000

$95,000

$110,000

SAP Basis Administrator

$60,000

$75,000

$100,000

SAP Functional

$85,000

$100,000

$130,000

SA SAP ABAP

$70,000

$90,000

$115,000

$50

$90

SAP Basis Administrator

$70,000

$95,000

$120,000

$70

$100

SAP Functional

$70,000

$100,000

$150,000

$65

$130

28 Inside SAP magazine

The international perspective Panaya’s 2011 SAP Salary Survey gives a view on what’s happening globally.

Conducted online, results are grouped into US, Europe and the Rest of the World.

Across all locations, median salaries are highest for those working for high tech and healthcare companies, while the lowest medians are for those working in retail, public sector and energy and utilities.

The median salary for SAP professionals employed by companies based in North America is over 20 per cent higher than the median salary for those working for companies based in Europe and the Rest of the World.

Outside North America and Europe, SAP professionals working for systems integrators have significantly lower salaries than their counterparts who work for SAP customers.

While across the globe, the median salary of respondents working for SAP customers rises with the number of SAP professionals working for the company, the median salary of SAP partners and integrators is the highest at companies with 1-10 SAP professionals.

Overall the picture was far more optimistic than in recent years, with 60 per cent of respondents reporting an increase in their 2010 earnings compared to 2009.

This is a major change from the prior year, when only 32 per cent saw a salary increase.

Over half the respondents (58 per cent) received a bonus in 2010, with the average bonus being 11 per cent of compensation, and 65 per cent of respondents expected an increase in their salaries for 2011.

performance Technology

Ensuring high performance from your SAP investment

By Rafi Katanasho Many organisations make significant investments in SAP to run their business processes. Realising the expected return on investment requires effective implementation projects to install and customise SAP, and a commensurate effort to ensure optimal performance, availability and usage.

All SAP users in all locations must have the performance and availability needed to get their jobs done efficiently and effectively. On occasion, when performance might be less optimal, users have sometimes relied on traditional manual processes that existed before the application was implemented. This, in turn, can impact the overall return on investment from implementing SAP. However, while some industry monitoring tools claim to monitor, measure and report on the performance of SAP applications, they don’t actually provide insight into performance and availability from the end-user perspective. Meeting the demands of the business means capturing SAP performance in a way that gives a true picture of the end-user experience.

In many businesses, IT operations and application teams struggle to gain visibility into the performance of key end-user transactions from locations that utilise SAP R/3 and NetWeaver. IT is flying blind about what services are being impacted when service performance degrades. This results in time-consuming and ineffective communication across teams to determine what the issues are and to fix problems quickly.

In effect, there are specific questions you need answers to if you are to effectively manage the performance and availability of SAP solutions. These include: yy Are SAP users experiencing performance problems?

How many and where? yy What transactions are affected? yy What locations were affected by SAP performance problems? Is the network impacted? yy What tiers of SAP applications are contributing to poor end-user performance? yy How are SAP transactions performing on the application servers? Is the problem in the application logic, the system resources or the database? yy Did a recent SAP transport cause performance issues?

Was the ABAP code optimised? yy How are the service level agreements and other support service requirements being monitored and reported?

When IT organisations are faced with a number of simultaneous issues within SAP, they must ensure they

focus on the issues that impact the business the most, rather than looking at the issue from an infrastructure perspective. Prioritising issues based on end-user experience measurements enables teams to act quickly to the most pressing business problems first.

Having real-time visibility into the information needed to answer these questions is essential to identifying and diagnosing performance problems. Being able to quickly isolate the source of problems is critical, so the right people responsible for the specific tier within the SAP architecture can be quickly notified to tackle problems.

This includes insight into the performance of the tiers in the architecture, the health of the components and the application infrastructure that hosts those components.

In addition, IT teams should not stop at the architecture or component level. The network itself is an important factor in this assessment, requiring deep analysis of bandwidth usage or network latency separate from server processing time. Without specific analysis views to drill down into the probable causes of the performance issues, communication across IT and SAP application teams becomes difficult and slows problem resolution.

At the same time, all SAP stakeholders need clear visibility into application performance from the end-user’s perspective. Without visibility there is no way to validate end-user complaints about application ‘slowness’ or check whether performance-tuning efforts bring the desired effect – do they benefit end-users? Furthermore, existing SAP application performance measurements, using internal log data collection methods, do not reflect the end-user experience, but rather the internal interactions of application components.

While SAP applications are constantly evolving, you need to communicate any impacts of application changes in a language business managers understand, not as mysterious T-codes.

Given the variety of technical components, there is a high degree of complexity involved when ensuring a strong SAP performance. However, the technical architecture is only one part; complexity can also be found on the application level.

To help settle the score, you may well want to review solutions which provide the monitoring and views that enable all roles to manage and report information quickly and make the right decisions on business issues that are critical to the bottom line.

Rafi Katanasho is ANZ director, application performance management for Compuware. This article is sponsored by Compuware.

www.insidesap.com.au 29

Why upgrade?

TECHNOLOGY

Why upgrade?

The benefits of modernising your SAP platform SAP is consistently making new business and technical capabilities available for its customers. But are you ready to take advantage of these new innovations, or could your SAP infrastructure benefit from a spring clean?

Innovation, innovation, innovation If you’ve attended any of the SAP events this year, be it SAPPHIRE NOW, any of the Mastering SAP conferences, or the recent World Tour, there is one word that SAP keeps repeating over and over – and that is innovation. Sometimes it is “innovation without disruption”, and sometimes it’s “game-changing innovation”, but one thing is being made very clear – SAP is consistently making new business and technical capabilities available for its customers.

So why is now the right time for organisations to modernise their SAP landscape? Because, in the last few months, there has been a slew of new releases that affect almost every area of the SAP portfolio. This includes Business Suite Innovations 2010, NetWeaver 7.3, Solution Manager 7.1, Sybase Unwired Platform 2.0, HANA 1.0, BusinessObjects Business Intelligence 4.0 and Gateway 2.0.

For the customers we talk to, many business process owners have already identified a long list of process improvements that could be realised using one or more of these new releases. However, taking advantage of these releases can be a time-consuming and expensive process, particularly if organisations don’t have the right platform in place before they start.

Selecting the ‘best’ SAP platform SAP software generally supports a very wide range of different platforms (that is, the hardware, operating systems and databases that support SAP systems). So how does an organisation determine the ‘best’ platform for its SAP landscape? In a nutshell, the right platform should provide the required availability, flexibility and scalability, while at the same time reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the SAP investment.

For many SAP customers, the choice of platform on which to run SAP was made a long time ago, when SAP was first introduced to their organisation. Once made, the choice of platform is rarely revisited. However, this may be a lost opportunity. When looking at making significant changes to an SAP landscape, it is worth asking: is this still the best platform?

Infrastructure/virtualisation Recent advances in processing power and improved support for virtualisation mean SAP landscapes can now be delivered

30 Inside SAP magazine

using less physical infrastructure, with corresponding savings in hardware, data centre costs and power consumption.

Virtualisation offers a great deal of flexibility, allowing resources to be shared and prioritised to enable more efficient use of what is available to the organisation.

A virtualised infrastructure also simplifies the process of creating temporary systems (for example, a sandpit system to test a support package/enhancement package), meaning these systems no longer need to be a permanent part of the SAP landscape, and can simply be created and deleted as required. A good infrastructure/virtualisation approach can also deliver server high-availability for all your SAP systems, without the complexity of installing and managing this at the SAP application layer.

Licensing costs Licensing costs for software that SAP depends on, such as operating systems and database systems, can also contribute significantly to TCO for an SAP landscape. It is worth reviewing how this software is licensed and whether there are other more cost-effective alternatives. Understanding the licensing model for this software can also assist in determining the most appropriate strategy for infrastructure/ virtualisation.

In addition to ongoing cost savings, moving to a more costeffective platform may also allow for improved alignment with organisational IT strategy and consolidation of required skills.

Database compression The latest releases of database systems offer compression to significantly reduce the disk storage for SAP solutions.

Database size reductions of between 50-75 per cent are typically observed when compression is applied. This translates into immediate cost savings and can provide new perspectives on other activities such as archiving, or production copies.

While the advanced forms of database compression do result in increases to CPU usage, it has been observed that system performance typically improves overall, as these increases are more than offset by the dramatic reduction in Disk I/O.

Storage solutions Another platform area, often overlooked for SAP landscapes,

is that of storage solutions. Working in conjunction with virtualisation technologies, the latest storage solutions can allow standby disaster recovery (DR) systems to simultaneously be used as active test systems, without impairing their ability to be used for DR, if required. This can further simplify the SAP landscape, and remove the need for dedicated pre-production test environments, which are regularly copied from production.

Disk storage requirements can also be significantly reduced through de-duplication, which allows duplicate data that is stored by multiple systems to be physically only stored once. This significantly reduces the overhead of repeatedly storing the same files, such as operating system or SAP binaries.

Deployment For many SAP customers, particularly larger organisations, the platform for their SAP landscape can be shared with other enterprise applications to achieve further economies of scale.

For these customers, an on-premise deployment or a dedicated outsourcing arrangement often delivers the best value.

However, for some SAP customers, the cost of delivering the best platform just for their SAP landscape can outweigh the benefits. For these customers it is worth considering an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) model, where the required infrastructure is leased as required. This approach delivers enterprise class infrastructure, but without large upfront capital costs and ongoing management issues. It also provides the flexibility to add (or remove) additional capacity based on requirements, and organisations only pay for what they use.

Alternatively, organisations can go a step further and lease not only infrastructure, but also SAP software maintenance and updates in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. SaaS offerings are available for traditional SAP Business Suite applications, as well as for SAP Business ByDesign, which has been recently released in Australia.

No single deployment strategy is appropriate for all situations, and it is likely that a hybrid approach consisting of on-premise, outsourced, IaaS and SaaS software are integrated to deliver the best value and flexibility for SAP customer.

Support Finally, exploring ways to better manage SAP support resources should also be considered. Outsourcing or cosourcing a portion of an organisation’s SAP support may be a more cost-efficient dynamic, particularly for customers using a broad range of SAP modules. Keeping permanent in-house support across a wide spectrum of functionality is expensive to maintain, whereas using a partner to provide expert support resources, which only have to be paid for when they are used, is a more cost-effective approach.

Many organisations will find that by modernising their SAP infrastructure they will not only be able to able to

innovate, but will be able to take cost out of their day-today operations. The rapid advance of computing power and sophistication, combined with the availability of commodity hardware and standardised software provides an opportunity for a technology refresh that may save significant amounts of money.

This article is sponsored by Oxygen Business Solutions and IBM.

Moving SAP customers onto a more cost-effective IBM platform Oxygen has successfully delivered the migration of multiple SAP Business Suite solutions into a new IBM environment comprising POWER7 hardware, AIX operating system and DB2 database. In addition to reducing the cost of software licenses, the migration has also delivered database compression, providing a reduction of more than 50 per cent in database disk storage.

This not only delivers improved performance, but further reduces costs associated with server hardware and data storage.

Brick Consulting Group Pty Ltd SAP Recruitment Specialists P: +61 3 90958661 E: info@brick-consulting.com W: www.brick-consulting.com

35

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

Case studies From ERP to BI, and process automation to hardware, these case studies showcase recent SAP projects and engagements Australia and around the world.

35 Taming the beast: OrotonGroup 38 Restoring data integrity: Eli Lilly

40

44

40 Bright sparks successfully engaged: ElectraNet 41 Overcoming the tyranny of distance: Water Corporation of WA 44 Keeping it simple: Valley Longwall International 46 World-class shared service powered by worldclass software: Orica 48 A peerless platform: Peerless Clothing 49 From financial services to natural resources: recent projects by CSC

46

www.compuware.com/insidesap

CASESTUDY OrotonGroup

Taming the beast Luxury fashion retailer OrotonGroup was struggling with the cost of SAP, the value it was providing and user satisfaction. But a renewed commitment to the system and some very focused projects have turned things around, as Freya Purnell discovers.

Background OrotonGroup was founded in Sydney in 1938, and consists of two brands: Oroton, the luxury accessories brand which is now expanding internationally, and Ralph Lauren, for which it has held an international licence for Australia and New Zealand for over 20 years.

The group is listed on the ASX, and has around 80 stores across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Malaysia, with around 600 staff. It operates the full range of retail stores – including full price stores, factory outlets, concession stores within department stores, wholesale and an e-commerce site for Oroton.

The company’s revenues have grown from just over $100 million in 2006 to $145 million in the 2010 financial year.

Net profit after tax has grown from $8 million in 2006 to $23 million in 2010.

Larry Neimann, IT manager at OrotonGroup, says the company originally implemented SAP R/3 4.6C in late 2004.

“There were challenges with SAP in that implementation, it wasn’t an easy go-live,” Neimann says.

At the time, the group also owned Marcs, Morrissey and Aldo Shoes, but in 2006, the decision was made to divest those brands and return to the core brands of Oroton and Ralph Lauren.

In 2007, shortly after he joined the company, Neimann was given a mandate to review whether the group should continue to run SAP or use a different system.

Getting the right support Also in 2007, OrotonGroup stopped supporting SAP inhouse and instead outsourced the SAP environment to CIBER – resulting in a decrease in operating costs over a three-year period. Within the IT team at OrotonGroup, there are now no SAP or Basis experts.

This process wasn’t without its teething problems – while initially all change requests were made by email, CIBER set

up a helpdesk system to process all requests through tickets, increasing visibility and productivity in the process.

“That’s been really beneficial in trying to drive down some costs,” Neimann says.

This move marked the beginning of a change in the way the company ran its SAP system.

Small changes to SAP are made directly via the CIBER helpdesk, while medium-sized projects, such as enhancing the group’s system for replenishment, are undertaken by CIBER functional consultants.

Larger projects are run using a normal project methodology, with a project sponsor from within the business; a project charter outlining its scope, budget and the value it is expected to deliver; a detailed blueprint, which all team members are expected to review; and a steering committee, which includes Neimann, the project sponsor, project manager, a key member of staff from CIBER and a representative of SAP. “Budget is key; we will remove non-essential functions and requirements from the blueprint to bring it in on budget,” he says.

A key plank of OrotonGroup’s IT strategy is running small focused project teams of around 5-10 people.

“There are a couple of benefits to this – you can make quick, clear decisions. When we get stuck and find some challenges, we take deep dives – sometimes a day, two days and sometimes two weeks, depending on how complex the issue is. If it is too difficult, we may just park it, continue to use our standard functionality, and go back to it when we have time to do it properly for the business,” Neimann says.

He adds that the group’s objective is to use SAP standard functionality as much as possible, and where non-standard functionality has been used, to return it to standard SAP functionality where appropriate.

“We don’t necessarily understand a whole lot about the technical structure of SAP, but we do know that we are trying to use SAP while we grow our business, and

www.insidesap.com.au 35

CASESTUDY OrotonGroup

generally SAP’s processes are very good,” Neimann says.

“So once we’ve worked through why SAP is doing things in a standard way, it often makes sense to us as well. That’s not to say we don’t do customisations, but most of the time we get back to SAP standard. This lends itself to a more efficient and cost-effective process.”

Upgrading to ECC 6.0 With the OrotonGroup experiencing performance, support and usability issues, particularly with reporting, a decision had to be made about whether to continue investing in SAP, or to replace it with a different system.

In August 2007, the group went out to tender and spoke to a range of different organisations, including third-tier and second-tier ERP providers. The group also spoke with other retailers about their experience with other systems and with upgrading SAP. “The reality was, as much as we wanted to look at some of the smaller providers, even at the point where it was a $100 million business, we were too big for some of those systems, and they weren’t going to work for us,” Neimann says. “With some of the second tier systems, the costs would be huge – probably not a whole lot less than we had spent on SAP to date. There was a whole lot of risk in putting in a brand-new system with no guarantee that it

36 Inside SAP magazine

would be more successful than what we had done already.”

Neimann says the group decided that given most of the SAP system was actually working quite well, that it would continue to invest in SAP and upgrade to ECC 6.0.

However at the same time, there was also a commitment made to “decrease the cost of SAP within the business to what we thought was reasonable”.

The upgrade was completed by SAP GDC India, and was purely a technical upgrade, with no new functionality introduced. At the same time, OrotonGroup also upgraded its database and entire hardware environment, virtualising part of it as well.

Apart from a dedicated project manager locally, all of the work was done offshore.

“We drove it pretty hard – we spoke to them every day, sometimes multiple times each day. We really needed to keep it on track and meet the deadlines we had set,” Neimann says. “The result was great – we went live on time and on budget, in October 2008. That was critical as well, because you certainly don’t want to get into November and December as a retailer doing an upgrade.

“Most importantly, the day we went live, the performance issues disappeared and a whole lot of the usability issues disappeared as well, and the reports start to work fine.”

In fact the only issue with the upgrade was a problem with the scanners in the warehouse – but through some liaison with the company who originally did the work for OrotonGroup, the issue was resolved and the system worked better than ever.

While a small internal team worked on the upgrade, Neimann says almost everyone in the company was involved in testing the new system, and they went through multiple rounds of testing – sandpit, development, QA and production.

“The result was what we wanted, and that gave us the foundation to move forward with SAP,” Neimann says.

Establishing an Asian hub Also in 2007, the company decided to open a distribution centre (DC) in Hong Kong, as the local space utilisation was not efficient and from a supply chain perspective, the offshore location made sense, as merchandise for both brands is manufactured all over the world.

“We needed a location to do freight forwarding and consolidation, and it met our medium-term strategic objectives,” Neimann says.

Fortunately the 3PL provider Oroton chose was using some of the same technology as it had run in its own warehouse, and they had experience using IDocs within SAP. “It was one of the more complex projects we had tackled, but due to some of the synergies we were able to fairly easily interface into their warehouse management system, and they were able to interface back into the SAP side of things,” Neimann says.

OrotonGroup’s IT environment

With configuration again performed by CIBER, the project was completed within three months.

“That project was on time, and on budget, and it gave us access to an Asian hub,” Neimann says.

Outsourcing distribution In 2009, OrotonGroup moved to close its existing DC and outsource distribution entirely to a 3PL provider based in Melbourne.

“We did this project almost entirely in-house, as we happened to have a resource working with us at the time who had experience in the logistics area, and we used a chunk of what we had done with our Hong Kong DC,” Neimann says. “Again within three or four months, we had completed this whole project, closed the warehouse, moved all the goods, and had a new system up and running.”

Neimann says the key to such a fast turnaround was having a small internal team – only around 10 people on the project from beginning to end – and using CIBER resources where necessary.

Lessons learned OrotonGroup has certainly learned what works in the course of this journey.

“In a fully outsourced environment, we found that when you start a new project with a new team, if they spend more time in the business sitting next to people who do the processes day in and day out, the projects run more smoothly,” Neimann says.

Ensuring the system has already been tested thoroughly by the time it reaches the user testing phase is important, as is the role of the project manager. While in the past Oroton has had a functional consultant who has acted as project manager as well, this structure doesn’t work so well when the project runs into problems.

“Ideally you want a project manager who is somewhat impartial and independent of the project, so they can actually feed through real information to the steering committee without feeling too emotionally involved and attached to the project,” Neimann says.

The OrotonGroup’s core business technologies include SAP ECC 6.0 using IS-Retail, with modules for FI/CO, MM, SD, WM, BW plus Business Connector and Solution Manager. Stores have their own Portal, where they can directly issue and receive goods and see reports on stock availability. The group uses Transacta as its point of sale system, ProCube for board reporting and budgeting, and the Maple Lake merchandise planning system.

Business benefits By only taking on 3-4 month projects, Neimann says they have been able to demonstrate value to the business, and then gain support for more work on SAP. “As projects are successful, then the business is happy to continue to fund the investment in those projects,” Neimann says. “There has been a substantial turnaround, from a lot of negativity about SAP, to now having a reliable system.”

Undertaking the upgrade to ECC 6.0 has given the company a stable platform to work from, while implementing new logistics processes has also been critically important for Oroton.

“This has helped to drive down costs from a supply chain perspective, allowed us to be a lot more nimble and dynamic, and enabled us to have an Asian hub, which was important.”

OrotonGroup has since opened two stores in Singapore and two stores in Malaysia, and because the DC was already based in Hong Kong, it made for an easier transition into those countries.

Perhaps most importantly, the group has been able to control its IT costs, even as it continues to grow.

“While the revenue has been increasing and profits have been increasing [for the group], the real IT costs have been decreasing quite steadily over time,” Neimann says.

OrotonGroup’s IT organisation has achieved these cost savings with SAP by managing change requests more rigorously, reducing the costs associated with running Basis and driving down project costs.

“There is no question that doing an SAP project is expensive, so you need to make sure you do the right things and at the right time for the business.”

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

www.insidesap.com.au 37

Eli Lilly & Company CASE STUDY

Restoring data integrity Eli Lilly turned to BackOffice Associates® (BOA™) when they were experiencing issues with data governance following a period of rapid growth. Working within a tight timeframe, BOA was able to deliver the answer with its cMat™ solution.

AT A GLANCE

Industry: Pharmaceuticals Revenue: US $21.8 billion Employees: 40,300 Headquarters: Indianapolis, Indiana Website: www.lilly.com BOA™ Solutions and Services: cMat™ SAP® Modules Implemented: SAP Pharma, ERP Implementation Partner(s): None Eli Lilly is the tenth largest pharmaceutical company in the world. Across the globe, Lilly has developed productive alliances and partnerships that advance its capacity to develop innovative medicines at lower costs. Eli Lilly’s global employees number approximately 40,000 and their medicines are marketed in 143 countries. Lilly has major research and development facilities in eight countries and conducts clinical trials in more than 50 countries. As a mature SAP Pharmaceuticals installation, challenges with aggressive global growth led to a search for better ways to manage material planning information.

Growth has its challenges Key points yy Master data accuracy relied too much on documentation and human knowledge yy Labor-intensive change control process dependent on SOPs, emails, faxes, conference calls, excessive paper and multiple entry of critical data yy Quality was dependent on verifications and audits after the data was active in SAP Eli Lilly began with SAP ERP and Pharma in 2005.

Business was good and Lilly grew, doubling revenue between 2002 and 2009. While some growth was due to acquisition, much of that was organic as Lilly has continued to succeed with new drugs coming out of clinical trials.

More drugs, however, led to challenges in the migration, in the tracking of product and materials at its plants worldwide.

Local data stewards were looking at things from a functional, not a process perspective. Plants were not well-integrated, and while the local plants took care of

38 Inside SAP magazine

their own data, they did not have much input into global data standards or stewardship. Changes to global data values required approval from affected plants via faxed signatures and emails – all processed manually by the Center of Excellence (COE). There were too many manual transactions, and in such a fast-moving, highly regulated environment, that speed of processing just wasn’t good enough.

The process and magnitude of the data integrity problem peaked in early 2007 following Lilly’s SAP global implementation. Material master data was the key to supply chain integrity, and its governance process needed to become more sustainable and reliable, with fewer global stewards. Management knew that a solution needed to be found and quickly implemented.

On time, on value: why BOA was selected Key points yy Only solution that could manage incoming data governance before hitting production system yy Automated workflow for material master data streamlined process yy Application code could be tailored to meet specific business requirements yy It was clear BOA understood Eli Lilly’s business need Eli Lilly first encountered BackOffice Associates at SAPPHIRE in 2006. It was clear early on that BOA provided more than just automation – it was a complete solution that would allow Eli Lilly to manage data on the front-end of data entry, and redesign its entire data stewardship process. The data quality team saw the potential and arranged to have BOA come in and demonstrate their solution. They were impressed by the cMat workflow capability and saw the potential to automate much of the manual processes currently in the material master.

“From our first conversation with BOA it was clear they understood our business need – data governance requires effective collaboration; in our case, global collaboration. cMat has been a remarkable fit,” says Jim Long, supply chain consultant for Eli Lilly. Reference checks were conducted and the team was impressed by the stories they heard. With only five months until go-live, both Lilly and BOA knew the timeline was tight but it could be achieved.

The data stewardship process had to change. BOA’s cMat solution provided us the means to initiate efficiency in the material master for global data at Lilly.

Tools, experts and methodology = success Key points yy Paperless change control process dramatically improved efficiency and quality, reduced staffing yy Local data stewards take a greater role in managing global change requests yy Global data stewards own the process yy Eliminated manual change control log – all done in cMat

The project was divided into two phases. Phase 1 implemented the global data governance process (approximately 100 fields in Lilly’s Material Master are global). Before cMat, each plant would initiate changes through a multi-site approval process which required emails and faxed signatures, resulting in delays and errors. Now changes are submitted directly in cMat and then instantly distributed to the affected local data stewards through workflow. Emails, faxed signatures and manual tracking logs are eliminated, the global data dedicated staffing has dropped from six stewards down to one, and the cycle time for master data completion is improved by more than twothirds over the old process.

Phase 2 streamlines the processing of local supply chain master data. The business shares in ownership enabling data stewards to focus more on the process. Local plants choose which standard business roles to involve in the workflow, which automates the collaboration necessary to maintain master data effectively. With no more spreadsheets or double-data entry, the new workflowprocess results in a minimum efficiency gain of 25 per cent at the local data steward level.

Local data stewards are excited about cMat because they will be able to maintain local control over all ‘Create’ and ‘Extend’ scenarios with site-specific default settings. While processing over 4200 global requests in 2008 in cMat, the number of global data stewards has been reduced from six to one, an 85 per cent reduction in staffing and a savings of almost $750,000 annually. “That’s just the hard dollar benefits, not counting the effect on some of the local data stewards and gains in data quality and compliance we will achieve by the end of phase 2,” says Long.

The value of active data governance is being recognised beyond the Material Master. At the request of the quality organisation, additional functionality has been configured within cMat to improve the governance of Country Registration master data, a key regulatory tracking mechanism.

Among the financial and operational benefits achieved were:

The configurability of Cransoft and the improved workflow-based process made the implementation of this critical business process notably uneventful.

Supply chain data governance at Eli Lilly is different because of BackOffice.

Throughout our SAP implementation, we understand the importance of maintaining reliable master data.

BackOffice has enabled us to do it with optimal quality and efficiency.

BackOffice is a key part of our supply chain data governance roadmap.

Jim Long, Supply Chain Consultant, Eli Lilly & Company

yy Decreased global data staffing from six to one full-time equivalents yy 60 per cent+ cycle time improvement for master data completion yy Went from four to six data-related procedure deviations annually to no deviations post-implementation yy Five-month implementation.

Partnering for continued success “Based on the results from Phase 1, we can see the potential and are looking at measuring business outcomes for the entire project at the end of the Phase 2 rollout,” says Long.

Eli Lilly’s data auditing processes are evolving, and this is high on their list of future initiatives. They have realised that no amount of reports in SAP can show data gaps and the results achieved. In order to better measure their data already in their master data systems of product, vendor and customer, Lilly continues to explore other BOA tools and services. Next steps include a cMat Phase 3 for automating BOM and Routing master data, and implementing an integrated data audit process, and leveraging their investment and experience with cApps™ into other business functions beyond supply chain.

This case study is sponsored by BackOffice Associates, LLC.

www.insidesap.com.au 39

Case study Electranet

Bright sparks successfully engaged ElectraNet appointed SAP service provider Systems and People to assist in building its permanent internal SAP support team.

The business challenge ElectraNet, South Australia’s electricity transmission specialist, initiated an IT strategy to build an internal SAP capability, thereby reducing their dependency on their implementation partner.

ElectraNet had identified a need to hire five permanent SAP resources across a broad range of skills including SAP Basis, BW, Functional and Solution Architect roles.

Systems and People responded to an ElectraNet RFT for SAP recruitment services to fulfil these requirements.

The solution Systems and People presented a single vendor solution, under which engagement was on an exclusive retained basis, allowing for a more collaborative and partnershipbased solution. The benefits to ElectraNet under this model included: priority recruitment of their roles in the market, elimination of agency oversaturation and a reduction of the competitive impacts on the delivery of quality recruitment processes to their chosen recruitment partner.

Key stakeholders within ElectraNet’s HR and IT business units were consulted to define the preferred

40 Inside SAP magazine

recruitment process and the skills-sets required. The delivery model for this major recruitment project was defined with timeframes and prioritisation of the roles.

Hiring into Adelaide has its challenges based on the limited SAP resources existing in the state of South Australia. The diverse candidate sourcing solution executed by Systems and People helped overcome these challenges.

This took the form of a thorough ‘market mapping’ of candidates in Adelaide with the required skill-sets, an extensive national database search and networking coupled with an online advertising campaign using both traditional and social media tools.

The outcomes All five permanent placements were successfully sourced and commenced work within a 12-week period. Four SAP resources were sourced from the local SA market and one SAP resource was sourced from interstate.

ElectraNet now has enhanced internal capability to work in greater collaboration with their wider business to deliver SAP support and project services and reduce the total cost of ownership of their SAP asset.

All candidates placed continue to enjoy a challenging and rewarding work environment, employed with ElectraNet. To find out more about ElectraNet, visit www.electranet.com.au.

This case study is sponsored by Systems and People.

Water Corporation CASE STUDY

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

www.insidesap.com.au 41

CASE STUDY Water Corporation

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

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

As the existing mobility platform didn’t support remote upgrades, management and maintenance of Water Corporation’s large mobile fleet with multiple applications was a time-consuming and cumbersome process. Rune Mikkelsen, program manager, business initiatives at Water Corporation, says the company only upgraded its PDAs once or twice a year, as a support person had to perform the upgrade on the device.

“For field crews, this involved travel to one of our major

42 Inside SAP magazine

regional centres, with some being as far away as 300 kilometres from their nearest base,” he says. “Our annual upgrade process took up to two weeks to complete, and involved several support staff.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rune Mikkelsen, Water Corporation

management of expectations.

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

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

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

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

Business benefits Water Corporation field staff now use the new mobile application and their devices to provide updates to the SAP system with job status, work performed and event details, as well as information about crew labour allocation and materials usage. A work order typically changes status between five and 10 times during its lifecycle, with more than 400,000 work orders created annually in the system.

The mobile device management platform also allows the Water Corporation to send work to crews in near realtime when their PDAs are communicating via NextG to the enterprise systems, and it has now significantly grown the number of handheld devices in its mobile fleet.

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

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

Additionally, Afaria Remote Control offers real-time remote control capability for Windows-based PCs and

handheld devices, providing the option to interactively assist in delivering or reinforcing training and business process on the PDA to end-users on new applications, updates and upgrades or troubleshoot specific devices.

Using this capability, Water Corporation was able to reduce face-to-face training for new staff to just one day, with further training and ongoing support supplied using this feature. As a result, user engagement has significantly improved and the vast majority of field work orders are now being processed remotely through the mobile system, replacing manual processes. This in turn has led to better visibility of activities and events for field crew at the frontline of customer service delivery.

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

Afaria’s flexibility also allowed us to add a devicew asset management component as well.”

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

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

“We can manage and support a whole range of applications across multiple device types,” says Mikkelsen.

“We plan to push tailored application packages to each device, and then to take this one step further by activating individual user profiles for each worker supported by Afaria managing the device configuration.

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

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

This case study first appeared in the March 2011 edition of Inside SAP.

www.insidesap.com.au 43

CASE STUDY Valley Longwall International

Keeping it simple An SAP Business All-in-One implementation is helping mining equipment and service provider Valley Longwall International to move on from a legacy system and solve critical business issues.

Valley Longwall International (VLI) is a market leader in the supply of specialised equipment and allied services to coal mining and bulk materials handling industries.

The VLI operations comprise three business divisions – VLI Diesel, VLI Drilling and VLI Conveyors. The VLI team of over 584 specialist personnel, employed throughout Australia and China, have access to the best technologies available in the world today. This advantage, coupled with its commitment to research and development, enables VLI to deliver high quality, innovative solutions for all types of mining, transportation, bulk materials handling, loading and drilling activities.

VLI provides a comprehensive and diverse range of equipment including diesel vehicles, drilling rigs and conveyor systems, all designed and manufactured by the VLI team to the highest specifications.

Drivers for implementing a new system VLI had undergone dramatic growth in the last five years, acquiring and then merging a number of companies into three distinct business units. Since 2008, VLI had expanded the existing legacy system to service the three business units with limited success. Business requirements compiled in 2010 indicated an increase in the complexity of VLI’s financial, manufacturing/material resource planning (MRP I), job costing, warehouse and reporting processes. VLI identified that the legacy system was an ageing application which no longer met the requirements of the organisation, and support for the system is less than acceptable. A decision was therefore made by the VLI Board in July 2010 to replace the legacy system with a new ERP system.

VLI performed an evaluation of the legacy system and the following critical issues were identified as key failures: yy Materials requirements planning yy Product configurator yy Management of bills of materials yy Work order management yy Vehicle history yy Serial number tracking yy Volume and spare part sales yy Forward price agreements yy Management of multiple warehouses, and yy Centralised purchasing.

44 Inside SAP magazine

Other issues included high levels of manual intervention, a high dependence on spreadsheets external to the system and limited reporting.

Next steps VLI’s CFO and program sponsor, Gerard Velayuthen, tasked program director, Grant Osfield, and business systems owner, Peter Kelleher, with running the system selection process. The remit was clear and concise – keep it simple for Day 1 and be live on 3 January 2012.

With that in mind, Osfield and Kelleher produced a detailed Request for Proposal (RFP) document which was distributed to a small number of vendors in February.

Over the course of the following two months, the vendor responses were received, meticulously analysed, shortlisted and product demonstrations were attentively reviewed.

The objective was to identify a simple out-of-thebox solution that came hand-in-hand with a proven implementation methodology and a systems integrator with highly experienced resources that had a proven track record in implementing solutions for mid-market organisations.

SAP Business All-In-One stands out from the rest The solution that quickly stood out from those on offer was SAP Business All-In-One (BAiO). On offer was a low-risk approach for VLI in that the solution was pre-configured, pre-tested and fully documented. The baseline solution had a high degree of compatibility with the VLI business, which meant that changes could be kept to a minimum. This translated to an opportunity for VLI to rapidly implement standard SAP processes across the board and deliver a

realising value What We do

What We provide

hoW We support you

Stream focuses solely on SAP Business-All-in-One A well supported system is a solution that on Day 1• addressed all the legacy system Solutions provision of quality SAP smooth running system and services and solutions are determined to achieve • SAP ERP Implementations failures, while providing a stable platform forwefuture growth. covering the breadth of SAP. this for our customers.

• Vision-to-Value Roadmaps From an infrastructure perspective, SAP ticked all • SAP Upgrades & Migration Stream confidently delivers: Stream’s Application Support • SAP PI / Systems Integrationupgrade boxes. VLI had performed a hardware in • the Experience is something you can’t do • Enterprise Portals ® Resulting from years • preparation Agility without. for the new system and selected IBM x3650 • SAP Workflow & SAP BPM of SAP support experience we • Effectiveness • Adobe Forms servers with VMware deployed, all of which ensureprovides you are keptainformed • M2 Innovation • SAP Enhancements of progress every step of the resilient platform for SAP. • Mobile Solutions way.

• Business Objects • Basis & Solution Manager

Selecting a systems integrator – Stream keeps it simple

“We help our customers realise

The selection of the systems integrator proved a little more

the value of SAP by extending the of a challenge. Two of the shortlisted RFP respondents capabilities of their SAP systems, had proposed SAP BAiO solutions which meant Osfield which enable them to run their and Kelleher had to dig a little deeper on aspects such as businesses better.”

About Valley Longwall International Valley Longwall International was established in July 2005 as a result of the management and private equity buyout of Valley Longwall Drilling.

Since then, Valley Longwall International has undergone significant expansion as a result of strong organic growth and a program of strategic mergers and acquisitions.

Today, after having joined forces with several market leaders in terms of technical expertise and market share, Valley Longwall International enjoys an enviable reputation, both in Australia and abroad, as a dominant force in the supply of specialist mining equipment and related services.

Within the Australian mining industry VLI has established a leading market position within three divisions:

methodology, approach and cultural fit. It became clear that one of the two shortlisted respondents, Stream – one of Australia’s fastest-growing SAP consulting organisations and an IBM Software ValueNet Partner – had the edge.

Not only would two of the Stream directors, Dawie Gerber and Joel Stehr, undertake key roles in the implementation, but together they brought with them over 15 years of www.streamcs.com DRILLING DIVISION experience in implementing SAP solutions for mid-market VLI Drilling is one of the largest manufacturers of organisations. specialist in-seam directional drilling systems in the Stream’s ‘don’t over-engineer the solution’ approach world. The team of specialist inseam drillers is also one fitted perfectly with Velayuthen’s ‘keep it simple’ mandate. of the largest in the world. Their unparalleled experience In subsequent discussions, both Osfield and Velayuthen in this sector has allowed them to develop industrydeveloped a level of comfort with Stream’s proposed leading expertise resulting in extremely strong customer implementation methodology, what this would mean for service records. Our team is proud to have created VLI and how the VLI team would be utilised. world-first milestones such as drilling the longest inHaving made the tough decisions, the implementation seam directional hole in the world and drilling the most kicked off in July. Scoping workshops were held which in-seam directional metres in a production shift. involved key members from each of the VLI divisions along with Stream consultants. These workshops provided a DIESEL DIVISION forum to define the scope from an SAP perspective and to VLI Diesel is the only manufacturer offering a complete encourage the representatives from each of the divisions range of light and heavy rubber tyred utility vehicles and to work together to identify synergies that would help people carriers for use in the underground coal mining streamline the overall VLI business processes and introduce industry. The VLI fleet hire services are second-tofurther efficiencies. The findings of the workshops were none. VLI operates a large range of utility vehicles and documented and subsequently agreed to by the VLI General auxiliary equipment to suit every need.

Management team allowing the scope to be bedded down and the next phase of the project to commence.

CONVEYOR DIVISION Though it is early in the implementation stage, things Within the coal and materials handling industry, VLI are progressing rapidly. Osfield is satisfied with the current Conveyor is Australia’s premier manufacturer, service status and is well-assured of the project achieving its provider and major belting distributor for specialised go-live on 3 January 2012. This is a result of following conveyor and underground mining components. Unlike the implementation methodology and making use of the most of their competitors, VLI has a well established Stream project toolkit, which contains things like a Change and integrated presence across the conveyors industry, Management Strategy, a Data Migration Strategy and providing the group with a uniquely broad product and templates and a Testing Strategy amongst others. Osfield’s service offering. philosophy is simple – why reinvent the wheel when All three of these divisions combine to form everything you need is already available? This has allowed the broader VLI Group. Each division operates full the project team to remain focused on their tasks while production activities which are supported by recurring Osfield steers the implementation down a prescribed path maintenance, consumables and spare parts services. trodden by many others over the years.

The IBM logo and the IBM Business Partner mark are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation, registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. The SAP Gold Partner logo is the trademark or registered trademark of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries.

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This case study is sponsored by Stream and IBM.

29/08/11 9:37 AM

Orica CASE STUDY

World-class shared service powered by world-class software One of Australia’s largest industrial conglomerates, Orica, implemented the ReadSoft Accounts Payable (AP) automation solution across separate SAP platforms within the group. The solution was instrumental in transforming the AP function and shifting Shared Services into a “centre of excellence with agility”, with benefits extending to other parts of the business as the flow-on effect of automation infiltrated the organisation. The success of phase 1 sees Orica rolling the ReadSoft solution out to operations on a global basis. Watch this space...

Background Orica’s Shared Services Centre receives on average 1400 manual paper invoices on a daily basis. This, together with a further 2100 electronic format invoices presents a combined total of 850,000 invoices per year for this busy department to process. Orica recognised that automation of their processing activities would provide improved accuracy, stronger audit and risk governance and more importantly, superior data and analysis visibility of the invoice life cycle, critical to identifying operational inefficiencies. They focused on improving the 40 per cent manual invoice process as opposed to the EDI electronic volumes received, as this would present greater impact on the AP department’s efficiency whilst offering the best return on investment. It was estimated that it would take five years to move 70 per cent of the supplier base onto EDI and they would never be able to get them all on.

With such a large supplier base, having 40 per cent processed manually created enormous delays in turnaround time, with data accuracy consistently being compromised.

The solution Looking for the best AP solution, research was undertaken over a period of eight months by Ciaran Mara, invoice processing manager for Orica. During this time, Mara reviewed 31 local, national and international AP automation providers and interviewed many companies about their experiences.

“It was made quite clear in the initial stages that outsourcing was not the path Orica wanted to take. However, I did have to research this option to validate my business case. My findings provided me with a very clear vision for an automated system that could fit in with any strategic company decision,” says Mara.

“This included the ability to operate under a shared service environment or stand-alone, locally, nationally or off-shore which meant that licensing splits needed to be flexible. In essence I was looking for a solution we could own and that

46 Inside SAP magazine

would change as we changed with little or no cost for the change. It was also important that we selected a ‘veteran’ solution, one that was tried and tested. The ReadSoft solution filled all our requirements and more. I visited a number of ReadSoft sites to view the software in action and discussed the solution features, benefits and issues at length with AP and IT departmental managers before making a final decision.

“A big tick for the ReadSoft software was the flexibility that the solution allows for our Shared Services Centre setup.

For instance, we are able to scan an invoice at one site, have it verified at another, and processed at a third site. This allows us to decentralise any part of our AP department and still be fully functional, with the ability to provide extra processing resources in times of high volume to different SAP platforms.

What’s more, if ever something did prevent us from scanning or the server was down, AP can still process the old manual way through SAP. The freedom to scan and attach documents post-processing strengthened this solution.”

Orica now has an average of 1400 invoices a day scanned on 1-2 Kodak i420 scanners within the Orica Shared Service Centre AP department with a third i420 located at another site. These invoices are then passed through an Optical Character Recognition process at which point the data is verified for the correct platform and transferred to that relative SAP system. Any supporting documentation received as an attachment to the invoice is scanned as well, so that a comprehensive set is available for viewing in digital image format at any time. ReadSoft’s solution performs automatic three-way matching before their workflow module, electronically routes these invoices to relevant authorities for coding and final approval if required. AP staff are able to electronically direct ‘unmatched’ invoices out to the requisitioner, the purchase order (PO) creator or, if relevant, goods receipting staff, for discrepancy resolution and/or coding before final approval. The roll-out of the solution was in three stages, starting with Mining as the pilot site.

“As we were installing three solutions, the strategy was

(above) Ciaran Mara; (above right and below) the ReadSoft module COCKPIT; (below right) Orica House

to implement the solution with the smallest volume of invoices first, with the widest variety and most technically difficult invoices for processing. This would provide us with a platform and pilot system which would identify any additional customisation from the initial user acceptance testing before go-live and then any further customisation requirements after the first couple of weeks of go-live.”

“By adopting this strategy, we were able to greatly reduce the time and cost of implementation for the second and third solutions on the other SAP platforms because we installed all the customisations (whether needed or not) made to the Mining scanning solution.”

“My approach was a staggered roll-out for a number of reasons. Some of these reasons actually provided greater comfort (especially with our IT) that we had chosen the right solution. At the time of our implementation, we had one SAP platform on ECC6 and Unicode and two systems still on SAP 4.6, with one due for upgrade during go-live and another due for upgrade four months after we had gone live with ReadSoft. People resource management from both sides was critical and in the end, well-managed. I don’t think we could have chosen a harder time to do these implementations, but to the credit of all involved, it was delivered.”

The benefits “There are so many benefits to automating the supplier invoice process and we are already experiencing significant improvement in a number of areas in the organisation, not only in the AP department,” adds Mara.

“With Orica having such large invoice volumes coming through from suppliers, OCR scanning eliminates the tedious data entry task and removes the human error factor to provide a phenomenal 98 per cent accuracy rate.

Furthermore, although the benefits of the electronic workflow are mostly intangible, we have realised significant benefit in time savings in processes (mail, invoice response times), paper

reduction (good Green policy), and strong risk governance enhancements (audits, duplicate and error payments).

“The solution provides clear visibility of the scanned image which is instantly available to the greater audience of the business. This reduces incoming queries from the business and frees up AP resources to focus on other functions. From the time an invoice is scanned to the time it is paid, there is a clear documentation trail into every action that is taken during the process. This provides very strong risk governance and eliminates the risk of paying third parties and having to claim back error payments.

“Another plus point was that the ReadSoft solution runs seamlessly within the SAP environment (SAP Certified), adopting all the security parameters of the MIRO, FB60 and 65 SAP standard processing screens and user profiles. This created some familiarity for operators and was a definite advantage when delivering training to staff members.

“Orica is already seeing the cost benefit from moving to an automated solution. The difference in cost for scanning continues to come down as the ReadSoft scanning software learns and improves on itself and the people that use it become more fluent,” says Mara. “Companies should not expect to see an immediate drop in cost or the ability to reallocate resources from processing when they go live. The system and business needs to learn and adapt to increased performance output.

“Based on a very easy to use but comprehensive ROI tool, I was able to form a strong business case and map out future points in time where scanning benefits and targets would be reached. We have been right on target with still more unexpected gains in the pipeline. The Trade Working Capital benefit of AP automation, depending on the dollar value of your accounts payable, can be well into the millions,” says Mara.

This case study is sponsored by ReadSoft.

www.insidesap.com.au 47

Peerless Clothing CASE STUDY

A peerless platform Peerless Clothing deployed its SAP environment on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, saving at least $700,000 compared to the cost of a UNIX-based solution. The company also reduced desktop imaging time by 90 per cent with Novell ZENworks.

Founded in 1919, Peerless Clothing, Inc. is the largest domestic producer of men’s tailored clothing in North America, producing clothing for designer labels including Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and TALLIA. The company supplies men’s tailored clothing to most every major department and specialty store retailer in the United States.

The challenge Peerless Clothing has doubled its revenue in the past few years and maintaining its business on UNIX was becoming too costly and inflexible. The company needed a stable and flexible platform to introduce many new SAP applications.

Consolidating its IT environment as much as possible would also help reduce maintenance and hardware costs.

With three geographically dispersed locations, the IT staff spent much of its time travelling to other offices to manage and update workstations. Imaging a new machine could take up to four hours and tracking its IT assets was a manual, timeconsuming process. As a result, centralised desktop management was a top priority for the small IT staff at Peerless Clothing.

The solution When evaluating platforms for its new SAP business applications, Peerless Clothing selected a Novell solution. The company worked with Adaris Technolgies, a Novell Gold partner, to implement this solution.

“Moving our UNIX environment to Linux made a lot of sense because our staff didn’t require a lot of retraining,” says Joffrey Bienvenue, IS infrastructure and operations manager at Peerless Clothing. “We looked at Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but found that SUSE Linux Enterprise Server offers better support for open standards.”

Peerless Clothing deployed several of its mission-critical applications on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, including SAP NetWeaver, SAP Business Warehouse applications, SAP Enterprise Portal, SAP Knowledge Management, and Novell GroupWise as well as its shop floor application. Using SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and VMware for virtualisation, the IT staff has consolidated its HP and IBM servers tenfold.

“SAP systems require a lot of memory so had we gone with a UNIX-based platform, we would have been forced to make a significant investment in new hardware,” says Bienvenue. “SUSE Linux Enterprise Server allows us to leverage inexpensive mid-range commodity hardware, and by using VMware to virtualise our Linux servers, we can quickly

48 Inside SAP magazine

respond to the needs of the business by adding new servers in no time.”

With SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, the IT staff now has a solid development platform and can take advantage of open source tools and applications. The company also runs Novell Open Enterprise Server, including Novell iFolder, Novell iPrint, as well as Novell eGuide which serves as its corporate user directory.

Using Novell ZENworks, the IT staff has created standard desktop images and can now remotely image machines in just 20 minutes. The IT staff can deliver new applications companywide in days, rather than weeks, and without having to visit individual workstations.

The company also uses Novell ZENworks Linux Management to centrally manage its Linux servers and plans to upgrade to Novell ZENworks Configuration Management to integrate its desktop and server management.

Novell GroupWise provides a solid collaboration platform and the BlackBerry Enterprise Server for Novell GroupWise makes it easy for BlackBerry users to stay current with their e-mail and calendars, regardless of their location.

“We hear horror stories from our peers that are managing other collaboration packages, such as Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes,” says Bienvenue. “Novell GroupWise is stable and requires very little administration.”

The results By deploying its SAP environment on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Peerless Clothing has saved at least $700,000 compared to the cost of a UNIX solution. By virtualising its servers, the company has also consolidated its hardware by 90 per cent and can deploy new servers in a matter of hours.

Novell ZENworks has reduced desktop imaging time by 90 per cent and allows a small IT team to keep pace with the company’s growth. The company estimates that its Novell solution paid for itself in the first six months.

“By leveraging Novell solutions, we’re able to support the company’s growth without having to add additional IT resources or make considerable investments in hardware and software,” says Bienvenue. “SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Novell ZENworks give us the biggest bang for the buck with all the tools we need to deploy, manage and monitor our IT environment.”

This case study is sponsored by SUSE.

Recent projects

by CSC Case study

From financial services to natural resources CSC has led recent SAP projects for clients in a wide range of industries – from full upgrades to targeted BI and mobility projects. For more information on any of these projects, contact CSC. Client: Water Corporation of Western Australia Challenge: To extract the relevant data from an increasing number of business transactions and management systems to make timely strategic decisions.

Solution: To upgrade to the SAP BI 7.0 business intelligence platform to avoid additional cost and to enable access to improved functionality.

Results: A huge reduction in time to extract data to the new BI system, with load times falling by up to 60 per cent, so that data is available the following day for timely decision-making. A clear roadmap for further improvement opportunities.

Client: Superpartners Challenge: With the organisation growing in size and complexity, financial systems struggled to support the need for regular, complete and timely financial reporting.

Solution: Superpartners embarked on a major change program, engaging CSC to deliver an enterprise financial system using SAP’s new generation BusinessObjects Business Planning and Consolidation for NetWeaver (BPC) modelling tool.

Results: A scalable and expanding business planning platform which will support planned future growth.

Client: DuPont’s Chemical Solutions Enterprise strategic business unit Challenge: DuPont Chemical Solutions Enterprise (DCSE) needed to change its business processes to match best practices used by other DuPont SAP deployments. It needed to roll out SAP without losing an order or stopping the systems.

Solution: Organisational change management techniques that brought DuPont business people into the process and detailed transition plans that made sure nothing fell through the cracks.

Results: An SAP deployment with high involvement from users and better visibility into inventory for planning.

Client: Water Corporation of Western Australia Challenge: To apply the experience gained from an earlier mobile computing solution (MCS1), no longer available to support next generation PDA devices, and upgrade to a

new platform bringing far more business value, seamlessly without significant interruption to its business processes.

Solution: The new mobile computing solution, Fieldworks (Fieldworks is based on SkyMobile, a leading SAP mobility platform from Sky Technologies), a result of the integration of a number of specialist technologies and capabilities to provide a full mobile computing environment that will allow it to consolidate mobile applications and expand its reach into other business initiatives.

Results: Water Corporation’s new mobility solution, Fieldworks, has far reaching effects for customer service and water conservation across Western Australia.

Client: Department of Defence Challenge: To extend the 2007 SAP upgrade and deploy the latest in SAP technology, NewGL, to capture additional accounting elements for online reporting.

Solution: With CSC’s extensive ERP and systems integration experience in the Defence environment, the Cash Flow Reporting solution was developed in conjunction with SAP. Results: By go-live in November 2008, the project had run on time and on budget, without business disruption or major outages. The Cash Flow solution, which allows Defence to report expenditure on line, was the first implementation of this software in the world. The NewGL upgrade was the first implementation in the public sector.

Client: INPEX Challenge: The budgeting process was time-consuming, inefficient and potentially error-prone, and management and control of the process was reliant on a few individuals.

Solution: CSC and INPEX designed and planned the project to develop and implement a suitable SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) solution for deployment to the relevant INPEX business users in time for the 2011 budgeting cycle.

Results: INPEX has now used BPC successfully for a full budget cycle and has recorded significant time savings as well as reduced cycle times, higher visibility during the budget process of the key metrics/levers which drive cost, and increased efficiency through the ability to recalculate when assumptions change and perform ‘what ifs’.

This article is sponsored by CSC.

www.insidesap.com.au 49

The independent magazine for SAP professionals

SAP service provider profiles Looking for a partner to assist with your next SAP project? In the following pages, service providers in the areas of software and solutions, consulting, application support, hosting, testing and quality management, and recruitment outline their capabilities.

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BackOffice Associates LLC

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Oxygen Business Solutions

56 CSC 59 Sky Technologies 60 Perafel 61 Lodestone Management Consultants 62 Consulting Networks 63 SUSE 64 Acclimation 65 Systems and People 66 Tata Consultancy Services 67 Revolution IT 68 BPSE Consulting 69 Stream 70 Esker 71 Innogence Limited 72 Compuware 73 Kaba Workforce Management 74 Brick Consulting 75 ReadSoft 76 Revelation Software Concepts 77 Everjoy Consulting 78 Excel4apps 79 Evolution Future Solutions 80 TridentGLOBAL 81 BCS Technology International 82 TIK Consulting 83 Speller International

www.insidesap.com.au 51

COMPANY PROFILE

BackOffice Associates LLC BackOffice Associates® is the leading provider of data quality, data governance and data migration for SAP®, Oracle®, PeopleSoft®, JD Edwards®, Infor® and other leading ERP solutions. Concentrating on enhancing ERP data quality since 1996, our products and services are the recognised best practice for companies using SAP, Oracle and other solutions. BackOffice Associates delivers the industry’s only ‘Boring Go Live®’ process for the uneventful implementation of ERP. For data governance solutions, BackOffice is the choice of customers who require ‘Business-Ready Data Every Day™’.

Our complete and proven methodology, executed by our team of experts, delivers 100 per cent success to all of our clients.

This approach ensures a risk-free level of data quality and generates the value required from global ERP projects.

As an SAP-certified integration partner, as well as an Oracle Gold partner, we have a 100 per cent track record in providing all our customers with solutions and guidance in data quality, data governance and data migration. With over 500 successful Boring Go Live implementations and no missed milestones due to data, we have delivered on-time Business-Ready Data™ to every client, resulting in a quicker ROI through zero down-time from data at go-live.

Data Quality as a Service™ solution, QCloud QCloud™ – a new, cloud-based approach to data quality – allows you to take a pragmatic and proactive approach to data quality. QCloud monitors data in your entire system landscape, including ERP, CRM, HR, SCM and more. QCloud helps your business run uninterrupted by eliminating data errors and omissions. QCloud provides over 500 web-enabled reports built from 15 years of ERP data quality experience and delivers data quality alerts on a consistent and constant basis as part of an automated workflow environment. Reports and alerts are escalated to the proper data stewards every day with persistent and reliable monitoring and guaranteed resolution. In addition, QCloud allows you to implement immediate real-time reporting and alerts for any object and any data in your entire system landscape. QCloud also delivers user setup, security setup and extraction monitoring.

This Data Quality as a Service™ solution is also available on-premise and delivers the same measurable, sustainable improvements in data quality without the overhead and inefficiency of traditional, homegrown data quality and master data management approaches. No longer do companies need to struggle and spend millions of dollars on data quality solutions that do not meet the needs of the business.

Features and benefits yy No hardware or software required. yy Fixed price monthly fee cancellable at any time. yy Data standards starter kit included.

52 Inside SAP magazine

yy Hundreds of best practice global data standards built in. yy Dashboards all web-enabled and multilingual. yy Unlimited strategic and tactical reporting. yy Built-in security for all data and reporting aligned with ERP security model. yy 24/7 Help Desk.

Cloud-Based Services QCloud requires no additional hardware or software purchases. Using the SilverLining™ technology to pull data from disparate and disconnected databases, data is securely pushed to the cloud. The SilverLining technology provides analytics and metrics to offer visibility to your organisation’s master data and helps facilitate global master data management processes.

On-Premise Services An on-premise version of QCloud is available for organisations which require on-site control with resource control, geographic or security requirements that limit cloud access. With the on-premise option, BackOffice Associates® manages the data quality process using client provided hardware.

Business-Ready Data Every Day™ Many of the largest companies in the world have turned to BackOffice Associates data governance solutions and methodology for the ongoing creation and maintenance of their master data. BackOffice delivers flexible, easy-to-use, web-enabled data governance solutions addressing the most complex data quality issues. We offer a range of pre-configured, web-enabled, configurable applications specifically designed to manage ERP master data, ensuring it is Business-Ready Data Every Day™.

It’s your choice: Passive Data Governance™, Directed Data Governance or Active Data Governance™.

Passive Data Governance™ Passive Data Governance is a collection of reports, metrics and analysis that allow you to view data in a business context.

Business-process interruptions will be greatly reduced and eventually eliminated using the BackOffice process. With

With over 500 successful Boring Go Live implementations and no missed milestones due to data, we have delivered on-time Business-Ready Data to every client.

Passive Data Governance you can monitor, measure and manage the quality of your data against business-process requirements.

Directed Data Governance Directed Data Governance is a new way to drive the process of master data creation and maintenance tasks across departments and users from start to finish. It is a business-process workflow engine for managing master data in an ERP environment requiring no coding or customisation.

Active Data Governance™ Active Data Governance turns master data management into a business-process. It is a firewall for master data and includes dynamic, web-enabled applications that empower businessusers to collaboratively author, review and approve changes to ERP master data.

The Need for Data Governance in ERP Environments SAP® and Oracle® are fully integrated ERP systems. They can handle almost any commercial business transaction and can do so with great flexibility, supporting many different businessprocess models. However, the range and flexibility of SAP or Oracle functionality requires a complicated master data model. yy There can be over 50 screens required to create a single finished good that is manufactured in a single location. yy In a typical company, there may be 11 or more organisational roles involved in defining the different elements of material master data. yy Different kinds of material types and usages need different data – the data for a finished product is different than the data for an MRO material; the data for a manufactured product is different than the data for a purchased product. yy Customer master data can be organised over eight different account groups and four different content views. yy To make customer masters function properly, users are required to specify partnering relationships among customer addresses – for example, when product is shipped to address A, the invoice should be sent to address B. It is little wonder that after their ERP project implementations, many companies struggle to maintain their master data with sufficient accuracy and completeness to make the ERP system work properly. As companies add new materials, customers and vendors, critical master data elements may not be updated or they may be updated incorrectly. This incorrect or missing master data results in business process interruptions – the inability to create production entries, the inability to ship products, the inability to invoice customers.

Such interruptions are expensive, time-consuming and negatively impact your ability to achieve the full return on your ERP investment. In some cases master data processing

errors can place a company at risk for failure to meet regulatory compliance standards.

Boring Go Live® Data Migration BackOffice Associates® has delivered over 500 Boring Go Live® data migrations for satisfied ERP customers around the world since 1996.

Converting your data to your new ERP system requires more than mere extraction, transformation and loading. Your legacy data is the heart of your business operations. You need a repeatable process that focuses on analysis, construction and consolidation. To support this process you need the right tools, a proven methodology and expert consultants. BackOffice Associates has the tools, the methodology and the experts that deliver Business-Ready Data™ you can use today, resulting in time and cost savings for your company.

Business-Ready Data™ is evaluated for business relevance and completeness. Your entire migration effort is documented and easily validated. Our methodology ensures a seamless data migration in which your data is ready for the new ERP system.

Our Load Early, Load Often® process permits you to better understand the impact on your system and permits the endusers to train and build confidence with live data.

BackOffice Associates data migration solution delivers: yy Easy-to-use tools that do not require coding; yy Pre-built functionality; yy Complete BackOffice methodology for data migration; yy Repeatable processes that ensure Business-Ready Data quality; yy Staffing-model designs to fit your unique business needs; yy Experts who provide field-tested experience; and yy Targeted training to educate your team members to facilitate rapid-system productivity.

BackOffice Associates delivers a proven data migration approach for the most successful ERP implementations worldwide. Using our tools, methodology and experts we ensure your ERP investment delivers the value you expect and require on go-live day.

Data Migration Toolset™ Using the BackOffice Data Migration Toolset™ and proven, repeatable methodology, our business-savvy data migration team effectively and efficiently handles all elements of an ERP data migration.

BackOffice Associates is a global corporation headquartered in Massachusetts with additional offices in the US, Europe, Asia, India, Australia and Mexico.

W: www.boaweb.com

www.insidesap.com.au 53

COMPANY PROFILE

Oxygen Business Solutions Founded in 2001, Oxygen Business Solutions is the leading specialist SAP consulting and services company across Australia and New Zealand.

From a heritage in process manufacturing and consumer goods, Oxygen now operates in all major business sectors across Australia and New Zealand. Oxygen attracts and retains the best people in the business with around 220 highly skilled and experienced consultants working from offices in Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, Auckland and Wellington.

Oxygen understands that each customer project and support engagement is different. We work to provide pragmatic solutions that help drive success and ensure that each organisation maximises their investment in SAP. Oxygen’s growth and market momentum are the result of a company culture which values and rewards customer responsiveness as much as technical excellence. Our culture drives the achievements of which we are most proud – such as our strong customer references, our low staff turnover, and our long track record of successful projects.

An award-winning certified SAP partner Oxygen is a certified SAP Services Partner, a Gold SAP Channel Partner and holds formal SAP Customer Competency Centre accreditation, servicing and supporting one of the largest SAP platforms in the region.

Oxygen is a trusted implementation partner and consistent winner of SAP’s Customer Awards of Excellence, the most recent including two 2010 awards for ‘Best SAP Upgrade’ for Carter Holt Harvey Building Supplies (CHH), and ‘Best SAP NetWeaver’ implementation for NCI Limited.

Oxygen is also an IBM Software ValueNet Partner.

Innovative SAP solutions Oxygen recognises many organisations are under pressure to innovate swiftly and has developed a way of delivering standard SAP, or (where it makes sense) complementary partner solutions, across a number of key business functions or project processes, to help clients realise quick wins.

Oxygen SmartStart solutions are pre-packaged offerings that allow organisations to get a product or service up and running for less cost, in less time, with lower risk. The SmartStart by Oxygen approach reduces cost, decreases implementation time and delivers a defined set of benefits.

It also brings together the best non-SAP solutions to help customers extract more value from their core SAP investment.

Oxygen has also developed a range of rapid deployment SAP solutions specifically tuned to meet the challenges faced by organisations operating within specific industries.

These solutions combine the rich functionality of SAP’s Business All-in-One software with Oxygen’s unique rapid design, implementation and deployment program.

54 Inside SAP magazine

Better insight for better business Information is power and a vital business asset. Oxygen implements SAP business intelligence solutions to create visibility of business performance. These solutions provide insights into process improvements, facilitate better business planning and help organisations retain a competitive edge.

Regardless of whether an organisation uses SAP as its ERP system or not, Oxygen can equip it with powerful information gathering and reporting tools using SAP’s two key business intelligence platforms – SAP BusinessObjects and Business Information Warehouse.

And now, with the release of SAP BusinessObjects 4.0, business users can transform decision-making – obtaining factual information from multiple and disparate data sources, using new and improved end-user tools and enjoying improved monitoring of the entire BusinessObjects environment.

Oxygen’s talented pool of consultants has extensive industry experience in data warehousing, data integration and functional analytics. We help companies choose the right tool for the job, based on a thorough understanding of their business reporting and planning requirements.

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Anytime and anywhere Mobile devices are revolutionising the way people work.

Oxygen partners with specialist SAP mobile company, Sybase, to provide business users with secure mobile access to SAP enterprise applications.

Sybase has a range of technologies including an enterprise-grade, highly scalable mobile device management solution that supports a wide range of platforms including Windows ® Mobile, BlackBerry ®, Palm®, Symbian™, Android™, iPhone ® and iPad®.

Oxygen cuts through the hype surrounding ondevice access, ensuring mobile deployments are 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.

Oxygen believes each customer project and support engagement is unique. We work to make organisations successful, ensuring the absolute maximum value is gained from their investment in SAP. T: 1800 002 354 E: info@oxygenforbusiness.com W: www.oxygenforbusiness.com

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Innogence Mobility CHALLENGES

OPPORTUNITIES

Business users are increasingly pushing for an improved user experience and anytime, anyplace access to accurate and timely information.

Mobility increases user adoption and transforms business proceses by improving the way users operate within a process and manage performance.

Data and security continue to be a challenge for many organisations and mobility will only increase the demand for real time information Traditional process and reporting applications continue to be expensive and time consuming to design and deploy Managing the demand for business intelligence and mobile applications along with their impact on your existing stack is critical to long term success It is technically easy to build a mobile application or mobile report, but building the right solution is still a challenge.

Advances in technologies like in-memory computing and mobile device management provide new and exciting ways to access and process real time information Mobility utilises existing systems and logic making it cheaper and faster to deploy. Mobile application platforms can significantly reduce future complexity and Total Cost of Ownership Build solutions in an agile way focusing on the user experience.

Build the right solutions to enable process automation & productivity.

Consider full cost of the solution including back end integration.

HOW WE CAN HELP WHAT

WHO

We are a firm who focus on supporting clients to deliver business improvement through innovation.

HOW

Process Improvement and Productivity enabled through proven Business Intelligence and mobile solutions.

By combining industry experienced consultants with innovative technologies and agile techniques.

MOBILE APPLICATIONS

We develop best of breed applications.

MOBILE APPLICATION PLATFORMS

We can help you architect and deploy your MEAP solution, getting you up and running fast.

CONNECT:

Exchange data from backend systems like databases, web services and applications such as SAP to multiple mobile devices via graphical modelling of Mobile Business Objects

CONSUME:

BLACKBERRY APP DEVELOPMENT

IPHONE / IPAD APP DEVELOPMENT

MOBILE QA, TESTING & DEPLOYMENT

CROSS PLATFORM APP DEVELOPMENT

MOBILE WEB DEVELOPMENT

ANDROID APP DEVELOPMENT

PACKAGED APPLICATIONS

MOBILE APPLICATION DESIGN

Mobile Point Solution Mobile App Server #1

Mobile App Server #2

Mobile App Server #3

CREATE:

MEAP Solution Business App Server #1

Business App Server #2

Business App Server #3

MEAP

Enable developers to create enterprise grade applications including lightweight web-based applications or native custom applications using a single development platform

CONTROL:

NEXT STEPS:

Empower your enterprise workers to consume enterprise grade applications on either corporate or personal devices including Blackberry, Windows Mobile, iOS and Android

Ensure that your enterprise data is under control using secure transports for end-toend encryption and enhanced application security

Talk to us about your mobility needs. We can develop a strategy and roadmap incorporating:

BRISBANE OFFICE: Level 36 Riparian Plaza 71 eagle Street, QLD 4005

CANBERRA OFFICE: Level 1, 99 London Circuit Canberra City, ACT 2601

SYDNEY OFFICE: Level 3, 53 Walker Street North Sydney NSW 2060

Business Intelligence Mobile applications Mobile application platforms

In memory computing BI and Mobility driven transformation

MELBOURNE OFFICE: Level 5, 606 St Kilda Road Melbourne, VIC 3004

COMPANY PROFILE

CSC We offer a broad range of services, from technology and business consulting to systems integration and outsourcing.

Our approach At CSC, we believe that each client is unique, and that each client’s conception of value will change over time. New conditions will prevail, new priorities will emerge and new technologies will become affordable. Sustaining value, once it is created, is key.

To do that, CSC delivers a custom approach specifically designed with your business in mind. We build flexibility right into our solutions that spans not just hardware and software, but all the elements of work, all the complex facets of providing service – from contract terms to risk analysis, knowledge management to security services.

So it’s not just what CSC does for you that delivers results.

It’s also how, when and where we do it to achieve the best total solution for your business.

We are proven industry leaders For more than 50 years, some of the world’s largest organisations have trusted us to get the job done. In Australia we are a tier one provider in financial services, natural resources, defence and government.

We have a huge network of truly global, consistent solutions We apply standardised processes to every one of CSC’s many international resources, from our global skills pool to our network of operating centres. So clients know they can trust us to deliver a high quality solution every time, whether we are drawing on resources from Europe, Australia or anywhere in between.

We deliver what we promise – no excuses

solutions to help clients realise their ambitions on a daily basis. Here in Australia, more than 200 of our 3500 staff are dedicated to delivering expert support and consulting in SAP implementation and integration, upgrades and application management. With access to the global SAP practice via a common CSC SAP Global Portal Community, staff access global best practice and leverage a world-leading capability in SAP Financials, BI/analytics, upgrades and specialist architecture design and build for SAP NetWeaver.

CSC is also recognised as a global and local leader in SAP Application Management Support (AMS) services and SAP finance sector-specific solutions by Gartner; for the last five years CSC has been named ‘leader and visionary’. For over 25 years, CSC has been an SAP Platinum Partner (highest level of partnership) and certified globally with SAP as a Hosting Partner, Applications Management Services Partner and Global Services Partner.

We have a proven track record in SAP AMS excellence and complex SAP projects and deployments, recognised by SAP repeatedly (2008, 2009, 2010) for their highest award of excellence – the SAP SAPPHIRE Award.

E: talk_to_us@csc.com.au W: csc.com/au yy CSC has a mature SAP practice and we have invested heavily in SAP expertise globally. yy CSC has the knowledge and experience to rapidly stabilise, scale, and manage the new and upgraded systems.

We know that organisations rely on our solutions for their business success. Clients know that, whatever happens, we will do everything possible to deliver the agreed solution at the agreed time so we never hold them back.

yy CSC has domain expertise in financial services, government, mining, utilities, manufacturing, insurance, health and other sectors due to our customer relationships, some of which span more than 40 years.

We offer the highest quality, most flexible endto-end outsourcing

yy CSC has been delivering SAP finance sector solutions for over 15 years and is a global SAP Platinum Partner.

Our integrated outsourcing framework for applications and infrastructure services is based on the highest levels of ITIL accreditation in Australia and is as flexible as it gets. This means we can keep costs low and service levels high while providing clients with seamless, ‘mix and match’ as well as ‘as-a-service’ delivery.

We have outstanding SAP credentials As a leading global IT company, CSC’s 94,000 staff in 90 countries worldwide deliver highly innovative business

56 Inside SAP magazine

yy CSC will leverage our global business process domain expertise to help us accelerate our knowledge transfer. yy We leverage our SAP certified ITIL processes, Gartner-recognised leading incident management capability, catalyst methodology, and global SAP certifications for hosting, services and technology to ensure rapid stabilisation and business outcomes.

Sky Technologies Sky Technologies is a true ‘configure once, run anywhere’ mobile enterprise applications company with more than 13 years of experience mobilising SAP. The SkyMobile MEAP (Mobile Enterprise Application Platform) resides inside the SAP environment and enables customers to mobilise any business process on any device using Sky’s unique ‘secure container’ technology. By optimising the existing investments in your back-end systems such as SAP, our mobility solutions ensure increased returns, improved productivity and lower costs.

With hundreds of successful customer projects in more than 30 countries and mobility centres of excellence in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, Sky Technologies is a market leader in the world of enterprise mobility. Our proven Business Solution Suite of ‘code-free’ mobile enterprise applications is compatible with devices including iOS, BlackBerry, Android and Windows Mobile platforms.

We offer mobile applications that address: yy Customer Relationship Management and Sales Force Automation yy Field Service and Asset Management yy Workflow and Human Capital Management yy Supply Chain Management and Optimisation yy Supplier Relationship Management, and yy Business Intelligence.

The SkyMobile framework provides a robust, scalable architecture, is upgrade-friendly and allows centralised systems management of all devices, software, applications and integration. The solution offers complete end-to-end interface management and full visibility of all transactions and data from a single point.

The SkyMobile Secure Container, unique to Sky Technologies, is downloaded onto the mobile device to provide a completely secure environment within which to run business applications and store all data. This approach effectively insulates the business applications on each mobile device and avoids all the cross-platform fragmentation and management issues associated with alternative approaches such as deploying executable code or html. A native secure container is provided for all the major mobile platforms (i.e., iOS, BlackBerry, Windows and Android) which means that the same SkyMobile application can be run across a range of different devices without change. All data that is transmitted and stored is encrypted, so even if the device is lost or hacked, the business data is secure. SkyMobile fully supports the automatic (and wireless) provisioning and decommissioning of the secure container, business applications and data. Furthermore a trial version is now downloadable from all of the major device application stores.

T: 03 9024 9800 E: info@skytechnologies.com W: www.skytechnologies.com

mobilise YOUR ENTERPRISE

SALES & CRM

WORKFLOW

John Smith Clearance: B level ID# 1003167 F i e l d S e r vi c e Te r r i t o r y 3 6

BI

HCM

ASSET MGMT

FIELD SERVICE

Any application. Any device.

Configure once, run anywhere.

Sky Technologies has 13 years of experience mobilising SAP, delivering more than 100 successful customer projects in over 30 countries. The SkyMobile MEAP resides within the SAP environment, requires no coding or middleware and supports iPhone/iPad, BlackBerry, Android and Windows Mobile.

Ask us about SkyMobile’s newest features: Secure Container | Identity Mgmt | Role-Based Provisioning

www.skytechnologies.com | info@skytechnologies.com | +61 3 9024 9800

COMPANY PROFILE

Perafel Perafel is an SAP recruitment and contract management consultancy dedicated to securing highly skilled SAP resources and implementing incomparable recruitment solutions in Australia and across the Asia-Pacific region.

Perafel has offices located in Australia (Sydney), Singapore and Philippines (Manila). We work with global corporations right through to SMEs to recruit and implement solutions that deliver measurable business benefits. We offer advice and solutions in optimising recruitment processes and contractor management.

Our primary focus is to offer tailored schemes of business integration solutions to clients and career-defining opportunities for candidates and contractors.

We pride ourselves on being able to deliver commendable and tangible results. We offer adaptable, effective and highly collaborative solutions to organisations requiring SAP resources. We have partnered with a global systems integrator to successfully resource their SAP Basis Administration support team, acquiring over 30 SAP professionals within a short timeframe, and have placed numerous program and project managers to lead and manage multi-million dollar projects.

Why choose Perafel? yy We are SAP recruitment specialists, not generalists. yy We have a proven track record in delivery at guaranteed service levels. yy We have a solid network of locally based professionals, and a global reach within the SAP community. yy We offer flexible, effective and collaborative recruitment and contractor management solution packages. yy We are truthful and transparent in every interaction.

yy We work to your timeframes, procedures, budgets and requests. yy We make your job easier.

SAP recruitment and contract management With countless placements in both permanent and contract positions across Australia and abroad (Singapore, Philippines, China, Malaysia, Thailand and UAE, Dubai), Perafel is the preferred supplier of SAP professionals to our partners.

Resources deployed include: yy Executive and senior management yy Solution architects and subject matter experts yy Program and project managers yy Organisational change specialists and trainers yy Functional and technical consultants yy Security and Basis administrators.

We have industry experience in banking and financial services, consumer products, engineering and construction, government and public sector, logistics and transportation, manufacturing, mining, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, retail and utilities.

Perafel maintains relationships with proven SAP talent to match the most suitable candidates for your positions. With a direct network of SAP professionals that have been referenced and pre-qualified, we represent the right person every time.

At Perafel, we are people helping people make the best choices in their business and career.

T: 02 8860 5900 E: info@perafel.com W: www.perafel.com

COMPANY PROFILE

Lodestone Management Consultants Lodestone Management Consultants 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.

Originally established in Switzerland in 2005, Lodestone now has offices in 16 countries and more than 800 consultants globally, and counts some of the largest financial services and pharmaceutical companies in the world among its clients.

Lodestone Australia Lodestone entered the Australian market in 2007, and operates in three main industries: financial services, public sector and consumer packaged goods (CPG). This, accompanied with our SAP solution focus of Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supplier Relationship Management (SRM), and broader ERP, defines Lodestone’s solution and industry alignment. Lodestone specialises in SAP roll-outs for global companies, with recent projects including Johnson & Johnson Medical, Fairfax Media, Olympus and Landis and Gyr. Lodestone has offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, and works with both medium to large corporations and public sector agencies to design, develop and implement solutions delivering measurable business benefits. With a background in management consulting and program management, we offer advice to local and international corporations on how to devise innovative business operating models, optimise processes and implement new technologies leveraging SAP solutions.

Our people Lodestone’s people are experienced and innovative with a proven track record of success. At Lodestone we have a passion for excellence; all our consultants strive to deliver beyond the expectations of our clients. By acting as their trusted adviser, we aim to establish long-term relationships. Dedicated to continuously earn this trust from our clients, we deliver the highest possible quality in what we do. Lodestone also possesses highly skilled, SAPcertified consultants, with annual education programs to ensure our people are industry-focused and optimally skilled in the latest releases, product developments and broader SAP solutions.

project governance and QA services, training design and delivery, infrastructure architecture services, enterprise architecture, business intelligence strategy, implementation and support, IT support services, as well as remote monitoring and help desk support services.

Lodestone also offers our clients custom-built SAP solutions. The latest of these is our Expense Management Solution (EMS), a SAP certified add-on that streamlines a company’s expense claim process by cutting cost and overhead spent on manual processing and General Ledger reconciliation. The Lodestone EMS operates within the SAP environment and is designed to alleviate the pain of monthly expense account processing. The EMS is highly configurable and can be implemented and aligned to existing accounting and expense business processes as well as customised SAP ERP systems. It gives clients the ability to define their own levels of automation around merchant file import, vendor reimbursement, expense posting, dispute management and notification, alert and escalation procedures.

Key features of the EMS include: yy Use of customisable expense codes to simplify General Ledger account assignment. yy Automatic splitting of expense allocation using Merchant, MIS and SIC codes assigned to transactions. yy Option for automatic posting of standard card charges. yy Allocation to any SAP cost object – that is, Cost Centre, Internal Order, WBS Element. yy Use of Authorisation Groups to notify one or many authorisers for approval processing. yy Alerts for unallocated items with multiple escalation levels. yy Ability to customise the posting document reference using any of the available input data. yy Standard SAP screen customising to show only relevant fields specific to your business. yy Detailed multi-level reporting.

To find out how Lodestone can help your organisation, contact us today.

T: 02 8571 8300 E: australia@lodestonemc.com W: www.lodestonemc.com

Our offering Lodestone offers a broad range of services including business process analysis and design, business case development, shared services strategy and implementation, SAP ERP implementation and support,

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COMPANY PROFILE

Consulting Networks About CN Group The CN Group is a privately owned, Australian IT services company headquartered in the Macquarie Business Park in northern Sydney. The Group is comprised of two divisions: Computer Networks (technology infrastructure services) and Consulting Networks (applications consulting).

The Group’s core competencies include IT consulting and infrastructure management (both hosting and systems integration) for Australian small, medium and large businesses using Microsoft and SAP applications.

Whether it is an audit of existing IT infrastructure, consulting on a system refresh or providing a virtual IT department, the CN Group guarantees it will provide the best solution for the customer’s business issue at a reasonable price on flexible commercial terms.

The Consulting Networks vision As Australia’s first Business ByDesign partner, the Consulting Networks business unit expects to spearhead SAP’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings into the small to medium enterprise market, allowing businesses to derive the benefits from their ideas faster.

Consulting Networks expects to integrate SAP virtualisation and hosting with consulting services. Our goal is to be the best in the region at supplying enterprise technology virtualisation, hosting and consulting in the mid- to large enterprise market using SAP as a strategic enterprise platform. CN prides itself on building a ‘bridge to cloud computing’.

Consulting Networks strength statements Consulting Networks boasts a team with over 100 years’ combined experience in SAP consulting.

Consulting Networks is SAP’s first Australian partner for its SaaS offering, called Business ByDesign, and is still the only locally certified Hosting Partner for SAP’s mid-market and enterprise solutions.

Consulting Networks is the only Australian IT services company offering a scalable, virtualised SAP offering for SMBs to enable them to access the benefits of enterprisegrade virtualisation and cloud computing applications via a SaaS model.

Our innovation Our technology business has a history of developing innovative solutions for its customers.

In 2009, Consulting Networks developed a scalable virtualised offering for SMBs to enable them to access the benefits of enterprise-grade virtualisation and cloud computing applications.

In 2010, Consulting Networks reorganised its business to deliver cloud based solutions for Microsoft (MS365 and Sharepoint) and SAP’s Business ByDesign with the

62 Inside SAP magazine

belief that businesses were looking to move to the cloud to reap the benefits of speed and flexibility when it came to scaling their business.

This year we are looking to execute on that strategy with our business partners, SAP and Microsoft.

Our customers The CN Group currently has over 300 customers across Australia in a wide variety of industries from education to real estate. We enjoy a very high customer retention rate because of our dedication to customer care. We still work with our first customers.

Why Consulting Networks?

Our customers choose Consulting Networks because: Delivery expertise: Our team has over 100 years combined experience in SAP consulting. We deliver speed to benefits to your growing business.

Innovation: We are the only Australian IT services company offering a scalable, virtualised SAP offering for SMBs via a SaaS model for every size of business.

Success: We are still the fastest-growing SAP partner in Australia.

Value: We offer our customers flexible commercial terms that best suit their business model in addition to business insights that align strategy to technology.

Accountability: We adhere to a philosophy of genuine care for our customers, collaborative teamwork and technical innovation.

T: 1300 886 676 E: info@consultingnetworks.com.au W: www.consultingnetworks.com.au

SUSE Established in 1992, SUSE is the original provider of the enterprise Linux distribution and the most interoperable platform for mission-critical computing. With a portfolio centered around SUSE Linux Enterprise, we power thousands of organisations around the world across physical, virtual and cloud environments. SUSE grew more than threefold after it was acquired by Novell in 2004. Now operating as an independent business unit of The Attachmate Group, SUSE continues its unwavering focus on the benefits of open source and the needs of its commercial partners and customers.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications The only operating system optimised for all SAP software solutions. yy Faster installation to accelerate time to results. yy Maximised support to lower cost of operation and ongoing maintenance. yy Built-in business continuity to protect critical business operations.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications is the only operating system optimised for all mission-critical SAP software solutions, including appliances. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications is recommended by SAP as a preferred Linux platform.

SUSE Linux Server for SAP Applications is based on the newest SUSE Linux Enterprise technology, a highly reliable, scalable, secure and optimised server operating system that is built to power physical, virtual and cloud applications. It is validated and certified by SAP and is, therefore, uniquely positioned to support SAP software solutions including appliances.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Priority Support for SAP applications Deploy SAP on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and then get the enterprise support you need. This exclusive offering enables SAP customers to receive priority support from both SUSE and SAP. T: 02 8281 3400 E: Hamish.Miles@suse.com W: www.suse.com

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. 速

The #1 Linux platform for SAP applications.

For more information, please call +61 2 8281 3400 or email us at Hamish.Miles@suse.com

COMPANY PROFILE

Acclimation Acclimation is an Australian-owned specialist in SAP consulting services. We are committed to helping our customers drive value from their SAP investment. Our SAPcertified consultants have deep industry expertise coupled with superior product knowledge and apply these through a range of services including SAP architectural design work, system implementation services, system configuration and ongoing administration, application development and SAP solution upgrades.

By understanding what the current and future state goals are for an organisation, Acclimation can offer expertise through project work, flexible contract work, service level agreements and daily workforce augmentation. Our focus is on SAP’s NetWeaver, SAP BusinessObjects and SAP mobility 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.

Our solution expertise includes: yy SAP custom (ABAP/JAVA) development yy SAP Enterprise Portal yy SAP Solution Manager yy SAP Basis services Acclimation Print

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yy SAP Afaria Mobility yy SAP SUP Platform yy SAP Business Objects Reporting Suite yy SAP Business Workflow, and yy SAP Process Integration.

2010 was a big year for Acclimation, winning multiple SAP awards including the ‘Australia’s Got Innovation’ award at the 2010 SAUG Summit, 2010 SAP Best Innovation Award and then capping it off by winning the ‘Demo Jam’ Award for innovation at the SAP TechEd 2010 conference in Las Vegas – the first Australian company to do so. Awards have continued into 2011 with Acclimation being part of the winning team taking out the SAP InnoJam contest at the SAUG Summit 2011 in Sydney.

Driven by the core values of authenticity, customer focus and delivering the highest quality consulting services, our SAP consulting services can help your organisation attain higher productivity, increase SAP user acceptance and lower the overall cost of maintaining your SAP investment. Our passion is SAP so for an innovative approach to running your business on SAP, contact us.

T: 1300 852 990 W: www.acclimation.com.au

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WINNER Four SAP awards in 2010 WINNER SAP InnoJam Sydney 2011 (team participation) For an innovative approach to running your business on SAP visit www.acclimation.com.au

COMPANY PROFILE

Systems and People Since 1995, Systems and People have worked exclusively in SAP and the SAP resource industry.

Our team is comprised of experienced SAP, HR and contractor management professionals who collectively have over 40 years of industry experience.

This is our competitive advantage – we have an in-depth understanding of SAP technologies, along with the industry knowledge, skill requirements and cultural competencies required to support successful SAP implementations.

Our extensive experience in the SAP industry means we have developed a vast network of the right SAP people to support our clients.

We continuously build on our knowledge of the latest SAP technologies by being active in the SAP and SAP Australian User Group community, so we have the best possible understanding of our clients’ evolving SAP requirements.

We invest in education and technology innovation to deliver exceptional services to our clients and candidates.

With Melbourne and Sydney offices, Systems and People are able to service clients and candidates on a national level.

Our unique SAP service offering encompasses: yy SAP recruitment (permanent and contract) yy SAP consulting, and yy SAP contractor management.

How we have helped our clients yy One day to one year SAP contract resources in core ECC areas and niche skill sets such as BI/BO, CRM, Workflow and WebDynpro. yy Building internal permanent SAP support teams. yy On-hiring overseas SAP specialists via 457 sponsorship. yy Contractor management of directly engaged SAP contractors and entire temporary workforces. yy Sourcing junior SAP permanent staff with the right attitude to develop. yy Supplying part-time and ad-hoc SAP support staff to smooth demand peaks. yy Providing SAP leadership resources for key implementation projects. yy Providing SAP documentation and training skills to ensure user system adoption. yy Supplying SAP ABAP and Basis resources to back-fill for client projects.

Our team is here to assist you, whatever your SAP-run business and SAP resource need.

To get the best in the business working for you, contact us.

T: 1300 897 820 E: admin@systemsandpeople.com.au W: systemsandpeople.com.au

Systems and People @ Unlock the true value of your SAP investment with the right SAP people @ Build your internal SAP expertise with experienced contract and permanent SAP resources @ Reduce your administration overhead with a streamlined contractor management and payroll solution

the SAP people specialists recruitment

consulting

contractor management

1300 897 820 www.systemsandpeople.com.au

melbourne • sydney

COMPANY PROFILE

Tata Consultancy Services By leveraging SAP enterprise solutions, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) enables enterprises to benefit from simplified technology landscapes, integrated processes, and streamlined operations – building enterprises that are agile, connected, and ready.

To remain globally competitive, Australia’s leading enterprises are transforming their operations in a swift and dynamic manner. Achieving growth with profit in this complex business environment is imperative for success. As a global strategic partner of SAP, TCS has been assisting many global enterprises to accomplish their business and technology goals.

The team at TCS has extensive experience across SAP solutions – consulting, end-to-end implementations, upgrades, and support – reinforcing implementation programs, optimising solutions, as well as enhancing value from their highly advanced SAP investments.

TCS has made strategic investments in new technologies to assist organisations to deal with issues that are impacting them daily. TCS has focused and developed core capabilities in enabling mobile enterprises, cloud-based solutions and in-memory analytics.

Based on the Think, Build, and Operate model, TCS’ comprehensive portfolio of offerings span the complete life cycle of SAP enterprise solutions – enabling enterprises to transform, enhance, and optimise. Our offerings include: yy Pre-implementation: TCS offerings in the preimplementation stage lay the foundation for business transformation. We provide innovative solutions like Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), and assist enterprises leverage SOA to develop solutions to meet their industry challenges. yy Implementation: TCS supports enterprises through the implementation stage by deploying the right solutions to make them agile. yy Post-implementation: In the post-implementation stage, TCS assists with upgrade, SAP health check, and SAP audit to enable enterprises to maximise the value of their SAP investments.

Business value By offering SAP enterprise solutions, TCS enables companies across industries to benefit from: yy Simplified technology landscapes; yy Integrated processes; yy Streamlined operations; and yy Agility and improved connectivity.

TCS is the first Asian consulting company to become a SAP Global Services Partner. Working with SAP for years now, TCS provides strategic business consulting and services to assist enterprises to implement and integrate SAP solutions and optimise business processes.

The strategic partnership spans from co-innovation to

66 Inside SAP magazine

go-to-market initiatives in multiple areas. Leveraging this alliance, we have access to SAP organisations, expertise and stakeholders to successfully deliver on various SAP projects and engagements.

As a result, we are not only one of the largest, but also among the fastest growing global partners of SAP. Beyond providing horizontal ERP solutions, we also have industry-specific SAP capabilities for a broad range of verticals including: manufacturing, automotive, chemicals, life sciences, oil and gas, utilities, metals and mining, high tech, professional services, travel, transportation and hospitality, telecom, retail and consumer packaged goods, and banking and insurance.

The partnership also provides industry-specific analytical solutions based on SAP BusinessObjects, for several verticals, such as warranty analytics and healthcare provider analytics.

Among TCS’ specific joint initiatives and offerings are: yy Perfect Plant: Boardroom to shopfloor real-time integration – TCS is SAP’s global partner of choice. yy TCS Legal Management Solution built on and certified

by SAP. yy SAP BusinessObjects – with 1400+ consultants, TCS is one of the largest BusinessObjects consulting partners and has developed multiple industry-specific analytics offerings. yy Co-innovation in the area of cross-industry end-to-end processes like efficient manufacturing operations, high performing assets and integrated product development partnering with SAP in the area of sustainability solutions. yy New business models, BPO, on-demand and hosted offerings based on SAP. yy Collaborations with SAP and many of its partners to develop and market specific solutions and services for the hospitality industry globally. yy Helping to drive customer upgrades to mySAP ERP in target verticals, using TCS’ innovation labs to build and showcase solution accelerators and composites.

T: Phil Cook on 02 8456 2800 E: philip.cook@tcs.com W: www.tcs.com

COMPANY PROFILE

Revolution IT Revolution IT is Asia-Pacific’s #1 independent SAP quality assurance provider and SAP Australia’s preferred testing partner. With 65 of our 245 employees specialising in SAP, we have the largest and most highly skilled SAP quality assurance team in Australia.

Revolution IT has worked with more than 150 clients, 35 of whom have engaged us for SAP projects.

Revolution IT offers specialised services in SAP project management, requirements management, testing and training, helping clients’ SAP projects succeed and deliver business benefits.

SAP testing services Revolution IT’s SAP testing services range from complete test outsourcing and test management to providing test analysts to augment any organisation’s internal test team. Our services help deliver high-quality SAP implementations, roll-outs, upgrades and maintenance.

Customers choose Revolution IT’s testing services for the following differentiators: yy Unique team with SAP and testing expertise; yy Proprietary V-on-ValueSAP test methodology; yy Ready-to-use SAP testing templates; yy State of the art SAP test lab and PoCs; yy Pioneer in Australia with SAP TAO competency; yy Ready-to-use SAP test case repository;

yy Frequently discovered defects repository; yy SAP testing knowledge repository; and yy SAP best practices test accelerators.

SAP project management Revolution IT’s SAP project managers believe quality SAP projects focus on business value (benefits realisation) in addition to timelines and budget. We make it our priority to deliver high-quality and efficient solutions to maximise an organisation’s business results and financial gains from SAP project investment.

Customers choose Revolution IT’s project management services for: yy Our rich experience in successful SAP project delivery across the Asia-Pacific; yy Our qualification in PMBOK and Prince2 methodologies; yy In-depth knowledge of accelerated SAP methodology; yy Adherence to SAP project management best practices; yy Access to Revolution IT Project Management Knowledge Portal; and yy SAP Solution Manager Centre of Excellence.

T: 03 9600 2566 E: sap@revolutionit.com.au W: www.revolutionit.com.au

COMPANY PROFILE

BPSE Consulting Don’t fall behind on SAP upgrades, support packs and testing: manage seasonal SAP change with BPSE Consulting and save up to 60 per cent.

Partner with SAP design and implementation experts BPSE consultants are relentless about reducing SAP customers’ time, risks and costs.

An SAP Services Partner and member of the SAP PartnerEdge™ program, BPSE Consulting is intimately familiar with the challenges of SAP Application Lifecycle Management (ALM). Whether you’re struggling to manage ERP, SCM and PLM events, optimise the use of Solution Manager or reduce the total cost of SAP ownership, BPSE will make an immediate positive, bottom line impact.

Reduce up to 60% of time spent on upgrades, support packs and testing BPSE increases efficiency and accelerates lifecycle events, empowering IT to focus on more strategic SAP initiatives that increase business opportunity.

As SAP expands its portfolio and companies benefit from new functionality, ALM becomes more complex. Upgrades, multiple landscapes, production system merges and other critical operational activities can monopolise business and

IT resources.

BPSE Consulting eliminates excessive time, costs and risks associated with SAP ALM by complementing its design and integration expertise with automated SAP diagnostic software from IntelliCorp. BPSE is a leading Asia Pacific supplier of IntelliCorp LiveCompare™, LiveInterface™ and LiveModel™. These unique intelligent impact analysis solutions are used by more than 35 percent of the Fortune 500 companies that run SAP and reduce total cost of ownership by up to 30 per cent.

Engage, optimise and save with BPSE Consulting Committed to improving your SAP experience, BPSE aligns best practices with cutting-edge methodologies to be the ultimate business, process, strategy and execution partner.

BPSE offers a suite of strategic and tactical capabilities to better manage SAP ALM. In addition, we empower you to fully understand the global SAP landscape and ensure that the benefits of SAP Solution Manager translate into successful projects, as well as more efficient SAP operations.

T: 02 9959 2260 E: info@bpse.com.au W: www.bpse.com.au

We are your trusted advisors, ensuring we provide you with the best and cost efficient SAP solutions and Consulting Services.

806/53 Walker Street, North Sydney, NSW, 2060 Telephone: +61 2 9959 2260, Facsimile: +61 2 9959 2266

COMPANY PROFILE

Stream Stream is one of Australia’s fastest growing SAP consulting organisations and an IBM Software ValueNet Partner. Privately owned and based in Sydney, Stream now has offices in Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra and Perth and employs more than 40 highly experienced consultants.

This gives us the depth to provide quality service as well as the capability to respond quickly to our customers’ needs to ensure we help them achieve the results they need fast.

Our mission is to help our customers continue to realise value from their investment in SAP by extending the capabilities of their system, which allows them to run their businesses better.

Stream started in 2004 with a focus on delivering SAP NetWeaver solutions and services to large enterprises such as Franklins, Powercor and the Federal Government. The initial focus was on Portals and Middleware Integration.

In 2009, Stream became an SAP Services Partner and the decision was made to broaden the service offering and move into the provision of SAP ERP products and services. Part of this strategy involved becoming an SAP Channel Partner, which would allow Stream to resell SAP software into the mid-market. This goal was achieved in July 2010 with the first software sale made in September 2010 – rumored to be the fastest a new SAP Channel Partner has acquired a new name software customer – to Comscentre Pty Ltd, an aggregator of business communication services.

The early success has continued in 2011, with Stream signing another new name software customer, Valley Longwall International Pty Ltd (VLI). The VLI deal was significant not only for Stream but also for SAP, given that it represents one of the larger SAP deals signed in NSW recently. This has helped propel Stream to becoming one of the few SAP Gold Channel Partners in Australia.

Again, it appears another record has been made (though yet to be confirmed), with Stream being the fastest for a new SAP Channel Partner to achieve Gold status.

In addition to the focus on software, Stream has also put time and effort into building up its support offering and now offers SAP-certified support processes. This has culminated recently in a four-year support contract being signed in August with a large media organisation for provision of infrastructure support in addition to SAP technical and functional support.

Our key partnerships are growing daily and have manifested themselves in some significant results. We have grown a strategic alliance with PwC, which has proven to be a key differentiator when delivering large programs.

Stream is also part of the IBM ValueNet which has been key in taking the SAP Fast Start program to market.

Areas for future growth have been identified with mobility being key, which has been revealed in the recent announcement of our Sybase partnership. This means Stream is one of the few companies in Australia to be both

What We do

What We provide

Stream focuses solely on provision of quality SAP services and solutions covering the breadth of SAP.

• SAP Business-All-in-One Solutions • SAP ERP Implementation • Vision-to-Value Roadmap • SAP Upgrades & Migratio • SAP PI / Systems Integra • Enterprise Portals • SAP Workflow & SAP BPM • Adobe Forms • SAP Enhancements • Mobile Solutions • Business Objects • Basis & Solution Manager

Stream confidently delivers: • Experience • Agility • Effectiveness • Innovation

Our mission is to help our customers continue to realise value from their investment in SAP by extending the capabilities help our customers realise “We of their system.

the value of SAP by extending the capabilities of their SAP systems, which enable them to run their businesses better.”

a SAP Channel Partner and a Sybase Channel Partner.

Stream’s innovative approach to building value-add solutions and our technical expertise have again been highlighted with the recent win of the sought-after SAP Customer Award of Excellence for Best SAP NetWeaver Project 2011 – the second time we have won this award in three years. Innovation and thought leadership is an integral part of our culture, with one of our staff being recently announced as a SAP Mentor – a small worldwide group of leaders in the community, our SAP Developer Network blogs hitting the front page and our staff in the winning teams at the recent SAP Innojam, with our team learning SAP HANA overnight.

The growth that Stream has realised over the last two years is attributable to a number of factors but our strategic partnerships with organisations like SAP, IBM and Sybase, as well as other niche providers, has had a massive impact that will no doubt carry Stream forward to the next level.

The IBM logo and the IBM Business Partne registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. T AG in Germany and in several other countrie

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T: 02 9114 6075 E: contact@streamT.com W: www.streamcs.com.au

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COMPANY PROFILE

Esker Esker offers several integrated end-to-end solutions to automate every phase and every type of business information exchange with a strong focus on order to cash and procure to pay solutions and services.

On-premise software solutions and on-demand services include: yy Sales order processing yy Accounts payable automation yy Accounts receivable formatting and delivery yy Procurement formatting and delivery yy Enterprise faxing yy Enterprise mail services, and yy Customer Invoice Portal.

In Australia and New Zealand, over 1800 companies rely on Esker.

100+ SAP customers, and 100+ Esker On Demand customers, including BHP Billiton, OZ Minerals, Newcrest Mining, Orica, Visy, James Hardie, Bunnings, Tourism New Zealand, Sony, Sharp, Samsung and many local subsidiaries of global multinationals run their business on Esker.

Esker customers achieve significant operational efficiencies, cost savings and return on investment while

gaining visibility and control within order to cash and procure to pay business processes ranging from sales order management and accounts receivable to purchasing and accounts payable.

Founded in 1985, Esker operates globally with more than 80,000 customers and millions of licensed users worldwide.

Since 1997, Esker ANZ has offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland.

T: 61 2 8596 5100 (Australia) 64 9 306 8872 (New Zealand) E: info@esker.com.au; info@esker.co.nz W: www.esker.com.au; www.esker.co.nz

COMPANY PROFILE

Innogence Limited

Just as we know the importance of being correctly informed, so too we understand the importance of integrity in the way we do business.

Innogence is an Australian-owned company that offers specialised consulting services in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane. Innogence employs over 100 staff, of which over 85 per cent are permanent.

Innogence is an IBM Software ValueNet and SAP Business Partner and specialises in SAP Business Intelligence (BI) and BusinessObjects implementations.

We are considered the leaders in BI in Australia due to the successful project outcomes and accolades we have received since the company was founded in 2005 – the latest being the SAP Award of Excellence for Best BI Solution 2011.

One of the founding principles of Innogence is to deliver the best BI consultancy services to the Australian market. How do we achieve this? Well, it is simple; the whole company is dedicated to one area of expertise, delivering BI projects where most of our competitors still believe they can deliver a range of services.

Most of our clients want to engage with an expert BI consultancy firm to provide the skills, thought leadership and additional resources to deliver projects that they may otherwise lack.

We are regarded as having the best consultants in our industry and pride ourselves on our flexibility, enthusiasm and common sense approach. By engaging with Innogence, you’re not just getting the elite BI staff – you are getting peace of mind that the job will be done properly. We don’t just deliver the standard solution – we deliver the benefits that you are counting on to drive your business to the next level.

The professionalism displayed by the Innogence team in assisting us to deliver this project and have it operational in time for roll-out and use in the FY2012 planning cycle was exceptional.

Ian Baldwin, General Manager Group Finance, Transfield Services

If you are scoping or planning a BI project and are interested in what SAP and BusinessObjects can deliver, we’re the specialists who know how to scope, design, implement and test the optimal solution for your business.

If you want to fully understand the potential benefits of new technologies from SAP and BusinessObjects, we can explain what they offer, demonstrate how they fit together and advise on how they will bring additional value to your organisation.

And of course, if you enjoy working with experienced, savvy professionals who are experts in business intelligence, then that’s another good reason too.

T: 1300 466 643 E: enquiries@innogence.com W: www.innogence.com

www.insidesap.com.au 71

COMPANY PROFILE

Compuware Compuware Corporation is the technology performance company which provides software, experts and best practices to ensure technology works well and delivers value. Compuware solutions make the world’s most important technologies perform at their best for leading organisations in Australia and New Zealand.

From popular websites to custom and packaged software, to the systems that power banks, hospitals and mobile phones, Compuware ensures that complex technologies work like they should, all the time.

With 37 years of delivering proven software and services to the world’s biggest organisations, Compuware is the only company with the solutions and experience to ensure the world’s most important technologies work well and deliver value.

Compuware’s business strategy is to enable an organisation’s most important technologies to perform at their peak by delivering best in class on-premise software, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and professional technical services. Compuware’s solutions empower organisations to drive revenue, brand equity and customer satisfaction by harnessing disruptive technologies like cloud computing, virtualisation and mobile computing.

As an example, Compuware delivers a strategy designed to help organisations reduce the total cost of ownership of SAP deployments by improving application reliability and performance.

Compuware also helps to proactively reduce risk and streamline upgrades, new deployments and golive processes for SAP customers when they deploy new technology or refresh their existing SAP business solutions.

Compuware’s unique, automated offerings for SAP solutions enable businesses to maximise the value of their SAP solutions, especially in regard to upgrade implementations, to service pack maintenance and to delivering high quality, end-user experiences.

These solutions are specifically tailored to address the SAP solutions environment and, by incorporating advanced functionality through the experience of Compuware IT professionals, provide clear advantages over point product purchases.

The Compuware Gomez platform is the industry’s leading solution for optimising the performance, availability and quality of web, non-web, mobile, streaming and cloud applications. Driven by end-user experience, Gomez provides visibility into the actual performance being delivered to SAP users, as well as the supporting infrastructure, so all parties responsible can prioritise and isolate problems and resolve issues quickly.

One of its key benefits is that Gomez is the only solution on the market that can deliver real-user transactionresponse times for all SAP transactions, for all users, all the time, without the need to instrument the application or deploy an agent on the application infrastructure.

72 Inside SAP magazine

While Gomez enables teams to communicate issues effectively and continuously make improvements, the Gomez approach enables: yy Visibility into the quality of services that is being delivered to the SAP end-users. yy Prioritisation of problems to determine what issues to tackle first, enabling the team to fix and resolve problems faster. yy Isolation of a particular fault, to zero in on the specific issue and identify where the problem resides: application server, database, network or system resources. yy Resolution of problems by identifying where they are and what the source is, then drilling into details in order to fix issues quickly. yy Communication at all levels of the organisation, by providing the right information to the right people in a language they can understand. yy Improvement of issues and a continuous understanding of what SAP services can be improved in support of any process such as Six Sigma or ITIL. Gomez is flexible and works in parallel with any existing monitoring deployment for SAP to provide 24x7 performance and availability coverage. It also has deepdive analysis capabilities into specific areas of application components to further analyse performance problems. The end result is that business and IT operations are enabled to ensure optimal performance, availability and usage of SAP solutions.

Today, CIOs want to maximise the investments they have made in their strategic SAP solution deployments by reducing the time and cost associated with going live. Compuware continues to work with SAP to help our joint customers reduce total cost of ownership and improve the reliability and performance of SAP solution implementations.

Compuware end-users in Australia and New Zealand include executive management, line of business leadership, IT leadership and staff, IT service providers and professional services organisations. Our solutions support these users in achieving key business and technology goals across all major platforms. w: www.compuware.com.au

Kaba Workforce Management The Kaba Group is one of the world’s leading players in the security industry. An internationally active listed company, it employs around 8000 staff in more than 60 countries. Kaba provides innovative, comprehensive access control solutions for buildings, facilities and sites as well as solutions for staff and enterprise data collection which meet clients’ needs for security, organisation and convenience. With a tradition of more than 149 years, Kaba is a key expert and technology leader for a range of security solutions.

Kaba Workforce Management provides subsystems for enterprise data collection in terms of time and attendance, access control and shop floor data. These solutions are developed for integrating directly into SAP ERP and are fully complementary to SAP. Kaba is a full member of the Partner Edge program, a key solution partner for the SAP Future Factory Initiative and a developing partner for SAP Business ByDesign in terms of time and attendance.

In the Asia Pacific region, Kaba has been actively supporting SAP, its ecosystem and channel partners and customers for approximately five years, and has recently restructured its Workforce Management team to create a unified Asia Pacific Business Division.

Kaba is an active partner supporting the SAP Australian User Group and ecosystem network not only through attendance at events, but also sponsorship and working closely with the SAP

team in ANZ and the Asia Pacific region.

Kaba’s strengths speak for themselves and are confirmed with more than 1300 mutual customers, including the likes of Pirelli Tyres, BMW, Nestle and many more.

We offer: yy Reliable and proven solution (since R2) yy Highly configurable with many options and features yy Standard software yy Scalable solution from 50-10,000+ employees yy Fit for rolling-out concepts for international key accounts, and yy Solid and satisfied SAP customer base.

SAP and Kaba continue to work to strengthen the ability to provide state-of-the-art solutions that are totally complementary and leverage the SAP solution for the SAP clients, enhancing our existing long-term partnership and global availability. In addition, Kaba fully complements SAP and allows its customers to organise and automate data flow from time data acquisition, overtime calculation up to the payroll engine with little or no manual intervention.

Kaba also offers solutions that integrate into SAP PP, PM, PS and CATS. For further information, contact, Phillip Crispe, Business Unit Manager ANZ, Workforce Management Asia Pacific.

T: 1300 728 088 E: sap@kaba.com.au W: www.kaba.com/wfm-asia-pacific

The gap is caused by the difference between planned data from the ERP system and missing information about real data from operational work. Wouldn’t it be effective to have all data at the time of origin in SAP? With B-COMM ERP 4.0 for Use with SAP ERP, an integrated and modular solution for data acquisition into SAP ERP, you can now expect accurate time and attendance information in place and immediate feedback from the production process which leads you to a sustainable savings through: • • • • •

A seamless integration of SAP Time Management into SAP Payroll Saving administration times in HCM department Faster reaction on production breakdowns Reduction of idle times and overhead costs Optimizations and improvements in production run

For more details about the solution, visit www.kaba.com/wfm-asia-pacific

Kaba Australai Pty Limited 12-14 Yulong Close Moorebank NSW 2170 Tel: 1300 728 088 Fax: 1300 728 708 sap@kaba.com.au www.kaba.com.au

COMPANY PROFILE

Brick Consulting What we do Brick Consulting is an up-and-coming recruitment powerhouse making its mark capitalising in the highly competitive workforce management industry. Although only three years young, Brick Consulting comes equipped with over 20 years’ combined recruitment experience in the SAP market alone. Brick Consulting is empowered by the fact that we understand our clients both from a business and technology standpoint. Our process and methodologies are reflective of our company dynamics – guaranteeing nothing but brilliant results.

At Brick Consulting, we are committed to driving innovation in everything we do. Our core delivery model has a primary focus in SAP, as well as other areas of enterprise applications including Business Intelligence (BI) and Enterprise Information Management (EIM).

Founded in the midst of the financial crisis, we acknowledge how recruitment can affect a business’s bottom line. With crucial financial decisions, your business relies heavily on having the right person in the right role. And with us working in partnership with you, our knowledge can be a key to your success.

Who we are Our business: Brick Consulting prides itself on being a fresh and innovative company that is constantly adapting to changes in technology and the market. Our ability to do so is complemented by the fact that our people are our strategic advantage. Here at Brick Consulting, we believe that they embody who we are and what we do. It is built on the foundation that our people define the business and its core values. And through them, Brick Consulting is able to reinvent and innovate the way recruitment is done.

Our team: Composed of fresh and highly-enthusiastic people that all have a penchant for change and modern practice, each member contributes to the company’s flair for adaptability. Versatile and intuitive, the Brick Consulting team functions as all-around industry specialists with a profound ability to deliver real-time ondemand hires with great agility and precision to even the most difficult requirements.

Our perspectives: Our experience equips us to identify how having the right level of business acumen, technological capability and cultural fit in your workforce can impact a business’s strategic decisions. Brick Consulting can help you find that perfect blend.

Our compassion: No matter how challenging or how taxing recruitment can be, we’re here to help. And because we care, our focus is always to provide our clients with the best of service and the greatest attention to their needs by aligning our goals to theirs. We leave no stones unturned.

74 Inside SAP magazine

Our environment: Brick Consulting services SMEs to large companies across the world. As a global entity and an eco-conscious brand, our platform is built primarily on cloud and mobile technologies because we truly believe in sustainability for the future. And there is nothing more rewarding than being a part of an environment where we honour our corporate responsibility.

Why work with us Brick Consulting utilises an elegant balance of oldfashioned time and materials search-and-select approach coupled with state-of-the-art technology in order to deliver reliable, timely and cost-effective on-demand recruitment solutions.

We provide a number of collaborative workforce management solutions that are tailored to your recruitment needs. Some of Brick Consulting’s service offerings include: Permanent and Contract: Brick Consulting’s unmatched contingent recruitment service delivery model enables you to meet your recruitment demands under tight deadlines and budgetary constraints.

Brick Platinum: Brick Consulting offers an unprecedented packaged solution where we scope your recruitment activities and identify crucial areas of those activities, which are then scaled over the course of a month, a quarter, half-yearly or even a whole year ahead.

BOSS: Brick Outsourced Service Solutions (BOSS) is an RPO service that ensures nothing in your recruitment decision-making process is left to chance, giving you a complete piece of mind.

Brick Consulting enforces strict quality control in its recruitment methods and processes where our very own delivery team are trained and skilled-up to meet with your growing needs, assuring that our resources are delivered at the highest of standards.

Brick Consulting’s brilliance comes from the strategic partnership as a reliable service provider that functions innovatively and devotes the time to care for our clients and candidates, and ultimately sharing our knowledge together to create results of remarkable proportions.

BRICK = Brilliance + Reliable + Innovative + Caring + Knowledgeable T: 03 9095 8661 E: info@brick-consulting.com W: www.brick-consulting.com

ReadSoft ReadSoft is a global leader in Accounts Payable and Document Process Automation, specialising in automating all document- and request-driven processes for medium to large enterprises and Shared Service Centres (SSC).

ReadSoft solutions simplify and automate any transactional or business process, from receipt, through to capture, approval, post and archive. This includes, for instance, tasks associated with receiving and paying invoices, receiving or creating purchase orders, master data creation and maintenance, financial posting corrections, and many other request and document-driven processes managed by a centralised department or SSC. ReadSoft solutions consolidate visibility and control of data input and approval workflows enabling users and administrators to monitor processes, navigate to relevant transactions, and easily take on new processes with minimal training efforts. This makes it ideal for a Shared Services environment where additional business processes can easily be created and deployed.

A detailed audit trail provides visibility of the entire process, from inception through to finalisation, to enable strict business process governance and control.

ReadSoft’s solutions have been selected by an impressive range of multinationals seeking to improve control, efficiency and effectiveness and offer an attractive, measurable return on investment (ROI). With more than 5000 customers, including Caltex, Rio Tinto, Intel, Apple, Siemens, Porsche, Kellogg’s and Orica, amongst others, ReadSoft is the solution of choice.

For further details on ReadSoft Oceania, please visit our website or call us.

T: 02 9929 0676 W: www.readsoft.com.au Purchase to Pay

Order to Cash

Master Data

Finance

Requisition Order Confirmation Delivery Note Incoming Invoice Payment Approval

Customer Order Remittance Advice

Vendor Master Cost Center Profit Center

Financial Posting

PROCESS DIRECTOR

CAPTURE

EDI

Interfaces Web browser

SAP user interface Archive

Core services

Workflow engine

Save up to $35.68 on an invoice Top organisations save up to 92% on invoice processing costs simply by automating the Accounts Payable department. An invoice, which normally takes 20 days to process, takes only 4 days in these organisations.

One of our biggest customers processes 18 million invoices per annum, saving more than $600 million every year, and many processing days.

ReadSoft’s Accounts Payable automation solutions lower costs, speed up processing, and provide improved visibility and control over your invoices. More than 5,500 organisations around the world maximise Accounts Payable efficiency with ReadSoft.

Contact us and find out how you too can take advantage of these savings.

Archive services

User management

Data versioning

Process log (audit trail)

Database persistence

Phone +61 2 9929 0676 | Email info-au@readsoft.com Website www.readsoft.com.au

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COMPANY PROFILE

Revelation Software Concepts Revelation Software Concepts (RSC) specialises in change control technology for use with SAP solutions, developing market-leading software to reduce the risks and lower the costs of delivering changes into SAP systems. Since RSC was founded in 1997, some of the world’s largest companies have come to rely upon its mature change control solutions. Its deep expertise and responsive support have made RSC the leading change control specialist for SAP solution-based infrastructures around the globe. RSC is 100 per cent SAP-focused and its flagship change control solution, Rev-Trac, is certified as powered by the SAP NetWeaver technology platform, and supports change control for both ABAP and non-ABAP technologies.

Technologically advanced SAP change control software Rev-Trac is a powerful, highly configurable, change control software application for change request and transport management in SAP solutions. Quickly and simply implemented, Rev-Trac is especially suited to managing extensive SAP landscapes including those with N and N+1 configuration and those containing multiple SAP solutions.

Implementing Rev-Trac provides unprecedented control over each and every change introduced into SAP systems.

Its extensive automation and in-built safety features simplify SAP project delivery and safeguard production system stability, turning everyday SAP project teams into heroes.

Designed with almost every conceivable change control requirement in mind, Rev-Trac brings to the SAP change team a far-reaching range of change control benefits including: yy Design, implement and enforce your own change control processes quickly and easily. yy Track every change’s full history for easy auditing. yy Achieve consistency and cost savings via extensive process and task automation. yy Prevent transport sequencing, overtake and overwrite accidents. yy Maintain control within complex landscapes with advanced conflict management. yy Ensure quality management of concurrent, simultaneous changes across multiple applications. yy Automate multi-technology (ABAP, Java and other nonABAP) change deployments, with or without CTS+. yy Interface with third-party tools such as Service Desk and Testing applications via web services.

T: 61 3 9955 9700 E: info@xrsc.com W: www.xrsc.com

Everjoy Consulting Everjoy Consulting is the leading SAP recruitment company servicing Australia and New Zealand with an extensive track record in the delivery of recruitment solutions to high-profile customers in all industries.

Everjoy is one of the truly consultative recruitment agencies, providing tailored recruitment solutions to suit the individual needs of our customers and candidates alike.

With over 15 years’ experience in resource management and functional consulting within our recruitment team, we truly know what it is to run an SAP project. We understand the importance of high quality delivery within tight time constraints.

Everjoy has aided consulting organisations in the delivery of end-to-end implementations, upgrades and business process reengineering (BPR) projects.

Through the extensive industry experience of our consultants and demonstrated track record in delivering superior results to our clients, Everjoy Consulting currently offers a range of services above and beyond the traditional recruitment solution.

Our unique Contractor Retention Program Unique to the SAP recruitment industry, Everjoy Consulting has an established Contractor Retention Program (CRP), specifically designed to provide you with the comfort and security of business continuity while allowing you to utilise the contractor engagement model with comfort. Everjoy Consulting actively works to mitigate the risks associated with the retention of key resources in your project team.

Resource planning and scheduling Everjoy consultants work with you to plan your annual headcount against your growth and organisational development strategies. We assist in highlighting peaks, troughs, cyclical or skill-set difficulties with the ultimate goal of reducing the stress and costs associated with recruitment in the current market.

Best practice consulting Your Everjoy consultant works with you to provide business process review and optimisation, to ensure that your processes comply with industry best practice allowing you to attract and retain the best resources available.

Recruitment solutions that make sense.

Whether you’re looking for the best people or the best job, Everjoy Consulting has got you covered. Call us now.

Employee performance management We don’t disappear after a candidate starts with your organisation! As an independent party to the employment relationship between a company and its employee, Everjoy consultants conduct regular reviews with each candidate placed in your company. The value to our customers in this independent and objective performance snapshot is demonstrated by the ability to mitigate risks before they arise and further ensure continuity in your growing team.

Whether you are looking for the best people, or the best job, contact Everjoy Consulting today.

T: 02 9394 8500 W: www.everjoy.com.au

(02) 9394 8500 info@everjoy.com.au www.everjoy.com.au

COMPANY PROFILE

Excel4apps Excel4apps is a best-in-class provider of Excel-based reporting software for SAP. Designed for business professionals, its award-winning GL Wand and Sales Wand solutions easily and securely deliver real-time ERP data using Microsoft Excel to save reporting time and effort. Each solution leverages your existing SAP security settings and provides reports with drill-down capabilities that are refreshable on demand, yet preserve formatting and Excel formulae. Without middleware or data warehouse requirements, you can install and utilise Excel4apps solutions in minutes – so there’s less reliance on IT support and greater power given to the individual user.

Sales reporting the way it should be Sales Wand enables SAP users to analyse sales performance in Excel from Order to Cash in order to gain deeper business insights, collaborate more efficiently, and access reliable information more quickly for effective decision-making. You can analyse business performance by 14 dimensions, including Organisation, Customer, and Product groupings for full reporting and analysis, such as: yy Business Unit Gross Margin Reporting yy Customer Value Reporting yy Commission Calculation

Financial data you can count on As an SAP-certified integration solution, GL Wand allows you to create and publish report balances from SAP New GL, Classic GL, Cost Centre Accounting, and Profit Centre Accounting. GL Wand reports are built using custom functions that link Excel cells to specific FICO objects and values. You can use multiple company code and GL parallel ledger reporting in a single workbook and perform easy adhoc reporting, statutory reporting, slice and dice analysis, monthly reconciliations and more with GL Wand’s drill down capabilities. GL Wand simply provides more efficient financial reporting, shorter month-ends, and faster refreshes directly InsideSAP_halpage_Excel4apps_v2.ai 1 8/24/2011 7:37:10 AM from SAP.

yy Sales Team Performance yy Trend Analyses yy Sales Forecasting yy Pricing analysis yy And more.

Excel4apps serves over 8000 users worldwide and has offices in Australia, the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. To schedule a demonstration and try a free trial, visit our website today.

W: www.excel4apps.com/sap

Excel4apps Makes SAP Reporting Easy.

Just Ask Our 8,000+ GL Wand Users.

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“GL Wand has streamlined our tight month-end close so that we spend less time struggling to prepare data and more time analysing it to improve our business strategy and responses.”

-- Andrew Roberts, Finance Manager, Fletcher Insulation

Installing in minutes, Excel4apps’ award-winning GL Wand and Sales Wand solutions easily and securely deliver real-time ERP data using Microsoft Excel® to save you reporting time and effort.

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Schedule a demonstration and try a free trial today by visiting www.excel4apps.com/sap.

©2011 Excel4apps Pty Ltd. All rights reserved.

COMPANY PROFILE

Evolution Future Solutions Evolution Future Solutions is the #1 reseller of SAP Business One in Australia. All our solutions are based on the SAP Business One ERP platform, hence our ongoing success. With over 35 years’ experience in the industry, Evolution has helped hundreds of SME organisations achieve their business goals by having a strategy of using highly skilled consultants, backed up by a proven implementation methodology.

kitting and painting.

Evolution’s e-commerce solution, WebConnect, enables small distribution companies to increase their market footprint by using the internet as a source of business. WebConnect is totally controlled and integrated into SAP Business One, enabling B2B, B2C, catalogue and a static website to be built quickly with low cost of ownership as the key benefit.

Business improvement

Partnering with you

Our aim at Evolution is to provide innovative business improvement solutions to distributors, manufacturers and professional service organisations in order to dramatically improve profitability and operational efficiencies. Based on the SAP Business One system, we deliver solutions that enable companies to gain control over their existing operations, bringing all departmental functions together to work as one integrated team, so they can profitably take on additional business without sacrificing customer service.

We understand that all businesses are unique and are very mindful that changing to new technology and processes increases stress in organisations. This is why, when we start working with a client, we engage on a basis of a partnership. We work diligently to understand the culture, the plan and the goals of our clients.

Unique industry solutions By using SAP Business One as a platform, Evolution has developed unique solutions for the metals industry, and turnkey solutions for e-commerce distribution organisations and fabricators.

The Metals One solution enhances SAP Business One by enabling a steel distributor/fabricator, such as APEX Steel, to have full control over their business. Metals One understands the intricacy of the steel industry; length, weight, off-cuts, slitting,

Continuous improvement Once the system is implemented we provide helpdesk services, technical infrastructure support, development for unique processes and business consulting services, to further enhance the capabilities of SAP Business One in your organisation. Our goal is to ensure that the full capabilities of the SAP business system are used to support a profitable business.

T: 1300 884 635 E: info@evoss.com.au W: www.evolution-fs.com.au

Turning Chaos into Control By choosing SAP Business One you’ll have all your business information in one place, meaning you don’t have to spend time searching for what you need. With Evolution Future Solutions, you’ll benefit from over 35 years of industry expertise and a proven implementation methodology, giving you a smooth and efficient transition to go from chaos to control quicker.

Save time and money, increase accuracy and get real-time business information at the click of a mouse now.

To find out more call 1300 884 635, email info@evoss.com.au or visit our website www.evolution-fs.com.au

COMPANY PROFILE

TridentGLOBAL TridentGLOBAL is a respected specialist in the design, implementation and support of world-class global trade and logistics management systems, and has a long history of integrating with SAP to make international trade easy.

Since 1992, TridentGLOBAL has helped exporters to design and implement business process improvements that significantly increase international trade profits and productivity, while reducing costs and risks.

By enabling exporters to automate, integrate and streamline their global trade and logistics processes, and by uniting their people, processes and technologies in new and improved ways to achieve their goals, TridentGLOBAL provides exporters with a comprehensive response to the challenges they encounter in managing complex international trade processes.

Spanning every process in the export operation from order stage to payment, TridentGLOBAL global trade and logistics management software can support any scale of international trade operation and help exporters manage consignments in a multi-country, multi-exporter and multi-user environment.

Realise global trade and logistics management best practice capabilities At TridentGLOBAL, we understand that effective management of international trade processes is critical to the efficiency of a global supply chain.

A TridentGLOBAL International Trade Process Review

is the key for providing exporters with the requisite global trade management insights and recommendations necessary to achieve industry best practice. Organisations partner with TridentGLOBAL to examine their global trade and logistics practices in a strategic manner, so that they can re-engineer existing processes and identify better ways to do business.

TridentGLOBAL software spans the five functional aspects of global trade and logistics management: 1. Integration: Your key to increased efficiencies.

TridentGLOBAL seamlessly integrates with SAP to ensure the most efficient transfer of data.

2. Document management: Experience unprecedented document management control, efficiencies and accuracy.

3. Compliance: In-built compliance is integral to TridentGLOBAL design. Protect your company from significant penalties and shipment delays.

4. Shipping: Direct logistics activities from your desktop, and attain real-time logistics visibility.

5. Management: Effectively and efficiently manage the complex choreography of people, processes and technologies that is required to execute international trade.

Contact TridentGLOBAL to discover how they can help your company improve its global trade management performance.

T: 08 8273 0333 E: info@tridentglobal.com.au W: www.tridentglobal.com.au

Exporters drive improved global trade and logistics performance with TridentGLOBAL

...international trade made easy www.tridentglobal.com.au

COMPANY PROFILE

BCS Technology International BCS Technology International (BCS) is a leading Business Intelligence provider dedicated to the solutions that we design and support – a commitment highlighted by the long-term relationships with our customers, and the diversity and profile of the organisations we support.

With offices in Melbourne, Sydney, and Gurgaon, India, we have both strength in numbers and depth in expertise to support organisations of all sizes and with a multitude of requirements. Our customers range from small family businesses through to large multi-national corporations.

BCS believes that in today’s economic climate a flexible professional services model is the key to success. We have a three-pronged approach to professional services including on-site, onshore and offshore. This model provides customer intimacy, flexibility and ongoing cost-effective support and service.

Our services include professional IT consulting, data warehouse management, applications development, BaU/ technical support and resourcing.

Our expertise yy Assisting organisations to meet their business goals through the cost-effective provision of IT consulting, project delivery, support and application development. yy Technology expertise in Business Intelligence/DWH, custom solution development, CRM and process improvement. yy A qualified team of over 150 consultants located across

offices in Sydney, Melbourne and India. yy Over 15 years’ design, architecture, consulting and implementation experience. yy Certified Technology Partnership with SAP BusinessObjects.

Our core competencies yy Experience delivering solutions across the airline, financial services, healthcare and manufacturing industries. yy Expert in financial services, airlines’ reservation systems, migration and application development. yy BCS’ BusinessObjects (BO) Certification ensures streamlined and expert delivery. yy BCS BI strategic consulting experience includes tools evaluation, BI/DW/data mining roadmaps, ETL tool evaluation and data warehouse/data mart/dimensional modelling consulting and best practices. yy Expertise in data mining/predictive analysis. yy Proven success with executing Kimball approach for data warehouse implementation and cube building. yy Deliver customised business solutions through PerformancePoint and SharePoint. yy Leverage from existing Microsoft SQL Server investment.

T: 02 8667 3024 E: info@bcstechnology.com.au W: www.bcstechnology.com.au

Technology driven people. Business driven solutions

Professional IT consulting • Data Management • Business Intelligence Workshops • Enterprise Business Intelligence Strategy

Applications development • Corporate Performance Management • Business Intelligence Reporting & Advanced Analytics • Migration and Optimisation

Data warehouse management • Data Mart / Enterprise Data Warehouse • OLAP and Data Mining • Data Management (Architecture, Integration, Migration, Quality, Metadata, Archival & Restoration)

Technical support • IT infrastructure • Applications Resourcing •

Project-based lease of professional IT staff

BCS Technology Australia Pty Ltd

Sydney NSW Australia

Melbourne VIC Australia

Email: info@bcstechnology.com.au Phone: +61 2 8667 3024 Fax: +61 2 9475 0908 www.bcstechnology.com.au

38 Hardie Street Darlinghurst NSW 2010

Level 9, Suite 910 530 Little Collins Street Melbourne VIC 3000

COMPANY PROFILE

TIK Consulting TIK Consulting was founded in Melbourne in 2005 by three directors with over 35 years’ experience in delivering all facets of the SAP HR/Payroll modules. During this time, they realised that when implementing an SAP HR/Payroll solution, there are many processes which are often repeated and reinvented for each implementation. Also businesses were often left to fend for themselves in managing support. With this in mind, TIK Consulting was formed and the Nexus Suite was born.

The Nexus Suite provides configurable solutions for SAP HCM implementations and ‘business as usual’ requirements that would otherwise only be accomplished through programming.

The individual modules of the Nexus Suite cater for specific SAP business purposes such as data conversion, the import and export of information, payroll and statistical reporting and reconciliation, master data replication and duplication, payroll verification and SAP support pack analysis. The highly integrated and flexible nature of the Nexus Suite ensures that the specific needs of an organisation can be met through using individual modules or in any combination.

Customer success Since the Nexus Suite was released, it has made a profound difference to the implementation of the SAP HCM system for numerous organisations, as well as revolutionising the day-to-day operations of existing SAP HCM customers. Currently Spotless Limited, the DuluxGroup and Jemena are using the various modules of the Nexus Suite during their implementations to slash

the required resources and mitigate project risk.

At LION (formerly Lion Nathan National Foods), the Nexus Suite Data Conversion, HCM Gateway and Payroll Verification modules were used during their 2008 SAP HCM implementation.

Since then, LION has added the HCM Data Replication and HCM Reporting modules. Through the use of the entire Nexus Suite, LION is realising huge time and cost savings in their day-today HCM operations.

Another organisation to realise the cost and time savings the Nexus Suite provides is the Bureau of Meteorology, which needed a quick and simple way of copying their HCM production data to a QA environment to enable realistic testing of configuration and support pack changes. The Bureau had unsuccessfully tried other products before achieving the desired result through the use of the HCM Data Replication module.

Orica Limited has also achieved huge time and effort savings in integrating data from a variety of non-SAP systems in 44 countries into a single SAP HCM system in Melbourne. Using the Nexus Suite HCM Gateway, a single resource was able to configure the automatic integration in days rather than months.

These are just a few of the success stories. TIK Consulting is a company committed to ensuring that any organisation using the Nexus Suite will achieve substantial cost and time savings; with this in mind, TIK provides unsurpassed ongoing support and guidance to its customers.

E: sales@tikconsulting.com.au W: www.tikconsulting.com.au

Streamline your SAP Implementation & Support At TIK Consulting, we pride ourselves on providing high quality SAP products, which are specifically designed to save time and money for customers who are implementing, upgrading, or already running an SAP system.

The Nexus Suite slashes build timelines, eliminates costly maintenance overheads and provides a central management console for all data conversion, information import/export, payroll verification, reporting and reconciliation activities - all within SAP, without programming or the need for further manipulation outside of SAP. Find out more at www.tikconsulting.com.au or email us at sales@tikconsulting.com.au

COMPANY PROFILE

Speller International SAP Resourcing and Recruitment Speller International is one of Australia’s largest and most respected SAP-specific recruitment companies, dedicated to sourcing and securing high-quality SAP resources throughout the whole of Australia.

We continuously work within our niche market, understanding the industry and technology. This allows us to implement a proven recruitment methodology to provide value-added services ensuring quality of delivery.

We know that many of our clients invest a significant amount of money into their SAP infrastructure and software.

Therefore it is important that their SAP personnel have the right skills to ensure a return on investment and an ability to reduce the total cost of ownership.

Established in 2000, Speller International has been successfully operating within the niche SAP market in Australia and New Zealand. With headquarters based in Melbourne, Speller International is well-placed to service clients and candidates throughout the APAC region.

Speller International has the proven ability to: yy Build and maintain close relationships in order to streamline the recruitment process and promote risk minimisation; yy Facilitate the best staff selection through a proven and tailored methodology; yy Find a culture, team and personality fit, not just on a technical skill or ‘best quality’ candidate basis;

yy Create a fluid resourcing process; yy Understand each client’s individual company culture, recruitment processes and the market in which each operates; and yy Provide our clients with the confidence to trust us with their SAP personnel requirements.

New division: Change, Training and Documentation Due to exceptional demand, we have specifically tailored this department so we are on the pulse of SAP change, training and documentation: yy We have an extensive and up-to-date network of key contractors within SAP change, training and documentation, and are able to provide staff from instructional design, to post Go-Live floor walking support and all areas in between. yy We can quickly identify the different skills each candidate has from training administrators to training managers, change analysts to OCM leads, enabling us to deliver accurately to your brief on time. yy We have a proven track record in creating successful and dynamic change, training and documentation teams within a variety of industries and key SAP implementations. yy We can provide Contractors for any duration to assist with your project, whether that be Technical Writers, Trainers or Change Managers.

“Speller International have incredible knowledge of the SAP Market place and know most of the individuals who work in the field.”

– Group IT Manager – Utilities Company

We recruit throughout Australia: SAP Project Managers | SAP Functional & Technical | SAP Data & SAP Testers SAP Change, Training & Documentation Speller International Pty Ltd Head Office: +61 (3) 9348 0092 admin@spellerinternational.com.au www.spellerinternational.com.au

THE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN SAP RESOURCING

directory SAP Provider Directory – Australia and New Zealand Note: All companies listed are in the Australian market unless otherwise noted.

Services Partners Company

Contact

Web

Accenture (AU)

03 9838 7000

www.accenture.com

Accenture (NZ)

64 4471 1555

www.accenture.com

1300 852 990

www.acclimation.com.au

Agility Consulting Pty Ltd

02 9299 2680

www.agility.com.au

Ajilon Australia Pty Ltd

03 9626 2600

www.ajilon.com.au

ALG Australia Pty Ltd

03 9001 1566

www.algsoftware.com.au

Altis Consulting Pty Ltd

02 9211 1522

www.altis.com.au

Analytics 8 Pty Ltd

03 9621 1002

www.analytics8.com

ASG Group Limited

08 9420 5420

www.asggroup.com.au

Assurity Consulting Limited (NZ)

64 9354 4901

www.assurity.co.nz

02 8667 3024

www.bcstechnology.com.au

BearingPoint Pty Ltd

03 8665 9500

www.bearingpoint.com.au

Bitech Group Pty Ltd

02 8916 0800

www.bitech.com.au

BluLeader Pty Ltd

02 9037 4345

www.bluleader.com.au

02 9959 2260

www.bpse.com.au

Ciber Limited (NZ)

64 9968 2935

www.ciber.com.au

Ciber Pty Ltd (AU)

02 8920 0887

www.ciber.com.au

Clarity Consulting Group Australia Pty Ltd

03 9868 3500

www.claritygroup.com.au

1300 886 676

www.consultingnetworks.com.au

03 9415 9611

www.cosol.com.au

02 9034 3000

www.csc.com/au

Deloitte (NZ)

64 9303 1225

www.deloitte.com/nz

Deloitte Consulting/ICS (AU)

02 9409 7000

www.deloitte.com/au/consulting

eB2Bcom Pty Ltd

03 9851 8600

www.eb2bcom.com

EPI-USE Australia Pty Ltd

02 8904 9344

www.epiuse.com.au

eVolition

02 9389 3865

www.evolition.com.au

Extend Technologies Pty Ltd

02 8908 4200

www.extendtechnologies.com.au

Gen-i Ltd (NZ)

64 9306 4600

www.gen-i.co.nz

Harms Consulting Pty Ltd

02 9221 2000

www.harmsconsulting.com

HCL AXON Solutions Pty Ltd (AU)

02 9929 9900

www.hcl-axon.com

HCL New Zealand Ltd (NZ)

64 9369 9500

www.hcl-axon.com/About_Us/ANZ.asp

Hewlett Packard New Zealand (NZ)

64 9918 9555

www.welcome.hp.com/country/nz/

Acclimation Pty Ltd

BCS Technology Australia Pty Ltd

BPSE Consulting Pty Ltd

Consulting Networks COSOL Australia Pty Ltd CSC Australia Pty Ltd

Disclaimer: The information contained herein is provided as a service. While all care has been taken to ensure accuracy at time of publication, Inside SAP and Flapjack Media Pty Ltd make no representation or guarantee as to the correctness of the information provided in this directory, and bear no liability for any losses or other consequences arising from its use. Readers are advised to undertake their own verification of the information contained herein. The information and/or services provided may change at any time without notice.

84 Inside SAP magazine

directory Hewlett-Packard Australia Ltd (AU)

02 9950 7444

www.hp.com/au

Hexaware Technologies Limited

02 9089 8959

www.hexaware.com

132 426

www.ibm.com/au

IBM New Zealand Ltd (NZ)

64 9358 8777

www.ibm.com/contact/nz/en/

Iesupport Pty Ltd

02 8920 9560

www.iesupport.com.au

Infosys Technologies Limited

03 9860 2000

www.infosys.com

1300 466 643

www.innogence.com

IBM Global Services Australia Ltd

Innogence Limited IZAZI Solutions Pty Ltd

02 9959 2233

www.izazi.com

Leonardo Consulting

07 3831 5511

www.leonardo.com.au

LiTMUS Group Pty Ltd

1300 366 929

www.litmusgroup.com

02 8571 8300

www.lodestonemc.com

Logro Consulting Pty Ltd

03 9607 1398

www.logroconsulting.com

Mahindra Satyam

02 9323 2700

www.mahindrasatyam.com

Lodestone Management Consultants Pty Ltd

NXG Business Solutions Pty Ltd

03 9645 7400

www.nxg.com.au

Oakton Services Ltd

03 9617 0200

www.oakton.com.au

Oxygen Business Solutions (NZ)

64 9583 1600

www.oxygenforbusiness.com

1800 002 354

www.oxygenforbusiness.com

Ozone IT Limited (NZ)

64 9365 1214

www.ozoneit.co.nz

Oxygen Business Solutions (AU)

Pendragon Consultants Pty Ltd

07 3303 0212

www.pendragon.com.au

Perisoft Global Services Pty Ltd

02 9894 4111

www.perisoft.com.au

Plaut IT (Australia) Pty Ltd

02 9492 5600

www.plaut.com.au

Presence of IT Pty Ltd

1300 665 503

www.presenceofit.com.au

Prospecta Software Australia Pty Ltd

02 9025 3955

www.prospectasoftware.com

Quadrem Australia Pty Ltd

07 3034 3400

www.quadrem.com

Realtech Limited (NZ)

64 9308 0900

www.realtech.co.nz

Redback Consulting Pty Ltd

02 6198 3243

www.redbackconsulting.com.au

03 9600 2566

www.revolutionit.com.au

Revolution IT RightCrowd Software Pty Ltd

07 5593 2581

www.rightcrowd.com

ROC ANZ Pty Ltd

02 8019 7247

www.azenkai.com

RWD Technologies

02 9233 6111

www.rwd.com

Sinapse Pty Ltd

03 8412 4444

www.sinapse.com.au

SMT Consulting

03 9859 3710

www.smt.com.au

Stellar Consulting Group Limited (NZ)

64 9363 2822

www.stellarconsulting.co.nz

StoneBridge Systems Pty Ltd

1300 854 116

www.stonebridgesystems.com.au

02 9114 6075

www.streamcs.com

02 8456 2800

www.tcs.com

02 9969 8432

www.tamsconsulting.com.au

Stream Tata Consultancy Services Limited Total Asset Management Solutions Pty Ltd Triatin Pty Ltd

03 9706 5393

www.triatin.com.au

Tripoint Corporation Pty Ltd

02 9453 1300

www.tripoint.com.au

Unify Solutions Pty Ltd

1300 889 519

www.unifysolutions.net

Windsor Business Solutions Pty Ltd

1300 927 716

www.wbss.com.au

Disclaimer: The information contained herein is provided as a service. While all care has been taken to ensure accuracy at time of publication, Inside SAP and Flapjack Media Pty Ltd make no representation or guarantee as to the correctness of the information provided in this directory, and bear no liability for any losses or other consequences arising from its use. Readers are advised to undertake their own verification of the information contained herein. The information and/or services provided may change at any time without notice.

www.insidesap.com.au 85

directory Integration Services Company

Contact

Web

Acclimation Pty Ltd

1300 852 990

www.acclimation.com.au

BPSE Consulting Pty Ltd

02 9959 2260

www.bpse.com.au

Consulting Networks

1300 886 676

www.consultingnetworks.com.au

02 9034 3000

www.csc.com/au

02 8571 8300

www.lodestonemc.com

1300 002354

www.oxygenforbusiness.com

02 9114 6075

www.streamcs.com.au

02 8456 2800

www.tcs.com

Contact

Web

1300 852 990

www.acclimation.com.au

CSC Australia Pty Ltd Lodestone Management Consultants Pty Ltd

Oxygen Business Solutions (AU)

Stream Tata Consultancy Services Limited

Channel Partners – SAP BusinessObjects Company Acclimation Pty Ltd ASG Group Limited

08 9420 5420

www.asggroup.com.au

Avantis Information Systems Pty Ltd

02 8404 4133

www.avantis.com.au

Bitech Group Pty Ltd

02 8916 0800

www.bitech.com.au

Ciber Limited (NZ)

64 9968 2935

www.ciber.com.au

Ciber Pty Ltd (AU)

02 8920 0887

www.ciber.com.au

Clarity Consulting Group Australia Pty Ltd

03 9868 3500

www.claritygroup.com.au

CSG Application Services Pty Ltd

08 8922 9000

www.csg.com.au

Extend Technologies Pty Ltd

02 8908 4200

www.extendtechnologies.com.au

Fujitsu Australia Ltd

02 9776 4555

www.au.fujitsu.com

Hewlett-Packard Australia Ltd

02 9950 7444

www.hp.com/au

Inhouse Limited (NZ)

64 4499 6818

www.inhouseltd.co.nz

Oxygen Business Solutions (NZ)

64 9583 1600

www.oxygenforbusiness.com

1800 002 354

www.oxygenforbusiness.com

OxygenExpress Pty Ltd

1300 136 450

www.oxygenexpress.com.au

PCW Solutions Pty Ltd

02 9875 5598

www.pcwsolutions.com.au

Oxygen Business Solutions (AU)

Perisoft Global Services Pty Ltd

02 9894 4111

www.perisoft.com.au

Praxa Limited

02 8870 7000

www.praxa.com.au

Soltius New Zealand Limited (NZ)

64 4472 1897

www.soltius.co.nz

02 9114 6075

www.streamcs.com.au

64 9377 6033

www.tangogroup.co.nz

Stream Tango Group Limited (NZ)

Disclaimer: The information contained herein is provided as a service. While all care has been taken to ensure accuracy at time of publication, Inside SAP and Flapjack Media Pty Ltd make no representation or guarantee as to the correctness of the information provided in this directory, and bear no liability for any losses or other consequences arising from its use. Readers are advised to undertake their own verification of the information contained herein. The information and/or services provided may change at any time without notice.

86 Inside SAP magazine

directory Channel Partner – SAP Business All-in-One Company

Contact

Web

1300 852 990

www.acclimation.com.au

08 9420 5420

www.asggroup.com.au

Ciber Limited (NZ)

64 9968 2935

www.ciber.com.au

Ciber Pty Ltd (AU)

02 8920 0887

www.ciber.com.au

Clarity Consulting Group Australia Pty Ltd

03 9868 3500

www.claritygroup.com.au

Courtland Pty Ltd

08 9212 0888

www.courtland.com.au

Extend Technologies Pty Ltd

02 8908 4200

www.extendtechnologies.com.au

Fujitsu Australia Ltd

02 9776 4555

www.au.fujitsu.com

132 426

www.ibm.com/au

IBM New Zealand Ltd (NZ)

64 9359 8777

www.ibm.com/contact/nz/en/

IZAZI Solutions Pty Ltd

02 9959 2233

www.izazi.com

OxygenExpress Pty Ltd

1300 136 450

www.oxygenexpress.com.au

Perisoft Global Services Pty Ltd

02 9894 4111

www.perisoft.com.au

Soltius New Zealand Limited (NZ)

64 4472 1897

www.soltius.co.nz

StoneBridge Systems Pty Ltd

1300 854 116

www.stonebridgesystems.com.au

02 9114 6075

www.streamcs.com.au

64 9377 6033

www.tangogroup.co.nz

Company

Contact

Web

Advance Business Consulting

08 8238 6500

www.advance.on.net

Acclimation Pty Ltd ASG Group Limited

IBM Australia Limited

Stream Tango Group Limited (NZ)

Channel Partners – SAP BusinessOne

ASG Group Limited

08 9420 5420

www.asggroup.com.au

City Software Business Solutions

03 8542 2242

www.citysoftware.com.au

CitiXsys Australia Pty Ltd

02 9006 1616

www.citixsys.com

Enabling NZ Ltd (NZ)

64 3473 9160

www.enabling.co.nz

Enabling Pty Ltd (AU)

02 9925 0383

www.enabling.net

1300 884 635

www.evolution-fs.com.au

Inecom Pty Ltd

03 9847 7300

www.inecom.com.au

Key Business Solutions Pty Ltd

02 9648 3323

www.keybusinesssolutions.com.au

Evolution Future Solutions Pty Ltd

Leverage Technologies Pty Limited

02 9332 3855

www.leveragetech.com.au

MicroChannel Services Pty Ltd

02 9089 9999

www.microchannel.com.au

Ontrack Systems (Aus) Pty Ltd

02 9248 0162

www.ontrackaus.com

OxygenExpress Pty Ltd

1300 136 450

www.oxygenexpress.com.au

Passage Software Limited (NZ)

64 9820 9960

www.passage.co.nz

Realtech Limited (NZ)

64 9308 0900

www.realtech.co.nz

Velocity Global Limited (NZ)

64 9358 4445

www.velocityglobal.co.nz

Company

Contact

Web

BizExpress Pty Ltd

02 9372 5100

www.bizexpress.com.au

SAP BusinessObjects – OEM Partners

Disclaimer: The information contained herein is provided as a service. While all care has been taken to ensure accuracy at time of publication, Inside SAP and Flapjack Media Pty Ltd make no representation or guarantee as to the correctness of the information provided in this directory, and bear no liability for any losses or other consequences arising from its use. Readers are advised to undertake their own verification of the information contained herein. The information and/or services provided may change at any time without notice.

www.insidesap.com.au 87

directory Bravura Solutions Ltd

02 9018 7800

www.bravurasolutions.com

BusinessCraft Pty Ltd

02 4965 5555

www.businesscraft.com

Jobpac International Systems Pty Ltd

02 9492 4100

www.jobpac.com.au

Mincom Limited

07 3303 3333

www.mincom.com.au

1800 002 354

www.oxygenforbusiness.com

Oxygen Business Solutions (AU) Pulse Mining Systems Pty Ltd

02 4933 3300

www.pulsemining.com.au

Quality Systems International Pty Ltd

03 9501 9595

www.lims-software.com

Supercorp Technology Pty Ltd

07 3850 1200

www.supercorp.com.au

Tramada

02 8227 7305

www.tramada.com

Company

Contact

Web

CitiXsys Australia Pty Ltd

02 9006 1616

www.citixsys.com

ComActivity Pty Ltd

02 9479 7949

www.comactivity.com.au

02 8968 9303

www.excel4apps.com/sap

07 3103 1601

www.gesix.com

1300 466 643

www.innogence.com

02 8571 8300

www.lodestonemc.com

02 8448 8800

www.mmanager.com

Mincom Pty Limited

07 3303 3333

www.mincom.com.au

O4 Corporation Pty Ltd

02 9386 1777

www.quofore.com

Independent Software Vendors

Excel4apps Pty Ltd Gesix Solutions Pty Ltd Innogence Limited Lodestone Management Consultants Pty Ltd MESSAGEmanager Solutions Pty Ltd

Oniqua Pty Ltd

07 3369 5506

www.oniqua.com

Operations and Maintenance Consulting Services Pty Ltd

03 9315 0330

www.reliabilityassurance.com

Plaut IT (Australia) Pty Ltd

02 9492 5600

www.plaut.com.au

Prospecta Software Australia Pty Ltd

02 9025 3955

www.prospectasoftware.com

03 9955 9700

www.xrsc.com

64 4802 4081

www.sisusoftware.com

03 9024 9800

www.skytechnologies.com

03 9561 5850

www.spinifexit.com

08 8273 0333

www.tridentglobal.com.au

Contact

Web

1300 852 990

www.acclimation.com.au

02 8667 3024

www.bcstechnology.com.au

02 8968 9303

www.excel4apps.com/sap

02 9776 4555

www.au.fujitsu.com

Revelation Software Concepts Pty Ltd Sisu Limited Sky Technologies Pty Ltd SpinifexIT Pty Ltd TridentGLOBAL

Technology Company Acclimation Pty Ltd BCS Technology Australia Pty Ltd Excel4apps Pty Ltd Fujitsu Australia Ltd.

Disclaimer: The information contained herein is provided as a service. While all care has been taken to ensure accuracy at time of publication, Inside SAP and Flapjack Media Pty Ltd make no representation or guarantee as to the correctness of the information provided in this directory, and bear no liability for any losses or other consequences arising from its use. Readers are advised to undertake their own verification of the information contained herein. The information and/or services provided may change at any time without notice.

88 Inside SAP magazine

directory Hewlett-Packard Australia Pty Ltd IBM Australia Limited

03 8833 5000

www.hp.com/au

132 426

www.ibm.com/au

Microsoft Pty Ltd

02 9870 2200

www.microsoft.com/en-au/

Network Appliance Pty Ltd

02 9779 5600

www.netapp.com

Oracle Corporation Australia Pty Ltd

1300 366 386

www.oracle.com.au

1300 002 354

www.oxygenforbusiness.com

64 9308 0900

www.realtech.co.nz

02 9114 6075

www.streamcs.com.au

02 8456 2800

www.tcs.com

08 8273 0333

www.tridentglobal.com.au

1300 088 833

www.unisys.com.au

Contact

Web

1300 852 990

www.acclimation.com.au

Oxygen Business Solutions (AU) Realtech Limited Stream Tata Consultancy Services Limited TridentGLOBAL Unisys Australia Limited

Software Solutions Company Acclimation Pty Ltd

www.boaweb.com

BackOffice Associates, LLC BPSE Consulting Pty Ltd

02 9959 2260

www.bpse.com.au

www.compuware.com.au

Compuware Corporation

1300 886 676

www.consultingnetworks.com.au

03 9835 0600

www.dsionline.com

Esker Australia

02 8596 5100

www.esker.com.au

Esker New Zealand

64 9306 8872

www.esker.co.nz

1300 884 635

www.evolution-fs.com.au

02 8968 9303

www.excel4apps.com/sap

Gesix Solutions Pty Ltd

07 3103 1601

www.gesix.com

IDS Scheer Australia Pty Ltd

02 8197 9050

www.ids-scheer.com

1300 728 088

www.kaba.com/wfm-asia-pacific

02 9454 5400

www.manh.com.au

Consulting Networks Data Systems International Asia/Pacific Pty Ltd

Evolution Future Solutions Pty Ltd Excel4apps Pty Ltd

Kaba Workforce Management Manhattan Associates Pty Ltd MESSAGEmanager Solutions Pty Ltd

02 8448 8800

www.mmanager.com

Minarco-MineConsult Pty Ltd

02 8248 1500

www.minarco.com.au

Mincom Pty Limited

07 3303 3333

www.mincom.com.au

Disclaimer: The information contained herein is provided as a service. While all care has been taken to ensure accuracy at time of publication, Inside SAP and Flapjack Media Pty Ltd make no representation or guarantee as to the correctness of the information provided in this directory, and bear no liability for any losses or other consequences arising from its use. Readers are advised to undertake their own verification of the information contained herein. The information and/or services provided may change at any time without notice.

www.insidesap.com.au 89

directory Novell Pty Ltd

02 9925 3000

www.novell.com

Oniqua Pty Ltd

07 3369 5506

www.oniqua.com

Open Text Pty Ltd

02 9026 3400

www.opentext.com.au

02 9929 0676

www.readsoft.com.au

03 9955 9700

www.xrsc.com

03 8653 5000

www.sensis.com.au

02 9114 6075

www.streamcs.com.au

02 8281 3400

www.suse.com

03 9828 0600

www.tcs.com

ReadSoft Oceania Revelation Software Concepts Pty Ltd Sensis Pty Ltd Stream SUSE Tata Consultancy Services Limited

www.tikconsulting.com.au

TIK Consulting TridentGLOBAL

08 8273 0333

www.tridentglobal.com.au

Contact

Web

1300 886 676

www.consultingnetworks.com.au

03 9541 7500

www.enterprisesupport.com

Contact

Web

02 9959 2260

www.bpse.com.au

02 9460 1158

www.progresspacific.com

Contact

Web

03 9095 8661

www.brick-consulting.com

02 9394 8500

www.everjoy.com.au

02 8860 5900

www.perafel.com

03 9348 0092

www.spellerinternational.com.au

1300 897 820

www.systemsandpeople.com.au

Hosting Partners Company Consulting Networks Enterprise Support Pty Ltd

Education Company BPSE Consulting Pty Ltd Progress Pacific Pty Ltd

Recruitment Company Brick Consulting

Everjoy Consulting

Perafel

Speller International

Systems and People

Disclaimer: The information contained herein is provided as a service. While all care has been taken to ensure accuracy at time of publication, Inside SAP and Flapjack Media Pty Ltd make no representation or guarantee as to the correctness of the information provided in this directory, and bear no liability for any losses or other consequences arising from its use. Readers are advised to undertake their own verification of the information contained herein. The information and/or services provided may change at any time without notice.

90 Inside SAP magazine

realising value What We do

What We provide

hoW We support you

Stream focuses solely on provision of quality SAP services and solutions covering the breadth of SAP.

• SAP Business-All-in-One Solutions • SAP ERP Implementations • Vision-to-Value Roadmaps • SAP Upgrades & Migration • SAP PI / Systems Integration • Enterprise Portals • SAP Workflow & SAP BPM • Adobe Forms • SAP Enhancements • Mobile Solutions • Business Objects • Basis & Solution Manager

A well supported system is a smooth running system and we are determined to achieve this for our customers.

Stream confidently delivers: • Experience • Agility • Effectiveness • Innovation

Stream’s Application Support is something you can’t do without. Resulting from years of SAP support experience we ensure you are kept informed of progress every step of the way.

“We help our customers realise

the value of SAP by extending the capabilities of their SAP systems, which enable them to run their businesses better.”

www.streamcs.com

The IBM logo and the IBM Business Partner mark are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation, registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. The SAP Gold Partner logo is the trademark or registered trademark of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries.

Advert_Final.indd 1

29/08/11 9:37 AM

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