This comprehensive, fully integrated on-demand business management suite is now available in the six strategic core markets Germany, China, France, India, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Feature pack 2.5 for SAP Business ByDesign delivers significant customer-centric innovations including real-time, in-memory analytics, support for mobile devices, customizable rich user interface and increased flexibility. With sophisticated life cycle management functions and low delivery costs the new version is now ready for a large volume rollout, according to SAP.

“With the feature pack 2.5 for SAP Business ByDesign, SAP has made solid progress toward serving the needs of small and midsize companies looking for a fully integrated suite,” said Bill McNee, founder and CEO, Saugatuck Technology.

Starter packages are predefined, focused subsets of the full SAP Business ByDesign suite that are deployed simply and are available at fixed implementation prices, starting at EUR 9,900. A dedicated implementation methodology, as well as embedded e-learning, enables these packages to be implemented quickly, in as little as three weeks depending on a customer’s requirements.

Available for as few as 10 users, the three starter packages currently available include:
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
The CRM starter package provides customers with best business practices for sales force automation (SFA), enabling them to efficiently generate leads, manage all stages of the sales process and close deals, while laying the foundation to expand to the entire order-to-cash process. The CRM starter package can be implemented in approximately three weeks at a fixed implementation price of EUR 9,900 and a special subscription price of EUR 79 per user.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
The ERP starter package provides customers that have outgrown accounting-only systems with the integrated financials, accounting and analytics capabilities needed to manage the next stage of growth. The package can be implemented in approximately six weeks or less and is available at a fixed implementation price of EUR 24,900 and the usual subscription price of EUR 133 per user.

Professional Service Provider (PSP)
The PSP starter package is designed to give small businesses and midsize professional services firms affordable access to the world-class business process management capabilities they need to not only manage their businesses end to end, but also to level the playing field against well-capitalized competitors. Designed to go live in approximately eight weeks, the PSP starter package is available for a fixed implementation price of EUR 34,900 and the usual subscription price of EUR 133 per user.

“With the general availability of feature pack 2.5 we have achieved a major milestone,” said Peter Lorenz, executive vice president, SME solutions, and corporate officer, SAP. “By providing this new release, we deliver substantial innovation to support our customers’ business needs today and tomorrow. The on-demand services for SAP Business ByDesign are operated on the most modern cloud infrastructure and allow for true volume business. We also expect the new starter packages to enable our customers to quickly adopt the services and realize immediate results on their path to an integrated on-demand suite.

Figure: Peter Lorenz, Executive Vice President, Small and Midsize Enterprises SAP
(Photo: SAP AG / Carina C. Kircher)

Electronic catalogs reduce process costs in sales by 25 percent. This is the result indicated by the latest barometer of public opinion by the German Association Materials Management, Purchasing and Logistics. With its “faceted search”, the new product suite for catalog management in e-procurement offers a new way of searching. “Thanks to automated sorting and filtering options, ordering processes can clearly be carried out in a simpler and quicker way. The user’s acceptance and resulting processing costs show a huge improvement,” says Heiko Rumpl, who is responsible for product management in Heiler Software’s business management division.

The introduction of the Heiler Business Catalog 6.0 and Catalog Manager 3.0 is part of Heiler’s “Advanced Enterprise Procurement”. Heiko Rumpl explains why: “Our catalog functions as a central search engine in international and heterogeneous system landscapes. The new service integration layer safeguards the integration with e-procurement systems by SAP, Ariba, Oracle or other applications. Those SAP customers with heterogeneous procurement processes and different SAP-ERP modules will now be best supported by the Heiler catalog solution.”

In large purchasing organisations, integration of supply data has become the biggest cost driver. The core function of the Heiler Catalog Manager 3.0 is to make the cooperation with suppliers easier and to streamline processes. With the Catalog Manager, purchasing companies offer their suppliers a “self-service supplier portal” with a completely new user interface. “The web solution is even simpler now and can be operated intuitively, also by occasional users and suppliers,” Rumpl promises.

The new Catalog Dashboard enables fast access to all core functions. It displays all catalogs with versions and status, as well as roles, rights and duties of suppliers and buyers. A wizard controls the communication between supplier and buyer. It displays the current status and sends automated notifications on tasks to be completed.

Clients and interested parties can request detailed release notes and product information here. Before the end of 2010, Heiler is planning to add a further module to its e-procurement suite. “The Catalog Intelligence module will enable several evaluations for expense analysis,” says Heiko Rumpl.

SAP AG announced today that the SAP Supervisory Board has reached a mutual agreement with CEO Léo Apotheker not to extend his contract as a member of the SAP Executive Board. Léo Apotheker has resigned as CEO and member of the SAP Executive Board effective immediately. The SAP Executive Board, in agreement with the SAP Supervisory Board, has appointed two Co-CEOs: Bill McDermott, head of field organization and Jim Hagemann Snabe, head of product development, both already members of the SAP Executive Board.

In addition, Vishal Sikka, Chief Technology Officer, has been appointed to the SAP Executive Board. At the request of the SAP Supervisory Board, Hasso Plattner, Co-Founder of SAP and Chairman of the SAP Supervisory Board, will continue to play a strong role in advising the new leaders on technology and product development.

“The new setup of the SAP Executive Board will allow SAP to better align product innovation with customer needs. The new leadership team will continue to drive forward SAP’s strategy and focus on profitable growth, and will deliver its innovations in 2010 to expand SAP’s leadership of the business software market,” said Hasso Plattner.

The SAP Supervisory Board thanks Léo Apotheker for his enormous contribution to the success of SAP, which he joined more than 20 years ago, and wishes him all the best for the future.

The latest release of SAP E-Sourcing integrates with the enterprise resource planning (ERP) application, SAP ERP, and contains an enhanced user interface and additional embedded best practices and on-demand services.

To date, over 300 customers have realized an average of five to 25 percent savings in most categories of spend – among them the specialist for climate control solutions Lennox International, according to the Walldorf-based software company.

To help sustain and expand its leading position in climate control solutions for heating, air conditioning and refrigeration markets around the world, Lennox International must drive margin expansion and support growth into other segments while still keeping costs under control. With the SAP E-Sourcing on-demand solution, the company was able to create a global sourcing process based on an open technology platform that supports SAP and non-SAP systems and has the ability to quickly deploy key solutions to drive immediate value.

“The flexibility of the SAP E-Sourcing on-demand solution lets our sourcing team use their own templates to quickly migrate meaningful data into our SAP infrastructure,” said Kathie Kelsey, manufacturing and supply chain IT manager, Lennox International. “The platform allows Lennox to have a lower total cost of ownership as well as enable a secure IT environment while providing the ability to begin leveraging additional functionality over time, as we are ready to adopt it.”

On-Demand-Software

Best practices are integrated in the new release of SAP E-Sourcing and play an important role for reducing cycle time and share knowledge among sourcing professionals.

Standard integration to the SAP backend enables customers to link their strategic source to contract process to their procurement execution systems, helping to ensure that they profit from agreed prices and comply with internal guidelines. On-demand services include customer on-boarding and optional value-added services inclusive of business process consulting, category sourcing strategy expertise and ongoing customer support.

“SAP E-Sourcing helps customers innovate faster and extend the value of their current investments in SAP Business Suite,” a SAP executive said. “The integration of data and processes helps ensure consistency with system and business configurations between SAP Business Suite and on-demand solutions from SAP. As a result, customers avoid the data sharing and integration issues that occur when dealing with disparate best-of-breed applications and obtain immediate impact on their business.”

Also announced was the completion of Siemens’ contract renewal for SAP maintenance support services for all SAP solutions based on SAP’s maintenance standards for large customers for a duration of three years.

In addition to the selection of SAP SRM, Siemens renewed its service relationship with SAP for global maintenance support for all SAP solutions. Siemens also requested SAP assume support for some of Siemens’ in-house developed solutions that connect to SAP solutions. Further, recognizing the criticality of the business processes running on SAP software, including finance, payroll and more, Siemens extended its service relationship to include SAP MaxAttention support – SAP’s support option that provides onsite customized support services.

“Siemens and SAP enjoy a long-standing business relationship in which Siemens is one of SAP’s premier customers, and we are pleased to be able to continue providing complete systems service and support to Siemens’ global organization,” said Erwin Gunst, chief operating officer, SAP. “Coupling its maintenance support renewal with selection of our SRM solution is a clear indication that Siemens trusts in the ability of SAP to provide global services for its enterprises. SAP has been, and will continue to be, a strong strategic supplier to Siemens.”

The SAP Supplier Relationship Management (SAP SRM) application automates, simplifies and accelerates procure-to-pay processes for goods and services. With SAP SRM, companies can reduce procurement costs, build collaborative supplier relationships, better manage supply bases and improve bottom line with innovative offerings and a faster time to market. SAP SRM is part of SAP Business Suite software, the integrated business application of SAP.