More than 1,000 Go-Lives with mySAP™ ERP 2005 in Just Seven Months since General Availability Underlines Value for Customers and Success of SAP’s Evolved ERP Road Map
Walldorf, Germany — In a powerful demonstration of its ability to easily and successfully deliver the value of enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA) to customers, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced that more than 1,000 customers are live on mySAP™ ERP 2005—the latest release of SAP’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) application. The milestone marks the fastest adoption rate of an ERP release in the history of the company. Organizations in diverse industries around the world—including Higher Education Press, China; The Department of Water Resources, State of California; Technische Werke Ludwigshafen AG, Germany; and Palfinger AG, Austria—benefit from a non-disruptive, fast and cost-effective upgrade, and realize the value of SAP’s market-leading ERP solution that also represents the industry’s first business process platform.
Generally available for customers since May of 2006, the latest version of mySAP ERP together with SAP NetWeaver® serves as a stable business process platform and delivers continuous innovation through optional enhancement packages that customers may adopt at their own pace, without disrupting day-to-day operations. Offered as part of customers’ license and maintenance agreements, SAP® enhancement packages for mySAP ERP make it simpler and faster for customers to adopt new product functionality and industry-specific features without the risk of business disruptions. SAP’s evolved delivery model shields customers from the complexity of multiple upgrades and portends the impending inflection point in the IT sector—the transition to SOA, a blueprint that enables software functions, or “services,” to be combined quickly and flexibly to perform new business processes.
Gearing their businesses for new levels of business agility and competitive edge, customers worldwide are embracing SAP’s evolved road map for software design and delivery based on the business-driven blueprint of enterprise SOA. These customers are tapping the benefits of the simple, cost-effective and value-generating upgrade and implementation of mySAP ERP 2005.
“As geographical boundaries diminish and global markets become more crowded, companies will rely on their software platforms to adapt to market changes, lower operating costs and drive growth opportunities,” said Yvonne Genovese, vice president and distinguished analyst, Gartner, Inc. “Companies ask for flexible solutions that support commodity and differentiating business processes. Applications need to be easy to adopt and should enable companies to continually innovate their business processes in order to compete effectively.”
Higher Education Press Benefits from Flexible Business Strategies and Improved Processes
Higher Education Press (HEP) is the largest publisher of educational books in China. In 2001 the publishing house, a national publisher affiliated directly with the Chinese Ministry of Education, established a visionary plan to expand into a modern, comprehensive and world-class educational media group within the next 10 years. Making this vision a reality required a transformation from a state-controlled organization to a customer-focused, market-driven enterprise. In 2002, HEP introduced SAP software into its operations, recently upgrading to mySAP ERP 2005 to support mission-critical processes ranging from research, development, inventory and shipment control to financial management and accounting.
“The company is completely satisfied with how smoothly the mySAP ERP 2005 upgrade progressed,” said Yong Yu, information center director, Higher Education Press. “We implement business changes on an ongoing basis. The higher level of flexibility and adaptability offered by the latest version of mySAP ERP is exactly what we needed to realize these changes.”
Department of Water Resources, State of California Manages Control Complexities
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) operates and maintains the California State Water Project, provides dam safety and flood control and inspection services, assists local water districts in water management and water conservation planning, and plans for future statewide water needs. As the public sector has unique accounting and reporting requirements around funds, grant and budget management, DWR leverages the industry-specific functionality of the SAP for Public Sector solution portfolio and recently upgraded to mySAP ERP 2005 to improve management of funds, achieve state-of-the-art compliance with state government controls, and improve financial reporting, budget planning and management of its grants programs. DWR leveraged the SAP® Ramp-Up program to implement the SAP software as soon as the latest version became available.
“We came in on time and under budget”, said Ben Williams, CIO, DWR State of California. “We had a ramp-up coach and priority response on issues, which were promptly escalated and resolved. The SAP software was very stable. The solution gives us the tools to manage the complexities that arise from government controls.”
Technische Werke Ludwigshafen AG (TWL) Seeks Advantages in Competitive Market
Technische Werke Ludwigshafen AG (TWL) provides electricity, natural gas, drinking water and heat to private and commercial customers in the city of Ludwigshafen, Germany. Seeking to keep pace with a dynamic and competitive market, while implementing systems to provide holistic energy services, TWL upgraded to mySAP ERP 2005. The project plan was to create a consolidated and integrated system landscape, while upgrading IT systems with minimum staff training. Utilizing services from SAP Consulting, TWL was able to rapidly upgrade.
“We were able to move our entire business to mySAP ERP 2005 within 120 days and with zero downtime,” said Torsten Kästel, IT director, TWL AG. “The upgrade lays the foundation for us to implement new functionalities that will enhance our business processes and operations.”
Palfinger AG Finds Upgrade a Light Load
One of the leading manufacturers of hydraulic lifting, loading and handling systems, Salzburg, Austria-based Palfinger AG chose to upgrade to mySAP ERP 2005 in six locations across four countries as part of its growth strategy to maintain transparent global business processes. The multi-national company utilized services delivered by SAP Consulting including SAP® Unicode Conversion to enable further rollouts of the solution in Asia and to build a foundation for global business processes.
“With the upgrade, we are now on the most current software, allowing us to concentrate on our business processes more effectively,” said Herbert Hofer, corporate IT leader, Palfinger AG.
Market-Leading Solution Delivers Turn-Key Enhancements
Enhancements delivered by mySAP ERP 2005 include new user experience options and simpler, more intuitive user interfaces, including pre-configured role-based work centers, self-service capabilities and key functional enhancements, including :
- Integrated talent management functionality that helps organizations to increase workforce value and productivity.
- New capabilities that simplify establishing HR Shared Service Centers to automate and standardize HR core processes, improve the quality of services from HR departments and provide global access to HR services.
- The new General Ledger that automates the reconciliation processes, streamlines manual processes and minimizes user errors, enables organizations to reduce the cost of finance and close their books faster and with greater accuracy.
- Streamlined invoicing and collection processes that help customers enhance cash flow and improve working capital management.
- Integrated real estate and travel management capabilities to help companies contain costs and effectively manage corporate real estate.
“mySAP ERP is the market-leading enterprise resource planning application, providing our customers with a proven foundation to improve performance, support growth, lower operating costs and achieve operational excellence,” said Léo Apotheker, member of the executive board, president of customer solutions and operations, SAP. “The incredible pace of customer adoption, especially in the Central European, North American and Asian regions, is a testament to the evolution of mySAP ERP into an industry and business process platform, and is spurring our partners to provide new and exciting capabilities to these customers that leverage mySAP ERP and SAP NetWeaver. As we continue to deliver continuous innovation through enhancement packages, our customers are able to benefit from improvements to critical business processes in a much faster, easier and cost-effective fashion than ever before.”
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