SAP: The New Age Business Transformation Company

02 Jun 2007 00:00 IST

New Update

Global ERP giant SAP now wants to be known more as a business
transformation company. This was the message it sent across during SAPPHIRE, its annual
customer and partner conference that kicked off in Vienna on May 14.

Advertisment

Over 8,000 attendees consisting of partners, customers, consultants,
industry analysts and bloggers, media, and SAP officials from across the world took part
in SAPPHIRE.

alt="Ch Ev-henning-kager_15june2k7.gif (8780 bytes)">

Henning Kagerman, Chairman and CEO, speaking at SAP SAPPHIRE

While the entire show was through and through a hardsell of various SAP
technologies, solutions, and unpgrades in the pipeline, one message that came across loud
and clear was that amid increasing competition in this space, companies like SAP would
drastically enhance their customer engagement spectrum. In his opening keynote, Henning
Kagerman, Chairman and CEO, SAP said, "Our focus will be to give a big boost to the
competitiveness of our customers." No wonder SAP sees its role in an organization far
beyond just ERP now.

Advertisment

With an increased focus SAP is pitching for a role in concepts such as
measuring corporate performance and ensuring corporate governance, risk management, and
compliances.

SAP also announced that its customers world over were responding
positively to its all-in-one solutions, with over 10,000 customers in more than 50
countries benefiting from them. The company also announced a new business opportunity for
its partners and customers that work on co-innovation as a community collaboration model,
especially for banking and insurance applications.

Kagerman also made his support open for the need for collaboration when he
said, "Individual and team collaboration in enterprises is going to be very
important, especially if IT has to be fully leveraged."

Advertisment

SAP also announced its tie-up with SunGard for financial services sector.
In another significant move SAP announced that it has acquired Wicom, a leading European
IP based-solutions company that focuses on contact center and enterprise communications
solutions. These moves are expected to further consolidate SAPs position in BFSI and BPO
space.

Wipro bags SAP Pinnacle award

Wipro Technologies has bagged the SAP Pinnacle award in
the area of Software Solution Leadership, for its contribution to the SAP community and
ecosystem.

Wipro received the award at the awards ceremony held on the eve of
SAPPHIRE Vienna, SAP’s international customer conference that was held from May
14-16.

SAP Pinnacle Awards are granted to leading SAP partners that have excelled
in developing their partnership with SAP and mutual business by providing high-quality
products, solutions and services to customers. Winners were selected based on nominations
received from partners and SAP employees.

That the company is not just about enterprise applications was made clear
when Leo Apotheker, Deputy CEO, SAP announced that the Vienna city administration would
now run its network, which is one of the largest in Europe, connecting 30,000 employees
with 1.7 million residents, on the SAP platform. SAP is also aggressively going after some
keye-governance projects in India.

Advertisment

Ibrahim Ahmed

(The author was hosted in Vienna by SAP)