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LEVERAGING

VALUE THROUGH
SAP

Executive Summary:
AA Corporation is a market leader in the manufacturing of various customized car
accessories to leading car companies and customers. Having plants located in multiple locations
and offices all around the world, the organization employs more than 10,000 people. SAP was
implemented to integrate the organization and was rolled out successfully. To keep up with
changing times and to consolidate the position at the top, a massive technological change is
intended to be carried out with the aim to automate the process from procurement to delivery,
create an e-commerce platform to enable customers design and customize the products, enable
the employees to be more mobile and move the applications to the cloud to save resources. The
various areas where the technology can be used to leverage more value is identified and suitable
products suggested which will help in improving the value of the organization by maintaining the
status quo of customer satisfaction.

Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................1
SAP Business Value Lifecycle Model:............................................................................................2
Decision Making:.............................................................................................................................2
Self-service Tools........................................................................................................................4
Interactive visualizations.............................................................................................................5
Predictive Analytics.....................................................................................................................5
Social Media Analytics................................................................................................................6
Big Data Analytics.......................................................................................................................6
Automation......................................................................................................................................7
Financial Management (FM).......................................................................................................7
Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM).......................................................................8
Human Capital Management (HCM)..........................................................................................9
Connectivity:....................................................................................................................................9
ERP and CRM: Integration for business success.........................................................................9
Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Supplier connectivity..................................................11
Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)...............................................................................12
Innovation:.....................................................................................................................................12
BYOD........................................................................................................................................13
Responsive Web Design............................................................................................................13
Cloud Computing.......................................................................................................................14
The Internet of Everything.........................................................................................................14
3D Printing.................................................................................................................................14
Interconnected:..............................................................................................................................15

Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................15
References:....................................................................................................................................15
Appendix:......................................................................................................................................21
Appendix A 5 layers of SAP Business Life Cycle Model......................................................21
Appendix B SAP Lumira........................................................................................................22
Appendix C SAP Dashboards 4.1...........................................................................................22
Appendix D SAP InfiniteInsight.............................................................................................22
Appendix E SAP NetBase......................................................................................................23
Appendix F SAP Customer Engagement Intelligence............................................................23
Appendix G SAP MII with SAP ME......................................................................................23
Appendix H SuccessFactors...................................................................................................23
Appendix I SAP integrated with SalesForce..........................................................................24
Appendix J SAP SCM integrated with OpenText...................................................................25
Appendix K SAP SRM...........................................................................................................25
Appendix L SAP Afaria..........................................................................................................25
Appendix M SAP Fiori...........................................................................................................25

Introduction:
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems like SAP are used for integrating data
across the enterprise and to enable seamless automation of transactions across the business
functions. Even though we have our SAP system in place, the implementation in itself does not
guarantee return of investment from the system (Stratman 2007). 46% of the organizations have
an ERP system in place, but do not know how to derive value from it and improve their
organizational performance (Ifinedo et al. 2010). Considering this, a post implementation review
was carried out to see how much value we are extracting from our SAP system. On evaluating,
we learnt that even though we are en route to achieving the business objectives we started with,
but we can extract a lot more value from the SAP system. Using the current technologies, the
system can be leveraged and can help ourselves become more competitive. As per the RBV
(Resource Based View) strategy, for anything to be competitively capable it should follow the
VRIN (Valuable, Rare, Inimitable and Non-substitutable) criteria. Even though SAP is
commercially available for everyone, by tailoring the system to meet our business needs, we will
have a unique advantage over our competitors (Stratman 2007). The four key areas where
technology can be used to leverage the SAP system to gain competitive advantage are Decision
making, Automation, Connectivity and Innovation. In this paper we will analyze each of these
areas, how the SAP system can be used to deliver value on them and the various strategies
available using the help of successful industry examples.

SAP Business Value Lifecycle Model:

Fig. 1: The SAP Business life cycle model (SAP Solutions - Application Management - NTT DATA
Business Solutions 'Support Advantage' - Australia SAP & Microsoft Gold Channel Partner, Enterprise
Resource Planning ERP 2014)

The 5 layer business model developed by NTT DATA represents the business value that
an organization gains to achieve at each level of the life cycle. Appendix A explains the value
generated at each level of the model. To be competitive and be the market leader, we need to
achieve the top of the pyramid. We have successfully stabilized and supported our SAP system
and in the following sections, we will see how we can use the current technologies to leverage
our SAP in the four core areas identified.
Decision Making:
Managerial activities in our organization consists of
Strategic Planning
Management Control
Operational Control (Lei & Kupusinac 2013)
The detailed real-time information from operations and the past managerial data can help
the organization in making strategic decisions. Business Intelligence (BI) is the tool that will help
the organization in managing and refining the collected information and make efficient decisions
(Ghazanfari et al. 2009). At the strategic level, BI enables to set specific objectives and follow

the realization of those objectives using the help of comparative reports and at the tactical level,
it helps in decision making within each business unit (Olszak & Ziemba 2007). Organizations
which have adopted the data driven decision making have 5-6% more output and productivity
than what was expected considering their other IT investments. It allowed them to improve their
product development and business process thereby maintaining a competitive advantage
(Forrester 2013). But it is imperative for us to have a clear strategy in implementing BI and the
various tools as 60% of the organizations fail to implement their BI projects due to poor planning
and thus do not meet the expectations (Hawking & Sellitto 2010). A clear strategy and successful
implementation, will not only make the organization more agile, it will also give more control,
making the organization democratic, where decision making is not limited only to the top
management (Forrester 2013).

Fig. 2: Benefits achieved by implementing enterprise BI (Forrester 2013)

Fig. 3: Layers of BI software stack(Simons 2008)

The key innovations of BI which can be integrated with our SAP system and derive more value
are:

Self-service tools
Interactive visualizations
Predictive analytics
Social media analytics
Big Data analytics(Forrester 2013)

Self-service Tools
Self-service tools are those that enable business analysts to build their own queries or
reports in a simple and easy manner. It allows easy understanding of data by better visualization
and provides ownership of the data to the users. The ease of usage, integration of data to business
models and enabling democracy in the organization makes self-service tools very valuable (Haun
2013).

Suggested Product: SAP Lumira (Appendix B)


Case Study: Daimler Trucks North America uses SAP Lumira for identifying potential sale
deals, track status, analyzes huge volumes of data and provides users with the power of agile
visualization which helps them to easily understand and make effective decisions(Lumira 2014).
Interactive visualizations
Even though we are able to visualize our reports in forms of charts and graphs, its value
is limited if we are not able to drill down to the underlying data. With the huge amount of data
that is collected and with information being real-time, interactive visualization allows visual
querying of the dynamic data and provides a multi-dimensional animated visualization which
will help the organization to make calculated decisions (Evelson 2012).
Suggested Product: SAP Dashboards 4.1 (Appendix C)
Case Study: Unipart, a leading 3rd party logistics provider, implemented SAP BusinessObjects
Business Intelligence Dashboards to visually look at their supply chain from a high summary
level to a highly granular line level of data and expose where the issues are in the supply chain.
This enabled them to cut a lot of waste and increase their productivity (Unipart: Identifying
issues before they can occur 2014).
Predictive Analytics
The ability to predict and react proactively differentiates a market leader from their
competitors in this fast-changing and competitive business scenario. Predictive analytics
improves the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, reduces churn rates, enables up-selling and
cross-selling and increases customer satisfaction. 68% of organizations that are using predictive
analytics have realized they have a competitive advantage compared to other players in the
market (Forrester 2013; SAP 2013b).
Suggested Product: SAP InfiniteInsight (Appendix D)
Case Study: Tipp24.com uses SAP InfiniteInsight to study their customer behavior using their
past behavior, tickets purchased, products played, gaming history, winnings and their
demographics to predict what the customer will do in future and market accordingly. This

improved their target accuracy of marketing campaigns by 300%, reduced customer churn and
thereby improving customer satisfaction (Tipp24.com: Quadrupling campaign accuracy 2014).
Social Media Analytics
With the internet penetrating into our daily lives and customers voicing their opinions in
the social media, it is imperative to gather data from social media sites and analyze. Mining the
sentiments of the customer will enable us to make informed decisions as customers are the key to
success of an organization. Identifying the relevant information, classifying its sentiment value
and measuring the influence in the social network are the key challenges which have to be
addressed to derive value from social media analytics (Lawrence et al. 2010).
Suggested Product: SAP NetBase (Appendix E)
Case Study: T-Mobile uses SAP NetBase to listen, engage and resolve what the customers are
talking about them in the social media. The data and analytics obtained from NetBase enabled
them to redesign several of their business processes to cater specifically to their customer needs.
This increased their social connections by 494% and their fan base by 845% (Nguyen 2014).
Big Data Analytics
Big data analytics techniques can generate a lot of value to the business with the Volume,
Variety, Velocity and Variability of the huge amount of data collected. Using the right techniques,
we can gain valuable insights which will help the organization in quickly identifying risks and
opportunities and using those information, can improve the predictive analytics of the
organization (Forrester 2013; SAP 2014l).
Suggested Product: SAP Customer Engagement Intelligence (Appendix F)
Case Study: German Football Association uses SAP Match Insights solution for football which
runs on the SAP HANA platform. Using the huge data generated from recordings, sensors in
balls and player dresses, it enabled coaches to process the data and assess key situations in
matches and thereby use the information to improve player performance. This enabled them to
reduce the ball possession time from 3.4 seconds to 2.3 seconds (SAPNews 2014).

Automation
ERP helps organizations integrate business activities electronically in a central data
repository. Data fed in a part of the business can assist another part in the business by
electronically updating records and reports. This automation results in numerous benefits for
example reduced administration expenses due to reduced labor hours, efficiencies and improved
data accuracy, better productivity, improved pace and quality of work, and quick accessibility of
data to all users. All these benefits lead to better output in areas of operational delivery,
product/service quality, speed of delivery, better customer service through better business
response time, improved decision making and last but not the least improved profitability for the
business (Langenhan 2009; Samaranayake 2009).
There are several case studies that demonstrate the benefits of automating back office
tasks by the use of ERP solutions. To stay ahead of the competition we will have to continue to
look for opportunities to automate repetitive tasks as much as possible. The key areas that benefit
immediately from automation are financial management and manufacturing operations.
Automation of the financial modules is a very good example to demonstrate how budgets and
movement of finance can be managed.
Financial Management (FM)
By utilizing SAP HANA in-memory computing processing, SAP and partner solutions
have solutions that can help an organization automate a considerable part of the expensive and
time intensive activities in the area of accounts, finance and bookkeeping area. For instance a
company can automate a wide range of activities like posting transactions to the general records,
preparing budget reports, generating and complying with the budget, managing accounts
receivables and payable. It also helps in invoicing and collections, foreign currency transactions
management, administration, tracking and recording of cash transactions and overall budgets.
Managing legal compliance to tax laws and other legislative protocols and accurate profit and
loss statements are other enhanced functions these modules offer (SAP 2014f).
Case study: HSBC bank is the world's second largest multinational banking as well as financial
services company. In HSBC SAP HANA NetWeaver (using ISO 20022 XML format) has been
implemented to communicate transactions between corporate clients, as well as for normal

customers. This has allowed customers to connect themselves via single point of entry into
HSBC worldwide banking. There was simplification visible in the managing accounts
receivables and payables, foreign currency transactions management, Administration, tracking
and recording of cash transactions and overall budget managing legal compliance to tax laws and
other legislative protocols. They also launched the tool BIS and IBAN solution in terms to
counter party verification which leads to more accurate and payment processing and transactions
(HSBC 2011; Savvas 2008).
Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM)
For any business these days the capability to effectively deal with all parts of the business
operations and to integrate individuals on the shop-floor or day to day operations to the upperlevel business chamber supporting the organization has become increasingly difficult.
Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) solution offers a great solution by presenting
real-time view of actual reality of ongoing operations on the shop floor (SAP 2014h).
Suggested product: SAP Manufacturing Intelligence and Integration (MII) along with SAP
Manufacturing Execution (ME) (Appendix G).
Case Study: DHR and U.S. food and drug administration who were encountering difficulties in
their data management and was in need of a solution. As per legal requirements DHR was
expected to keep device history records to be maintained by the manufacturers by maintaining
their records for almost every batch unit or lot. It was earlier maintained by preparing paper
records, also the entire documentation was gathered in the final record which was then utilized
for executing entire work process. Then SAP HANA MOM was implemented which was having
eDHR in its functionality, It gathers all the essential required information in real time. DHR
implemented SAP HANA automated solution that not only allowed it to significantly reduce its
administration of paper based records but also helped it in complying towards US Food and Drug
Administration's requirements. At DHR all records are accessible now on demand and easily
maintainable (Lobo 2014).
Human Capital Management (HCM)
Our company has SAP modules to manage the human resource records. Whilst employee records
can be managed as an administrative task however companies these days see employees or their

human resource as a capital that needs to be nurtured, invested in, developed, challenged, success
planned and held accountable to harness their full potential. To achieve the full potential of ERP
we need to look at solutions to make this area more methodical (Baron & Armstrong 2007).
Suggested Product: SuccessFactors (Appendix H)
Case Study: Timken, a manufacturer of engineering products, implemented SuccessFactors and
achieved a multitude of benefits. These benefits ranged from accurate reports on employees
instantly as opposed to 3 weeks, employee remuneration and benefits driven through a single
system in a multi-lingual capability for more than 23 thousand employees, valuable insights and
analytics and ability to plan and deliver relevant training in a very timely manner (Vorse 2012).
Connectivity:
Connectivity alludes to the exchange of information/data in real time and provision
settings between various users in the business. Our user groups consist of clients or customers,
colleagues and suppliers. If our organization can achieve a higher level of connectivity and inter
operate ability whereby all users groups can benefit from each other's data inputs as well as
interaction records including important turn of events, this would allow our business to operate at
a very advance level of efficiency, speed and efficacy. Considering the size and volume of
transactions the only way we can really achieve it is by using SAP HANA in-memory and
integrated advanced solutions that will connect various parts of our business electronically to
ensure rapid conveyance of data and information to all intended users. This can be used in day to
day operations and strategic decision making (Richard, Thirkell & Huff 2007).
ERP and CRM: Integration for business success
As discussed earlier in this paper, SAP ERP allows for better connectivity between
various departments of the organization to aid flow of data. This helps in operationally managing
the ongoing affairs of the business. As ERP systems have evolved over the decades now ERP
offers functionality in the areas of business analytics, Manufacturing management, Plant
maintenance, Supply chain and so on. CRM on the other hand is excellent tools to manage
interactions inter and intra organization that leads to quality records and data. This can be
utilized to enhance product offerings especially around marketing campaigns and sales

management. Companies also report much higher levels of customer satisfaction and
engagement (Gneiser 2010).

Fig. 4: Importance of CRM (Thornton 2013)

These days ERP and CRM can work in conjunction to deliver business value and enhance
operational and strategic benefit. CRM and ERP applications can work collaboratively when
integrated and can fundamentally boost our output in various parts of our business, decreased
error rate, and achieve high levels of management effectiveness. An integrated CRM and ERP
solution can have a significant impact on the ROI of both solutions and enhance efficacy of both
applications (SalesForce 2014b).
Suggested Product: SAP integrated with SalesForce (as preferred CRM) (Appendix I)
Modules:
Business Management Module: Sales Function Modules and Customer relations
Suppliers Relationship Management Module
CRM Analytics: Reports and Dashboards
CRM Marketing: Marketing Functions

Customer Service: Incidents, Contracts Management, Knowledge Database


Administration: Access Rights, User rights and authorization, Custom filters
Mobility: Mobile access, Applications
Case Study: Gumtree is a user driven classifieds website that is very popular with most
Australians. In a few years of its launch they went down the path of introducing automotive
section. After careful review of various available solutions they decided to implement
SalesForce1. This allowed their sales and business development staff the ability to show dealers
their service and solutions in real time as well track the movement of inventory live. Marketing
and sales cycles became more refined, more informative and easy. Customer relationship
management became very professional with the quality of interaction being very high and also in
achieving 360 view of customer profile. This allowed Gumtree to acquire 1000 customer within
the first 12 months of its launch of the automotive section (Minns 2012).
Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Supplier connectivity
SCM modules are designed to align the course of materials through a company's supply
chain. ERP systems can allow companies connectivity that can be methodically designed from
starting point i.e. material management including order and procurement right through to making
the final product. It can also incorporate supplier payments and invoice data. SAP SCM can
easily integrate with an invoice management solution that would mean accurate invoicing both
outwards and inwards as well as capturing contract terms and so on (Chung, Tang & Ahmad
2011).
Suggested Product: SAP SCM integrated with OpenText (an invoice management solution)
(Appendix J)
Case Study: In a perfect example, Intel enters into massive deals worth millions of dollars with
its suppliers and is usually offered 1-2% discounts for payments within 15-30 days as opposed to
30-60 days. Intel wanted to capture more than 95% of these supplier discounts but due to lack of
planning and integration they were not achieving it. In late 2011 they implemented and
streamlined SAP SCM with their invoice management solution. This helped them achieve an

ability to hit 95% discount achievement rate as opposed to less than 50%. This resulted in tens of
millions of dollars in savings for Intel (Hannon 2011).
Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)
SRM modules serve the purpose of streamlining procurement. It helps in methodically
unifying and automating sourcing practices.
Suggested Product: SAP SRM (Appendix K)
Case Study: Lukoil Mid-East LTD is a large oil and gas field operator in the Middle East. With
expanding operations and a huge pressure on its ability to produce specific material yet flexible
supply it was becoming increasingly difficult maintain the quality of operation. They
implemented SAP SRM application and immediately saw a 15% faster purchasing process, 50%
more suppliers and 20% less errors in procurement paperwork (SAP 2014g).
Innovation:
In the highly competitive world, organizations have to be innovative to stay ahead of
everyone. The three dimensions of competitive space which gives a clear view about the
innovative strategy of the company are Customer Excitement, Competitive Leadership and
Portfolio enrichment (Bowonder et al. 2010). The business model of our organization revolves
around these pillars and we try to create and capture value in each of those dimensions
(Chesbrough 2007). Leveraging the current technology in these dimensions is the strategy we
can employ to stay ourselves ahead of our competitors (Bowonder et al. 2010). The top
technology trends are

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)


Responsive Web Design
Cloud Computing
The Internet of Everything
3D Printing (Hendricks 2014)

Using the existing SAP system, we can leverage these technologies and gain more out of our
SAP system.

BYOD
This denotes policies that can be implemented in our organization to enable our
employees brining their own personal devices to engage in various work related activities by
accessing the various corporate resources. The corporate use of social networking and other tools
can also benefit us in terms of sales and marketing perspective also. This needs to be carefully
managed in terms of corporate confidentiality, employee productivity and information security
(Waterfill & Dilworth 2014).
Suggested Product: SAP Afaria 7.0 (Appendix L)
Case Study: NuVasive, a medical device company uses SAP Afaria to build one-stop-shop
mobile applications for their mobile workforce to help them in managing their daily field
operations and carry out the sales in much quicker and more accurate time frame. This has
decreased their administrative costs and improved their ROI by 15%. Also this enabled their
employees to carry their own personal devices and thus reducing the IT costs too (SAP 2013a).
Responsive Web Design
Having a web page which looks the same way in any device irrespective of the screen
size is called responsive web design. With the growth of mobile phones and tablets, each having
its own screen-size and resolution, it is necessary to have a fluidic website which can be viewed
across any device. With 40% of customers moving to other websites if the site is not mobile
friendly (WilkinsIT 2014), it is important to create an ideal viewing experience for the customers
and keeps their interest piqued. Also having just one website allows for easy maintenance for the
organization (Natda 2013).
Suggested Product: SAP Fiori (Appendix M)
Case Study: Colgate-Palmolive uses SAP Fiori to meet the high demand from the users who
bring their own devices to work. The leave request functionality was implemented to a selective
group of users and the ease of use with no prior training, helped people to access the application
anywhere they wanted in any device they wanted to (SAP 2014a).

Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is an IT delivery style where the various applications, data and other IT
resources of the organization are provisioned and provided to the users through the web as a
standard offering. It is used for managing high volumes of resources using the concept of elastic
scaling. Cloud computing reduces our costs by leveraging virtualization, standardization and
automation which frees valuable resources that can be utilized in new investments. Also it
enables the business to be more agile and provides flexibility in service which in turn optimizes
the business. With most of the suggested products based on cloud, it will help our organization to
become more efficient and reduce costs (Greggo 2009).
The Internet of Everything
Internet of Everything is linking of sensors in various physical devices, databases,
software, etc. through a wired or wireless network to the Internet. This generates Big Data
which can be used to various analyses (O'Leary 2013). This hyper connectivity is driving a
fundamental shift in how human beings connect with different things and devices, and drive
value for our societies. This will result in highly personalized customer experiences, high levels
of resource optimization and new levels of innovation. Using SAP HANA we can monitor and
analyze the large amounts of data for real time predictive insights automate our business
processes and help us to create new sources of revenue, new products and new products
(SapphireNow 2014).
3D Printing
3D printing, also called as addictive manufacturing is a process where a three
dimensional solid object is created using the help of a digital file. The additive process is used to
create the 3D object by laying successive layers of materials until the desired object is created
(What is 3D printing? 2014). Using Right Hemisphere with our existing SAP system will enable
in delivering an animated view of the products to our development and manufacturing team. This
also can be used to deliver a detailed view to the customers online and allow them to customize
the product to meet their needs. By automating with the MES system, the printing process can be
automated directly and can be used to manufacture using a 3D printer which will not only save

costs, but also improve customer satisfaction by enabling them to visualize and design the
product to suit their needs (Stackpole 2011).
Interconnected:
The success of the organization depends on how quick we can make decisions and
implement them to satisfy the needs of the customer. Decision making using BI is not possible
without the help of big data generated or the various customer insights obtained using the CRM
system. It is important for us to understand the value generated by each of the different products
to the organization and prioritize accordingly. Thus by optimizing our SAP system with the
suppliers and customers, enhancing our processes by automating them and leading by using
current technologies we will be able to make informed decisions which will enable us to sustain
as the market leader.
Conclusion:
With the world rapidly changing it is necessary for us to keep ourselves up-to-date to
maintain our position as the market leader. Even though we have our SAP system in place, we
have seen the various add-ons that can help out organization to grow. With internet, mobility and
cloud dominating every aspect of our life, it is necessary for us to leverage these technologies to
leverage more value out of our SAP system. Adapting to these technologies, not only improves
the business processes, it also will improve the satisfaction of employees, as it enables them to
view more detailed information and giving the belief of democracy. It is mandatory to provide
sufficient training to employees on the new add-ons to improve their productivity when they use
the system. By moving our solutions to the cloud and enabling mobility, our employees can be
more mobile and make decisions on the move. Also the implementation of new technologies can
be outsourced to reduce costs, focus on our core competencies and also gain superior technical
resources. Even though all these can be carried out by our competitors too, by tailoring the SAP
system to our needs and keeping ourselves up-to-date with the current technologies on a
continuous basis, we will be able to dominate our position as a market leader in the long run.
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Appendix:
Appendix A 5 layers of SAP Business Life Cycle Model
Stabilise The new technology (SAP) is implemented successfully and the organization
is stable on it.
Support The various bugs and issues arising in the software are successfully resolved.
Enhance The business processes are streamlined and new additional processes are
deployed into the business.
Optimise Having a high level collaboration with both customers and suppliers and
enabling the technology to gain competitive advantage by attracting new customers and
finding new suppliers.
Lead The SAP system is used strategically to make quick and accurate decisions and
enable the organization to be a market leader (SAP Solutions - Application Management -

NTT DATA Business Solutions 'Support Advantage' - Australia SAP & Microsoft Gold
Channel Partner, Enterprise Resource Planning ERP 2014).
Appendix B SAP Lumira
SAP Lumira is a tool that is used to provide solutions to the users according to their
queries in a visual manner. It is repeatable and self-service, which makes it easier for everyone to
use it. Its point and click interface and engaging visualizations will help our employees to
analyze the data much quicker to gain better insights and be more agile. It also helps to
accelerate decision making with immediate, data based answers even to complex queries and
being self-serviced, and even entry level employees can work more efficiently by aligning
themselves to the organizational strategies. Also, it can visualize huge amounts of data in real
time using SAP HANA (SAP 2014d).
Appendix C SAP Dashboards 4.1
This is data visualization software which allows us to create interactive dashboards and
also export them. It has various components to it like graphs, charts, etc. which is bound to our
data sources. These components display the information requested in a compact and visual
manner which will be easily understood by everyone. Also they can be drilled down to gain more
information and thus help in making informed decisions. There are many editions of the product
and depending on the cost and budget, can select the desired product (SAP 2014j).
Appendix D SAP InfiniteInsight
Formerly KXEN, SAP InfiniteInsight has moved the business view from the traditional
predictive analysis which is manual and repetitive to an automated manner to gain customer
insights and make decisions looking at the future. This tool will help us in automating our data
preparation, predictive modeling and deploying our tasks. It will also help in building
sophisticated predictive models in a short period of time and can scale it as per the data acquired
and gain insights from the thousands of variables present in it. It will also help in embedding
predictive analysis in our existing apps and processes (SAP 2014c).

Appendix E SAP NetBase


SAP Social Media Analytics by NetBase is an extension offered by SAP, which delivers
marketers with accurate, real-time analytics to help them understand the markets and customers
through the help of social media. It processes billions of posts across all sites to extract structural
insights which can be used by us to quickly understand the market trends and also know about
the needs of the customers. Also it quantifies perceptions about our products and services and
shows our success in the global market. This will help us to monitor and understand reactions to
our new products identify the strengths and weaknesses of the products competing against us and
uncover trends about the customers which will help in improving our customer base (Netbase
2011).
Appendix F SAP Customer Engagement Intelligence
This is a SAP HANA solution which uses real-time, context sensitive analytics to
enhance customer engagement. This will enable our sales team to be equipped with deep insights
about the customer which will help them in delivering a personalized experience. It will also help
our sales representatives with sales recommendations which will help them to close a deal and
optimize the value. Also depending on the customer, personalized marketing strategies can be
created which will help to boost our sales. It will also help us to identify the underlying hidden
patterns and trends, which will help in honing our sales strategies and also achieve higher targets.
Also through seamless access to SAP InfiniteInsight we can build real-time customer
segmentations which are more accurate (SAP 2014b).
Appendix G SAP MII with SAP ME
This is cloud based application, in time memory and analytic tool (HANA) which
broaden the scope of automation and the allow integration between technology (for automation)
with the day to operations on the plant floor. This automation allows companies to gather gainful
information related to the effectiveness of its processes, equipment, productivity, profit and
performance (Davidson 2014).
Appendix H SuccessFactors
SuccessFactors excels in managing the workforce talent, core HR functionalities,
collaboration and workforce analytics. A survey of top SuccessFactors companies reveals that it

improves strategic alignment by bridging the gap between strategy and execution and a 5.5%
increase in the time spent on setting the strategies. By optimizing the workforce, it increases
project completion rate by 14%, productivity by 5% and increasing the high performers in the
organization by 4.9%. The successful investment also added 1% revenue to the profit generated.
With all these benefits, if adopted successfully and utilized to its maximum, we can reap similar
results (SuccessFactors 2014).
Appendix I SAP integrated with SalesForce
With SAP already in place, integrated with SalesForce (as our preferred CRM) we can
achieve integration between the two and that will connect users in various parts of the
organization in real time. This ranges from employees, intra organization connectivity, connects
us better in the operational supply chain area, and allows us to capture 360 view of the customer
by which we can get remarkable ROI. The core reason these technologies will add value is the
ability to connect in real time and update all parts of the organization periodically.

Fig. 5: Performance benefits of SalesForce (SalesForce 2014a)

SalesForce has an extensive suite of CRM Applications and products which allow for a
seamless integration into any business model including technical integration with SAP or most
well-known ERPs. SalesForce offers all the above mentioned modules along with strong
mobility/cloud solutions (Wepfer 2012).

Appendix J SAP SCM integrated with OpenText


SAP Supply Chain Management as with the name says helps in maintaining connectivity
with the suppliers. It will help us in quickly respond to the changes in supply and demand,
provide us with accurate delivery dates, optimizing our inventory, labor and resources and help
us in developing risk avoidance and mitigation strategies for unseen circumstances. OpenText for
SAP will help us in thinking end to end value and it will help in optimizing and automating and
reinvent our business processes at a higher level. Connecting with the SCM, will make sure the
entire process is smoother and removes most manual works (OpenText 2014; SAP 2014e).
Appendix K SAP SRM
SAP SRM is powered by SAP HANA which will automate, simplify and accelerate our
procure-to-pay processes for the various goods and services which we deal with. It will
streamline and standardize our purchasing services, reduce our procurement costs, avoid
maverick buying due to wrong calculation, give a better visibility into the relationships of our
suppliers and their performance and accelerate the procurement processing and improve our
cycle times (SAP 2014i).
Appendix L SAP Afaria
The Afaria software platform is used to deliver and centrally control all the mobile
devices and tablets in the organizations network and the various applications that run on them. It
can be deployed on premise or on the cloud depending on our requirements. This will help us in
following the BYOD trend and allow our employees to carry a single device, both for work and
personal reasons. Not only it makes our employees more mobile, the various apps created can be
pushed through to them automatically through the cloud and with various analytics tools, it can
help them in making better decisions (Groeneveld 2014).
Appendix M SAP Fiori
SAP Fiori uses modern design principles to create a user experience that is personalized,
responsive and simple to use. It enables to give the sites a consistent look across various devices
irrespective of the screen size and also achieves immediate insight on the action. This also boosts
the productivity from the users as it reduces their work by just having to create a single site than
creating multiple ones for different devices. It also helps to leverage our SAP investments with

low IT costs. The high customer satisfaction drives the sales through our online media and also
helps in acquiring new customers (SAP 2014k).

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