The SAP CCoE turned 18 – has it come of age?

The SAP Customer Centre of Expertise (CCoE) as an integral equation. The key note presentation must have brought back quite some high-school memories for many of the SAP CCoE Info Forum participants gathered in Frankfurt, Germany, from November 19th until 21st, 2014. This event was organized for the 18th time and the question that pops up is: has the SAP CCoE concept come of age? Continue reading “The SAP CCoE turned 18 – has it come of age?”

SAP Release Strategy 2014+

The new online version of the SAP Release Strategy is now available in SAP Support Portal and is of particular relevance if you are faced with one of the following questions:
• How can I plan SAP implementation and upgrade projects?
• How does SAP’s Product Portfolio and Strategy support my business needs?
• How is SAP standard software made available to me?
• Which maintenance strategy rules apply to SAP software products?
• How is integration assured between different software product versions?

The online SAP Release Strategy provides SAP customers and partners a comprehensive view of the SAP portfolio, product strategy, release and maintenance strategy, availability dates of software product versions, as well as support and maintenance schedules.
You will also find relevant information on SAP’s latest innovations, such as SAP Fiori, SAP Smart Business, the financials add-on for SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA, hybris Commerce Suite, SAP HANA Live, SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, SAP HANA Cloud Platform, and the SAP HANA platform and other innovations. To access the SAP release strategy, go to http://support.sap.com/release-strategy.

SAP strategy beyond 2014

SAP reinforced the two key elements of their overall strategy at SAPPHIRE NOW 2014:

1. SAP’s product strategy will be HANA centric

2. The move/push to Cloud

SAP’s mantra for customers is changing from “run better” to “run simpler” under the slogan “Simplify everything, so you can do anything”. Their formula for simplified technology is cloud + SAP HANA aided by simplifying the user experience and pricing model. Everything revolves around simplicity.

Continue reading “SAP strategy beyond 2014”

2-hours HANA Essentials training very well received!

The in-house version of ENSEAD’s 2-hours SAP HANA Essentials training has been received very well. Average score 4 out of 5 and here’s what Nick van Rossum, Managing Director of iQibt, has to say: “We asked Mendel Koerts to set up an information course for one evening around HANA for all our professionals. The information course was just the way we wanted it. Very good background information around in-memory-computing, the pro’s and cons of HANA and a preview towards the future. The course was suitable for people all kind of professionals (managerial, functional and technical) with a lot of examples. We enjoyed the training very well and recommend this to other companies who like to know more about HANA”

– Mendel

Unilever’s HANA adoption

Unilever has chosen for ‘soap’ and expects to double its turnover from €40bn to €80bn by 2020. The company readies their SAP systems by moving to HANA databases. HANA so far has already enabled Unilever to speed up the month-end close from three days to one, which is leading finance users to push for more HANA. In a proof-of-concept application, HANA enabled Unilever to reduce the time it takes to process 200 million records from 440 seconds to just 30 seconds, allowing the company to determine the cost of how much a product costs using pricing information for raw materials. Unilever’s European HANA roll-out is set to begin in January 2013. It is expected to roll-out the following HANA accelerators: Continue reading “Unilever’s HANA adoption”

SAP update November 2012

SAP has introduced changes to its customer support methodology claiming a new ‘engagement management’ that ensures better service. SAP Labs Latin America in Brazil is to be enlarged to 400 people actively working on software solutions that are unique to suit the regional requirements. SAP Business ByDesign Feature Pack 2.5 adds new easy start implementation tools and templates with other updates. SAP presented its plans to provide all of its products on mobile platforms within nine months following its acquisition of Sybase. www.sap.com