BERLIN — SAP SE today announced that its customers are simplifying their operations with industry cloud solutions at a rapid pace. The Industry Cloud organization at SAP, led by Simon Paris, is co-innovating with customers and partners to deliver solutions that are quickly spreading across all industries. In the second half of 2014, SAP has won many news customers for line-of-business (LOB)-focused cloud applications. The announcement was made at SAP TechEd && d-code, being held November 11–13 in Berlin.
“Customers and partners are clearly eager to shape the future of industry-specific solutions in the cloud, benefiting from the speed of innovation and continuity without disruption,” said Paris, president, Industry Cloud, SAP SE. “By combining their firsthand knowledge and experience with our industry-specific capabilities, customers get a smooth and rapid migration into the cloud, protecting past investments while creating an open platform to add new features today’s users expect.”
Rapid, Widespread Industry Cloud Adoption
SAP customers are setting the pace for deploying and using industry-specific cloud solutions because of the compelling combination of value for each LOB along end-to-end industry processes, consumer-grade end-user experience and ease of deployment and integration. Customer examples include:
Energy & Natural Resources
AkzoNobel is a leading global paints and coatings company and a major producer of specialty chemicals. It recently deployed the SAP Cloud for Sales solution as a hybrid model integrated with the existing SAP Customer Relationship Management application to offer its sales people a single source of truth regarding customer sales and logistics on mobile devices. Almost immediately the solution had an 83 percent adoption rate of 500 users, and the company now has more transparency to see where and why it wins. By combining sales automation, enterprise resource planning (ERP) integration, analytics, mobility and the latest advancements in user interface technology from SAP, SAP Cloud for Sales helps AkzoNobel be more responsive to its customers’ needs.
Americas Styrenics (“AmSty”) is a leading producer of polystyrene and styrene in the Americas. Within 12 months, it deployed SAP ERP powered by SAP HANA using the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud service in four countries and seven manufacturing plants. Benefits so far include a 50 percent reduction in the time required for the financial close, a faster financial consolidation process, greater data transparency for real-time reporting and faster response times to addressing business challenges.
Financial Services
National Bank of Canada is using the cloud-based human capital management (HCM) suite from SuccessFactors, an SAP company, to support its 20,000 employees and promote its business strategy and growth. National Bank of Canada uses the HCM suite to increase customer service quality and client satisfaction by training and recognizing employee performance. In an environment where HR regulations are consistently evolving, HCM helps National Bank of Canada mitigate risk, increase efficiency, support compliance and drive fact-based business decisions.
Higher Education & Research
In September, SAP announced that it is cooperating with the University of Kentucky, Northern Kentucky University and other higher education customers to reinvent the proven student information system (SIS) design as a simple, easy-to-use platform for student interaction, engagement and collaboration. The transformation is planned to lead to an SIS that allows students to track their classes and degree requirements on the mobile device of their choice, alongside fellow students in a social environment on SAP HANA Cloud Platform.
In October, SAP announced that Australia’s La Trobe University has chosen the SAP Simple Finance solution powered by SAP HANA and the SAP Student Lifecycle Management application to support its “Future-Ready Strategic Plan.” La Trobe is the first customer to globally deploy SAP Simple Finance in the cloud. SAP Simple Finance will provide its finance department and colleges with instant insight across devices to help the university drive value — leveraging instant planning, analysis, prediction and simulation across financial and operational processes — while significantly simplifying its entire IT landscape and architecture.
Public Services
With more than 10,000 employees in Australia and abroad, Australia’s Department of Immigration and Citizenship is currently transitioning its HR operations to the cloud and consolidating them on SuccessFactors HCM Suite. The department previously had separate systems for performance, learning and development and recruitment, and anticipates considerable cost savings for taxpayers and improved service for clients.
In October, SAP announced the development of a U.S. federal secure cloud offering that is planned to address all dimensions of the cloud model, including support, operations and delivery. The planned US federal secure node, delivered in partnership with SAP National Security Services™ (SAP NS2™), an independent, U.S.-based subsidiary of SAP, is a fully managed, secure cloud. It is intended to offer the right mix of cloud, hosted and on-premise technology based on each agency’s needs, providing flexibility, choice and control over deployment strategy.
In the UK, HS2 Ltd., a company wholly owned by the national Department for Transport (DfT) and responsible for connecting northern England with London via new high-speed rail, has chosen the SuccessFactors HCM Suite and SAP Business ByDesign solution to help it meet the early stages of this ambitious infrastructure programme.
Telecommunications
SAP recognizes that telecommunications companies are also looking for ways to more deeply engage with customers and create new revenue streams, and are committed to working with carriers as strategic partners to enable new business models. In September, SAP announced a new agreement with Ericsson to securely deliver network-enabled cloud solutions, which will provide users with secure access to their business apps and content on mobile devices. For the growing enterprise mobility management (EMM) market this joint offering will help businesses across all industries to better manage and secure organizational effectiveness and employee productivity. Ericsson will offer the SAP Mobile Secure portfolio, a set of cloud-based solutions, combined with an IT managed service offering, expanding its portfolio of services available for its more than 400 mobile network operators.
SAP and Portugal Telecom continue to work together to bring customers streamlined operations and increased agility via cloud services. Portugal Telecom is the first worldwide provider of cloud services for the SAP Business One Cloud solution powered by SAP HANA. Portugal Telecom has set up a cloud environment for SAP Business One Cloud for both scalable, multi-tenant landscapes managed by Portugal Telecom and fully dedicated landscapes for use by partners looking to host and manage the solution for their clients. Combining the flexibility of the cloud with powerful in-memory technology, SAP Business One Cloud powered by SAP HANA helps companies of all sizes improve their overall business execution through accessible, real-time data that provides clear insights. The solution enables small businesses or subsidiaries of large companies to manage critical business processes — such as sales, finance, accounting and inventory — in a cloud-based offering, streamlining operations with a complete, integrated solution. Customers will pay a subscription fee per user for a turnkey solution hosted by Portugal Telecom, which will help clients reduce the total cost of ownership of the solution and allow them to quickly realize value and benefits from their investments in the solution.
Retail
To enhance the daily employee experience and attract more high-quality talent, automated retailer Outerwall Inc., the company behind brands like Redbox, Coinstar and ecoATM, recently went live with a suite of SuccessFactors solutions, including SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll, SuccessFactors Performance & Goals, SuccessFactors Recruiting Management, SuccessFactors Recruiting Marketing and SuccessFactors Succession & Development. With nearly 2,900 employees, Outerwall can now develop, manage and deploy talent more efficiently.
For more information, visit the SAP News Center. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews.
For more information, press only:
Birgit Dolny, +49 (6227) 7-61664, birgit.dolny@sap.com, CET
Janice Edman, +1 (650) 223-4817, janice.edman@sap.com, EST
Kate McNeel, +1 (484) 624-2256, k.mcneel@sap.com, CST
Somill Scheunemann, +65 9862 1491, somill.scheunemann@sap.com, UTC+8
Mat Small, +1 (510) 684-3552, m.small@sap.com, PST
SAP News Center press room; press@sap.com
Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.
Photo: Shutterstock