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.

ContentsIntroduction:1SAP Business Value Lifecycle Model:2Decision Making:2Self-service Tools4Interactive visualizations5Predictive Analytics5Social Media Analytics6Big Data Analytics6Automation7Financial Management (FM)7Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM)8Human Capital Management (HCM)9Connectivity:9ERP and CRM: Integration for business success9Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Supplier connectivity11Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)12Innovation:12BYOD13Responsive Web Design13Cloud Computing14The Internet of Everything143D Printing14Interconnected:15Conclusion:15References:15Appendix:21Appendix A 5 layers of SAP Business Life Cycle Model21Appendix B SAP Lumira22Appendix C SAP Dashboards 4.122Appendix D SAP InfiniteInsight22Appendix E SAP NetBase23Appendix F SAP Customer Engagement Intelligence23Appendix G SAP MII with SAP ME23Appendix H SuccessFactors23Appendix I SAP integrated with SalesForce24Appendix J SAP SCM integrated with OpenText25Appendix K SAP SRM25Appendix L SAP Afaria25Appendix M SAP Fiori25

Leveraging value through SAP

1

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 ToolsSelf-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 visualizationsEven 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 AnalyticsThe 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 AnalyticsWith 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 AnalyticsBig 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).AutomationERP 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 upper-level 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 successAs 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, ApplicationsCase 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 connectivitySCM 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.BYODThis 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 DesignHaving 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 ComputingCloud 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 EverythingInternet 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 Printing3D 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.References:Baron, A & Armstrong, M 2007, 'Human capital management', Achieving added value through people. UK: Kogan Page.

Bowonder, B, Dambal, A, Kumar, S & Shirodkar, A 2010, 'Innovation strategies for creating competitive advantage', Research-technology management, vol. 53, no. 3, pp. 19-32.

Chesbrough, H 2007, 'Business model innovation: it's not just about technology anymore', Strategy & Leadership, vol. 35, no. 6, pp. 12-7.

Chung, SH, Tang, H-L & Ahmad, I 2011, 'Modularity, integration and IT personnel skills factors in linking ERP to SCM systems', Journal of technology management & innovation, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 1-3.

Davidson, M 2014, Exploring Business and MOM Suite Functionality with SAP, viewed October 18 2014, .

Evelson, B 2012, Advanced Data Visualization - A Critical BI Component, Forrester, viewed October 17 2014, .

Forrester 2013, Competitive Differentiation Through Innovation In Business Intelligence, SAP, viewed October 17 2014, .

Ghazanfari, M, Rouhani, S, Jafari, M & Taghavifard, M 2009, 'ERP Requirements for supporting management decisions & Business Intelligence', The Icfai University Journal of Information Technology, vol. 3.

Gneiser, MS 2010, 'Value-based CRM', Business & Information Systems Engineering, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 95-103.

Greggo, A 2009, 'Cloud computing in the enterprise: an overview', in Enterprise Computing Conference.

Groeneveld, J-G 2014, SAP Mobile Secure (Afaria) Enablement - Overview, SAP, viewed October 18 2014, .

Hannon, D 2011, Improved Supply Chain Processes Bring Intel Real Savings, SAP, viewed October 19 2014, .

Haun, J 2013, What the heck is Self-Service BI?, viewed October 17 2014, .

Hawking, P & Sellitto, C 2010, 'Business Intelligence (BI) Critical Success Factors'.

Hendricks, D 2014, The Top Technology Trends Of 2014 So Far, SAP, viewed October 18 2014, .

HSBC 2011, HSBC launches flexible multi-bank solution with SAP and SWIFT, viewed September 19 2011, .

Ifinedo, P, Rapp, B, Ifinedo, A & Sundberg, K 2010, 'Relationships among ERP post-implementation success constructs: An analysis at the organizational level', Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 1136-48.

Langenhan, C 2009, Automated Software Tests in the SAP Environment, SAP, viewed October 18 2014, .

Lawrence, R, Melville, P, Perlich, C, Sindhwani, V, Meliksetian, S, Hsueh, P & Liu, Y 2010, 'Social media analytics', OR/MS TODAY, pp. 26-30.

Lei, D & Kupusinac, A 2013, 'The Impact of ERP Systems on Business Decision-Making', TEM Journal, vol. 2, no. 4, p. 323.

Lobo, FA 2014, Quality Is Everyone's Business, viewed October 18 2014, .

Lumira, S 2014, Daimler Trucks North America Uses SAP Lumira for Agile Visualization, SAP, viewed October 17 2014, .

Minns, G 2012, Gumtrees Customer Company Transformation - Salesforce.com Australia, SalesForce, viewed October 19 2014, .

Natda, KV 2013, 'Responsive Web Design', Eduvantage, vol. 1, no. 1.

Netbase 2011, NetBase and SAP Join Forces to Deliver Social Media Analytics to Global Enterprises, Netbase, viewed October 17 2014, .

Nguyen, H 2014, T-Mobile Handles 4x As Many Support Cases with NetBase, NETBASE, viewed October 17 2014, .

O'Leary, DE 2013, ''BIG DATA', THE 'INTERNET OF THINGS' AND THE 'INTERNET OF SIGNS'', Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance & Management, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 53-65.

Olszak, CM & Ziemba, E 2007, 'Approach to building and implementing business intelligence systems', Interdisciplinary Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Management, vol. 2, pp. 134-48.

OpenText 2014, OpenText Suite for SAP, viewed October 20 2014.

Richard, JE, Thirkell, PC & Huff, SL 2007, 'The strategic value of CRM: a technology adoption perspective', Journal of Strategic Marketing, vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 421-39.

SalesForce 2014a, CRM & Cloud Computing Software To Grow Your Business - Salesforce.com Australia, viewed October 20 2014.

2014b, What is CRM ?, SalesForce, viewed October 19 2014, .

Samaranayake, P 2009, 'Business process integration, automation, and optimization in ERP: integrated approach using enhanced process models', Business Process Management Journal, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 504-26.

SAP 2013a, NuVasive: SAP Mobile Platform/Afaria, SAP, viewed October 18 2014, .

2013b, Predictive Analytics: Fast Facts & Figures, SAP, viewed October 17 2014, .

2014a, Colgate-Palmolive: Customer Testimonial Video, viewed October 18 2014, .

2014b, Customer Engagement Analytics, SAP, viewed October 17 2014, .

2014c, Customer Insight & Predictive Analysis, SAP, viewed October 17 2014, .

2014d, Data Visualisation Software | Business Intelligence | Analytics, SAP, viewed October 17 2014, .

2014e, Develop a responsive supply network with our supply chain management (SCM) solutions, SAP, viewed October 20 2014, .

2014f, Exceed stakeholders' financial expectations we can help, SAP, viewed October 17 2014, .

2014g, LUKOIL MID-EAST, SAP, viewed October 18 2014, .

2014h, Manufacturing Operations Management, viewed October 17 2014, .

2014i, Our supplier relationship management software delivers procure-to-pay excellence, SAP, viewed October 20 2014, .

2014j, SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.1, SAP, viewed October 17 2014, .

2014k, User Experience - SAP Fiori, SAP, viewed October 18 2014, .

2014l, What is Big Data and how is it changing the way we do business?, SAP, viewed October 17 2014, .

SAP Solutions - Application Management - NTT DATA Business Solutions 'Support Advantage' - Australia SAP & Microsoft Gold Channel Partner, Enterprise Resource Planning ERP 2014, NTT DATA, viewed October 11 2014, .

SAPNews 2014, SAP and the German Football Association Turn Big Data Into Smart Decisions to Improve Player Performance at the World Cup in Brazil, SAP, viewed October 17 2014, .

SapphireNow 2014, The Networked Economy Showcase at SAPPHIRE NOW, viewed October 18 2014, .

Savvas, A 2008, HSBC automates services with SAP Netweaver, Computer Weekly, viewed October 18 2014, .

Simons, P 2008, 'BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE', Financial Management, pp. 48-9.

Stackpole, B 2011, SAP Pumps Up 3D Product Visualization, viewed October 18 2014, .

Stratman, JK 2007, 'Realizing benefits from enterprise resource planning: does strategic focus matter?', Production and Operations Management, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 203-16.

SuccessFactors 2014, Better Business Execution Can Lead to Results, viewed October 19 2014, .

Thornton, K 2013, 7 Stellar Sales Success Infographics, SalesForce, viewed October 19 2014, .

Tipp24.com: Quadrupling campaign accuracy 2014, SAP, viewed October 17 2014, .

Unipart: Identifying issues before they can occur 2014, SAP, viewed October 17 2014, .

Vorse, B 2012, The Timken Company Selects SuccessFactors to Transform HCM Processes, viewed October 18 2014, .

Waterfill, MR & Dilworth, CA 2014, 'BYOD: Where the Employee and the Enterprise Intersect', Employee Relations Law Journal, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 26-36.

Wepfer, RM, Kaushik 2012, Integrating SAP with Salesforce to benefit your sales staff, ASUG, viewed October 20 2014, .

What is 3D printing? 2014, viewed October 18 2014, .

WilkinsIT 2014, Responsive Web Design: Reach Customers on EVERY Device!, viewed October 18 2014, .

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 LumiraSAP 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 4.1This 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 InfiniteInsightFormerly 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 NetBaseSAP 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 IntelligenceThis 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 METhis 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 SuccessFactorsSuccessFactors 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 SalesForceWith 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 OpenTextSAP 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 SRMSAP 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 AfariaThe 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 FioriSAP 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).

FINANCIAL

HR

CRM

SCM

Legacy Systems

ETL(Extract, Transform, Load)

Big Data / Data Warehousing

Data Mining

Online analytical Processing

Query and Reporting

Customer Performance

Financial Performance

Operational Performance

Supply Chain Performance

Real-time Performance Analysis

Web Interface

Report Generation

Source Systems & Databases

ETL & Warehousing

Core BI capabilities

Analytical Applications

Information Delivery