SAP Solution BriefSAP Services

SAP Application Management

Outsourcing Your Application Management to Lower Costs and Boost Service Quality

Business Challenges • Stem rising IT costs • Free up valuable resources from task

of ongoing application management

Key Features • Problem management – Provide

business users with first- and second-level application support, solve acute performance problems, and prevent future ones

• Continuous maintenance – Perform upgrades and deploy support packag-es related to SAP software releases and proactively monitor applications

• Follow-up support – Gain support for going live and managing release changes and migrations

• Support enablement – Develop and install effective support structures and improve existing processes and structures

Business Benefits • Lower operational costs by profiting

from SAP’s ability to leverage econo-mies of scale in meeting the out- sourcing requirements of hundreds of customers

• Improve planning by relying on predictable fixed costs to support, maintain, and develop your application landscape

• Free up resources by leveraging SAP technology expertise to handle your routine application management tasks, allowing your IT specialists to focus on strategic initiatives

• Gain expert assistance by taking advantage of SAP experience and know-how in rectifying faults quickly, resolving issues before they become problems, and identifying potential for optimization

For More InformationTo find out more, call your SAP representative or visit us at www.sap.com/services.

SummaryBy supporting, maintaining, and enhanc-ing your application landscape, SAP® Application Management services from SAP Consulting reduce costs and free up resources so you can focus on IT innovation.

Quick Facts

How do you manage support and devel-opment for your mission-critical enter-prise applications? This question poses a dual challenge to IT managers across companies of all sizes. On the one hand, IT costs consume an ever-larger slice of company budgets. Meanwhile, the ongoing management of business appli-cations ties up resources needed for projects that are more strategic to your company’s core business. The result: fewer resources are allocated to IT innovation.

Faced with this challenge, companies are turning to outsourcing as a solution for managing their enterprise applica-tions. If your company is considering outsourcing the management of its SAP software, SAP Application Management services from SAP Consulting are the perfect solution. You can rely on SAP technology experts to manage some or all of your SAP applications. Our experts provide proactive support, enabling the rapid resolution of problems, efficient handling of changes in your environment, and full support of business users and their critical applications.

GAIn GreAter PerForMAnCe And FLexIBILIty

By selectively outsourcing the manage-ment of your SAP applications to SAP Consulting, you can improve service quality and generate measurable savings. SAP Application Management services

give your company what it urgently needs in today’s dynamic markets: the ability to respond quickly and flexibly to changing business requirements.

The services available are as numer-ous and varied as a company’s reasons for outsourcing. Whatever level of sup-port you choose, a customer service manager takes care of everything need-ed to keep your quality of service in line with service-level agreements. This sim-plifies coordination, saves you valuable time, and provides reliable support for your business users and applications.

entruSt the FuLL APPLICAtIon MAnAGeMent LIFeCyCLe to exPertS

With SAP Application Management ser-vices, we take care of the daily tasks that enable your business users to get the most from your applications. We support your continuous improvement initiatives by providing the expertise to implement changes and enhancements, such as incorporating new processes, adding a reporting function, or integrating new ap-plications due to a merger or acquisition.

With a focus on improving the produc-tivity of your software operations, our portfolio of application management services covers every phase of planning, implementing, operating, optimizing, and extending your application landscape. You choose the services that best meet your requirements. Through our basic

service offerings, we provide expert support for managing user-reported problems and handling routine applica-tion management activities. Optional add-on services offer more extensive support to optimize operational efficiency.

Basic Service OfferingsSAP Application Management includes the following basic service offerings:

• First- and second-level application support for business users and problem management

• Continuous maintenance • Support for continuous improvement • Software patches related to installed

SAP software

Optional Service OfferingsChoose any of these optional services to meet your additional application management needs:

• Proactive application monitoring and recommendations for issue resolution

• Integration of new software functions and components

• Support for upgrades of SAP software releases

• Follow-up support for going live, release changes, and migrations

• Help solving acute performance problems and preventing future ones

• Business-process monitoring and optimization

oPtIMIze InternAL SuPPort

With SAP Application Management ser-vices, you gain access to highly skilled SAP technology experts who can help you optimize your existing support orga-nization and broaden your support ex-pertise. Our experts, in consultation with you, determine the most effective depth of service for your support organization.

Supporting, maintaining, and enhancing your software land-scape can tie up considerable resources, leaving less time and capital for innovation. With SAP® Application Management ser-vices, you can reduce the cost of managing your SAP software and free up resources for improved flexibility and performance.

They help you implement streamlined service and support processes and structures. On top of this, targeted knowledge transfer keeps your support team up-to-date on the latest SAP sup-port tools and methods.

Put the BrAKeS on CoStS

How do you benefit from these globally scalable services? First of all, our appli-cation management team is highly effec-tive at keeping costs in check. Central resources and the know-how of SAP technology specialists result in econo-mies of scale that we pass on to you. In addition, long-term contracts allow us to calculate resources favorably and offer you services at fixed prices. You benefit in two ways: lower application manage-ment costs and improved planning by re-placing difficult-to-budget variable items with predictable costs. You can further reduce your costs by choosing to take advantage of our global backbone infra-structure and 24x7 support from our worldwide service centers located in Europe, North America, and the Asia- Pacific-Japan region.

drIve oPtIMIzAtIon

SAP Application Management services are a driving force for process optimiza-tion and quality improvement. Mutually agreed-on targets, along with contractu-

ally fixed service-level agreements, pave the way. You can improve application quality, availability, and security; reduce the incidence of faults; and carry out service processes far more efficiently.

tAKe AdvAntAGe oF SAP SoFtwAre exPertISe

By outsourcing your application manage-ment to SAP, you’re in the hands of pro-fessionals with a wealth of expertise. The quality, reliability, and efficiency of our services are based on our years of experience in managing SAP and SAP-centric solutions.

A clear advantage that sets us apart from other providers in the market is that every door at SAP is open to us, from development to product support. In addition, our application management specialists have expertise and skills that cover the entire spectrum of SAP Business Suite applications and vertical industry-specific SAP solutions, including their implementation within heterogeneous environments. Our application manage-ment team benefits from the problem-solving skills of specialized support consultants within SAP. This knowledge of applications and processes includes customer-specific know-how that puts our team in a position to align itself with your company, your business processes, and your application landscape.

reLy on ItIL BeSt PrACtICeS And SAS 70 CertIFICAtIon

We meet your exacting requirements for application availability and reliability through our stable base of powerful ser-vice infrastructures for effective support processing, skilled call management, and systematic escalation management. Our service management and all service processes are organized according to the best-practice approach of the IT Infra-structure Library (ITIL) and certified for quality management in compliance with SAS 70 standards. This means you can be confident of complying fully with the documentation obligations and require-ments of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act as they apply to IT applications.

LeverAGe our BeSt-In-CLASS oPerAtIonS MethodoLoGy

We utilize the Run SAP methodology, SAP standards for solution operations, and operations best practices to guide

If your company is considering outsourcing the management of your SAP software, SAP Application Management services from SAP Consulting are the perfect solution.

Fixed COStS, COMprehenSive SuppOrt

SAP® Application Management services include:• Guaranteed service-level agreements• Service infrastructure• Specialized resources• Monthly reports

Add vALue to your It orGAnIzAtIon

If you want to free up your IT budget and resources to focus on IT innovation, SAP Application Management is for you. By signing up for these services, you can:

• Roll out new solutions with no need to acquire know-how

• Relieve IT personnel of the burden of optimizing and consolidating your ap-plication landscape

• Alleviate your team of the routine tasks associated with supporting applications

• Cushion the impact of software up-grades, release changes, and migrations

• Identify areas for optimization

For More InformationTo find out more, call your SAP representative or visit us at www.sap.com/services.

the delivery of SAP Application Manage-ment services. The Run SAP methodology is a method for setting up and optimizing operational processes for SAP solutions across their entire lifecycle. The quality and flexibility of the best practices, oper-ational process descriptions, operational standards, and services that comprise the Run SAP methodology are based on SAP’s worldwide support know-how and experience with thousands of SAP software installations. This framework of standardized procedures increases the efficiency of SAP Application Man-agement services and helps ensure sustained reductions in operating costs at a high level of process security.

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When tO uSe SAp® AppLiCAtiOn MAnAgeMent ServiCeS

You can benefit from SAP® Application Manage-ment services if one or more of the criteria below apply to your organization:• Your IT support organization’s workload is

increasing• Your SAP software skills cannot keep pace with

the changing demands on your IT organization• You want to improve the quality of IT support

delivered to your business users• You want to improve the availability of SAP

solutions• Your business users are global and span many

time zones• You want to free up your IT resources to focus

on innovative enhancements or new solutions• Your company is planning an organizational

change, a company merger, or an acquisition that may require extensive IT resources