The "FinSAP16" project team was able to proclaim the successful merger of two different SAP systems in early 2016, on-time, and flawlessly. Fiducia & GAD IT AG, the service provider for information technology within the cooperative finance group FinanzGruppe, is going to be working with an ERP system that – as "Best of Breed" – had already before the merger successfully replaced the SAP systems of Fiducia and GAD.

Since the introduction of SAP ERP 6.0 in 2006, the ERP application has – as part of its current release strategy – only been functionally enhanced through so-called Enhancement Packages (EHP). In addition to the usual maintenance via Support Packages, SAP has - with the SAP Enhancement Packages – created an enhancement concept that, on the one hand, ensures stability for existing functions and, on the other hand, allows for simplified and selective access to new functions. In this, it is ensured through the use of the switch framework technology that no functional changes are occurring during installation.

Anadolu Sigorta, Turkish Insurance Sector Pioneer, is also demonstrating its difference with its investments into Information Technology and into employee’s development and wellbeing. While conducting quite a few projects last year, Anadolu Sigorta has eased the knowledge sharing, increased the trust in data and succeed in increasing the effectiveness of timely information usage.

Due to fluctuations in the economy or changes in the financial results of the companies, the expenditures for IT are subject to cyclical changes. Measures kept in abeyance in the short term and the cost savings resulting therefrom are offset in the next quarters. Increased investments are done again, only to ring in the next round of cost-cutting.

An estimated 4.4 billion people will be smartphone owners by 2017, and a large share of these people will be using apps regularly to quickly and easily access information and functionalities that otherwise could only be reached cumbersomely via the web browser. That this trend cannot move past the business environment is apparent, but there are numerous hurdles in the way, such as the existence of different operating systems, ensuring appropriate data security, or connectivity to the current system landscape.

The European division of a worldwide operating energy group of companies has been using the SAP Solution Manager successfully for more than four years for the processing of incidents. In addition, the tool is used in change re-quest management in order to be able to manage and control IT projects. noventum consulting provides adjustments in
customizing.

An interview with Carsten Fröning, Thorsten Schmidt and Otto-Jörg Schröder

 

novum: Mr. Schröder, you have been a part of the management of noventum consulting in the area of SAP consulting since November 2012. What is your specific focus and how does this change the noventum consulting Portfolio?

In November 2012, SAP released the first version of Design Studio as the successor to the Web Application Designer (WAD) for customers. With the Design Studio, report applications for web browsers and mobile end devices can be created using an Eclipse-based graphical user interface. After the merger of SAP and BusinessObjects in 2008, the utmost efforts were made to integrate the worlds of SAP BW / Business Explorer (BEx) and BusinessObjects. With the introduction of the BI Platform 4.0 (BIP) and the BI Consumer Services (BICS) interface, a significant breakthrough was achieved. Still, when it comes to tools such as Web Intelligence using the BICS interface the integration with SAP BW leaves a lot to be desired in some areas.

In-Memory Technology currently is one of the most interesting technical topics in information technology that will surely bring about several changes in the near future. At present, its main area of application is analytical systems that achieve an enormous performance gain from using In-Memory Technology. Additional areas of application are presently being tested and piloted at large manufacturers. Here, SAP is taking a very systematic, innovative path with its In-Memory solution HANA.

In 2007, SAP acquired the then market-leading (based on market shares) BI provider „BusinessObjects“, aiming with this at providing its own, high-performance BI solution. But the devil is in the details and the adaptation to the SAP world turned out to be more difficult than expected. It was only in September 2011 that the Walldorf company brought „SAP BI 4.0“ to the marketplace which is considered an important step for the integration of the SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions into the SAP BW world.

The Controlling Profitability Analysis provides indicators that traditionally have been utilised for business management. Since companies are in this area also exposed to huge dynamics and an onslaught of information that has to be faced flexibly, traditional methods are increasingly reaching their limits. The question is, what could alternatives look like.