Big boys’ backyard !!

By S.Suren

The backyard I am referring to is India. It has been recognised as one of the fastest growing SAP subsidiaries and given the future plans that SAP has, such as to increase the customer base to upto 15000 in 2010 from its present number of 3000 odd, industry analyst are definitely keeping a close eye on proceedings there. Its stated that the increase in customer number from 2006 to 2007 is a 100% increase.

Not forgeting the other Big boy "Oracle", their last quarter of 2007 has been good and industry experts are focusing this to be a continuing trend into this year too. 2007 saw an increase of 28% from their 2006 revenue. Given the abundant supply of IT Graduates in India, a simple ad for a software engineering vacancy could see 35000 applicants, showing the potential of the region, something that many MNCs have come to make use of and at the same time contributing to leverage this driving aspect of India's Booming economy. See how ORACLE has done in India.

With analyst forecasting that 2008 would be the year of the ERPs, expect something this year, the earlier signs you get the better position you'll be able to predict where to place yourself and the oppurtunities to create.

I'll be posting up-to-date info and do my best to give you a head start on on whats shaping up based on my research findings.

All the best...hope you found this article useful !!!

Have a nice day !!

MSN : ssurenlk@msn.com

Birth of SAP AFS !!

Hi All,

Upon request from some readers and being in the AFS Domain myself, I shall also update this site with relevant information on SAP AFS.

Starting off I will be posting a few articles I had already posted on some other AFS sites, so please bear with me if you have already read these.

Many people wonder how SAP AFS IS was conceptualized. There needed to be some sort of an activity that spurred the development of the SAP AFS Industry Solution.

This initiation was taken by Dr.Peter Zencke in January 1996. Dr. Peter Zencke, a mathematician and economist, joined SAP in 1984. As a member of the Executive Board of SAP AG since 1993, he has led major development areas for SAP R/3 and SAP industry solutions.

In January 1996, he called on the SAP Munich development group to develop an industry solution to cater to the needs of the apparel and footwear industries and this was to be delivered by December 1997 and voila the SAP Apparel and Footwear Solution was born.

The new solution was developed in conjunction with such industry leaders as Reebok International Ltd and VF Corp and today this solution is being used by more than 60+ SAP AFS Customers worldwide.

There you go, thanks to initiative taken by people like Dr.Peter Zencke that SAP Continues to dominate in the world of ERPs and consistently spring out solutions for emerging industries.

Hope you found this post informative and interesting.

Have a nice day!!

S.Suren

MSN : ssurenlk@msn.com

Too much of buzz around SCM!!

In this article I thought I’ll discuss about the basic of SCM. Generally people refer to this terms as mainly related to those components of a system that deal with the supplier, i.e.purchaisng, stock transfers etc, however this concepts spans way beyond just those on the supplier side, it emcompases all the components involved with in the coordination and movement of goods from supplier to end customers, where manufacturing, wholesaling and retailing functions are also likely to be carried out.

It mainly concentrates on the exchange of information within the different parties in the supply chain network.

The ability to perform the above in the most efficient manner will determine the benefits that can be achieved with a lean and well organized supply chain. Some of the main components you would find in a SCM solution would be as follows :

• Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)
• Transportation Management (TM)
• Supply Chain Event management (SCEM)
• Warehouse Management (WM)
• Planning
• Order Management
• Production
• Purchasing Management
• Demand & Supply Management

With the increasing importance of technology in SCM a lot depends on the ability of the various different technologies used throughout, to integrate and support each other well and most importantly in the context of the industry and environment they co-exist in.

A good SCM system will help bring about the following benefits:

• Improved GP through the reduction in the cost of good sold.
• Improved Stock Management through
• Reduced inventory holding costs
• Reduced Stock Out situations
• Proper use of a JIT System
• Proper planning of purchase related activities.
• Ability to be flexible as per the demands of the markets.

All this will lead to better customer service, thereby ultimately leading to Increased bottom-line profitability too.

Hope this gave you a brief on what SCM is and its main components.

S.Suren

The Business Model that worked…

It is a known fact that large ERP vendors work with many different partners in order to have a wider reach, but if this is the case why have only a few ERP Vendors succeeded more significantly that the rest.

SAP for instance follows an approach where if there are entering a new industry for the first time, during the project they setup partnerships with the relevant parties within that domain experience to build a team of experts who can then move onto other projects within the industry, and with this structure and the increase in demand for the consultants in these new domains came the opportunities for independent consulting.

Whereas other vendors have always been stuck with the model where they feel that whenever they do move into a new industry with a solution, they need to keep that within their expertise and therefore setup a structure where they would have a direct influence in the operations of that entity.

Independent Consulting…

There are many ERP Vendors who have been rigid about their policies when it comes to independent consulting on their products, though in revenue terms it would be the right thing to do, the intangible benefits of this tend to have a direct impact on the support and selection of implementation teams available for potential clients.

With more independent consultants around, the product is promoted through these individual sales representatives and the product specific knowledge is made available more widely, this is something that I am sure that many SAP Consultants around the world would agree with.

The popular saying is that “IT has shrunk the world” and if ERP Vendors want to bring their consultants closer, they will need to work on that line….and we are seeing some large ERP Vendors already on the move with doing this.

Have a nice day!!

S.Suren

The ERP Life Cycle that was forgotten !!

By S.Suren

With increasing information needs comes increased complications, this is just normal in any industry. ERP not being any exception to this, comes with its sets of complication with these complication came many different project life cycles, software development methodologies etc etc. But one thing that is slowing disappearing into the mist (so to speak) is the standard ERP Life Cycle Chart, yes this life cycle too is subject to change, but its the best among the ones out there that describes the basic (no one can deny) phases of an ERP Project Implementation.

So....here it is :



Have a nice day !!!

Ladies & Gentlemen !! , Please Welcome ...……. !!!

By. S.Suren

We all know that Business Objects is now part of SAP, and that Crystal Report was taken over by business objects some time back. Now with SAP having its own query methods in the application and with Crystal report being regarded as one of the best report writing software, its only about time I guess that we would see some elements of crystal report being built directly into SAP to cater to reporting requirements.

Its already out that SAP & Business objects (who’s founder and CEO just resigned - article) combined effort can be seen during the first quarter of this year, with the increasing importance of Business Information Warehouse solutions in the present day business environment to be successful, it makes it more interesting to keep out on the future offering of large companies that have taken over business intelligent best of breed software’s, such as Business Object (now part of SAP), Hyperion (now part of Oracle) and COGNOS (now part of IBM).

So be on the lookout, I’ll keep the site updated with the latest info...

Have a nice day !!