Learn How to Improve Return on your SAP Investment

By Naresh Koka, Vice President of Industry Group

Determining the "value" a company achieves in its software investments has always been subjective and often provokes debate. What is not subjective however, are the key steps that companies can take to maximize return on SAP investments. There was much conversation during last week’s Webinar, Unleash the Value: Learn How to Improve Return on your SAP Investment, on SAP integration and interoperability. Here we offer a review of key takeaways from the Webinar; all of which focus on easy-to-implement strategies to turn your SAP investment into a revenue-driving tool.

At the outset, participants learned that by taking advantage of the people-ready Microsoft toolset, maximization of SAP adoption is really possible, and Microsoft | SAP integration is much less complicated than rumor has it. Like many successful experiences, the foundation for successful SAP integration begins with complete assessment of Microsoft and SAP landscape.

Making Connections Productive

We first discussed the fact that SAP is the business process engine—it knows the work to be done; and the Microsoft toolset knows the information workers who need to perform that work. Once this relationship was established, we turned our conversation to learning how together SAP and Microsoft create the opportunity to compose important disparate data and get it into the hands of decision-makers in an easy-to-understand format.

As with any business process, once the connection between SAP and Microsoft is established, it’s important to determine specific goals. Some integration goals that I believe are important to include are:

Bridging the gap between rigid business processes and the familiar, collaborative work environment of Microsoft Office System users, and ultimately connecting people, processes, and information. Providing access to valuable back-end structured data from SAP and other sources for faster, more informed decision-making throughout the organization.

How Does Integration Actually Work? Key Steps

As I shared with the group, the process for integration is seamless, yet the results are quite dramatic. The diagram below demonstrates the process for integration. This process is built on the premise of creating an incredibly easy-to-use series of user experiences that build on customers’ existing SAP investments through the Microsoft toolset, making it easy for customers to harness the information contained within SAP in a way that makes sense to them, and then transmit it just as easily to key decision-makers.

The wide array of tools within the Microsoft landscape that can be used for SAP Integration include:

Aha Moment!

Another point shared during last week’s Webinar is one that will resonate more and more as our workforce continues to take on Generation Y. SAP integration essentially mocks an environment that young workers entering the workforce are used to. This emerging group had an e-mail address before a personal phone and have used the Internet since they started school. Coupled with the fact that things like social media, instant messaging and SMS texting are already the norm with this audience, they’ll be expecting similar collaboration in the workplace.

Productivity

The Microsoft toolset provides an IT department enough ammunition to create solutions that:

• are reusable
• take shorter time to market
• have better user experience and are intuitive
• reduce the learning curve for the end user

Value Verified

Finally, I shared that the value of SAP integration is that through partnerships, you can quickly realize the following:

Enhanced Business Productivity

• Process efficiency
• Drive and enforce business processes
• Predictability
• Structure
• High level of enforcement

Personal Productivity

• People efficiency
• Individual and group productivity
• Collaboration
• Adaptability

I think it helps to think about integrating SAP in this way: on a daily basis, business critical data are entered into SAP, e-mails are sent back and forth for approvals, mission-critical documents are transferred from one person to another, data is added and updated in external applications, and systems are analyzed. Wouldn’t it be most productive, and frankly convenient, to merge this information, have a cohesive business process, consistent view of enterprise data and be able to provide decision-makers with decision-making information at the drop of a hat? Microsoft integration leads to that level of synchronization and as a result, provides value in typical daily business interactions across the organization.

For more information or to request a demonstration of how SAP and Microsoft integration would work for your specific organization, contact Naresh Koka at naresh.koka@mpspartners.com.

Look for details on future Webinars where we will take apart SAP integration and focus on distinct areas of benefit. Stay tuned for our next Webinar Unleash the SAP Value: Learn How to Provide Self Service Through SharePoint on May 5, 2010. Click here for more information or contact Naresh Koka at naresh.koka@mpspartners.com.