SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA is finally here.
This core part of SAP’s intellectual renewal means companies of all shapes and sizes have the ability to run mission critical business processes in real-time, or “just-in- time” as Vishal Sikka, member of the SAP Executive Board told attendees during a global launch event held yesterday across Palo Alto, Frankfurt and New York.
As an attendee of the New York event, I wasn’t enamored with technical talk or jabs at Oracle. I was impressed with the notion that SAP HANA is not for everyone, a thought touched upon by none other than SAP Co-founder Hasso Plattner.
Plattner wasn’t trying to be provocative or use reverse psychology to drum up more business. He was simply reminding business leaders that there is a mental state of being one must adopt before the relationship with SAP HANA begins. It means letting go of the old way of doing things, like running important queries over the weekend or taking several hours to crunch data needed for materials requirement planning if you’re a consumer goods company.
Deere and Company (aka John Deere) is a great example of a global business that possesses the hunger and desire needed to shed old skin and transform into a lean and mean “just-in-time” machine. Derek Dyer, director, global SAP services (pictured, right, with Rob Enslin, Head of Sales, SAP) at Deere and Company was on hand in New York to explain why his company is “all-in” with SAP HANA.
Last year, Deere and Company celebrated its 175th anniversary with a diverse portfolio that is interrelated. Agriculture and construction are positioned well for growth. Turf and forestry units are ready to enhance worldwide development.
“Some change always comes with opportunity and our company has changed a lot,” said Dyer. “We are in a good position to take advantage of opportunities in regions like Brazil, Russia, India and China.”
Dyer said SAP HANA provides his company with the ability to become more productive and profitable – obviously good things to be armed with when entering emerging markets. Dyer said Deere and Company started its SAP HANA project a year ago and while they are excited about its speed, they are more excited to execute bold ideas across their business that weren’t possible before.
“Our existing solution was good but not doing everything we hoped,” said Dyer. “User experience was not there, reporting wasn’t great either. What we needed was real-time data to change this aspect of our business and SAP HANA gave this to us.”
This means Deere and Company can now manage their programs in real-time, the “wow factor” they were looking for, according to Dyer who had early success with an SAP ERP on HANA proof-of concept. “We look at this as a way to manage our business in ways like never before,” said Dyer. “Real time MRP closing in minutes is big.”
In addition, SAP HANA’s predictive analytics allows Deere and Company to:
1. Empower IT to deliver innovations to the business and “solve problems that were unsolvable.”
2. Simplify IT stack to reduce total cost of ownership and deal with huge amounts of data, mobile connectivity
3. Better serve the business. Real-time means better decisions, crisper insights, and opens doors for customer self-service.
“As we look at SAP ERP on HANA we see a new world to transform the business from being a manufacturer to becoming a solution based enterprise,” said Dyer. “For instance, we can take huge amounts of data from our global equipment sensors, get info on how customers are using that equipment in real-time and have a solution back to that customer in real-time.”
Follow Tim on twitter: @TClark01
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