October 28th, 2009

Cloud-to-Cloud Integration - Another Big ERP Challenge!

Posted by Brian Sommer @ 11:36 am

Categories: Current Affairs, ERP, Future of Application Software, Implementing Technology, Oracle, PSA - Professional Services Automation, Professional Services, SAP, SaaS and Beyond, Software Vendors, The Applications Market, Think About IT, software. applications

Tags: Solution, NetSuite Inc., ERP, Integration, Maintenance Revenue, Brian Sommer

If Your ERP Provider can’t to multi-tenancy, How can they do this????

This week’s been interesting so far. SAP announced earnings this week and the figures aren’t a cause for celebration. In contrast, NetSuite’s OpenAir group has been conducting their annual user conference in Boston with a pretty good-sized crowd of attendees. The company’s leaders have made a couple of big announcements at the show but one of these announcements has some subtleties that should really rattle old school, on-premise ERP vendors.

OpenAir announced their Open Connect capability. Essentially, this permits their SRP (services resource planning) solution to connect, out of the box, with solutions from Salesforce.com, NetSuite, SAP and Oracle. So what, you may ask. Isn’t that what modern platform products (i.e., products built upon services oriented architectures (SOA)) are supposed to do? Yes, but in this case, the delivery models they are connecting to are both on-premise and cloud based. Also, some of these connections will be to products that are multi-tenant (and hence changing/updating/improving daily) while others are not. Open Connect, therefore, must provide not only 1-time integration between two systems at the time of systems implementation but also continuous integration between systems that get continual updates.

Let’s look at this further. Some of the connections NetSuite is now making are cloud solutions (e.g., Salesforce.com, NetSuite or OpenAir products) connecting to on-premise products. That’s a bit more challenging than the old-fashioned integration of two on-premise applications together. Those static ‘interfaces’ were gold to systems integrators. Those ‘interfaces’ consumed a lot of implementation time and, once set and tested, were hoped to last the life of the application. They rarely did as one application or another would get an upgrade that changed the interface needs.

Those interfaces were expensive to do and subjected a company to a lot of risk if they didn’t perform perfectly. These interfaces are probably the number one reason a lot of companies do not apply upgrades, new releases and enhanced functions of older on-premise products. These product enhancements are too costly to implement given the miniscule benefits they’ll throw off. This then causes software users to defer upgrades and get locked into an older version of the product. The on-premise world begets a world of old apps that users can’t justify upgrading.

Cloud-based applications don’t suffer this problem especially if the applications were designed to be multi-tenant. Multi-tenant apps let a vendor (not the customer) apply upgrades and enhancements simultaneously to all customers. Customers don’t have to pay anything to receive the immediate benefit of the enhanced functionality. Cloud-based apps have this – on-premise apps do not. This is a huge deal for CIOs as they are ones who must get the budget to do application software upgrades. Without an upgrade budget, applications do not get upgrades. Without this extra customer expenditure, on-premise solutions get stuck in time. Customers, logically, decide to defer some of these upgrades and instead rely on a stable, proven, low-risk and unchanging application. On-premise vendors then find themselves knee deep in customers who do not want the latest release or version of the product. These customers then wonder why they are paying maintenance for a product they don’t intend to change. This scenario puts on-premise vendors at risk for income declines as more customers opt to go off maintenance.

Maintenance revenue is a top of mind item for the CEOs of on-premise solutions. It isn’t for cloud solutions vendors. One such cloud provider said that to me just today.

Now, look at what Open Connect is doing. It is not only connecting these very dynamic cloud based apps to on-premise apps, it is also doing cloud-to-cloud connectivity. Imagine your accounting application running on one firm’s cloud environment, interacting with another cloud’s CRM solution that’s also interacting with another services automation solution on a third cloud environment. Then, just to make it more mind-blowing, imagine that all three of those cloud applications are changing, simultaneously and continuously. Each system will need the awareness of the other solution’s changes. Interfaces will become fluid and very dynamic. Finally, consider that the user may be unaware that these background changes are even occurring. Now that’s a big jump in integration. That’s a jump the on-premise vendors can’t complete.

When many on-premise vendors cannot even create a multi-tenant version of their product line (most can only offer hosting services), how can they deliver the level of cloud-to-cloud integration that the market will demand?

Next ERP solution you evaluate, verify that:

- the solution can do on-premise to on-premise, on-premise to cloud, and, cloud-to-cloud integration
- the solution can, independent of end-user interaction, dynamically update interfaces and system-to-system integration
- the solution can update its functionality without IT or end-user assistance, budget or time
- the solutions will always contain the latest functionality, latest process flows, etc.

I still need to see the proof points behind Open Connect and the market will tell us whether it delivers on all aspects of cloud-to-cloud connectivity. Yet, the potential of this capability should be enough to scare the wits out of the number crunchers in the on-premise firms.

September 8th, 2009

More on HP and BPO

Posted by Brian Sommer @ 6:53 pm

Categories: Current Affairs, Outsourcing, SAP, SaaS and Beyond, Selling Professional Services, Service Providers

Tags: Hewlett-Packard Co., BPO, Electronic Data Systems Corp., Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Outsourcing, Managed Hosting, It Services, It Operations, Business Operations, Outsourcing & Subcontracting

Did you hear about their deal with Northgate Arinso?

A reader alerted me to this:

In August, NorthgateArinso took over HP-EDS’ SAP HCM and HR-focused outsourcing operations.

Although HP-EDS’s BPO operation in Germany is relatively small in size, this is a great proof point to your story. The story points out the motivation behind the deal, which is about volume & innovation. The news was only issued in German, but underpins your story completely.

Readers, I submitted this link to Google and got this Google translated version of the above referenced page. Launch this link to see it:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.newsmax.de/gegen-den-trend-wachstum-bei-northgatearinso-deutschland-news88724.html&ei=mf6mSpKxIsWCnQeYuP25Bw&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.newsmax.de/gegen-den-trend-wachstum-bei-northgatearinso-deutschland-news88724.html%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff

August 10th, 2009

Where's my wedding invite? SAP and Tibco?

Posted by Brian Sommer @ 7:23 pm

Categories: Current Affairs, ERP, Future of Application Software, Mergers & Acquisitions, SAP, Software Vendors

Tags: TIBCO Software Inc., SAP AG, Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Law, Pricing, Investment, Finance, Business Operations, Marketing, Brian Sommer

Are SAP and Tibco getting hitched?

Reuters today indicated that SAP may be getting serious about buying Tibco.

This isn’t the first time this potential corporate marriage has been rumored. Check out this 2007 post from fellow blogger Dennis Howlett when the speculation was running high then.

Will this time be different? It could be but first let’s understand how some corporate M&A types think/operate. Corporate M&A deal makers often explore whether potential takeover candidates possess the appropriate deal synergies to pursue the matter in the first place. If the deal fits strategically, then a set of pricing calculations are made, the lawyers are hired and the bankers get things rolling. However, few M&A types will make a run at a company more than once. ONCE A POTENTIAL ACQUISITION IS PASSED ON, IT RARELY IS CONSIDERED AGAIN.

Time and changing business situations/needs can change things, though. Since 2007, Oracle has made several acquisitions and has a big one in Sun still out there. Will SAP feel the need to bolster its middleware to better confront Oracle in the marketplace? Does the acquisition of Tibco open up more cross-selling opportunities for SAP today? Does SAP need to do this deal to prevent Tibco falling into the hands of a competitor? Will this deal be accretive in short order? There are many considerations to review in a new run at Tibco and I’m not sold yet that it will/should happen.

With merger rumors, remember the old investment banker advice “Buy on the rumor, sell on the deal”.

August 3rd, 2009

Stories that warrant watching: SPSS, HP, Acer, Google, SAP, Oracle, NetSuite

Posted by Brian Sommer @ 9:18 am

Categories: Current Affairs, Future of Application Software, Google, Mergers & Acquisitions, Oracle, SAP, SaaS and Beyond, Software Financial Stats, Software Vendors, The Applications Market, Think About IT, Web/Tech, internet, software

Tags: Google Inc., Software-as-a-service, Hewlett-Packard Co., Oracle Corp., NetSuite Inc., SPSS Inc., SAP AG, Acer Inc., Software As A Service (SaaS), Managed Hosting

Wedding bells for a Chicago software firm

Last week, IBM offered to pay $1.2 billion for SPSS, nee Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. SPSS was one of those niche firms with a lot of brilliant folks on board. They possessed a number of slick apps that few knew of or understand but nonetheless made millions for their users.

If IBM’s smart about this deal, they’ll keep the talent and push this technology, the modeling and advanced analytics, etc. into every vertical they can. IBM should also push the envelope on their technology and make this stuff as technically relevant as possible. Click for more from The Standard on this.

Acer, HP, Google Android and Google Chrome

The Standard reported that Acer was dropping the development of an Atom based netbook running Google’s Android. Acer and HP may develop netbooks based on Google’s Chrome. Google could become a real nuisance to Microsoft if it fields a market relevant desktop OS. This is a story to watch especially if application developers can be recruited to code for this platform.

SAP & Oracle Earnings (& Pricing)

SAP earnings were announced this week. The company’s revenues could be better but the firm is apparently ably managed and its operating margins even went up. Comparisons to same quarter revenues last year may be a bit unfair as that was one heck of a quarter and the last quarter whose results weren’t totally clocked due to the recession.

Oracle a few weeks ago boasted record 41% operating margins. FierceCIO reported recent price hikes by Oracle even in the face of a recession. I enjoyed the first paragraph of their article:

These are tough times and managers are trying to keep expenses down, but apparently no one told that to Oracle.

Oracle took an amazingly risky step, by raising the cost of some of its management options for its flagship database by 40 percent, according to a pricing list available on July 1, InfoWorld reports.

Now let’s compare those financial results to a SaaS vendor…

NetSuite Earnings

I listened in to the NetSuite earnings call late last week. The story at this application software vendor was decidedly more upbeat overall and it was really better by new revenue standards as compared to traditional on-premise providers.

NetSuite is also generating free cash flow from operations now. The company also indicated that is working a big services customer deal in Europe which has the potential for a 9000 seat customer.

As one of the better known and larger SaaS (software as a service) vendors, NetSuite benefits by the continuing rising tide that SaaS brings. Having large systems integrators and outsourcers legitimizing SaaS also helps the space. CIOs are now more comfortable and more knowledgeable about SaaS and I’d expect more CIOs to ask vendors like NetSuite this question: “Can you deliver for me big company SaaS expertise and mature solutions while maintaining the SaaS cloud cost structure of someone like Amazon or Google?” Yes, I think smarter CIOs are going to demand that vendors provide not just a SaaS solution but an inexpensive one, too! Maybe I’ll get to ask that question at their next earnings call….

July 1st, 2009

NetSuite vs. SAP – How Newton would see this contest

Posted by Brian Sommer @ 8:10 pm

Categories: Current Affairs, ERP, Financial Software, SAP, SaaS and Beyond, Software Vendors, The Applications Market, Timber - The Mighty Fall, software, vendors

Tags: Software-as-a-service, NetSuite Inc., SAP AG, Barron, Software As A Service (SaaS), Managed Hosting, Cloud Computing, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Emerging Technologies, Enterprise Software

Competition is a great thing. It forces even the biggest firms to become humbled. It makes innovation a necessity. It can lower pricing and expand markets to everyone’s benefit.

Competition in the SaaS (software as a service) world of ERP got a little hotter this week when NetSuite trotted out its blessed German version of its ERP solutions. Their software has now been certified by German regulatory/auditing professionals and that means that NetSuite is open for business in a big way in SAP’s backyard.

Barron’s did a nice write-up on this and I’d encourage you to view that linked article. Others have covered this, too, including several of the Enterprise Irregulars.

Let me add the following thoughts regarding this announcement. First, let’s discuss SAP and SaaS. Dennis Howlett () and I wrote a smashingly detailed review of SAP’s Business ByDesign product over a year ago. It’s a 27-page masterpiece of insight that we can’t give away as that product is still moving in a really controlled rollout. I recently wrote about this mid-June and would really like to see some real market interest in that product. But, until the multi-tenancy and channel issues are sorted out, Business ByDesign is stuck in a real slow-mo existence.

NetSuite, though, can’t seem to quit moving. I get at least three press releases a week from them. Some of them aren’t really that earth-shattering but, overall, they point to a firm in motion. So, today we have a great example of Newton’s Laws of Motion (e.g., A body at rest stays at rest, and a body in motion stays in motion, unless it is acted on by an external force.)

NetSuite is the body in motion that’s staying in motion while SAP is the ERP vendor sort of stuck in idle – particularly where SaaS (software as a service) is concerned. Your move SAP.

June 12th, 2009

SAP & SaaS - some clarifications

Posted by Brian Sommer @ 6:14 am

Categories: Current Affairs, ERP, Future of Application Software, HR, SAP, Software Vendors, The Applications Market, Web/Tech

Tags: Software-as-a-service, SAP AG, Software As A Service (SaaS), Managed Hosting, Cloud Computing, Emerging Technologies, Brian Sommer

TechMarketView ran a piece today about SAP and its SaaS (software as a service) products/initiatives. When I read the article, I thought this couldn’t be right. I was especially confused by this paragraph:

SAP’s flagship mid-market SaaS offering, Business ByDesign, announced in September ‘07, has been aimed at winning new customers. It has so far cost hundreds of millions of Euros to develop but is still very much in pilot phase. The new initiative is largely aimed at existing customers. There will be new functionality - strategic sourcing, expense management and CRM - compatible and interoperable with an in-house ERP system.

Business ByDesign was introduced a couple of years ago and it was a very expensive development effort for SAP. This product line is targeted for mid-sized firms, too. The product line though is still in a bit of controlled rollout though as SAP still has work to do in two areas: the multi-tenancy aspects of the product need some work as do the economics and composition of the channel ecosystem to implement these products.

When I read the quoted paragraph above, I thought I had missed some important dialogue re: Business ByDesign. So, I called Mike Prosceno at SAP to help me understand what had changed with this product line.

As it turns out, the initiative referred to at the end of the Business ByDesign comments is unrelated to Business ByDesign. It seems SAP is developing SaaS capabilities to supplement functionality in its Enterprise (think R/3) product line. SAP will move to the cloud certain functions/capabilities (e.g., employee self-service) that work well in a cloud environment.

Efforts to expedite the rollout of Business ByDesign are still underway but these are separate initiatives than those referenced in this report. As to the new initiatives, these may be a good thing for SAP. Cloud-based solutions are not only hot but may be needed if SAP is to continue to fend off newer competitors like Salesforce, NetSuite, Intacct, etc. Savvy readers will of course realize that some of these competitors aren’t new to SaaS. Some of these SaaS firms have been around for a decade now. That, of course, begs the question, “Are SAP’s SaaS initiatives timely?” That’s another blog post….

April 14th, 2009

How Multi-Nationals Should Use ERP

Posted by Brian Sommer @ 12:13 pm

Categories: ERP, Financial Software, Future of Application Software, Implementing Technology, Outsourcing, SAP, Software Vendors, The Application Software Buyer, The Applications Market, internet, software. applications

Tags: Solution, NetSuite Inc., ERP, Tools & Techniques, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Software As A Service (SaaS), Enterprise Software, Management, Software, Emerging Technologies

One Size Fits All? I’m Not So Sure…

Years ago, I did an evaluation of back office software packages that served small businesses but had robust international capabilities. I did so because clients were always asking about solutions they could deploy to small offices or subsidiaries where:

- a standalone solution may be most appropriate
- the workforce there was so small that a large solution was overkill
- the infrastructure in that part of the world was too primitive to support 24×7x366 electricity, phone service and/or internet access

At that time, I thought that products like the SunSystems’ Sun Account were a pretty good fit. I even interviewed executives whose firms used products like this and learned some pretty interesting and practical business needs along the way. For example, one big consumer products firm would buy two PCs and configure each with the needed application software, chart of accounts, etc. and air freight them to their new destination. Upon arrival, the local staff was advised to uncrate one of these systems and use it until it broke. At that time, the second system was to be uncrated and the broke system placed in that container and sent back to corporate HQ for repair. It was an inexpensive solution to a complicated international accounting problem.

Fast forward to today and the landscape has changed a bit. Now, internet access is more ubiquitous. The vendor order has changed as have software delivery models. Now, large multi-nationals can choose to:

- force all subsidiaries to use the same software (via the internet or an outsourcer)
- put those subsidiaries that contribute a small percentage of total firm revenues or transactions on their own, SaaS-based solution that will be interfaced or integrated with the parent company’s systems

Shared Service purists would choose the former option as they prefer everything be standardized. However, a 10 person sales agency doesn’t really need a full blown enterprise ERP solution. The learning curve for the employees on this is significant and won’t make a material difference in how the firm runs anyway.

Others will like the second option as it provides a solution more in-line with the business needs of the local operation. It’s not too hard or too easy, it is (in the words of Goldilocks) just right.

Today, NetSuite announed its NetSuite OneWorld for SAP. This product has pre-built connectors to the SAP R/3 Enterprise product that many global 500 firms use. The NetSuite software permits plants, divisions, remote operations, etc. of a conglomerate to easily connect to the mothership’s SAP application suite without requiring each operational entity to be running on the R/3 solution.

In a briefing I had with NetSuite about this, I also learned that their solution also contains consolidation and multi-currency restatement capabilities. This permits a multi-national to see all of their non-SAP businesses in a consolidated, common currency view.

SaaS based applications do change the landscape and require a rethinking on how large, global or multi-nationals should approach their IT ERP deployments. Is it time for your firm to re-visit its strategy?

February 4th, 2009

The inspiration for Business Suite 7

Posted by Brian Sommer @ 12:56 pm

Categories: Current Affairs, Future of Application Software, Implementing Technology, SAP, Software Development, Software Events, Software Vendors, The Applications Market, software, software. applications

Tags: SAP AG, Time Frame, Change Management, Leadership, Performance Management, Databases, Tools & Techniques, Management, Human Resources, Workforce Management

A different germ for change

Earlier today, at the Business Suite 7 (BS7) announcement, I speculated that SAP took some great performance and enhancement technology from its Business ByDesign (BBD) product line and related architecture and incorporated those into the new BS7 suite.

In a meeting with some of the Enterprise Irregulars, Leo Apotheker, Co-CEO of SAP AG, corrected this perception. SAP’s inspiration for shortening enhancement and upgrade timeframes and associated costs came from interviews with ‘hundreds and thousands of Enterprise customers’. SAP determined that Enhancement Packs and a Solution Manager would be the key to more rapidly rolling out new capabilities faster and cheaper.

An earlier meeting with a global CIO confirmed the much shortened timeframes and costs possible with these new BS7 capabilities. This CIO verified that 1-3 month timeframes for new enhancement rollouts are indeed possible. Some functions though (e.g., data conversion, data quality, change management, etc.) may drag out rollout timeframes.

Leo did indicate that more news on BBD would be forthcoming later this year.

February 4th, 2009

The Engine vs. Electronics Debate – Has the core of SAP really changed with BS7?

Posted by Brian Sommer @ 12:36 pm

Categories: Current Affairs, ERP, Future of Application Software, SAP, Software Vendors, The Applications Market, Vendor Management, Web/Tech, software, software. applications

Tags: Brian Sommer

Please SAP, rev my engine!!!!

(more from the SAP Business Suite 7 announcement)

A number of the Enterprise Irregulars met with Richard Campione, SAP Solution Management, at the Business Suite 7 (BS7) press announcement. Richard works for Jim Hagemann Snabe at SAP.

Richard was asked whether SAP has changed the core of its product line as part of this new offering. We learned that:

- this is the largest release in SAP’s history
- SAP has brought together some of the best parts of other products and product lines in BS7
- SAP sees this as a new, engineered suite not a glued together suite (i.e., of acquired products) and not just a branding of a suite (i.e., a marketecture).

Richard then offered up an analogy that used the evolution of automobiles as a way of understanding how the SAP product lines have changed over time. His analogy is that the basic drivetrain of automobiles (i.e., the engine and transmission are two key components) hasn’t changed much over time but the electronics that surround them have changed substantially. BS7 represents the ‘electronics’ surrounding the SAP 6.0 ERP engine.

The analogy may be illustrative but it does have its flaws. Detroit doesn’t need to remodel cars that still use rear-wheel drive transmissions bolted to big block engines. In a time of constrained and expensive fuel, car makers need small engines with transverse mounted transmissions. The more progressive car makers, Toyota, Honda and Tesla for example, are using electric, LPG and other powerplants. The key point is that products, all products, have to be completely re-thought from time to time.

The old ERP software designs of the 1970s and beyond were predicated on limited IT resources. A constrained computing world was de rigueur until recently, but now, cloud computing, cheap memory, cheap disk storage, etc. are the new rules of an unconstrained, limitless new IT world. It’s time for software firms to re-imagine what a business (not finance, not HR, not ERP) solution should be. It’s time now because the new IT world presents massively new opportunities for businesses to use IT in ways never before possible.

That’s the missed opportunity: are ERP vendors delivering systems that take full advantage of all possibilities or are they innovating at the margins? Are they innovating around their existing big block engines or are they taking radically new positions about how businesses should work and what new technology should be developed to support the new business and new business IT?

Today’s announcement is still focused on the electronics around the powerplant. Hopefully, we’ll hear more on the future of business and business systems from SAP in the near future…

February 4th, 2009

Lemons into Lemonade – Business Suite 7

Posted by Brian Sommer @ 8:38 am

Categories: Current Affairs, ERP, Financial Software, Future of Application Software, Implementing Technology, Marketing, SAP, Software Development, Software Vendors, The Applications Market, software. applications, vendors

Tags: SAP AG, BS7, SOA Ability, BOBJ Functionality, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), Web Services, Middleware, Enterprise Software, Software, Brian Sommer

(mid-press conference post - subject to update)

SAP today announced its Business Suite 7 today. Here’s a set of capabilities that extend the core ERP solution set. Specifically, what BS7 does apparently, is to take some the lessons SAP learned from the expensive development of its Business ByDesign (BBD) SaaS product line and apply these to its other application suites. Additionally, SAP is adding in new Business Objects (BOBJ) capabilities to its new segmented, process-based solutions.

What SAP is announcing is that they have:

- discovered that customers want immediate value from IT investments
- learned that customers expect new functionality to be activated in 1-3 months and not require complete re-installs of the software
- the ability to add external data into the decision making processes of their customers

While it wasn’t explicitly stated, it would appear that SAP is re-purposing parts of BBD and Business Objects products to create this sort of new suite. My suspicion is that SAP found out with its SaaS product that updating their software is hard work. These upgrades are costly and time-consuming. Only when SAP themselves felt the pain their customers encounter could they see a way to change the way they offer up new functionality and upgrades. SAP customers may want to see more proof of the new, chastened SAP before accepting the marketing hype of BS7 at face value. Personally, I’d wait until SAP makes the upgrade process so easy, so cheap and so fast that it decides to fully release its BBD SaaS product into the wild. To date, BBD is still in a very limited rollout status. That suggests that SAP is still improving its release and upgrade processes.

SOA figures in a big way with this release. SAP is positioning BS7 as a toolset to empower process excellence. For SAP and its customers to plug in external data, third party applications, etc. into their solutions, SOA is needed to make these connections occur quickly and cheaply. SOA abilities are part of the NetWeaver architectures and, as such, are not totally new to this release.

BOBJ functionality is featured heavily here, too. The new process orientation mandates that users have access to a lot of internal and external data. BOBJ capabilities enable this.

What a customer gets out of BS7 is this:

- users can go to a menu and ‘activate’ new process functionality within the SAP ERP 6.0 product line and for non-ERP 6.0 users there is a BS7 add-on platform
- the new processes utilize a combination of traditional SAP application functionality, SAP SOA platform and BOBJ decision support/analytics
- a faster way to add new process capabilities to their SAP installation

SAP is positioning this offering as a solution for companies facing tough economic times but looking for ways to improve their IT/business capabilities in an incremental, fast manner. From my perspective, SAP is really late getting the new ‘less is more’ religion. They are also late:

- discovering process excellence. Systems integrators and Michael Hammer were all over this in the early 1990s. SOA may enable BS7 today but it’s not a new concept either.
- learning that users are fee-fatigued from integrators and costly SAP installs/upgrades. Why did it take a bad economic recession to get SAP to change its ways?

Prospective users might want to verify:

- That the new solutions can be activated in-flight without any disruption of the existing system. I have my doubts that this will always work as some data may need to be created/converted prior to activation. A lot of testing may be required prior to activation. We heard nothing about SAP establishing test environments, etc. for these activations.
- The viability of these new process additions. As many of these are industry-specific, these canned process enhancements may only permit a user to achieve competitive parity as all of their competitors will have the same capability available to them as well. If customers expect these new capabilities to deliver strategic advantage, they may not get it or get it for long.
- That their system integration partner is truly versed on the BS7 solutions and is comfortable accepting much lower fees.
- How will SAP’s billing of these new process services work with your old contract? Could BS7 become an expensive proposition for your firm in this tough economy?