SAP Ecosystem Unites to Bring Innovation to Chemicals Industry

SAP Industry Value Network for Chemicals Brings Together Leading Chemical Companies, Independent Software Vendors, Systems Integrators and SAP to Identify and Deliver Innovative, Plug-and-Play Solutions on a Common Platform

SAN FRANCISCO - May 08, 2006 - Building on the widespread adoption of the SAP NetWeaver® platform, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced the formation of its next industry-focused collaboration effort, designed to bring together customers, partners and SAP to develop solutions to customer pain points and the business requirements of the chemical industry. Called an “industry value network” (IVN), the new chemical industry program brings together independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators (SIs) with SAP and executives from leading customer companies to solve customers’ most pressing business challenges through end-to-end business processes running on a common business process platform. SAP recently announced an IVN for banking sector and will establish additional IVNs over the course of the year.

Members of the IVN for chemicals collaborate to deliver solutions and integration scenarios that address key industry-wide pain points such as price and margin management, predictive process control and optimization and environmental compliance. Applications will leverage the SAP NetWeaver platform, resulting in quick implementations and increased operational efficiencies.

Chemical industry giants including Celanese, Dow Corning, DuPont, Eastman Chemical Company, Hexion Specialty Chemicals and NOVA Chemicals will work with SAP and the IVN for chemicals program partners, including IBM Global Business Services, Invensys, LogicTools, Meridium, NRX, OR Soft, OSIsoft, Pavilion Technologies, SmartOps Corporation, TATA Consultancy Services, TechniData and Vendavo.

NOVA Chemicals Pilot Success with IVN
NOVA Chemicals, which piloted a project with the IVN for chemicals program, has already measured success.

“Our pilot experience working with SAP and Pavilion Technologies enabled us to identify significant opportunities to make reliable decisions based on instantaneous and predictive insight into production performance and market demands,” said John Wheeler, CIO, NOVA Chemicals. “This new capability provided by the solution from SAP and Pavilion allows us to tighten operations, improve plant asset utilization and increase visibility into operations, costs and the supply chain.

“This IVN from SAP is an important innovation for the chemicals industry,” said Ralph Carter, president and CEO, Pavilion Technologies. “By engaging best-in-class companies to share their experience, identify value opportunities and develop solutions, SAP is helping the chemicals industry to be well poised to leverage emerging technology and architectures to achieve the next level of IT transformation. Working with SAP, our solution offering is bringing extensive benefits to our customers, creating a unified, predictive view of manufacturing throughout the enterprise. Leveraging integrated business and production processes is only possible with strong collaboration between the solution vendors and a robust technology platform to deliver demonstrable customer value.”

SAP Ecosystem Framework
On April 18, SAP launched its Enterprise Services Community, which serves as the backbone of the IVN for chemicals program (see April 18, 2006 press release titled, “SAP Launches Enterprise Services Community to Fuel Co-Innovation with Customers and Partners”). The community is a collaborative, cross-industry program bringing together partners and customers from diverse industries to share ideas for and innovations in enterprise services, which provide the common business language that enables disparate software applications and infrastructure products to communicate. Because customers, partners and SAP are driving the standardization of enterprise services, they enable more plug-and-play between solutions built along the lines of those definitions, significantly reducing the cost of integration. These services enable companies to compose business processes that reach across IT system and company boundaries within an enterprise service-oriented architecture. The Enterprise Services Community provides the forum for defining enterprise services, while the IVN provides the opportunity to work collaboratively with SAP on business solutions and process innovation and integration, leveraging enterprise services.

“With the IVN program for chemicals, SAP and its partners are bringing unmatched industry expertise, best practice business processes and platform leadership—plus the overall power of the ecosystem—to tackle and solve our customers’ most critical business requirements,” said Franz Hero, director, Chemicals industry business unit, SAP. “Most importantly, the IVN further empowers customers to be active participants in the SAP ecosystem and key contributors to innovating new business processes relevant to their individual needs.”

Next Major Events: SAPPHIRE® ’06 Orlando and SAPPHIRE® ’06 Paris
Join SAP and its growing ecosystem of partners to discover how co-innovation and open technologies are enabling customers to improve business processes, go to market faster and outthink and out-execute the competition. Learn first-hand how organizations of all sizes and industries around the world are using SAP® applications to accelerate innovation and energize growth at SAPPHIRE® ’06, SAP’s international customer conference, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 16-18, and in Paris, France, May 30-June 1. For more information, please visit www.sap.com/sapphire.

This year, SAP and the Americas’ SAP Users’ Group (ASUG) are co-locating their premier events in Orlando, where the 2006 ASUG Annual Conference takes place May 14-17.

About SAP for Chemicals
SAP® for Chemicals is an solution set that combines mySAP™ Business Suite applications with tailored functionality to power the processes chemical companies need to effectively manage manufacturing processes, meet stringent compliance requirements and analyze and quickly adjust to changing consumer demands. The solution set is ingrained with chemicals-specific best practices to streamline end-to-end processes - from planning, procurement and manufacturing to sales and delivery service. SAP for Chemicals is helping chemical companies operate at peak efficiency, reduce inventory, order-cycle times and production costs, enhance customer relationships, increase market responsiveness, collaborate with suppliers and improve overall process control and monitoring. SAP solutions are used by 85 percent of the industry’s largest companies and 55 percent of midmarket chemical companies.

About SAP
SAP is the world’s leading provider of business software*. Today, more than 33,200 customers in more than 120 countries run SAP® applications—from distinct solutions addressing the needs of small and midsize enterprises to suite offerings for global organizations. Powered by the SAP NetWeaver® platform to drive innovation and enable business change, SAP software helps enterprises of all sizes around the world improve customer relationships, enhance partner collaboration and create efficiencies across their supply chains and business operations. SAP solution portfolios support the unique business processes of more than 25 industries, including high tech, retail, financial services, healthcare and the public sector. With subsidiaries in more than 50 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE under the symbol “SAP.” (Additional information at http://www.sap.com)

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning and related applications such as supply chain management, customer relationship management, product life-cycle management and supplier relationship management.

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