SAP Customers in Europe Accelerate Business Innovation with Enterprise SOA

Companies Including Arla Foods, Dohle Handelsgruppe, Hirschvogel and STAWAG Increase Competitive Advantage and Create Business Flexibility with Composite Applications and “Enterprise Mash-ups” Built on SAP Platform

MUNICH, Germany .- Delivering on its commitment to help companies embrace an enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA) for business success, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced that customers in Europe are gaining significant business value with technology innovations delivered through the industry’s first true business process platform. Using the SAP NetWeaver® technology platform and SAP® Business Suite, companies have created a highly flexible IT landscape that enables a more rapid response to changing business requirements by creating composite applications or “enterprise mash-ups” to orchestrate new business processes across system and company boundaries. A business-driven approach to services-based software architecture, enterprise SOA leverages ready-to-run Web services co-defined by SAP’s vibrant ecosystem and implemented by SAP to create applications that are quick to implement, easy to scale and deliver a rapid time-to-value. The announcement was made at SAP® TechEd ’07, being held in Munich, Germany, Oct. 17 - 19, 2007.

Arla Foods Keeps Profits Flowing
Disparate systems as a result of an aggressive growth-through-acquisition strategy left Europe’s second largest dairy company faced with supply chain lag-times and inconsistencies in data resulting in reduced abilities to adequately budget and plan for projects or investments. Using the SAP NetWeaver platform to enable the integration of third-party solutions addressing supply chain and manufacturing data, Arla Foods was able to increase operational efficiencies, harmonize business data across regions and plants, and respond in real time to fluctuations in customer demand.

“With more than 70 plants in 10 countries, it is vital that our manufacturing and operations sites all have access to the same data, in real time,” said Jesper Erichson, CIO, Arla Foods. “Enterprise SOA and SAP NetWeaver enabled us to quickly integrate our disparate systems with third-party solutions and into SAP ERP to deliver data in a timely, consistent manner throughout the organization. As a result, we are making smarter, faster decisions for production and delivering our products where they are needed, in line with the demand of our customers.

Dohle Handelsgruppe Keeps Customers Coming Back
In the highly competitive retail industry, innovations in product offerings and customer service are paramount to profitability and maintaining customer loyalty. Discerning customers require access to the latest high-quality and diverse product offerings, a positive store experience as well as competent customer service. Using enterprise SOA to create a unified landscape of SAP and non-SAP solutions by integrating IT systems across company boundaries, Siegburg, Germany-based retailer Dohle Handelsgruppe was able to reduce data errors, free up resources to work on innovations and speed time-to-reaction to better meet customer demands.

“Enterprise SOA enabled us to focus on our core business: serving customers,” said Reinhard Schütte, CFO, Dohle Handelsgruppe. “The flexibility and efficiencies we have achieved by integrating our systems via enterprise SOA have allowed us the freedom to innovate where it matters most – our customer experience. As a result, we are enjoying market-leading profitability and superior customer loyalty – a primary objective for any retail business.”

Hirschvogel Streamlines Project Management Data through Outlook
For Bavaria’s Hirschvogel Umformtechnik GmbH, one of the world’s largest automotive suppliers, tracking details of projects – including planning documents, bills-of-materials and design documents – is vital to the successful, timely and efficient execution of production projects. Working with the document management system within the SAP® Product Lifecycle Management application, the company has executed a project to connect with a Microsoft Outlook plug-in that enables users to seamlessly upload emails containing project details into the document management system. Using the productized enterprise services with SAP® ERP, users can easily search for project updates and other relevant information, resulting in unified project data and increased speed of product design and development.

“Enterprise SOA will soon allow us to make much better use of our investments in SAP ERP and other non-SAP applications to increase the efficiency of our product design processes,” said Roland Bauerle, director, IT systems and organization, Hirschvogel. “With this solution, we aim to ensure that important project information is available for the employees who rely on it for their daily work.”

STAWAG Gains Comprehensive Support for Customers
Deregulation of the utility industry left Aachen, Germany-based water and energy utility STAWAG with increased competition. The integration of STAWAG’s technology systems with an external price calculation tool enabled the company to execute on a new business model that transformed STAWAG from an energy provider to a flexible service company that can react quickly and reliably to customer demand, and allows for the development of tailored services for customers in industry sectors. Using the integrated price calculation tool, the company’s sales team can negotiate in real time with customers on projects and services, as well as evaluate the customer’s overall value in order to appropriately offer pricing in every situation.

“The flexibility of the SAP NetWeaver platform allowed for the integration of systems in a way that now puts real-time customer data on one screen,” said Torsten Boeckers, Department for strategic sales planning and management, STAWAG. “Our customer service staff can make quicker sales decisions as well as special offers to our customers. The availability of more detailed customer information helps us reach potential customers and approach them in a targeted manner even beyond the boundaries of our home base in Aachen.”

“Business network transformation is a key driver behind our strategy, and SAP enables this ongoing transformation with our technology platform, SAP NetWeaver,” said Klaus Kreplin, corporate officer and member of the Executive Council, head of SAP NetWeaver Technology, SAP AG. “As their business environments transform, companies need the tools to help them adapt as agilely and simply as possible. So we see companies around the world migrating to enterprise SOA in increasing numbers in order to leverage the flexibility that comes from SAP NetWeaver. And these progressive companies are already seeing the business value that comes from combining SAP’s powerful platform with the initiative and know-how of their IT professionals to meet the ever-changing business requirements of today’s business, across many industries.”

SAP NetWeaver Momentum Continues To Build
SAP NetWeaver provides the technology platform for enterprise SOA, enabling organizations to improve user access and productivity, accelerate application and business process composition, streamline access to relevant and reliable information across the enterprise and automate governance of enterprise SOA. Since outlining its 2007 road map of innovations for the platform (see April 24, 2007 press release titled, “SAP Unveils Road Map for Next Wave of SAP NetWeaver Innovations”), SAP has continued to measure accelerated adoption rates for SAP NetWeaver. At SAP TechEd ’07 Las Vegas, SAP announced winners of the first-ever regional enterprise SOA showcase contest (see Oct. 2, 2007 press release titled, “SAP Customers Demonstrate Accelerated Innovation on the SAP Platform”) in which members of the SAP Developer Network (SDN) community recognized fellow members for their innovative use of enterprise SOA to drive business success. Further contests will be rolled out to regions around the world in the coming months. SAP also announced continued innovations to its platform (see Oct. 2, 2007 press release titled, “SAP Delivers New Capabilities for SAP NetWeaver To Power Accelerated Business Innovation”).

SAP® TechEd ’07 in Las Vegas, Munich, Shanghai and Bangalore
More than 15,000 SAP customers, partners and technical experts are convening at SAP® TechEd ’07 to learn how to transform existing business processes and IT landscapes and take advantage of the power and flexibility of enterprise service-oriented architecture. Celebrating its 11th anniversary, SAP’s largest ecosystem education event of the year offers more than 1,000 hours of lecture-driven and hands-on sessions. SAP TechEd is being held in Las Vegas on October 1-5, Munich on October 17-19, Shanghai on November 6-7 and Bangalore on November 28-30.. For more information, please visit www.sapteched.com.