SAP: Standard Software Provider of Choice for Wholesale Distributors

Increasing Adoption of the SAP® for Wholesale Distribution Solution Portfolio Fuels Growth of Customer Base

WALLDORF, Germany - SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced strong global momentum for its SAP® for Wholesale Distribution solutions, with a rapidly growing customer base and the endorsements of leading industry companies from around the globe, including McKesson Corp., Powell Electronics Inc., Reyher, Saladino’s Inc., Tallard Technologies Inc., Univeg and Voigt AG. The SAP for Wholesale Distribution solution portfolio has attracted more than 3,700 wholesalers, making SAP the standard software provider of choice for wholesale distributors. The solutions help large, midsize and small distributors automate and optimize business processes, reduce supply chain costs, increase cash-flow and facilitate collaboration with suppliers, customers and partners.

SAP understands the complex challenges of wholesale distribution. Low profit margins, rising logistical costs and intensified competition are driving companies to seek better visibility and technical advantage with state-of-the-art IT solutions. To address these challenges and maximize return on investment, the enterprise software packages are tailored to the specialized needs of the different segments within the wholesale distribution industry. The solution sets are based on an in-depth knowledge of the processes that drive the healthcare, food and industrial segments, and feature applications such as purchase optimization, catch-weight, track & trace, chargeback and rebate management, and multi-channel sales order processing.

“Wholesale distributors need to grow profitably while perfectly delivering on customer demands,” said Joseph Kress, vice president, Business Technology Solutions, McKesson Corp. “We were utilizing SAP’s financial software, so it was a natural progression to go with SAP for the other components. The SAP solution enables us to efficiently manage massive amounts of business data today, while providing us with the visibility to create the right product and value-added service mix for tomorrow. The implementation was flawless, which is impressive given that, at the time, it was the largest capital investment McKesson has ever made outside an acquisition.”

“SAP has provided a great solution for Border States. It was the right choice in 1998 and continues to be the right choice for BSE today,” said Tammy Miller, CEO, Border States Electric. “I know that we would not have achieved this level of success as rapidly as we have without the SAP solution. We wanted an enterprise resource planning solution that would meet all our business needs and that would be a solid platform for growth. SAP has provided that solution by increasing profitability, reducing transaction costs and improving overall asset performance.”

SAP for Wholesale Distribution solutions provide a platform for companies to easily and quickly implement and transform their business models to meet changing market demands. The solutions allow optimization of key business requirements while enabling change, integration and collaboration, resulting in maximum value delivery to joint customers.

“By selecting software from the SAP and SAP partners for wholesale distribution, we were able to get business solutions based on experience gleaned from several installations for midsize technical wholesalers,” said Peter Bielert, vice president, Logistics and Process Management, Reyher. “The SAP NetWeaver technology platform and service-oriented architecture support our efforts to implement solutions and automate processes that link us to our 10,000 customers and our 700 suppliers. In addition, the fixed cost and time release update approach provided us with payback on our company’s investment in the new SAP ERP Central Component quickly and virtually risk free.”

Jebsen & Jessen, a leading consumer electronics product distributor based in Thailand, found its service center overwhelmed with a large volume of service requests that stretched the existing warranty-handling process to its limits. Using SAP NetWeaver® and the enabling service-oriented architecture, the wholesaler innovated and streamlined its product warranty servicing process to better serve its dealers and end customers.

“With SAP, we were able to significantly increase the service capacity without adding any headcount, and the real-time warranty status information helped gain higher customer satisfaction,” said Gopal Varutharaju, IT director, Jebsen & Jessen Group of Companies South East Asia. “We have been using SAP software for nine years now, and it has always provided us with a reliable IT platform for our ever-changing business needs.”

SAP’s strong ecosystem of partners enables customers to quickly find and deploy the wholesale solutions to accelerate innovation, improve return on investment and grow.

“As an SAP partner, we are focused on helping distributors meet their goals by offering an additional layer of configuration and flexibility with our solution extensions,” said Sanjay Shah, founder, president and CEO, Vistex, Inc. “Wholesale distributors can use the SAP Incentive Administration and SAP Paybacks and Chargebacks by Vistex applications to administer contracts and claims, reduce disputes, optimize rebates and achieve significant savings in administrative labor costs. These applications help solve the unique challenges wholesale distributors face, and help streamline collaborative business processes between the distributors and the manufacturers.”

“We are seeing strong cross-industry demand from wholesale distributors for better control and visibility into the myriad of business processes they manage,” said Verlin Youd, senior vice president, Global Trading Industries, SAP. “SAP for Wholesale Distribution offers companies a solution that provides business-level context and industry specific functionality to give customer the insight, efficiency and cost control needed in today’s market.”

Current customers for the SAP for Wholesale Distribution solution portfolio span the globe and include Actebis, Border States Electric, The Charmer Sunbelt Group, DITAN Distribution, Fabory, Jebsen & Jessen, McKesson, Powell Electronics, Reyher, Saladino’s, Summit Electric Supply, Tallard Technologies, Univeg and Voigt AG.

About SAP® for Wholesale Distribution
SAP® for Wholesale Distribution is a set of state-of-the-art software solutions for midsize and large wholesale distribution businesses worldwide. With SAP for Wholesale Distribution, companies can improve their operational excellence and profitability while supporting innovative business models and customer services. The solutions include SAP core enterprise software combined with industry-specific applications that support fundamental business requirements, helping organizations solve real-time business issues and adapt to an ever-changing business and IT environment. SAP for Wholesale Distribution is powered by the SAP NetWeaver® platform, an extensive integration and application platform that lays the foundation for innovative, cross-functional business processes.

SAP is the world’s leading provider of business software(*), offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses. With approximately 76,000 customers (includes customers from the acquisition of Business Objects) in over 120 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE, under the symbol “SAP.” (For more information, visit www.sap.com)

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning and related applications.

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