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Meet the CIO Manik Narayan Saha, CIO of Asia Pacific and Japan for SAP, tells us about his relationship with technology. Real-Time Technology: Connecting Countries and Cultures. Become a “predictive business” Unlock the power of data Realise a $50 billion opportunity And much more.
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IT & Me eZine 1st Edition: Shaping Lives and Transforming Businesses

Jan 15, 2015

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Uwe Riss

IT is shaping lives and transforming businesses, all around the world. If we embrace it and use its full potential, we can radically improve the way we work. But don’t just take our word for it. Take a look at our ezine and discover what it’s like to be the CIO at SAP; find out which businesses are sitting on a multibillion dollar IT opportunity; and how some of the best brands are using SAP technology to run better.

“IT & Me” is all about embracing technology to achieve dramatic results. Visit www.sap.com/itandme to find out more.
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Page 1: IT & Me eZine 1st Edition: Shaping Lives and Transforming Businesses

Meet the CIOManik Narayan Saha, CIO of Asia Pacific and Japan for SAP, tells us about his relationship with technology.

Real-Time Technology:Connecting Countries and Cultures.

Become a “predictive business”

Unlock the power of data

Realise a $50 billion opportunity

And much more.

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Welcome to IT & MeLove IT? Then you’ll love IT & Me. There are 20 pages packed with inspiration and innovation. Discover what it’s like to be a CIO for SAP; find out which businesses are sitting on a multibillion dollar IT opportunity; and hear how some of the world’s best-known brands use SAP® technology to run better. Plus, we’ll reveal how SAP technology played a part in Germany’s winning performance in the 2014FIFA World Cup competition. It’s all here.

3 IT & Me: The CIO’s View

5 The Multibillion Dollar Enterprise Mobility Opportunity

7 Innovation: Who’s Really in Charge?

9 Real-Time Technology: Connecting Countries and Cultures

11 Stay a Step Ahead: Become a Predictive Business

13 Customer Insight? It’s Time to Think Mobile

15 Keeping Commerce Moving: Unlocking the Power of Data

17 Smart Energy for a Sustainable Society

18 SAP and Unilever: Supporting Sustainability

19 SAP TechEd: Save the Date

19 Improving Player Performance at the 2014 FIFA World Cup™

20 Bill McDermott Predicts $90trn Business Opportunities in Cloud Computing by 2020

20 Where to Next?

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We met up with Manik Narayan Saha, CIO of Asia Pacific and

Japan at SAP, to get the inside track on what it’s like to lead a multinational, multicultural IT team at one of the world’s biggest business-to-business tech brands. Here he talks about what inspires him and how technology has shaped his life. Plus, he shares his predictions for the future of IT.

Where did your love of technology come from?I’ve been dabbling with technology and computers since high school.

I built my own PC in 1992 and it was around that time that I decided I wanted to use technology to help others do things better; to extend the capabilities that we have as humans.

This started me on the technology track and I’ve just become more and more interested in it.

What role does technology play in your personal life?

I like trying the latest gadgets, like new mobile technologies, and seeing how they can make my life better.

For example, I can have a video conference in any part of the world with my family and see how they’re doing. Also, when I travel, I have my complete itinerary on my phone – tickets, hotel information, and reservations. And when I want to look up the best place for dinner, I use my mobile phone to get recommendations.

How does technology connect your personal and professional lives?When I wake up, I go through my mobile phone to check my e-mails, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and to get up to speed on what’s happening around me. It helps me sort out my work items and gives me a clear idea of what I want to do for the rest of the day, before I reach the office.

It’s not necessarily the best option for a great work-life balance, but it might actually help me get some time back toward the end of the day to spend with family.

Tell us a bit about your world of work. My team and I are responsible for finding out what technology is out there and understanding how it can be applied to our organization. Something new comes through the door every day and we have to filter it. We need to understand what’s not applicable versus what could be useful for the future.

What are the biggest challenges facing your team?There’s a lot of new technology and complexity to understand. But the team has to keep up with it. If we don’t push the boundaries and really understand the technology, we’d be technologically backward compared to competitors after a couple of years.

IT & Me:The CIO’s ViewCIOs have come out of the shadows and into the spotlight. Now is their time to shine. But, with innovation evolving at breakneck speed, what’s it really like when you’re the one at the top?

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What’s your ambition?Fundamentally, we want to change business outcomes. The connection between the business and IT is really important, so you can identify how every single task, activity and function can be utilized to achieve the goals.

How do you work with businesses to help them achieve their technology ambitions? We try to bring IT and businesses closer together and look at how we can co-innovate with technology. One of the most successful approaches we use is design thinking.

This brings the concepts of usability, business feasibility, and technical feasibility together. It ensures that the solutions that we engineer are in the sweet spot where these three dimensions intersect.

Technology is about innovation. How do you keep up?There’s a growing peer-to-peer community, where CIOs and technology leaders in different parts of the world share information about what’s happening in their regions. Every month, I meet a group of CIOs in Singapore. We discuss the latest technology and its risks, look at how it can be adapted to meet business needs, and share success stories.

We’re very pro sharing because everyone has something to learn from somebody else. You know that if you contribute, that just makes the community knowledge better.

Finally, what are your predictions for the future of IT?In future, I think a lot of roles in IT will be redefined, simply because the role of IT itself is changing.

Certain roles within an IT organization may no longer be required and there will also be an emergence of a lot of new roles. We need to be in the driving seat of technology and innovation, rather than being a provider of standard services to the organization.

To hear more from Manik, watch his interview below.

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The Multibillion Dollar Enterprise Mobility OpportunityThe enterprise mobility market is worth a

staggering US$50 billion.1 Telecommunications businesses are ideally positioned to capitalize on it – but many are underprepared. To succeed, they must rethink their traditional offerings and adopt a mobile-first approach. And according to Rick Costanzo, executive vice president and general manager of SAP Global Mobility Solutions, that’s not as scary as it seems.

Enterprises can’t manage mobility alone. While many of them are on track when it comes to mobilizing their business, they still need third parties to provide the tools and technologies to do the heavy lifting – such as mobile app deployment and lifecycle management. They also need the know-how of third parties to help them realize business value and get a faster return on investment. Telecommunications companies, or telcos, are expertly placed to meet these demands.

All it takes is a bit of new thinking.

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$50 Billion

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1Walk the WalkThe best way for telcos to gain and demonstrate competence in enterprise mobility is by mobilizing their own operations. Innovating from the inside allows telcos to develop an intimate understanding of tools and technologies and to appreciate the value of mobile processes and practices. This firsthand experience helps them understand deployment from a customer’s viewpoint and makes their proposition credible.

2Make It SimpleThe second phase involves helping enterprise customers deliver secure, compliant mobile apps with centralized administration, management, and security. The key is to provide a mobile application development platform that is equally suitable for employee- and customer-facing apps, offering the kind of user experience demanded by corporate users and consumers alike. Such a platform also alleviates the complexity of integrating disparate legacy systems, which otherwise stifles agile and experimental app development.

Similarly, telcos can provide enterprise mobility management capability as a managed service, enabling enterprises to simplify the deployment, security, and maintenance of mobile devices, either through corporate devices or through bring-your-own-device programs, regardless of type or operating system. It often takes a two-step approach to create a managed mobility environment, starting with traditional on-premise solutions and then building further in the cloud.

3Provide Off-the-Shelf AppsIt used to be that enterprise mobility was restricted to productivity apps for time and expense management. Today, a whole new generation of mission-critical, high-value, off-the-shelf apps is being developed by enterprise software vendors. Once an enterprise has a managed environment in place, the next step is to deploy these apps, which are usually industry specific, and include best practices and preconfigured options that enable quick implementation with few resources. Off-the-shelf apps usually cover about 80% of required functionality and require some customization to deliver the rest. Telcos have an opportunity to help bridge the gap in these cases. But the biggest opportunity for telcos is to provide enterprise app stores to allow companies to better control app usage and software expenditure, and to increase the value of the app portfolio through a business grade storefront.

At this point, telcos also have the option to define flexible go-to-market models. These range from the traditional model, where telcos sell the mobile platform, apps, and services to the customer, to a model where the telco undertakes customization and integration with hybrid models in between.

4Be DifferentFinally, after honing their skills to become true experts in enterprise mobility management, telcos can start achieving the greatest value for their customers, and themselves, by developing highly differentiated apps from scratch, instead of just providing third-party services and customization. Here’s the chance to impart industry knowledge and best practices accumulated through exposure to a vast number of enterprise customers in diverse vertical markets. Here’s the chance to solve business problems rather than just provide services. Here’s the chance for telcos to elevate their status from system integrators to keepers of the intellectual property, and that’s the secret to tapping into that multibillion dollar opportunity.

Take the LeadEnterprise mobility is here to stay. So, it’s time for telcos to step out of the shadows and into the spotlight, and deliver the new skills, services, and technologies their enterprise customers are demanding. Because if they don’t, their competitors soon will.

1 Source: “The $50bn Enterprise Mobility Opportunity” STL Partners, sponsored by SAP. Available at: https://global.sap.com/campaign/ne/2014/01_cross_mobile_telco/index.epx?kNtBzmUK9zU#jumpform

Check out our interactive enterprise mobility guide for step-by-step directions to assess your initiative and make sure you’re taking advantage of key opportunities across critical milestones.

You can follow Rick Costanzo on Twitter @rickcostanzo

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A decade ago, business technology was the CIO’s baby – and everyone knew it.

But times have changed. Now, modern technologies, such as cloud computing, are making it easier for everyone across the organization to use and choose technology. But as users gain more freedom, what are the consequences for IT? Sven Denecken, the global vice president of strategy for cloud solutions at SAP, shares his views.

Every week I have dozens of discussions with co-innovation customers. One thing that’s clear from these discussions is that tensions between CIOs and other line of business (LoB) leaders are rising. Why? Well, in my experience, LoB managers hesitate to involve their IT colleagues in technology investments and decisions because they fear they’ll be blocked. To get around this, LoB managers are turning to the cloud. That way, they don’t need IT assistance to implement or maintain their technology.

So, where does that leave IT?

INNOVATION: Who’s Really in Charge?

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Does IT Matter? Nicholas G. Carr, a Pulitzer Prize finalist who writes about technology and culture, poses a critical question: does IT matter? He cites research from IDC,1 which reveals that LoB executives will direct 80% of new IT investments in 2016. In 2013, they were reportedly behind 58% of these investments.

This evidence suggests that a huge power shift is under way.

It’s driven by increasing pressure on businesses to perform. They need technology that will help them predict the future with confidence, assess the right response, and be agile enough to quickly adapt their processes. That way, they can capitalize on market dynamics and stay ahead of the competition.

Imagine the huge pressure this puts on CIOs to reinvent their departments. They need to enable faster innovation and faster time to value. They need to equip workers with secure mobile devices so they can work securely anytime, anywhere. And they need to make sure technology is easy for the whole organization to use. These demands have led many companies to talk about the need for the CIO to be the Chief Innovation Officer. But is that what the CIO wants?

 One Vision, Two Approaches. The focus for today’s CIOs is efficiency.

• They want to do the right things and to do them securely.

• They research the business needs carefully, analyze all of the options, and present solutions that consider technology, logistics, schedules, and costs.

• They avoid changes as much as possible.

LoB leaders, on the other hand, focus on effectiveness.• They want to do the right things and

to do them quickly.• They want to adapt on the fly as new

competitors emerge and opportunities present themselves.

Planning is more about brainstorming, and plans are flexible guidelines. So, how do you consolidate these two different ways of working to achieve the same business goals? You innovate.

Embrace InnovationIn an infographic from Oxford Economics,2 a high percentage of 200 senior business and IT executives surveyed said they are embracing cloud technology. They’re using it to develop new products, enter new markets and establish new business models to engage with customers, employees, and partners.

And 69% of respondents credit the cloud for reshaping IT into a more strategic partner.

Take the LeadAs evidence and anecdote go, the cloud truly is becoming a catalyst for digital transformation. It’s forcing both IT departments and LoB leaders to rethink their approach to technology and change the way they work together. Yes, modern technology has the power to reshape the IT department – but it won’t make it redundant; it will free it up to focus on more value-added activities. And that’s great news for the whole business.

Technology really is creating an exciting landscape for businesses. To guide them through it though, they’ll need a strong leader

– and nobody is better equipped for that role than a CIO. All they need is the right mindset and the willingness to adapt.

1 http://www.idc.com/research/Predictions13/downloadable/238044.pdf, 2 http://www.oxfordeconomics.com/microsites/SAPcloudperformance/Innovation; http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/30c641af-588a-3010-24b5-cc513452362b?overridelayout=true

To discover how you can empower your end users with the latest IT innovations from SAP, read our IT & Me success stories.

You can follow Sven Denecken on Twitter @SDenecken

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South Africa has one of the most eclectic populations in the world. But catering for a huge melting pot of cultures isn’t easy. Christine Donato, SAP integrated marketing expert, finds out how the country manages its slick logistics network and keeps its international imports and exports flowing smoothly.

Events like the World Cup competition remind me what a fascinating world we

live in: there are so many colorful cultures and beautiful countries waiting to be explored. But don’t worry if you don’t have a bulging bank balance and an around-the-world ticket to experience it all – just head to South Africa.

Connecting One Country to the WorldThe “rainbow nation” is home to one of the most diverse populations in the world – and to prove it, it has 11 official languages. The majority of South Africa’s revenue comes from international imports and exports. One of the companies helping to fuel this trade is Transnet SOC Ltd., a freight logistics company with almost 50,000 employees.

Transnet manages the import and export operations that are essential to everyday life in South Africa. Put simply, it connects the country with the rest of the world. Without Transnet, there would be no gas to light stoves and to cook boerewors (a traditional South African sausage), and there would be no coal oil to fuel the lamps of schoolchildren in Soweto. The wineries in Cape Town would not be able to ship wine to hardworking parents ready to relax, and the local Cape Malay bakery would not have the grain to bake its delectable sweets. They all rely on Transnet’s freight rail, ports, and pipeline services.

REAL-TIME TECHNOLOGY: Connecting Countries and Cultures

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The Logistics Behind the LogisticsTransnet manages the logistical solutions for companies transporting bulk cargo in the mining, agriculture, and manufacturing industries. It handles over 188 million tons of cargo a year, including an annual average of 16 billion liters of liquid fuel and over 450 million cubic meters of gases. It also transports all of South Africa’s petroleum products.

Transnet’s rail system represents about 80% of Africa’s total railways – connecting South Africa with 17 other African countries.

In all, it’s a colossal operation – and so it’s vital that Transnet keeps it running smoothly. To do that, they rely on SAP technology.

Preventing Delays and Predicting the FutureDelays can mean significant losses for Transnet and its customers. So to keep shipments and railways running efficiently and on time, Transnet measures how fast cargo

is loaded and unloaded using the SAP Business Warehouse and SAP Business Planning and Consolidation applications, powered by the SAP HANA® platform. Before it implemented this software, Transnet ran reports manually – an incredibly slow process. The massive volumes of data took up to eight days to aggregate, so the reports were outdated before they could even be reviewed.

With SAP HANA, Transnet slashed its report turnaround from eight days to just 35 minutes.

And now it can dissect the data in real time to predict future trends.

Reacting in Real TimeReal-time data is an invaluable tool for Transnet. It helps the company get the right goods to the right people at exactly the right time. For example, picture a butcher shop in Pietermaritzburg that receives its meat deliveries from a Transnet customer.

Because Transnet can provide the butcher with insights, such as the best and worst times to ship meat, the delivery company

never fails to provide the butcher with a fresh shipment. So, it can increase its revenue and satisfy customer demand.

Driving GrowthIn 2012, Transnet’s revenue increased by 20.9% and it is still growing. It is creating numerous job opportunities for unemployed South Africans and is implementing programs to develop talent, support education, and promote social corporate responsibility initiatives. Transnet is close to becoming one of the top five rail freight companies in the world. And SAP is proud that its partnership and the SAP HANA platform are playing a part in helping Transnet reach that goal.

Discover more about real-time data and learn how it can help your business with its challenges.

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You can follow Christine Donato on Twitter @CMDonato

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Stay a Step Ahead: Become a Predictive Business

Businesses are changing rapidly and nobody can be certain what the future looks like. But we can be prepared for it. Sven Denecken, global vice president of strategy for cloud solutions at SAP, explains how technology is inspiring today’s organizations to look beyond today and become “predictive businesses.”

Globalization, empowered consumers, and a mobile

workforce have accelerated the pace of business beyond what seemed possible just a few years ago. And this has taught us an important lesson: every business needs to think about what’s coming. You need to see the future and proactively shape it to your advantage. You need to anticipate market risks and trends, develop plans, and adapt processes – all before your competitors do. Fortunately, social collaboration, in-memory computing, cloud computing, and predictive analytics are enabling businesses to operate in new ways to achieve this.

Transforming BusinessesThe cloud has transformed the very nature of business and engagement. But while some companies view it as just another deployment option, savvy organizations such as Expro International Group, see it for what it really is: a requirement for success, agility, and innovation – and a means to become a predictive business.

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Empowering Decision MakersExpro, a global oil and gas management company, runs a cloud solution for HR to gain workforce insights for its different regions. The application allows Expro to deploy employees in different locations depending on skills requirements and workloads.

The implementation of the application was largely handled by the HR department, without much requirement for specific technical skills.

This is a key differentiator between cloud and more traditional technologies: it empowers all lines of businesses to make and act on technology decisions, without IT input.

Helping EmployeesBusiness applications in the cloud shouldn’t just enable organizations

to become more agile and innovative; they should also suit the needs of today’s end users.

In other words, they should be intuitive and easy to use.With intuitive applications, the entire workforce can use predictive analytics easily, without the need to employ data scientists. The faster end users can access the information they need, the faster they can react to the dynamic business environment.

With that in mind, we’re working with our customers to introduce analytics into business applications. For example, we’re using predictive analytics to develop specific sales applications, which will allow all members of a sales team to be more agile and increase the performance of the whole team. We’re making sure that closing deals can be fast, preemptive, and detailed to keep up with the dynamic economy.

Driving Predictive BusinessThe only constant in a fast-paced world is change. To stay ahead of the competition, you need to be able to predict the future with accuracy by making use of real-time market dynamics and historical market

trends from a network of partners and peers. You should be able to assess different potential actions and identify those with the highest propensity for success. No matter what your business, it’s imperative to embrace innovation and be digitally empowered.

This is the “cloud-first” mentality – and this is the key to a predictive business.

Discover how predictive analytics can help you spot new developments, capitalize on future trends, and respond to challenges before they happen.

You can follow Sven Denecken on Twitter @SDenecken

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Customer Insight?It’s Time to Think Mobile

Mobile devices are a gateway to a world of products, services, and retailers. In just a few taps, consumers can research, review, compare, and buy. And each time they do, they provide valuable marketing insight. Diarmuid Mallon, director of global marketing solutions and programs

for mobile at SAP, explains how the latest technology can help you harness mobile operator data to improve your marketing and customer relationship management strategies – while protecting consumers’ privacy.

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If consumers are fundamental to your business, then

understanding their behavior is critical. You can get a lot of answers by analyzing point-of-sale records, financial data, or social media data. But this won’t give you detailed insight into individuals’ behavior. Focus groups and surveys can fill in some of the gaps, but they too have their shortcomings: they’re expensive, lack scalability, and their sample-based approach can lead to biased answers. So, where do you go from there?

A Modern Approach for Modern ConsumersThe SAP Consumer Insight 365 mobile service is an intuitive, Web-based insights service that takes analytic research to the next level. For the first time, you can access and analyze anonymized mobile operator data to get insight into the activities of millions of consumers. We’re talking about empirical data, or data that represents what consumers actually do – rather than what they may say they do (in a survey for example). You can even analyze this information by time and place – and on a local, regional, national, or global scale. You get a true, 360-degree view of your consumers while maintaining individual consumers’ privacy and security.

Data That Delivers ResultsSAP Consumer Insight 365 helps to address three critical marketing questions: Where do my customers come from? Who is coming into my store/location? What are they doing? Here’s how it works.

CatchmentCatchment view enables you to learn about and target consumers from certain geographic areas. For example, this data could tell you how many consumers who match your shopper profiles are within a three-mile radius of your store.

FootfallFootfall refers to the number of people shopping in a particular location at a given time. The location could be a shopping mall, a sports stadium, a town or district, or any place that has geographic boundaries. Footfall data could tell you the demographics of the people in your store at any given moment, the average time they spend in it, how far have they’ve traveled, and if they browsed the Web on a mobile device while in your store.

ClickstreamClickstream tracks what people are looking at while browsing the mobile Web and apps. It can tell you who is viewing your Web site, whether you’re reaching target demographics the way you want, and how effective your mobile advertisements are.

The service also enables you to track your performance against your competitors with the brand value index. The index view gives you a peek into the browsing habits of your consumer segments and allows you to see where you rank against your competitors. For example, you could see how popular your site is with your target audience compared with the sites of your top three competitors.

A 365-Degree ViewWith SAP Consumer Insight 365, brand managers, media planners, retailers, local governments – in fact any organization that works with people – can hone their strategies to realize their customer goals.

They can create more targeted, context-specific marketing efforts to strengthen relationships and connect with consumers like never before.

Learn how you can unlock the real value of data here or learn more about SAP Consumer Insight 365 here.

You can follow Diarmuid Mallon on Twitter @diarmuidmallon

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Keeping Commerce Moving: Unlocking the Power of Data

E-commerce sales will reportedly reach a staggering US$1.5 trillion in 2014.1 That’s tens of thousands of books, clothes, and special gifts that are picked, plucked, and packaged every day. But how do they all get to the right place at the right time? As SAP integrated marketing expert Christine Donato reveals, it’s all down to data.

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There’s something special about receiving an online delivery.

The doorbell rings, you sign for your package, rip open the tape, dig through the Styrofoam peanuts and then, at last, pull out your new product. It’s exhilarating. But do you ever think about the complexities of getting that package to your doorstep? ARI does.

Driven Fleet Professionals. Driving Results.ARI is the largest fleet management services company in the world. Together with its partners, it runs more than two million vehicles worldwide. ARI promises productivity at the lowest possible cost. It helps its customers make decisions that save money and build revenue while ensuring that they deliver excellent service to the end customers. But how does it achieve this while maximizing its own revenue?

Driven by Data For many years, ARI relied on an in-house extract, transfer, and load (ETL) solution to collect and analyze data from the fleets it managed. But when the amount of data grew exponentially, it needed a new solution.

“We want to provide customers with the best possible solutions to leverage the available data, so they can uncover actionable information that helps them operate their fleets more efficiently,” says Bob White, senior vice president of client and fleet services at ARI.

The company also wanted to use the data to improve its own customer support. Maintenance management for the entire lifecycle of a vehicle can involve more than 14,000 different data points, including everything from information on minor repairs to regular preventive maintenance information or manufacturer updates and recalls. That’s a huge amount of information to manage.

A New Platform for Real-Time Business When ARI decided to overhaul its aging data warehouse environment, it rolled out a comprehensive data strategy that included SAP HANA, SAP Data Services software, SAP Information Steward Software, and SAP BusinessObjects business intelligence solutions. The implementation lasted a short three weeks – and the benefits were immediate.

A 360-Degree ViewARI now performs deeper data analysis – and it does this in less than four seconds.

Previously, this was a manual process that took over 24 hours.

The company has also increased overall efficiency in its call centers and improved first-time call resolution, resulting in higher customer satisfaction.

“We have a 360-degree view of the data with our SAP solutions,” says Steve Haindl, executive vice president of technology and innovation at ARI.

“We can see what’s working, where the opportunities are, and what customers no longer need. We can also tailor conversations about requirements to the interested party: CEO, fleet manager, or mechanic. All of this helps us to drive revenue, but most important, it helps us to keep our customers happy.”

The data from its run analyses on SAP HANA provides ARI with an abundance of information – from how a car is driven, to fuel card information, accident data, telematics, maintenance data, and miles per gallon. This information

is then benchmarked within a league table to improve fleet driving behavior, keep the roads safe, and decrease insurance premiums.

Performing to Its Full PotentialWith the speed and depth of information provided by SAP HANA, ARI has transformed its IT infrastructure and business strategy. It combines business insight and optimal lifecycle analysis, best-in-class services, and high-powered technology to drive vehicle fleet efficiency up and costs down. So now, all fleets can run to their full potential.

1 Source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Global-B2C-Ecommerce-Sales-Hit-15-Trillion-This-Year-Driven-by-Growth-Emerging-Markets/1010575#sthash.gPlP9De9.dpuf

Discover more about data-driven decision making and learn how you can harness the collective intelligence of all your data.

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You can follow Christine Donato on Twitter @CMDonato

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Knowledge Is Power The key to driving energy sustainability and innovation is to know what is happening across the energy network. And the only way to do that is with powerful IT. As Jeroen Scheer, manager of taskforce energy transition IT at Alliander, explains, “We believe an energy company is an IT company. We need to help our customers at the household level use their energy much more wisely. And the only way to do that on a large scale is through software”.

Power to the PeopleWhether it is monitoring assets, forecasting energy loads, or understanding customer energy usage with smart meters, Alliander works closely with SAP to gather data in the fastest, most effective way so that everybody, including the end users, can benefit.

For example, using SAP Customer Energy Management software, it analyzes massive amounts of data from smart meters and processes it using the SAP HANA platform. The software allows customers to see their own energy usage and then suggests ways that each household can use energy more wisely.

Alliander N.V. is the largest electricity and gas network company in the Netherlands. Its infrastructure carries electricity and natural gas to more than 3.5 million customers. And to do that in a green and sustainable way, it relies on cutting-edge technology.

Case StudySmart Energyfor a SustainableSociety

See how other businesses are using SAP technology to transform the way they work in our case studies.

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Not only can individual families help make the world a greener place, they can save on their energy bills too.

Alliander is continually creating new and innovative business models based on the power of the SAP HANA platform. Already, it has speeded up its load-forecasting process by 96%, reduced its IT resource and design costs by 60%, and achieved 100% complete technical data.

A Powerful VisionAlliander has big plans for the future, with electric mobility, sustainable area development, and sustainable living topping the list of priorities for 2014. Deepening the insights gained from network data will play a big part in that – as will SAP HANA.

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Unilever is the company behind some of the world’s most familiar household brands, including Dove, Marmite, Lipton, and Ben & Jerry’s. More than two billion people consume Unilever products every day, across more than 160 countries. And behind the scenes, there are 173,000 employees – and some outstanding technology – making sure that’s possible.

Case StudySAP and Unilever:SupportingSustainability

Unlocking the True Value of ITUnilever was an early adopter of the SAP HANA platform. The in-memory computing technology has allowed it to significantly accelerate and simplify processes, such as receipt reconciliation and financial closings. But the technology’s capabilities don’t stop there. Unilever is looking to SAP HANA to help it redesign processes and transform areas such as demand and production planning. As Willem Eelman, Unilever’s former CIO, explains, “the true value of technology is when it works as part of the business to identify opportunities that drive benefits for the consumer.”

Making Everyone’s Lives EasierSAP HANA has really helped to improve the user experience. As Wendy Stout, Process and Technology Director at Unilever, explains, “The SAP HANA user interface was really self-intuitive. So for the first time, we were really seeing a step change in the way in which SAP was presenting its information to the user.”

Unilever is committed to achieving continued sustainable growth. “We have an audacious goal,” explains Eelman, “to help transform our world and make it a more sustainable place to live in.” SAP is fully committed to working with Unilever to achieve that goal, using the latest technology, thinking, and ideas.

See how other businesses are using SAP technology to transform the way they work in our case studies.

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Improving Player Performance at the 2014 FIFA World Cup™

SAP TechEd && d-code is one of the most talked about events in the IT calendar – and it’s fast approaching. It’s your chance to hear from some of the biggest names in IT and delve into the hottest industry topics. There will be technical hands-on sessions, demo-rich lectures, and product road map Q&A sessions. Learn more about in-memory computing, Big Data and real-time analytics, cloud management and security, Hadoop and the SAP HANA platform, and user experience. Plus, new for this year, take advantage of live coding and collaboration opportunities and get dedicated training to help you build, manage, optimize, and secure the next generation of applications and solutions.

SAP TechEd: Save the Date

SAP TechEd will be calling at Las Vegas (October), Berlin (November), and Bangalore (December) – don’t miss it. For full details and to register, please visit the event website.

Discover how other soccer teams are using Big Data to improve all aspects of their game. Watch the Hoffenheim looks to Bernhard and IT video now.

SAP has been working with the German Football Association (DFB) to build SAP Match Insights, an innovative solution that enhances on-field performance. And it’s not just the players who can benefit – the insights can also be used by the media to deliver a better-informed commentary.

Coaches can process large volumes of data with SAP HANA to offer analysis of training, preparation, and tournaments to improve player and team performance. In fact, the German National Team used SAP Match Insights in an early adoption phase for preparation and post analyses of the matches during the World Cup in Brazil. And, it looks like SAP Match Insights achieved what it set out to do – Germany won the World Cup!

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Bill McDermott, Chief Executive Officer of SAP, recently predicted that the value of global business in the cloud would hit the $90 trillion mark in the next six years.

He has a bold vision for business and believes that the cloud can help businesses reduce complex processes. He stated that companies of various sizes, across all sectors, are simplifying and transforming their businesses with SAP Cloud solutions.

He also announced plans to bring industry solutions to the cloud by combining SAP’s expertise in industry-specific business processes, with the technical creativity of its global ecosystem and broad customer base.

To achieve this goal, SAP has created a dedicated Industry Cloud organization to develop prescriptive, industry-based cloud road maps that will help simplify and transform businesses. SAP also promised to co-innovate with customers and partners to deliver solutions that are expected to spread rapidly across the 25 industries they specialise in.

Partners can now develop applications in the cloud, too. SAP has created a simple, quick, and cost-effective way for partners to develop applications that use

the full power of in-memory Big Data technology without the need to set up and operate infrastructure. Additionally, applications developed in the cloud can be deployed and run on both SAP HANA Cloud Platform and on a customer’s site.

These enhancements serve to enable even more business opportunities for partners, by simplifying the development stage and shortening time to value.

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Bill McDermott Predicts $90trn Business Opportunities in Cloud Computing by 2020

Where to Next?Discover More About IT & Me

The IT & Me website is the perfect place to discover more about SAP technology. Watch our customer case study videos, build your knowledge with our collection of IT articles, test how innovative your business is using the Innovation Compass – and more. Take a look here.

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