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SOLUTION EXTENSIONS

Whether you are a marketing

manager looking to harness

the power of social media for your

product, a sales manager tasked with

meeting company revenue targets

and margin goals, or an IT quality

manager preparing for the first pro-

duction use of the SAP HANA plat-

form, SAP systems are more than

up to the challenge of supporting

you in your business endeavors.

From putting the “wow” in the cus-

tomer experience, to simplifying

the intricacies of your supply chain,

SAP software can integrate business processes cohesively,

securely, and simply to drive the business and help you become

more effective.

Of course, SAP customers vary greatly in their business needs

and are often looking for additional functionality that will help

them gain even more value from their SAP landscapes. To that

end, SAP has identified key third-party offerings that are broadly

applicable across SAP deployments (see Figure 1). Leveraging

these offerings, called solution extensions, is an effective way to

Drive Your Business Forward Meet Your Business Needs, Improve Employee Productivity, and Get the Most Out of Your SAP Investment with Solution Extensions

get the most out of your SAP investment. Every solution exten-

sion includes the same level of product quality and commit-

ment that you’d expect from SAP, and has been tested to meet

SAP’s stringent standards for functional correctness, application

integration and interfaces, security, and usability. In addition,

solution extensions integrate easily within your SAP systems,

so there’s a consistent look and feel and everything works

seamlessly, the way your customers and users expect it to.

In addition, application updates and maintenance for the

solution extensions are aligned with SAP application life cycles,

so IT departments can reduce planned downtime and better

manage service-level commitments to the business. If you expe-

rience any issues working with a solution extension, SAP serves

as your single point of contact for support. Solution extensions

are also integrated with the long-term SAP roadmap, ensuring

you will continue to see value from your technology investment

in the future.

Whatever business and department you are in, there’s a solu-

tion extension that can help. In this special report, we’ll look at

a selection of solution extensions and the benefits that each can

bring to your business. You can also browse SAP’s current list of

solution extensions and find out which one is right for you by

visiting http://scn.sap.com/community/solution-extensions. n

Deliver exceptional customer experiences

n SAP Social Media Analytics by NetBase n SAP Price and Margin Management by Vendavon SAP Paybacks and Chargebacks by Vistex n SAP Document Presentment by OpenTextn SAP Incentive Administration by Vistex n SAP Workforce Scheduling and Optimizationn SAP Data Maintenance for ERP by Vistex by ClickSoftware

Optimize the supply chain n SAP Enterprise Inventory Optimization by SmartOps n SAP Supply Chain Response Management by icon-scmn SAP Service Level Optimization by SmartOps

Streamline accounting and finance n SAP Invoice Management by OpenText n SAP Travel Receipts Management by OpenText

Manage talent and improve workforce visibility

n SAP Employee File Management by OpenText n SAP Organizational Visualization by Nakisan SAP Talent Visualization by Nakisa n SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe

Get more out of your enterprise content

n SAP Extended Enterprise Content Management by OpenText n SAP Portal Content Management by OpenTextn SAP Digital Asset Management by OpenText n SAP Portal Site Management by OpenText

Improve the business of IT n SAP Application Visualization by iRise n SAP IT Process Automation by Ciscon SAP Archiving by OpenText n SAP LoadRunner by HPn SAP Central Process Scheduling by Redwood n SAP Process Performance Management by Software AGn SAP Document Access by OpenText n SAP Quality Center by HPn SAP enterprise modeling applications by Software AGn SAP Extended Diagnostics by CA Wily

FIGURE 1 SAP’s solution extensions address multiple business needs and are broadly applicable across SAP deployments

Lenore Johnson Senior Director Strategic Ecosystem MarketingSAP

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Today’s customers are digitally

connected, socially networked,

and better informed. They live their

lives in the moment, updating their

relationship statuses, interacting with

peers, and sharing likes, dislikes, and

opinions, all in real time. They are lit-

erally changing the rules of engage-

ment and, through that, becoming

more empowered. And with this

empowerment, their expectations

continue to rise — they want experi-

ences and products that make their

lives better.

To help businesses deliver impactful conversations and expe-

riences to these savvy customers, SAP provides a powerful

portfolio of sales, marketing, and service solutions known as

SAP 360 Customer.

Deliver an Enhanced Customer ExperienceOrganizations want to deliver the “wow” customer experience

needed to differentiate and drive loyalty. SAP 360 Customer

combines SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM)

software with analytics, mobile, collaboration, and social media

solutions to make this possible. Deployed on premise or in

the cloud, the following solution extensions, as part of the SAP

360 Customer portfolio, allow companies to better serve cus-

tomers in multiple ways.

Manage Sales More Effectively To make the selling process easier, companies need solutions

that can agilely deliver insights that enable in-the-moment,

fact-based decisions. The SAP Price and Margin Management

application by Vendavo allows companies to improve profit-

ability — by providing insight into margin leakage, for instance

— and react quickly to changes in business. As your team

develops new approaches or uncovers additional insights, they

can modify playbooks or create new ones and share them,

along with reports, pricing insights, and more.

To support robust administration, financial accrual, and

settlement processing, as well as analysis, reporting, and mod-

eling for both revenue-related and expense-related incentive

Better Serve the Savvy Customer of Today

plans, companies can turn to the SAP Incentive Administration

application by Vistex. The application helps create more satis-

fied employees and partners by enabling transparent access to

incentive information; it also enhances revenue and profitability

through more accurate, timely incentive payments.

In addition, the SAP Paybacks and Chargebacks applica-

tion by Vistex allows effective management of complex sales

and pricing contracts by helping efficiently administer, model,

report, and analyze contracts and chargeback agreements. This

includes contract authoring and administration, claims process-

ing, channel inventory tracking, and reporting and analytics.

Pinpoint Marketing EffortsWithin the vast sea of data available are golden nuggets of cus-

tomer information that can provide key insights and make a

big difference in your marketing efforts. The SAP Social Media

Analytics application by NetBase gives marketers the ability

to run a search on any topic and get instant trends and in-depth

sentiment analysis from social media channels. The solution

monitors over 150 million social media sources according to your

individual topics and provides historical sentiment insights from

12 months of social data.

Marketers can also manage the entire marketing asset lifecycle

process using the SAP Digital Asset Management application

by OpenText. The application can help in a number of ways, by

facilitating the collaborative creation process, publishing assets,

establishing and enforcing usage parameters, and ensuring that

your brands are consistently and accurately utilized throughout

the organization.

Streamline Service OperationsTo improve service operations, the SAP Workforce Scheduling

and Optimization application by ClickSoftware supports key

facets of service operations processes, including forecasting, plan-

ning, scheduling, enterprise mobility, and analysis. Using the appli-

cation, companies can automate complex scheduling processes,

optimize schedules to maximize resource utilization or other

business objectives, and receive real-time updates that let them

make adjustments to meet changing demand.

For more information on these solutions, visit http://bit.

ly/16GWgGX. n

Rebecca Newell Director Ecosystem & Routes MarketingSAP

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Today, manufacturers are expected

to perform a delicate balanc-

ing act. To effectively compete and

gain market share, they need to keep

inventory costs low and customer

service levels high, all in the face

of increasing globalization, supply

chain complexity, uncertain availabil-

ity, and fluid forecasts. SAP can help

companies address these challenges

with several solution extensions for

manufacturers looking to optimize

their inventory and service levels

and respond rapidly to changing

supply and demand.

Make Better Inventory DecisionsTo tighten control of corporate inventories, you need tools that

work with enterprise data and enable advanced analytics, giving

you the insight needed to make smart decisions that optimize

inventory levels. The SAP Enterprise Inventory Optimization

application by SmartOps can help you effectively plan and

manage inventory levels at every stocking location throughout

the global supply chain. Using this software, you can analyze

crucial inputs and signals, model the impact of decisions on

global inventories, and balance inventory levels — freeing up

working capital for innovation and growth.

This application also helps create a comprehensive, cross-

enterprise management process that allows you to optimize,

manage, and monitor inventory stocking levels to achieve a

desired outcome, such as a leaner operation or improved ser-

vice levels. In addition, SAP Enterprise Inventory Optimization,

option for analytics, uses predictive analytics to provide a laser-

focused view of supply network performance.

Profitably Meet Customer Service NeedsTo effectively meet customer service needs while holding

the line on inventory costs, you need analytics tools that pro-

vide visibility into enterprise data to help balance inventory

levels with customer satisfaction and increase supply chain

profitability. The SAP Service Level Optimization application

by SmartOps helps you gain insight into your multistage

supply chain, providing a better understanding of supply-

demand patterns and demand-supply constraints. With this

knowledge, you can determine the appropriate service levels

by item, customer, and location, and further optimize inven-

tory levels accordingly.

In addition, you can model relevant inventory drivers, includ-

ing sales volume or gross margin, demand volatility, and season-

ality or sales frequency. You can also calculate the impact of lost

demand, lead times, order frequency and batch sizes, transpor-

tation variability, production variances, supplier and material

uncertainty, capacity constraints, and planning time fences. Mod-

eling these factors with SAP Service Level Optimization helps

provide a more complete and immediate view of the inventory

issues that affect your ability to drive more revenue and meet

service-level commitments. This knowledge can help you deter-

mine the optimal service level for each item in the supply chain.

Respond Rapidly and Commit with ConfidenceIn today’s supply chain, to maintain order commitments, seize

new revenue opportunities, and adapt to volatile supply, com-

panies need to be able to respond quickly to ever-changing

demand, often across a distributed supply network with lim-

ited visibility. The SAP Supply Chain Response Management

application by icon-scm helps keep revenues up and invento-

ries down by making your supply chain more demand driven.

You can leverage advanced analytics to perform root cause

analysis on many common planning issues. And you can gain

crisper insight and make better decisions by analyzing changing

supply and demand data in memory, and then rapidly providing

a solution back to customers.

By gaining visibility into the company’s supply network, you

can also establish a highly responsive and demand-driven plan-

ning process, and re-plan quickly once you understand how

changes in demand or supply — real or hypothetical — affect your

ability to fulfill orders. Your company can then rapidly execute a

revised plan with confidence to maximize new revenue opportu-

nities while delivering on existing commitments. And now, with

our SAP rapid-deployment solution for Supply Chain Response

Management, you can be up and running in as few as 14 weeks.

To learn more about these solutions, visit http://scn.sap.com/

docs/DOC-31636. n

Are You Successfully Performing the Manufacturing Balancing Act?Optimize Your Supply Chain Performance and Profitability

Cindy Morel DirectorEcosystem & Routes MarketingSAP

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Motivate Employees — Even in the Midst of Organizational Change

Working with today’s global-

ized workforce and dealing

with the frequency of business trans-

formations, HR professionals need

a way to keep up with organiza-

tional changes. And to sustain busi-

ness performance throughout these

transformations, HR must also help

the business identify and retain the

strongest workforce possible.

Keep Pace with Business TransformationHR professionals model and re-

model the organizational structure

of the business to keep pace with ever-changing needs and

opportunities. The SAP Organizational Visualization applica-

tion by Nakisa goes beyond traditional org charting software to

provide a visually rich, detailed view of the entire organizational

structure, enabling you to manage and improve the accuracy

of HR data, write back approved changes in SAP ERP Human

Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM), and dynamically share

results. The SAP Employee File Management application by

OpenText helps HR teams find content related to this data,

allowing them to process personnel tasks faster and with greater

accuracy and enabling them to devote more time to activities

that add strategic value to the organization.

Sustain Your Best WorkforceTo build and retain the strongest team, HR professionals must find

specialized talent in constrained labor markets, prepare the next

generation of leaders, and satisfy employee aspirations for growth.

The SAP Talent Visualization application by Nakisa supports

a global, end-to-end, on-premise talent management process. It

accesses information in SAP ERP HCM, providing visibility into

the talent you have today and the skills you will need tomorrow,

while also allowing employees to plan a career development path.

To learn more, visit http://bit.ly/YrpgvK. n

Once you’ve improved business

operations by getting them up

and running on SAP software, you

should next look for ways to enable

new efficiencies to further optimize

your operations. For many organiza-

tions, an area in the business that’s

ripe for improvement is accounts

payable (AP). Fortunately, SAP offers

solution extensions to help streamline

AP; and, because these applications

leverage both on-premise and cloud

capabilities, businesses can magnify

the benefits of such a solution.

An Integrated Approach to Invoice ManagementOrganizations looking to transform AP processes typically want

to optimize and automate invoicing processes, reduce processing

The Best of Both WorldsCombine On-Premise and Cloud Solutions to Optimize Accounts Payable Processes

costs, create global visibility into liabilities and payments, and

improve vendor relations. Deploying the SAP Invoice Manage-

ment application by OpenText on premise and connecting it to

the cloud-based Ariba Invoice Professional via the Ariba Network,

can help companies meet these goals, delivering the benefits of

both solutions in an integrated, collaborative framework.

Both solutions serve as a single point of integration to and

from a customer’s existing back-office system to a network that

integrates with your disbursing bank of choice and provides

a one-to-many connection to virtually all suppliers via a cloud-

based platform. This helps companies gain new levels of visibility,

flexibility, and collaboration. It also helps users create workforce

efficiencies through an automated, streamlined process, improve

working capital management through better visibility to cash

requirements, reduce costly manual errors, optimize cash discount

utilization, and cut costs through automated data extraction,

process automation, and control.

Learn more about both solutions at http://bit.ly/YJP5sj. n

Bil Khan Director Global Ecosystem & Channels | RTM Marketing SAP

Cindy Morel DirectorEcosystem & Routes MarketingSAP

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Tame Unstructured Content in Your Enterprise

Like many companies today, asset-

intensive enterprises, including

power and processing plants, are being

bombarded by unstructured content

in the form of email messages, paper-

based documentation, and more. This

content is becoming increasingly diffi-

cult to manage, which, in turn, makes

it harder to maintain a clear record of

all maintenance activities that helps

companies proactively take action to

prevent unplanned downtime. Equip-

ment failures and plant outages can

significantly affect a company’s bot-

tom line, and if they are compounded with legal and regulatory

costs, the effects only worsen. Equipment and plant-related prob-

lems can also lead to bigger issues, such as heightened risk of envi-

ronmental damages, greater risk to maintenance worker safety,

and brand deterioration. The only way to combat this is to ensure

higher equipment reliability and proper records management.

Superior Asset Management Brings Greater BenefitsTo ensure higher equipment reliability and proper records man-

agement, SAP offers the SAP Extended Enterprise Content

Management (SAP Extended ECM) application by OpenText.

Asset-intensive enterprises that implement the solution can see:

■ Improved equipment reliability

■ Reduced outages and costs due to a simplified process for

collecting, storing, and retrieving maintenance data

■ Enhanced collaboration around plant maintenance

■ Better failure analysis and reporting

■ Increased regulatory compliance and reduced legal exposure

due to better records management, traceability, and auditability

SAP Extended ECM also complements the functionality of other

solutions, like SAP NetWeaver Portal and the SAP Portal Content

Management application by OpenText, which improves the effi-

ciency of content creation, management, and storage processes

while supporting user collaboration and communication.

SAP Extended ECM in Action: How Belgian Railways Runs Better with Content Management SolutionsThough many of us don’t stop to think about it, keeping

trains running safely and on schedule involves fairly complex

purchasing and maintenance processes. Belgian Railways (see

sidebar), which operates one of the world’s busiest and most

advanced railway networks, needed a software application that

would provide visibility into the company’s growing volume of

content, while also integrating smoothly with its existing busi-

ness applications. This would enable the company to cut costs,

facilitate routine tasks, and improve the customer experience. In

addition, Belgian Railways wanted to achieve sustained regula-

tory compliance in record keeping and retention and transporta-

tion safety, for example.

To help meet these needs, Belgian Railways implemented an

integrated content management solution, built on SAP Extended

ECM. Today, Belgian Railways counts on SAP Extended ECM to

handle a wide range of documents, including operating proce-

dures, training materials, quality manuals, patents, time registra-

tion logs, and lease contracts. “SAP Extended ECM provides us

with a view of what needs to be done to optimize costs,” says

Stephane Haelterman, Project Manager at Belgian Railways.

SAP Extended ECM also helped Belgian Railways improve

business processes. In the past, the company’s management of

engineering drawings was prone to inconsistencies due to the

use of multiple file servers and legacy databases where local ver-

sions of drawings could be stored. Today, a single repository con-

tains all 2D and 3D designs, complete with the associated bill of

materials and resources. This approach ensures that the right

parts are purchased or produced, eliminating the cost and risk

of ordering wrong parts, and improves rail traffic safety. Hael-

terman says, “Our goal was not only to create a benchmark in

terms of document management, but to add value by enabling

business processes with new views and perspectives on data and

documents.”

To learn more about SAP Extended ECM, visit www.sap.

com/solutions/solutionextensions/enterprise-content-

management. n

Bil Khan Director Global Ecosystem & Channels | RTM Marketing SAP

Spotlight on Belgian RailwaysFounded in 1926 and headquartered in Brussels, Belgian Railways operates one of the world’s most tightly integrated railway net-works. The company transports 216 million passengers per year, plus more than 60 million tons of freight with the help of about 30,000 staff. Operating around 3,400 kilometers of track, 1,500 locomotives, and 550 railway stations and stops, including hubs for Europe’s prestigious high-speed rail links, the company is part of the six-track railway hub in Brussels that handles some 1,200 trains per day, making it one of the busiest railway links on the planet.

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More and more, companies are

choosing to migrate portions

of their systems landscapes, like SAP

Business Suite, to SAP HANA to

take advantage of real-time business

capabilities. But to migrate success-

fully and realize the full potential of

running applications on SAP HANA,

IT needs management solutions that

help them properly tune applica-

tions before transitioning.

Run IT Like a Well-Oiled Machine

SAP’s IT management approach enables you to rapidly adopt

new technology innovations such as SAP HANA. It provides a

set of integrated tools and processes to ensure increased qual-

ity and reduced risk. This approach also accelerates innovation

by providing high stability during rapid integration of new tools,

improves operations by standardizing and automating opera-

tions processes, and provides tailored support for issue resolu-

tion. Finally, IT management reduces the cost of upgrades and

implementations since it supports shorter downtimes, compliant

migrations, enhanced business continuity, and a deeper under-

standing of the overall software landscape.

A Smoother Migration to SAP HANAWhen IT management is harnessed with SAP HANA, it auto-

mates and streamlines monitoring and implementation in

your SAP HANA landscape, allowing IT and operations teams

to spend more time on innovation. Migrating also gives you

the opportunity to reduce costs by archiving your existing

system to be compliant with regulatory mandates. To make

your move to the SAP HANA platform as non-disruptive and

smooth as possible, SAP offers several solution extensions that

span the design, implementation, and operational phases of

IT management:

■ The SAP Application Visualization platform by iRise, which

lets organizations create a working preview of a solution

before implementation.

■ The SAP Archiving application by OpenText, which helps

offload old data from an SAP system, reducing the application

Reinvent Your Business with IT Management and the Real-Time SAP HANA Platform

Wendy Maldonado Director Global Ecosystem & Channel Marketing SAP

database’s size. This solution, coupled with SAP NetWeaver

Information Lifecycle Management, ensures compliance of

your system of record application.

■ The SAP Central Process Scheduling application by

Redwood, which enables management and automation of

business processes across SAP and non-SAP environments.

■ The SAP Document Access application by OpenText, which

allows you to store, manage, and retrieve SAP and non-SAP

documents across SAP Business Suite on SAP HANA transac-

tions and solutions.

■ The SAP enterprise modeling applications by Software AG,

which help customers model their business, enterprise, and

information architectures.

■ The SAP Extended Diagnostics application by CA Wily,

which helps customers eliminate unplanned outages, manage

service levels, optimize resources, and lower the costs associ-

ated with maintaining web applications.

■ The SAP IT Process Automation application by Cisco, which

automates IT processes to help ensure that your systems run

smoothly, leveraging best practices consistently across your IT

landscape.

■ The SAP LoadRunner application by HP, which allows orga-

nizations to test out an application’s scalability in a quality

assurance lab.

■ The SAP Process Performance Management application by

Software AG, which enables process measurement, monitor-

ing, and analysis of current business processes.

■ The SAP Quality Center application by HP, which offers a

fast, reliable way to test a new application, helping you reveal

application shortcomings and address any problems before

implementation.

To learn more about SAP’s IT management solution exten-

sions, visit http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-29490. n

For more information about SAP’s solution

extensions, visit http://scn.sap.com/

community/solution-extensions.