The way people work, consume content and experience technology to get things done is changing at a rapid pace, and there is a growing expectation and demand in the workplace for consumer-friendly experiences when using technology to accomplish tasks. Addressing the needs of today’s business user, SAP has launched SAP Fiori, a collection of apps that are simple, easy-to-use and provide an intuitive user experience for broadly and frequently used SAP software functions, across a variety of devices — desktop, tablet, smartphone — to help easily get the job done.

The first release of SAP Fiori includes 25 apps for the most common business functions, such as workflow approvals, information lookups and self-service tasks. SAP is redefining the way business users perform their daily tasks by creating a more intuitive format and user experience, similar to the way they interact with technology in everyday life.

“We are on a mission to renew the experience across all of our applications. Users demand simplicity and ease of use, and SAP Fiori brings this experience to our customers,” said Vishal Sikka, Member of the Executive Board of SAP AG, Technology and Innovation. “SAP customers can adopt SAP Fiori immediately and bring instant value to all their employees.”

SAP Fiori was developed by working closely with over 250 customers to understand the most commonly used business functions and ways in which the user experience for those functions could be improved and simplified. Early users of SAP Fiori have reported tremendous business benefits, including increased employee productivity and satisfaction, reduced work completion time and increased adoption of business processes.

SAP Fiori is a collection of apps that can be used on mobile devices and desktops using browsers that support HTML5. SAP Fiori leverages responsive design, the concept of making apps sensitive to the form factor of devices with a single user interface. The SAP Fiori apps can be deployed in multiple ways; as a collection of apps with a single launch-pad, as multiple Web apps, and they can be consumed from SAP or third-party portals. SAP Fiori can also be configured to give access to a sub-set of apps based on user roles.

The first release of SAP Fiori includes apps for the following four user roles: manager, employee, sales representative and purchasing agent. Some of the example apps are: approve leave requests, approve travel expenses, timesheet, paystubs, create sales orders, customer invoices and track purchase order.

Source:http://biztech2.in.com/news/mobility/sap-unveils-sap-fiori-for-better-enterprise-software-experience/158622/0

European software giant SAP has presented an optimistic outlook for this year, saying it would aim to post double-digit growth in 2013. Booming business in the cloud is one of the firm’s new drivers.

Europe’s largest software company, SAP of Germany, on Wednesday reported it was aiming to log double-digit growth in the current year. The announcement from the Walldorf-based company came after a year of record sales, but shrinking profit.

“We’re confident we will continue our growth momentum in 2013 and further improve our profitability,” Chief Financial Officer Werner Brandt said in a statement.
Based on calculations in line with the International Financial Reporting System (IFRS), SAP last year saw its revenues rising by 14 percent to 16.22 billion euros ($21.6 billion). But bottom-line net profit dipped 16 percent year-on-year to 2.83 billion euros primarily due to costly strategic acquisitions.

SAP shares big winners

But it’s those takeovers which would see the company in good shape in 2013, CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe maintained.
SAP completed its acquisition of California-based cloud computing firm Ariba after taking over US company SuccessFactors, another expert in cloud-based operations.
“Business in the cloud has only just started for SAP with those acquisitions,” said Jim Hagemann Snabe. “Now we have the speed to deliver innovative solutions to our customers.”

Investors appeared pleased with SAP’s optimistic outlook for the months ahead, sending the company’s shares up in early trading at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and making the stock the biggest gainer in Germany’s blue-chip DAX-30 index.

Source:http://www.dw.de/software-giant-sap-eyes-double-digit-growth/a-16545498

SAP AG (SAP) unveiled the most significant overhaul to its mainstay enterprise software in two decades, in a move to cement its dominance in that market while springing an attack on Oracle Corp. (ORCL)’s database business.

At an event in Palo Alto, California, the German company showed a much faster version of its Business Suite software running on top of its Hana database. By speeding up business tasks from pricing airline tickets to predicting weather, SAP is pushing to replace database software from Oracle, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) that customers use to process and analyze information, SAP executives said.

“This is like the fight for the mobile phone — the best companies in the world are competing,” Hasso Plattner, co- founder and supervisory board chairman, said in an interview. “I’m comfortable because I see a clear path ahead.”

The move bolsters a core product, which still accounts for the bulk of SAP’s revenue, after a switch in focus in the past three years to expand into mobile and Internet-based software. The company, which has traditionally had to rely on databases supplied by Oracle and IBM, is also betting new features will convince customers to choose its own product.

Investors in the U.S. reacted positively to the news, sending SAP shares up 2.9 percent to $82.40 at the close in New York. The shares have advanced 53 percent in the past year.

“SAP is serious about expanding its strategic direction in the database market,” Rick Sherlund, an analyst at Nomura Holdings Inc., said in a note to clients yesterday. “We view the Hana initiatives as a strategic positive in repositioning the company for growth.” Sherlund has a buy rating on the shares.

‘Comparable Price’

SAP’s Hana software stores data in faster computer memory instead of on slower disk drives, and lets customers handle business transaction data and its analysis in the same system, instead of buying two different products.

“We’re dramatically challenging the database market with a new value proposition and a next-generation technology,” Jim Hagemann Snabe, co-Chief Executive Officer, said in an interview in Frankfurt. He called the new Business Suite the biggest breakthrough in applications since SAP released the R/3 software in 1992.

SAP is pricing Hana so customers won’t need to pay more in licensing fees that they do for existing databases that handle processing and analysis needs for their SAP software, executives said. About 40,000 SAP customers run its applications on Oracle or IBM databases.

“If they use Hana they will get a comparable price even though you could argue it is the best and fastest database in the market,” said Snabe.

‘Flagship Product’

SAP, based in Walldorf, Germany, has about 22 percent of the market for software that lets companies manage tasks such as payroll, inventory and product management, according to Panorama Consulting Solutions. Redwood City, California-based Oracle has a 15 percent share, followed by Microsoft with 10 percent.

“This is their flagship product, they have to get this right,” said Ray Wang, CEO of Constellation Research Inc. “If the performance difference is creating a huge competitive advantage, I would imagine that a lot of people would consider” adopting Hana, he said.

SAP is targeting close to 1,000 customers using some components of Business Suite using Hana by the end of the year, said Bernd Leukert, executive vice president for application innovation.
Plattner said SAP may exert more influence with computer makers over how servers running its products are designed.

“I see that SAP will have a bigger role in designing servers,” Plattner said.

Test Customers

Analysts project that the company’s operating profit grew 12 percent to 5.27 billion euros last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That would beat the company’s forecast range of 5.05 billion euros to 5.25 billion euros. SAP is scheduled to report earnings Jan. 23.

SAP introduced the technology in 2011 and has since worked to boost its adoption through subsidies and encouraging startups to develop applications to take advantage of its speed. Its goal for last year was to more than double Hana revenue from 160 million euros.

SAP has tested the Hana-driven Business Suite with more than 10 customers including Deere & Co. (DE), the largest agricultural equipment maker. Deere will be able to use the software to offer services to farmers who have Deere equipment, including weather and crop advice based on weather patterns, Aiaz Kazi, SAP’s head of technology and innovation platform marketing, said in an interview.

‘Real Time’

The technology would let a beverage manufacturer optimize delivery routes by showing a real-time overview of stocks in stores across a particular region. A large airline is using it to determine ticket prices for individual customers on the fly.

Kurt de Ruwe, the chief information officer of Bayer AG (BAYN)’s MaterialScience unit, which is one of the pilot clients, said the time required for common data analysis tasks were cut to 3 seconds from 30 seconds, while costs went down 20 percent from the previous setup.

“We couldn’t believe how fast the data came back,” de Ruwe said in Frankfurt. “Today we are constrained by time, but with Hana our outlook could change.”

SAP plans to offer all its programs on the Hana platform eventually, and to announce as early as May that tools from its SuccessFactors and Ariba units will run on Hana, Kazi said.

SAP said it will start providing a rapid-deployment feature this quarter for implementation within six months for customers migrating to Hana. Still, Snabe vowed that Business Suite would continue supporting rival databases.

He said SAP is trying to train a workforce for quickly delivering the new software and adjusting it to clients’ systems, to avoid a “skill gap” that could slow adoption.

Source:http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-11/sap-challenges-oracle-by-boosting-flagship-software-speed.html