SAP Business Economist Offers Real World Awareness Vision to Drive Adaptive Business Networks
Second Book from SAP Executive Provides Commentary, Analysis and Framework to Help Decision Makers Understand and Responsibly Deploy RFID Technologies
CHICAGO, Ill. - March 07, 2005 - SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced the second business management book by SAP executive board member and business economist Claus Heinrich, outlining SAP’s vision for next-generation business environments and technologies that will change how companies sense and respond to market dynamics in the near and distant future. In the new book, RFID and Beyond: Growing Your Business through Real World Awareness, Heinrich expands upon the concept of the adaptive business network introduced in his first book, Adapt or Die - Transforming Your Supply Chain into an Adaptive Business Network, in which a company’s business processes are so tightly integrated with those of its key business partners, suppliers and customers that it can respond swiftly to any shift in customer demand, new market opportunity or external threat. The announcement was made at National Manufacturing Week, being held in Chicago, Illinois, March 7 – 10.
Written for an audience of business executives and decision makers, RFID and Beyond examines adaptive business processes, emerging technologies and how “real world aware” practices—using technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, smart cards and sensors that read information from IT systems and physical objects—are helping companies respond in real time to unexpected business challenges. A must-read for executives, the book also provides a framework for implementing RFID and explores how it and other innovative technologies enable SAP’s strategic vision for real world awareness.
“The next stage of computer evolution is all about giving machines the ability to sense and respond to the real world,” said Mark Roberti, editor, RFID Journal. “RFID is a big part—but far from the only part—of that trend. Heinrich’s book puts RFID in this context. This book will be useful for any business person who wants to understand why RFID and other real-time technologies will have a major impact on the way companies do business.”
RFID Best Practices Gleaned from Early Adopters
The book presents early implementation projects using real world aware technologies, featuring interviews with top executives and first-movers across various industries including commentary from Delta Airlines, Dell Inc., Infineon, Intel Corporation, METRO Group, Nokia Corporation, Procter & Gamble and Team McLaren Mercedes. In addition, contributions from renowned academic and research institutes such as Cap Gemini, Darmstadt University of Technology, Forrester Research and Massachusetts Institute of Technology examine innovative research into, and the relevant social and political issues surrounding, real world aware technologies.
“For 30 years, the entire IT industry has struggled to allow executives to run their businesses based on real time information,” said Bruce Richardson, senior vice president of Research Strategy, AMR Research. “RFID and Beyond shows how the last step in this long process is being achieved and how business will change as a result of it. This book is a vital guide for those who seek a deep understanding of these developments.”
The Drive for Adaptive Business Networks
Many companies today are under increasing cost pressure to improve their operations and accommodate declining pricing. They are looking for ways to be more flexible and responsive to consumer demands. The relevance of the traditional forecast-driven supply chain declines as business environments become more complex and differentiated. Flexibility, adaptability and access to data are key determinants of the value chain of the future. RFID and Beyond: Growing Your Business through Real World Awareness helps executives contend with this increasingly competitive and consumer-driven environment that is marked by high levels of complexity, an accelerated pace of innovation and a greater need for customization.
RFID and Beyond outlines SAP’s vision of real world awareness and describes how it leverages RFID to give companies access to real-time data from their entire business ecosystem, allowing them to respond more effectively to changes in the market and their business environment. Companies that implement real world aware technologies benefit from increased efficiency and forecasting, predictive maintenance processes, streamlined asset and service parts management and thus the opportunity to leverage entirely new business models.
In a broader sense, RFID and real world awareness enable a manufacturing company to realize an adaptive business network. With the data provided via RFID, a company can integrate its business scenarios across the company, respond with speed to any customer demand and quickly adapt to a new market opportunity or external threat.
“RFID and real world aware technologies will undoubtedly change the way that we look not only at our businesses but also at the world at large,” said Claus Heinrich, member of the executive board, SAP AG. “The ability to sense information about the real world in a wholesale manner and seamlessly deliver real-time input to the IT systems that power business decisions and processes represents a significant step in the realization and evolution of the adaptive business network.”
Claus Heinrich Presents on RFID and Real World Awareness
Claus Heinrich and leading voices in the manufacturing industry will discuss how RFID and real world awareness are integrally connected to the adaptive business network in a panel called “The Future of Manufacturing” at National Manufacturing Week in Chicago on March 8.
About Claus Heinrich
Prof. Dr. Claus E. Heinrich has been a member of the executive board of SAP AG since 1996. During his 18 years at SAP, he has headed up multiple areas, including SAP® R/3® development, SAP’s manufacturing industry solutions, human resources and labor relations. Widely recognized as a practitioner and an international thought-leader in the supply chain management and RFID space, Heinrich serves on the boards of several academic institutions, as well as that of a consumer packaged goods company. With a doctorate in Business Administration, he is also the author of several articles and books including 'Adapt or Die - Transforming Your Supply Chain into an Adaptive Business Network' and ‘RFID and Beyond: Growing Your Business through Real World Awareness.’ He also lectures as a professor of Management Science at the University of Mannheim, Germany.
About SAP
SAP is the world’s leading provider of business software solutions*. Today, more than 26,150 customers in over 120 countries run more than 88,700 installations of SAP® software—from distinct solutions addressing the needs of small and midsize businesses to enterprise-scale suite solutions for global organizations. Powered by the SAP NetWeaver™ platform to drive innovation and enable business change, mySAP™ Business Suite solutions are helping enterprises around the world improve customer relationships, enhance partner collaboration and create efficiencies across their supply chains and business operations. SAP industry solutions support the unique business processes of more than 25 industry segments, including high tech, retail, public sector and financial services. With subsidiaries in more than 50 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE under the symbol “SAP.” (Additional information at <http://www.sap.com>)
(*) SAP defines business software solutions as comprising enterprise resource planning and related software solutions such as supply chain management, customer relationship management, product life-cycle management and supplier relationship management.
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