SAP TO RELEASE NEXT-GENERATION SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT SOLUTION TO DRIVE TRANSFORMATION OF GLOBAL BUSINESS NETWORKS

New SAP® SCM Release Will Address Global Supply Chain Needs for Increased Network Visibility and Enhanced Collaboration with Business Partners Worldwide; Enterprise SOA Enables Flexible Deployment Options

ORLANDO, Fla. - 26 februari 2008 - Further delivering on its commitment to provide software solutions enabling companies to increase visibility into essential information and simplify collaboration with their global network of business partners and customers, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today introduced the upcoming new release of its industry-leading supply chain management solution. In today’s global economy with its accelerated speed of change, a company’s business network is becoming its primary source of competitive differentiation. By transforming its network of employees, suppliers, customers, partners and distributors into a collaborative, customer-focused, demand-driven community, a company can intelligently adapt to changing market conditions and gain competitive advantage through accelerated innovation. A flexible supply chain management solution builds the foundation for the seamless integration of geographically dispersed business partners and optimized planning, execution and coordination of business processes within such a network. The announcement was made at the SAP Insider Conference for Logistics and Supply Chain Management, being held in Orlando, Florida, February 25 – 27.

“Managing relationships with geographically dispersed customers, suppliers and partners has resulted in a need for increased levels of adaptability, collaboration and visibility when dealing with supply chain solutions,” said Andrew White, research vice president, Gartner. “As companies expand their operations globally and outsource production, they are faced with the challenge of maintaining timely and accurate supply chain data, responding to shifting customer demand, and reducing costs to remain competitive. The more that these companies can optimize their supply chain software solutions to better collaborate with the various parties involved, the better positioned they are for long-term success.”

New Capabilities Will Help Companies Meet Global Business Challenges

Developed in close collaboration with existing SAP customers to address challenges such as supply chain responsiveness and integration with partner ecosystems, the latest release of the SAP® Supply Chain Management (SAP SCM) application will include enhanced functionality for supply network collaboration (SNC), extended warehouse management (EWM) and enhanced planning. Highly targeted business benefits will include:

Closer collaboration with business partners to improve visibility

Enhanced capabilities for outsourced manufacturing in SNC to improve supply network inventory and work order collaboration.
Functionality for supplier collaboration enables suppliers to create Web-based invoices, leading to quicker response times for improved product turnaround.
Enhanced replenishment collaboration (vendor-managed inventory) with new and broader capabilities and a unique menu approach displayable in various levels of detail, depending on the supplier’s needs.

Maximized workforce planning to increase productivity

Enhanced labor management functionality to maximize the productivity of the warehouse workforce with out-of-the-box reporting, designed for direct and indirect labor.

Enhanced planning to improve efficiency

Enhancements to advanced planning and optimization, mainly in supply network planning as well as production planning and detailed scheduling to help businesses create new innovative planning scenarios that optimize capacity utilization and help ensure timely delivery.
New features such as capacity reservations help shorten delivery times to strategic customers.

“SAP is dedicated to providing solutions that meet and predict the needs of our customers, enabling them to solve business challenges across diverse industries,” said Lori Mitchell Keller, senior vice president, suite solution management, SAP AG. “SAP is the trusted partner for companies facing emerging challenges such as the broader geographic dispersion of partners, which stretches the supply chain and increases fulfillment risks. SAP SCM further underscores our commitment to support customers in their accelerated effort to innovate their supply chains to gain competitive advantage.”

SAP has more than 14,500 SAP SCM customers in all market segments, and Gartner, Inc. has ranked SAP as the worldwide market share leader in the SCM software marketplace based on total software revenue for 20061. SAP SCM is part of and fully integrated with the SAP® Business Suite family of business applications, including SAP® ERP. All SAP Business Suite applications are based on the SAP NetWeaver® technology platform, which enables companies to leverage existing IT resources and thereby reduce the total cost of ownership across the entire IT landscape.

Leveraging enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA), the functionalities of the new release will be delivered as services, enabling customers to deploy and adapt solutions specifically to their individual business needs. Customers will be able to, for example, deploy functionalities such as supply network collaboration and extended warehouse management without installing and deploying the complete SCM solution. This delivery approach will enable rapid deployment and faster return on investment.

SAP SCM will be generally available to customers in the middle of 2008.

1 Gartner, Inc., “Market Share: SCM Software, Worldwide, 2006” by Chad Eschinger, Chris Pang, Yanna Dharmasthira, Koji Motoyoshi, June 2007

Over SAP

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