SAP: World Tour and Sapphire Round-up

Enterprise software firm SAP gave details of succesful implementations with Vodafone and Activa Healthcare at its SAP UK World Tour event yesterday.

Vodafone announced that it has adopted SAP's MaxAttention solution to safeguard the Global Rollout of SAP ERP which began in 2007 and will be completed this year, according to Marcus Cotes, Vodafone's head of ERP who was speaking at the event.

The mobile operator has combined SAP services MaxAttention and SAP Product Support for Large Enterprises.

Vodafone said it has already achieved an ROI on its ERP solution as a result of SAP's effficient implementation.

Activa Healthcare, a healthcare company specialising in compression hosiery for circulartory and lymphatic health took on SAP BusinessObjects Edge Business Intelligence Software in 2008, and said that it had since established visibility of £2m in lost revenue.

"For a company intent on telling its customers the truth about products, the lack of a single version of the truth about our operations had become embarrassing," said Activa's IT manager, James Turner.

The company also said that three new partners have joined the SAP Business ByDesign community in the UK: CSI, a provider of solutions to customers based on SAP, IBM and Infor products; Nouveau Solutions, a reseller providing hosting services, support, development services and software resale to SMB's in the UK; and Softcat, a privately owned provider of software licensing, hardware, security and related IT services to SMB's.

Meanwhile, at its sister event – Sapphire Now, held in Orlando, Florida – a three-day event due to finish today – SAP said that it hopes to boost mobile worker productivity with the release of real-time enterprise mobility apps.

SAP co-chief executives Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe have announced a series of new mobile apps built on the Sybase Unwired Platform aimed at mobilising business processes and business information across key industries, including manufacturing, consumer products, utilities, high tech, oil and gas, and retail.

Elsewhere, SAP customers such as The Dow Chemical Company and Nokia have deployed SAP Business ByDesign at their subsidiaries, and Accenture and SAP have formed a strategic relationship to develop and deploy new mobility solutions.