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Top tips for recruiting and retaining the right people in SAP
Recruiting, then retaining the right people in SAP can be a daunting and challenging experience in a candidate-scarce, competitive SAP market. SAP-run organisations all seek people who have the right SAP skills, fit within their culture and contribute to maximising the benefits of their SAP investment. If it wasnt hard enough to find them, then the challenge is to keep them! Finding, then keeping, the best SAP people, is possible. Read on for the top tips from the Director of Australias leading SAP Resource Provider.
9 Look abroad
The challenge now and in the future for all SAP-run organisations is a skills shortage within Australia, particularly in emerging technologies. The first SAP offshore installation was in 1972, the first in Australia was 1987, so the global market had a 15 year head start! There are highly skilled candidates in more mature markets, so be open to sponsoring them into permanent positions, and for contract positions, engage SAP resource providers holding a DIAC labour on-hire agreement.
For more information on recruiting and retaining the SAP talent you need contact Leanne OConnor on 1300 897 820
Systems and People Pty Ltd t 1300 897 820 f 1300 897 920 leanne.oconnor@systemsandpeople.com.au www.systemsandpeople.com.au
melbourne sydney
recruitment
consulting
contractor management
melbourne sydney
CONTENTS
11
13
15
24
28
38
4 5 8
Editors note Quarterly news roundup News in focus: SAP lifts Standard Support fees
18 22 24 27
Certication: is it worth the trouble? Searching in a bigger pond Skilling up the next generation of SAP superstars Young ICT Explorers to expand in 2013
37 38 40
Is your business prepared for the Superannuation Guarantee changes? Peter Stulcbauer Taking analytics to the world Will SAP ride the wave of enterprise mobility? Donrich W. Jordaan
Interview 9 11
Anthony McMahon: HANA, mobility breaking new customer ground for SAP Sean OBrien: Driving urban innovation
Case studies 28 32
Better systems, safer communities: Fire & Rescue NSW Riding the rails to success: UGL UniPart
Collaboration 43
Next generation networking Lynton Howes
Prole 13
Alexandra Carvalho: Blazing the trail for female geeks
45 48 50 51
Technology 34 36
Dawn of a new era: SAP Business Suite on HANA Counting the cost of implementing SAP Business One Dennis Marketos
www.insidesap.com.au 3
EDITOR
Managing Editor/Publisher
Freya Purnell t. (02) 9929 5465 m. 0412 602 579 freya@apjack.com.au
Journalist/Editorial Assistant
Eleanor Reader t. (02) 9929 5465 eleanor@apjack.com.au
Creative Director
Justin Knights t. (02) 9929 5465 m. 0425 292 075 justin@apjack.com.au
Advertising Sales
Laura Blackwell t. 02 8011 4822 m. 0412 685 864 laura@apjack.com.au
Contributors
Dennis Marketos, Peter Stulcbauer, Donrich W. Jordaan, Lynton Howes
Published by
FlapJack Media Pty Ltd Suite 7, Level 9, 122 Arthur St North Sydney NSW 2060 ABN: 93 142 878 135
2013 FlapJack Media Pty Ltd. Inside SAP is published four times a year by FlapJack Media Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced in whole or part without the written permission of the publishers. FlapJack Media Pty Ltd makes no representation or warranties with respect to this magazine or its contents including, without limitation, material communicated by third parties. FlapJack Media Pty Ltd does not warrant that the information available in this magazine is accurate, complete or current. Opinions expressed are those of the respective authors and not necessarily of the publisher. Neither FlapJack Media Pty Ltd nor any persons involved in the preparation of this publication will be liable for any loss or damage as a result of use of or reliance upon advice, representation, statement, opinion or conclusion expressed in Inside SAP magazine.
Freya Purnell Managing Editor, Inside SAP P.s. Dont forget, print subscriptions to Inside SAP are now free for Australian and New Zealand readers, so your colleagues cam sign up for their own copy of the magazine at www.insidesap.com.au/subscribe. Interested in ordering bulk copies to give to your staff, users or clients? Email us at editor@insidesap.com.au.
NEWS ROUNDUP
SAP has taken on big data competition Oracle, IBM and Microsoft with the launch of Business Suite on HANA. The new solution brings together SAPs popular integrated applications with the analytical platform to allow customers to process both transactional and analytical data in real-time. According to SAP, this development makes it the only vendor to offer business apps that analyse transactional data in real time on a single in-memory platform.
SAP has announced it will acquire inventory optimisation vendor SmartOps enabling it to develop real-time supply chain software solutions on the SAP HANA platform. With the addition of SmartOps, SAP will be able to dramatically accelerate and improve the performance of real-time worldclass supply chain management solutions that give customers the decisive competitive edge to succeed and grow their business, said Abdul Razack, senior vice president and head of customer engagement and strategic projects, SAP. As part of the acquisition, SmartOps employees will join SAP. The transaction was expected to close during the fi rst quarter of 2013.
SAP has pulled out of its SAPPHIRE NOW conference in Madrid in 2013, instead focusing its efforts on dedicated customer-centric events for customers and partners in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In a statement, SAP said it plans to expand existing SAP Forum events and schedule additional SAP Forums in key markets, with programs and content to be customised to the needs of local and regional customers and partners.
SAP Research has moved its operations previously located at the Future Logistics Living Lab in Sydney to Brisbane. According to an SAP ANZ spokesperson, the change will enable SAP Research in Australia to improve its focus on key programs such as HANA Sensor and Sustainable Business Networks, maximise its business impact, increase the relevance of R&D activities for SAP, and engage in research commercialisation opportunities.
Sydneys Equinix data centre has been chosen to host SAP s fi rst multi-tenant cloud solutions for Australian customers. SuccessFactors began offering its SaaS solutions within the data centre on 18 October 2012 after the company re-examined its global data centre footprint. Vice president of SuccessFactors, Robert Yue, said customers can now enjoy the privacy and security of retaining their data on Australian shores.
More than 500 SuccessFactors partners will be transitioned into the SAP PartnerEdge program in 2013 after SAP announced the program is now supporting an expanded portfolio of SAP cloud solutions. PartnerEdge has been designed for partners that resell, build or provide implementation services for SAP solutions across the SAP portfolio. The move will also make partnering easier, with one contract enabling partners to sell all the cloud solutions available, rather than one contract per cloud solution.
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NEWS ROUNDUP
Everjoy Consulting has been approved under the NSW Government Contingent Workforce Scheme as of March 2013. The approval allows Everjoy to provide contingent resources to all departments of NSW Government, something they have only been able to offer private sector clients in the past. We see this appointment as an opportunity to assist the NSW Government to achieve ROI through their SAP projects within a shorter period, said Adrian Everett, managing director, Everjoy Consulting.
Project news
Luxottica Retail Australia has become the fi rst SAP customer in APJ to go live with SAP Social Media Analytics by Netbase. The company signed up for a 24-month subscription in a bid to utilise the customer web insights and incorporate them in campaigns. Greg Harbor, regional vice president cloud sales and GTM, SAP APJ said the solution provides Luxotticas marketing team with accurate, real-time analytics that allow them to understand markets through the social web. It processes billions of social media posts across millions of sites globally to extract structured insights that Luxottica Retail Australia can use to quickly discover market needs and trends, he said. State government-owned electricity provider, Hydro Tasmania, has chosen UXC Oxygen to implement and maintain a new SAP ERP platform. The new system will allow the utilities company to modernise its software infrastructure and remain competitive in the market. Hydro Tasmania settled on Oxygen for the project due to its expertise in the SAP space and experience in the SAP market. Oxygen predicts the project will exceed $25 million for the implementation and ongoing support. Tender documents released in February 2013 reveal the Tasmanian Government may shift its whole-of-government HR and payroll system to the cloud. The current system has been in place for 17 years and uses a multi-tenanted consortium model that includes 10 payroll systems that calculate and pay nearly $1 billion each year for a total of 28,000 employees across 43 awards and agreements. The government has tendered for an independent consultant to assess the current system, conduct a feasibility study and createe a detailed roadmap of the HR/payroll infrastructure. According to the tender, the feasibility study should include the consideration of a move to a more contemporary environment (Software-as-a-Service or cloud environment) to deliver efficiencies. One of Australasias largest beverage manufacturers and distributors, Frucor, has implemented the SAP HANA platform to run its SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse application. The platform integrates structured and unstructured data from internal and external sources, performs server-intensive transformation in the main memory and can work on detailed data without aggregations. SAP partner, Realtech, worked with Frucor to implement the solution into the companys cloud operating environment, making it one of the fi rst implementations of SAP HANA in New Zealand. The project went live in December, with a continuing roll out through January.
Partner news
SAP Gold Channel partner NTT DATA Business Solutions announced the acquisition of business analytics and SAP HANA consulting firm, Innogence, in December last year. Innogence has been integrated into NTT DATAs Australian state-based delivery model under the newly formed Enterprise Information Division, to be headed by Phil Cameron, former CEO of Innogence. Now the largest SAP business analytics and SAP database and technology practice in the Asia-Pacific, the company is ready to take on tier one integrators. SAP has partnered with Samsung in a bid to make mobile devices running the Android operating system more secure for enterprise use. The two companies will collaborate to produce SAP KNOX, an end-to-end secure solution that provides security hardening from hardware through to the application layer. The solution will build on the foundation of the SAFE Certification and provide users enhanced security at all levels of the Android platform. IBM and SAP have partnered to launch a global service for cloud and big data called IBM SmartCloud Enterprise+, which will allow enterprises to access, run and store all their SAP applications in the cloud from data centres across the globe. SCE+ is intended to go beyond public IaaS clouds by offering high service-level agreements, security and reliability along with elasticity and subscription-based pricing. The service enables enterprises access from the cloud to core applications such as ERP, CRM, analytics, social business and mobile computing and will support SAP applications include BusinessObjects and Business Suite software. NTT DATA Corporation has cracked $1 billion in SAP software-related services globally at the completion of its fiscal third quarter. The IT services provider attributes its cohesive Global ONE strategy - that aligns capabilities and client services in support of SAP solutions for the double-digit growth it has experienced in mature markets across North America, Europe and emerging Asian markets.
NEWS IN FOCUS
STANDARD SUPPORT
As SAP HANA and Syclo gain traction in the AsiaPacic Japan region, they are proving to be the catalyst for SAP to bring new customers into the fold. Freya Purnell and Eleanor Reader report.
www.insidesap.com.au 9
been somewhat overshadowed in the data platform space. What we have been doing both in our roadmap and development, and our discussion with customers is positioning what we call the real-time data platform, which is really a combination of all that great pedigree from the Sybase assets with HANA at the core, McMahon says. He says SAP has been working with customers to ensure they understand the respective benets and applications of the standalone ASE and IQ products, but they have also brought the best parts of those solutions into HANA. The recent release of IQ 16 is the result of continued investment in the Sybase products, and McMahon says that without the push towards big data in HANA, the IQ development path may have been different to its current focus on building a near-line storage capability. Its the core of the real-time platform, but its an acknowledgement that these assets have to operate and compete. Its been a good story for existing Sybase customers, and I think its a good story for people migrating from competitive database products that have already bet on the application piece with us, he says.
Mobile momentum
Australia has not only been fertile ground for HANA, but following the Syclo acquisition a year ago, Australia has also
been the best performing country globally for SAPs mobile business. Eight of the top 10 mobile deals in Australia over the last year came from the Syclo portfolio, reecting the strength of asset-intensive industries in Australia, such as utilities, transportation, and oil and gas. This is motivated by a desire for efciencies, particularly in industries with capital expenditures, and also a continued drive for risk management around maintenance. But the maturity of the Australian market, and a willingness to try new things, is also creating this momentum. Everyone is talking about what they are going to do with their customers customer, or to enable their partners or their employees to interact and interrogate the data and the systems they have, McMahon says. Smartphone adoption is probably faster and more entrenched in the way people do business in markets like Korea, however Australia is really embracing the tablet side and using that to see how it can differentiate their business. When the NBN comes out as well, that is going to encourage new business models. There is a certain amount of competitiveness and expectation that comes out of the Korean market, which is premised on the fact that the fastest broadband and highest adoption.
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the ability to deploy that in a way that somebody who receives that information can make a decision quickly is a challenge. So this convergence of volume, velocity and access has created a huge demand for real-time in public security. ISAP: Are governments wary about making signicant new technology investments? SO: We have seen a shift where governments used to do very big transformational projects. Thats still relevant, but more and more they are wanting to do smaller technology projects quick time to buy, quick time to benet, has an immediate impact, must be seen and visible outside, and there is a much stronger political connection to those projects. Thats the thing thats very different. This is why mobile, real-time and cloud is relevant because these things can be delivered very quickly. ISAP: In Australia, where do you see potential in terms of taking government and urban management to the next level? SO: Cloud, mobile and real-time. I think mobile rst is really a game changing technology for how government delivers, consumes and executes services. I have heard lots of stories about how mobile has been deployed in Australia and I think thats going to continue. More and more cloud technology will be deployed in innovative ways. This ability to have real-time analysis of information, predictive analysis and to deploy that in devices and to enable citizens to consume some of that information is very key and I think open government and open data is driving that really in a big way. ISAP: How can we stimulate innovation in urban management, when it comes to technology investment? SO: The role of the CIO has been changing or they are being introduced in many cities or urban governments as chief innovation ofcers. I think the key is technology is seen as an innovation driver in government. Is the right funding from federal and state government being put into innovation around technology, and are the people that are trying to solve the problems in government aware of the power of technology to solve those problems? Are technology companies and solution companies engaging at the right level with government and are they willing to co-innovate with government to bring in disruptive technology? What doesnt work is if you think to be a smart city, you just choose one vendor, ick a switch and the next day you are smart it doesnt work that way. Its a constant challenge and it requires many, many people in the ecosystem, many components, many parts of the community, many parts of the government to come together with technology companies to make small incremental innovations that can then have a disruptive impact.
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Are the people that are trying to solve the problems in government aware of the power of technology to solve those problems?
Sean OBrien, global lead, Urban Matters and public safety, SAP
ALEXANDRA CARVALHO
PROFILE
the SAP community in Australia. She says women who are SAP consultants and have moved to Australia from overseas, perhaps with a partner, can find it difficult to land their first job, so she uses her own network to help them get established. It was important not only because I was an SAP Mentor, but because I could actually represent women in our region. They can see another woman who knows SAP, is a very technical person, knows the technology and they can actually relate to me. Because there is always this misconception that women are not technical, she says. Even with the skills and experience at their disposal, Carvalho believes women have to fight to move through the ranks of the SAP community, which is still very male-dominated. Im very technical and got into the business side of things, but when people first look at you, they dont expect a woman to be a geek, as were called. There is an expectation that a geek is a man, and I dont tick those boxes, she says. What I say to any woman I come cross is it is hard, but its not impossible. If you really want it and set your mind to it, you will get there, but you do need to have that extra level of training and determination.
Disruptive innovation in BI
In the business intelligence space, the most significant shift Carvalho has observed in recent years is the availability of tools such as HANA to tackle the challenges of big data, which has truly changed how data
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can be analysed quickly, accurately and in new ways. Having worked with a Melbourne-based electricity company on a big data project, she points to utilities as an industry which is being transformed by the ability to better analyse electricity consumption so they can negotiate better rates when buying from distributors. Having HANA and being able to analyse big data was a massive change, and they managed to save millions and millions of dollars in just knowing the right consumption and how much they needed to buy from their suppliers, she says. Pervasive BI is another major change, in terms of how end users actually access BI. This is democratising business intelligence. The fact that we now have DIY tools like Visual Intelligence, where SAP is promoting heavily the capacity of users to interact and do their own reporting, means that they can see things they couldnt see before, and become more effective at work. So its a combination of DIY analytics, mobility and big data in HANA, that if you put them together, its really powerful.
When people rst look at you, they dont expect a woman to be a geek. Alexandra Carvalho, managing director, BI Group
Especially with the emergence of HANA, there is much talk about what the future is for SAP BW but Carvalho believes there will a natural evolution of the product. BW is going to be the enterprise data warehouse where you bring all the data together from the various SAP systems as well as the non-SAP legacy systems, but we may have HANA as being the SAP BI system running in-memory. So I expect BW to be there in the future, and the technology underlying to change to be in-memory. Looking forward to continuing her role in the SAP community, now as an SAP Mentor, Carvalhos advice to other women seeking to carve out a career in SAP is perhaps not surprising to find a mentor. You are responsible for your own results. I attach myself to people I respect, and I am always getting their feedback and listening to them to nd ways of improving. Find someone you trust and keep putting one step in front of the other just move forward and dont stop because someones telling you its not for you.
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Skills in demand
Recruiters are constantly searching for SAP professionals with high demand skillsets at the right price and the right time. It will probably come as no surprise that new dimension technologies such as SAP HANA are high on recruiters shopping list at the moment. The ability to understand and articulate the benets of recent technology developments around HANA and mobility is a signi cant advantage, says Everett. Acheson says the highest demand he is seeing is for ABAP developers, professionals with experience in logistics, materials management, Human Capital Management (HCM), e-recruitment, human resources, and SAP trainers. We also see high demand for architects and project managers, however the highest demand is for functional consultants with specialist module or industry experience, such as IS-Retail, IS-U, CRM, PS, FICO and FICA, he says. OConnor is also seeing strong appetite for functional consultants, with CRM, SRM and APO proving the most desirable at present. Other roles that are high in demand are BW/ BO specialists, solution architects, PO (PI) developers and CRM developers across the FMCG, utilities, retail and SI consulting organisation sectors, she says. And while technical skills are highly regarded, Everett says his team is seeing requests for SAP professionals who have true business-facing skills, across all roles and sectors. We see the key driver for demand to be the ability to liaise with a business in relation to project needs, best practice and similar, he says.
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industry-speci c skills are high in demand. Speci c skill areas he names include ABAP developers, FICO and HCM functional specialists. Valuable technical and business skills for OConnor are BW/BO, PO (PI), CRM functional and technical, mobility solutions, functional con guration in niche modules and business analysis. On the other side of the coin, she deems soft skills such as communication, consulting and customer engagement as very valuable.
SAP ABAP
$90,000 $130,000
$100,000 $120,000
$110,000 $150,000
Solution Architect
$130,000 $200,000
$150,000 $180,000
SAP Trainer
$100,000 $160,000
Emerging areas
All three recruitment specialists name SAP HANA as an emerging technical platform where the demand for expertise will only continue to rise. We expect to see this take off over the next 12 months and to grow to the same demand as something like SQL,
says Acheson. Everett also names mobility as an area in the SAP ecosystem that will continue to see growth. Along with HANA, OConnor says emerging skills areas to watch include BusinessObjects including Data Services GRC and IDM, PPM, BPC and SuccessFactors.
The independent magazine for SAP professionals
Inside SAP would like to thank Systems and People, Peoplebank, Greythorn and Everjoy Consulting for contributing salary data and market insights for this article.
SAP ABAP
$600 $950
$600 $950
$800 $1000
$700 $1200
Database Administrator
$500 $950
Solution Architect
$900 $1300
$900 $1400
SAP Trainer
certification
solution area. It validates that they possess the skills needed to contribute value as part of a project team, and is heavily based on training, although some initial experience is needed to pass, she says. By contrast, Professional-level certification validates the skills of a team lead or project manager with at least four years of experience, with a much broader integration knowledge and experience required to pass exams.
Criticisms of certification
Over the years, a number of criticisms have been raised regarding SAP certification, particularly the Associate qualification, centred around what value it provides to consultants and to their prospective employers. Back in 2010, a group dubbed the Certification Five (including Dennis Howlett, Jon Reed, Leonardo de Araujo, Martin Gillet and Michael Koch) started discussions on the SAP Community Network and with SAP Education on what it perceived to be the shortcomings of the certification process. This group identified some of the issues as certification bringing little value to the hiring process and lacking trusted status; that multiple choice exams were the only assessment used; that it did not recognise the process-oriented approach of ERP; and that a proposed Masters-level certification, for those with more than seven years experience, was never officially introduced. The Certification Five also made a series of recommendations to SAP Education on how it should overhaul the process, including that certification should be tied more closely to relevant field experience and problem-solving skills, especially at the Professional level; that a certification influence council of customers, partners and community leaders should be established; that SAP should strengthen online exam preparation; and that they should help customers by educating them on how to evaluate and hire SAP professionals. SAP has acted on some of these areas, but in recent years, other criticisms have arisen: that due to the theoretical nature of Associate-level certification, candidates can pass the exams without ever having worked on the SAP solution in question, and that some candidates have been able to share exam questions and so effectively gain certification by cheating. Given the misgivings of the industry, is SAP certification therefore really worth the time and expense? The answer, it would seem, depends on the market the consultant is working in, and why they are completing certification in the first place.
they sign up for an SAP certification exam. Paul Hawking, SAP academic program director, College of Business, Victoria University and SAP Mentor, agrees that the process of undertaking certification can be valuable for the knowledge gained along the way, but in terms of its impact on employment outcomes, the effect is limited. The content of the education is good, particularly if you are working in that area already, but the endpoint of certification I dont think holds much value in Australia, he says. While practical experience still tends to be more highly valued than certification in mature markets, it can provide an extra string to the bow for those trying to break into the ranks of SAP professionals. Victoria University offers Associate-level certification through its uAcademy, but Hawking says he is very honest with his students, explaining that it will not guarantee them employment on completion but might add a slight advantage. You wont go running through the door and get a job, but it will give you an advantage over other people who are at the same level as you when youre seeking employment. John Moy, SAP developer and Mentor, agrees. If you are trying to break into the industry, I dont believe certification is your path to riches, he says. Some level of experience is the first thing people look for, then certification helps to differentiate between people with equal experience. Indeed, certification does not seem to rank highly amongst the required attributes for SAP jobs in Australia. A random sampling of SAP roles listed on seek.com.au reveals that very few listed SAP certification as a prerequisite of 100 jobs, only three required certification (for roles as an SAP MM Consultant, an SAP IS Retail Consultant, and a Consultant in SAP EAM/Plant Management), and one more stated that candidates with certification would be given priority. While Moy says he does not often see developers who hold SAP certification, he does not take these qualifications at face value, but conducts his own basic testing with candidates he is considering for employment. Through this testing, he has observed a positive correlation between the skills certified consultants demonstrate and their area of certification. I have generally been happy with the people I have had that are certified, but I dont actively seek it from candidates either, he says. Some of the best developers I know dont have certification. They are independents who can rely on their reputation to land work. They know they dont need to pay for certification because it adds no value to their job prospects. Having said this, Moy does believe that there is a real role for a method of assessing the capability and skills of individuals. In an ideal world, if certification was highly valued, accurate and accessible, people could truly be judged on where they were in terms of being up-to-date with the technology. That would really help, because at the moment, customers dont really know if they are getting the best and most recent advice, he says.
certification
more weight in some markets than others, but argues that this is associated with the maturity of those geographic regions and the sophistication of the SAP ecosystem there. Certification will always be only one in a set of criteria that a customer or employer will use to make a smart business decision. In some markets, it can be easier to get references, proof of project experience and so on than in others, so the weighting may differ, Martin says. But perhaps the strongest voicing of discontent on certification has come from those who have been disappointed when what they felt SAP certification promised usually a fast-track to a job as an SAP consultant has not been delivered. This typically arises in developing markets, where certification has been sold as a differentiator in highly competitive skills marketplaces.
Finlayson says. Its important for our team to feel that they are certified and are able to be referenced by SAP as a certified consultant. It certainly also helps for them to build some selfesteem and capability to deliver consulting services. Certification is one of several strategies that UXC Oxygen employs for staff development, and helps the company attract and retain the best consultants in the market. In addition, it provides a comfort factor for customers. Finlayson also says obtaining certifications in emerging technology areas such as SAP HANA also provides a competitive advantage. We were early adopters in XI/PI as well, and we had half a dozen people certified about a year or eight months before it really took off. That does mean people saw us as market leaders at the time, because we had already invested in it. We have also been early adopters SAP HANA and Suite on HANA certification, because we see that as being the next big wave.
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security very seriously, and the Certification team is constantly monitoring the situation with a range of early warning systems. Cenens also reports that improving the integrity of the certification process has been a priority for SAP in recent years by taking legal action against websites that try to sell certification questions, renewing questions on a regular basis and implementing stricter rules around how certification exams are conducted by centres. In addition, he says new types of questions have been introduced to improve the value of certification and prevent candidates gaining an unfair advantage by sharing questions. Work-related items have been introduced and the latest professional certification on SAP HANA Implementation and Modelling holds a case study item which requires that the candidate has sufficient insight in order to work through a good number of questions. This means that without project experience, the candidate would fail to pass these questions, Cenens says. Another issue raised by members of the ecosystem is that it can be difficult to verify a consultants certification status. At the moment, consultancies and companies can contact their local SAP Education team to check the certification status of a potential employee or contractor, but according to Martin, the company plans to launch a credential management platform for the certified community in the next few months. This will have a clearing house facility for credential verification, as well as the ability for individuals to publish their credentials to a prospective employer or customer, or to be included in a registry of certified individuals with a geographical and product-related search function, she says. There is also the question of quality should the assessment processes be more rigorous to ensure that candidates who pass have to demonstrate higher skill levels? Cenens believes they should In my opinion, certifications could benefit from having hands-on question items where the candidate actually has to perform one or more actions in a live SAP environment. New item types such as case studies and work-related items address the issue of pure theoretical questions to some extent already so progress has been made, but I would still like to see more on this front, he says. Cenens also thinks further education of customers and partners is required, so they understand that not all certification is created equal. This may help to create more awareness of the Professional-level certification, which is held in higher regard. One of the criticisms raised by members of the ecosystem is that Professional-level certification is not as readily available in Australia, so making this more accessible might also improve market take-up. Finalyson says he is forced to send his people overseas to complete Professional-level certification. Its a costly exercise, so I definitely would support them bringing that to Australia. I would also like to see them doing some more hybrid class time/online-type certification in the higher levels of certification rather than full coursework, because those would help us spread our investments.
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OFFSHORE RECRUITMENT
Finding Australia too small a market for the skills you need? Eleanor Reader gets some tips from an expert recruiter on how to safely source SAP skills offshore.
Finding SAP resources with the necessary business and technical skills at the right rate and the right time has never been easy. In Australia, the stakes are even higher due to the size of our SAP ecosystem and the level of market maturity compared to global counterparts in Europe and the US. Combine these factors with the economic and demographic conditions that shape our local market, and it is easy to see why sourcing skills offshore has become a regular and oftentimes necessary occurrence. Leanne OConnor, director of SAP recruitment provider Systems and People, says that despite the changing economic climate, it has always been a challenge to source skills in Australia. There is no question that the market has been more subdued in the last six months, and this has had a positive effect on the availability and supply of resources, however that also depends on the SAP skillsets that you are seeking, she says. Skillsets in the mature SAP technologies and the core modules of ECC are generally more plentiful in Australia,
Assess motivations
A thorough assessment of candidate motivations is very important. Why do they want to work in Australia? Have they visited the country before? Do they know the costs and what it is like to live and work here? Do family commitments need to be assessed? It can be quite a commitment on both sides to bring a candidate into Australia from offshore, OConnor says. The last thing you want is to execute a long lead time offshore hiring process and the candidate never arrives or they dont fit the role or they need to return home for family reasons.
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SPECIAL FEATURE
EDUCATION TRENDS
This is a challenging task given the rate of innovation and the myriad, dynamic nature of the skills that the market will need from time to time. We work closely with our ecosystem partners on bottom up workforce planning so that SAP Education resources and schedules are better aligned to the demand. There are currently several universities and TAFEs signed up to offer uAcademy courses in ANZ, and SAP Education is also committed to encouraging non-traditional training options. More than 40 per cent of the classroom training courses in the US are now delivered as Virtual Live Classrooms (VLC), whereas in ANZ it is below 5 per cent. We continue to encourage our customers and partners to explore non-traditional classroom training options such as VLC, e-learning, and SAP Learning Hub, as these options significantly reduce the cost of classroom infrastructure and travel, and allow more people to get trained with limited budgets and resources, says Malladi. The push toward non-traditional classroom options has been seen recently in Australia, with SAP establishing partnerships with Brisbane North Institute TAFE (BNIT) and University of Queensland to curb the IT skills shortage in Queensland. BNIT is the first TAFE in Australia to offer the online, selfpaced SAP courses as a part of SAPs uAcademy, a skills-based learning program targeted at business and IT students. The partnership was forged in November 2012, with the catalyst being a government agency and mutual client of both companies who wanted more flexible access to training programs through SAP. Wayne Bell, manager corporate sales, BNIT, says after a soft launch in December last year, they started to promote the course in January 2013 and have seen a lot of interest. Theyre very interested in the fact theyve now got another option for SAP, its more flexible, they can do it fully online without having any face-to-face contact and without bringing in any consultants or trainers directly from SAP, he says. We expect now that it will start to ramp up as people start to develop their training plans for the year.
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EDUCATION TRENDS
firsthand information on architecture, scenarios, processes, and functionality. This is supplemented by implementation and operation guides of the newest SAP solutions. Malladi admits that the launch of several new solutions in SAP HANA, mobile and cloud does make enablement a challenging task. We work closely with the development teams in SAP Labs to quickly bring both early enablement and follow-up courses to the market. We also design courses to be available through all modes of training: classroom-based, virtual delivery, and e-learning/online options, which allow learners to get the knowledge they require in the best possible format that suits their particular needs, he says. SAP HANA has been the fastest growing product in SAPs history and also the fastest selling training of all time. Currently, thousands of people have been trained in SAP HANA globally, with more than 30 per cent of that number in APJ. Informal education can also be useful when it comes to these new solution areas. Hawking says the ecosystem has filled the
gap where SAP Education has struggled; because skill shortages are a greater risk to SAP than the revenue stream they gain to lose through SAP Education, a lot of these new resources and tutorials are free. Even though SAP Education is trying to provide more flexible learning environments, they are finding it a challenge to keep up with the rate of change, he says. As a result, the SAP Community Network (SCN) is providing a whole lot of educational materials and the HANA Academy has been set up as an alternative to SAP Education for HANA education. Looking to the future of SAP education in Australia, Hawking says the speed of change in the SAP world will force companies to contemplate how they develop their internal knowledge communities. The risk of having that sort of knowledge with one person is very significant if that person leaves the company, so companies will have to start looking at how they are going to do knowledge transfers inside their organisation and start knowledge communities. Hopefully the SCN will be a major component of that for companies, he says. I think the future of SAP education in Australia will rely on a whole lot of different ways for people to gather their knowledge, including some core knowledge from SAP Education and other knowledge coming from the SCN, the User Group events and the SAP forums.
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case study
We are one of the few governments I believe where we have all the emergency services on a single instance of SAP, and that offers us the opportunity to have what may end up being one of the most powerful systems of its kind in the world. Richard Host, chief information officer, Fire & Rescue NSW
Traditional data warehouses require a lot of people resource to build the structures and summary information to run reports in a reasonable length of time. In HANA, there isnt a need to do that to anything like the same extent, Host says. That saves on labour, and as we expand, those roles wont exist, so we wanted to reinvigorate our reporting from the beginning with a new way of doing things. HANA will enable Fire & Rescue NSW to access unified real-time reporting, and enable the organisation to push data analysis and reporting tools out to end users, again streamlining the resources required and delivering new capabilities in what-if analysis. In the past, it has taken days and weeks to produce reports, and the business then has to digest and understand them. They cant do what-if analysis around understanding what impacts what, Brown says. This tool will actually allow our business to do that, and we will also be looking closely at implementing SAP Business Planning and Consolidation.
one of the most powerful systems of its kind in the world. Another important aspect for the organisation is the native integration of Esri geospatial capabilities into HANA, as spatial information is critical for emergency services organisations. It can take up to four hours to do some of our spatial queries, as we model scenarios. We are expecting that HANA could bring that down a thousand times, Host says. Over time, data will also be imported from other operational systems, not just SAP, to enable Fire & Rescue to perform modelling on five years worth of operational information, to drive further insights into the organisation.
Implementation
The implementation of HANA is already well underway at Fire & Rescue NSW, with the executive sponsorship of the Deputy Chief Executive. With the Dell hardware for the system already in place, Fire & Rescue NSW expected to have its environment up and running, and the BW environment migrated to HANA using a rapid deployment solution from SAP, by April effectively making the solution live in less than 90 days. The next phase of the project, which will run until June, will be working through the business intelligence needs of the organisation. Brown says that this actually represents the most challenging part of the HANA implementation process, rather than the technology itself. For Fire & Rescue NSW, BI can vary from the typical financial and HR through to incidents and community safety activities, and being able to analyse the data in these areas could potentially change the way the organisation operates. Thats the real work effort at the moment understanding what are the key drivers of the business, and then what the BI needs are around the outside of that. Weve already got standard KPIs, but what we want to do is work out what happens if we push this lever over here, and you can only do that with real-time analytics technology like HANA, Brown says. We want answers to the questions we havent asked yet, Host adds.
Managing change
Organisational change is an important component of all SAP projects, and Fire & Rescue NSW uses industry partners to help guide the change process.
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case study
information for the three emergency services agencies the Rural Fire Service, State Emergency Service and Fire & Rescue. We know who is qualified in certain positions and what skills enhancements they have done as well, so thats very important, Brown says. The Emergency Services agencies have also kicked off an enterprise asset management project across all three agencies, which together have around 8000 vehicles and 400,000 pieces of equipment that must be managed. That will tell us when we should replace assets, and how they should be managed and maintained in the most cost-effective manner. So from a safety and financial point of view, you need reporting across a very large number of things, says Host. It is this focus on safety that truly drives the technology priorities for Fire & Rescue NSW. We believe that having better systems will lead to a safer community, and so we strive all the time to improve our systems. Its not about being first, its about getting the capability as fast as we can, Host says. Its rare that an entire emergency services sector can have all that information at their disposal, and now we need HANA to use it for more than transactional reasons, to actually get insights and make decisions about things that we may not even realise we should be making decisions about.
With the implementation of HANA, channelling the enthusiasm of users for the new systems is expected to be more of an issue than encouraging adoption. We expect to be dealing with the flood of requests for real-time analysis that will inevitably come when they see it, Host says. Brown agrees. We have held off on delivering some technologies because we know exactly that is going to happen, and they will start asking for more data that we physically cant get in to our current BW environment in a timely manner, he says. We need the HANA technology there to actually get the data in, so then we can get it out again. The change management will be slowing people down, because our client agencies are super keen to get more information.
Next steps
The next phase of the project could involve using the HANA environment for reporting on qualifications and learning data. The Emergency Services SAP environment currently captures this data for 95,000 people, including volunteers and permanent and retained firefighters, which details their level of capability and skills to operate various assets and equipment. The Emergency Services SAP System has that
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UGL LIMITED
CASE STUDY
Australias rail services are a hotbed of expansion, with a 2012 freight industry valuation of nearly $8.9 billion and passenger revenue close to $7.5 billion. While the fundamentals of railway design have, for the most part, remained the same, the technology driving this evolving transportation industry has become its own intricate system of tracks and switches. Just as steel is the backbone of railway equipment, SAP is the foundation on which much of the industrys data centre is built. UGL Limited, a global leader in outsourced engineering and construction, property services and asset management and maintenance, is a major player in Australias railway equipment manufacturing industry. Its 2012 revenue was nearly $4.8 billion. UGLs Rail division, which includes a 20 per cent stake in Metro Trains Melbourne, offers rail customers an integrated solution for design, engineering, manufacturing, maintenance, refurbishment and asset management of locomotives, passenger cars, trams and freight wagons. In December 2011, UGL renewed its Main Train maintenance and logistics contract with RailCorp, an Australian government agency that delivers public transportation services in New South Wales as well as interstate passenger rail services. Under the new seven-
Together we found the most appropriate way of executing within a tight timeline and documenting the process and approvals to satisfy corporate governance. Kevin McCarthy, general manager, passenger projects and tenders, UGL Limited
with less than four months to assess, integrate, develop, test, migrate and go live. BPSE Consultings rail industry expertise, and proven track record of outstanding service and familiarity with UGLs systems, strengthened the collaborative effort with BluLeader. Together, the teams quickly mobilised to help UGL de ne business requirements and get things rolling. Both veteran, technologically savvy consultancies, BPSE Consulting and BluLeader quickly integrated business knowledge and processes. Utilising highly skilled staff allowed for a smaller implementation team that reduced resource costs. A unique, agile approach reduced timelines and enabled a six-month project to be ef ciently and effectively compressed into four months.
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on the bandwagon are Accenture and IBM globally, who are well on the way to supporting SAP and its customers with this new solution, Barkla adds.
Driving transformation
According to SAP, SAP Business Suite powered by HANA is not just about providing a faster version of a solution they already have but will provide transformational benets for businesses. Smarter, simpler and faster is the tagline attached to the new solution however according to SAP ANZ customer relationship executive, Michael Harman, speed is great, but its not the sole focus of the solution. What were looking for is to bring innovation to customers. SAP Business Suite on HANA allows you to do complex things very quickly, so what does that extra time actually bring you?, he says. We think there is a snowballing effect that will take place as people transform what it is they can do, says Barkla. Youll have some innovators who are small companies taking advantage of it, but certainly big companies will demand that their ecosystem changes to full their transformation. Among the benets of Business Suite on HANA touted by SAP are a reduction in the total cost of ownership and realtime speed benets that allow customers to move to redening products and categories and therefore grow revenues. [Businesses can benet from] business models that are able to be driven through having new insights, a predictive view of whats around the corner and how the business needs to respond to that, says Barkla. But why use an in-memory database, when a lot of the
capabilities are available through BW? Harman says the benet is that insights can be actioned in real-time. BW is still good, and its now quite a mature product. It can do other things like taking external data in and run benchmarking and extra KPIs, he says. What were looking at here is the SAP HANA analytical foundation.
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SME TECHNOLOGY
Dennis Marketos is managing director at Bluekey Software Solutions Africas most awarded SAP Business One partner and SAP PartnerEdge Gold partner. www.bluekey.co.za.
HR/PAYROLL TECHNOLOGY
How will these changes impact your payroll system and what should you do?
The impact on each organisations SAP system will depend upon conguration and master data. SAP will (prior to the 1 July 2013) provide legal change packages/service packs that will change the conguration for the SGC to 9.25 per cent from 1 July 2013. Assuming that the TRP employees will retain their current package, they need to be identied and their base salaries recalculated. With this information the basic pay record needs to be created using this information and incorporating the new rate from 1 July 2013. If these employees have any other payments that form part of the TRP, these need to be adjusted in line with the total package. SAP will provide an update for the standard conguration of the superannuation and if your ERP system is using this conguration, then payroll will read this without altering the employees superannuation details, provided the indirect valuation link between the employees superannuation data and the conguration has not been broken. If it has, or you are not using the standard conguration, a new superannuation record will need to be created from 1 July 2013. Calculation of the new SGC is dependent upon when the payment is being made to the employee. For example, if the June period is being calculated and paid on 1 July, the new SGC must be applied. As 1 July looms closer and you have an implementation or upgrade project running or about to start, you must ensure you incorporate this into your project plan and testing strategy. Peter Stulcbauer is an experienced payroll consultant who has been assisting clients in SAP for over 15 years, specialising in all aspects of conguration on Payroll, Time Management and HR modules. His company, Martarna, provides freelance services at client sites around Australia. He can be contacted at peter@martarna.com.au or by phone on Perth: 08 9467 4997 / Brisbane: 07 3503 6733 / Sydney: 02 8022 8411 / Melbourne: 03 9948 4033.
Table: Comparison of base + SGC and TRP before and after 1 July 2013
Base + SGC Total Remuneration Package Base SGC rate (prior 1 July 2013) Superannuation Total Remuneration Package Base SGC rate (post 1 July 2013) Superannuation $0.00 $10,000.00 9.00% $900.00 $0.00 $10,000.00 9.25% $925.00 Total Remuneration Package (TRP) $10,900.00 $10,000.00 9.00% $900.00 $10,900.00 $9,977.12 9.25% $922.88
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ANALYTICS TECHNOLOGY
Freya Purnell: What do you think are the biggest issues around analytics for customers at the moment? Kurt Bilafer: Historically most of the analytic products, projects, solutions and implementations were all driven by IT, they were technically led, so I think the business became really dissatisfied. They may have met requirements at some point in time, but those business requirements have changed. So there is a divide there really are two camps of business and IT. So the question is how do you bring those together? It is the basics things like communication and sharing, which for whatever reason I think all of us got away from. One of the big things we are doing to help bridge that gap is pushing people to the SAP Community Network. For analytics, there is a whole BOBJ dedicated section on SCN, which is a best-kept secret. In APJ, we have 600,000 registered people using SCN, and the goal by the end of the year is to take that number to 1.2 billion. The whole intent there is that the business can see what other people are delivering. Rather than just going for the upgrade, we need to say, if we could start over, what would we do?, because thats the opportunity we have here. The business needs to find out what other businesses are doing. Just a couple of weeks ago, the CIO from Procter and Gamble basically said the way we invent software is wrong. So he wants to get together with companies like FedEx, who are all trying to solve the supply chain problem, and say forget about everything in the back-end, lets start with the consumer experience and work our way back. Thats the challenge for analytics it isnt about just automating a spreadsheet and putting it in a dashboard, its looking at the business problem. I liken analytics to the Google search box. I can ask any question movie times, sport scores and I get an answer. You
functional teams, and I dont mean one person from IT and one person from the business, but bringing together multiple stakeholders from the organisation, and thats one of the things that Design Thinking does it brings business and IT together and locks everybody in a room. FP: Do you think its clear to customers now what the SAP offer is in the analytics area? KB: No, because I think SAP primarily has messaged back to our own install base, and that means to the IT folks. So I do think IT has a good understanding, but I think IT is overwhelmed with lots of different things, including information, and therefore if there is not a burning need at the time, its hard to get them to invest and understand. [The level of innovation] creates a lot of great conversations, but unfortunately we havent done a great job of embracing and enabling the ecosystem to help us with those conversations. If you go back to SAP, for the first 35 years its all been about ERP and tuning the transactions in the system of record. SAP tried to control and own as much as possible whether it was training, educating or services or support. Then in 2008 we started making acquisitions for an out strategy getting data out of SAP into the hands of consumers, and so all those companies involved were best of breed companies that were successful not with SAP customers. If I look at BusinessObjects, it was only 15 to 20 per cent of customers that also ran SAP. What happened initially for every acquisition, we lost those people, we lost their brand, we lost the focus, the customers thought we abandoned them. So I spend a lot of my time just trying to reach those customers, give them a voice and show them what we have delivered. The other thing is SAP has been a premium price provider, and so we need to prove the value of that investment. Five years ago we started to realise that we needed an ecosystem, not just to do implementations, but to help us innovate and stretch and take the technology into new areas. So the problem with that is that change caused us to change a lot of our DNA. APJ is certainly very much an ecosystem friendly region, but we are still rolling out enablement in very traditional ways. It isnt on demand, it isnt free and open. Our first approach to [a new type of enablement] is a HANA academy, and we do now have a predictive tactical academy. So I think we are getting there but we need to do that with everything its a transformation. As we innovate the technology, we are innovating these things these audacious goals of a billion users are forcing us to reexamine how we do everything as an organisation. Unfortunately change is hard we are a company like any other company, and it is a painful process. If you take the last four or five years, it has been a sea change. Now the question is how do we help our customers embrace that change that quickly and how do we make the opportunity everybodys opportunity. FP: What type of innovation should we expect to see from SAP in the analytics area? KB: We recently announced Predictive Analytics, which sits on top of HANA and allows you to do some great advanced analytical offerings. We also recently launched Visual
Intelligence, which allows you to manually manipulate the data and push it out through the BusinessObjects platform. You will see a lot more real-time applications designed from the bottomup to leverage in-memory technology for a very specific purpose things like fraud analytics and credit e-management. As you start looking at moving analytics more towards the business, giving them a tool is not what they want. Just like we do on our phones, they want to have an app, hit a button and move. Thats what we have got to start delivering, and so you will see the first wave of those coming out. Suite on HANA will be big and important for customers and for the company, because that will enable us to do all sorts of analytics while the transaction happens. We talk about the speed, of something that used to take four hours taking five seconds to check. Whats really important is that while I am processing the order, I can do the analysis, and say, does it comply with my discounting, is this a fraudulent customer or order, all in realtime, so if there is an action that needs to occur, I can do that. At the end of the day, so much of what we have around us is becoming commoditised. For banks and all these companies that offer similar choices, analytics is going to be how they are going to differentiate themselves through their customer experience. Analytics, to me, is providing the information when I need it in those critical moments of engagement. It could be that its updated every single second, or it could be that I asked a question and I need a response now. FP: What differences do you see across the region in terms of analytics adoption? KB: I think if you look at Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Japan, they are the maturing markets, with lots of global companies or at the very least multinationals. They have amassed massive data sets, so the way they are using that information is advanced. In the emerging economies, they are trying to figure out how do they bank, how do they get wireless to different locations, and often, they are buying ERP for the first time. Along with that journey of modernisation, they are also rolling out analytics, and often it is really rear-view mirror analytics, like recording what we are selling and who we are selling to, because theyve never had that information before. The other thing that is really different, is that if you look at China, India, Indonesia and the Philippines, the numbers of the population are so hard to get your head around. Some of these companies have 150,000 employees, so when you start doing payroll for that many people, how much money do you save by going to an ERP system and automating a process that we take for granted because we have had it forever? Or what difference does it make to cashflow, not having to write cheques and have money sitting in accounts waiting for those cheques to cash? All those things are transformational to these organisations. We have these misconceptions that they are tiny companies, but some of them are massive organisations because labour costs are relatively inexpensive. But they are all realising that theyre competing globally. So thats really going to change the game in these emerging markets, as its going to force all of them to run even faster.
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Mobility Technology
Structural analysis
discretion of the app developer; the licensing transaction is also directly between the app developer as licensor and the SAP customer as licensee. SAPs use of its mobile platform as an additional licensing layer is not only making mobilisation unnecessarily complex for SAP customers, but also consuming a substantial portion of these customers mobility budgets, hence decreasing the funds available for mobile app developers (see box, previous page). Remember that SAP mobile app development partners are already paying 15 per cent of their revenue to SAP whether the revenue was generated via the SAP Store or not in pursuance of their partner agreements with SAP. As sole supplier to the SAP mobile development industry, SAP is therefore appropriating at least 25 per cent of the value created by the industry.
Like a Columbus who has just discovered a new world, SAP views the enterprise mobility market as vast virgin territory SAP often states that there is almost limitless scope of valueadding mobile use cases for businesses. This state of affairs would, in principle, allow rivalry between developers to focus on developing new, clearly differentiated products, rather than degenerating into price competition. However, extreme price competition is the order of the day: almost half 45 per cent to be exact of the apps on the SAP Store are completely free of charge. SAP itself started this app-on-the-house trend that has subsequently as a matter of exigency been emulated by SAPs mobile development partners. This trend is especially prominent among developers who have recently debuted on the SAP Store with their first apps. But is a high number of free apps not the norm on mobile app marketplaces? Again, a simple comparison between the SAP Store and the consumer mobile app marketplaces is misleading: free apps on consumer mobile app marketplaces can generate revenue through advertising and in-app purchases, while these revenue models have doubtful applicability in the enterprise mobility context (see box, right). Moreover, users stop using the average consumer mobile app literally First get the customer within days or weeks, hooked, and then cash in? with the drop-off in Imagine the following the usage of free apps message popping up on your being especially steep. mobile device, just as you need to approve an important In contrast, one would purchase using your new free hope that the lifecycle of purchase approval app: an enterprise app would extend into months You have reached your or years. I accordingly monthly limit of free purchase suggest that the app-onorder approvals. To approve the-house trend in the more purchase orders, kindly SAP Store is not only purchase a transaction bundle casting a cloud over the at $99 for 100 purchase order SAP mobile development approvals, valid for 30 days. industrys prospect of Are in-app purchases an sustainable profitability, appropriate revenue model but also sending for enterprise apps? SAP counterproductive signals makes provision for in-app about the value and purchases, but none of the expected lifecycle of SAP current 150 apps on the SAP mobile apps. Store use this functionality.
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Threat of entry
Reducing barriers to entry to the SAP mobile development industry, as SAP is doing with its mobile development partner program, can be a double-edged sword: on the one hand, reducing barriers to entry can be a successful strategy to rapidly increase the number of developers in the industry; on the other hand, if entry remains too easy for too long, the industrys prospects of sustainable profitability would be weakened, causing the industry to become increasingly unattractive to enter or remain in. In the case of SAPs mobile development partner program, the reduction of barriers to entry is limited in scope, leaving the following significant barriers to entry to the SAP mobile development industry in contrast with the consumer mobile app development industry intact: yy Scarce skillset. The innovation value chain starts with an idea. In order to think up a new idea for a mobile app that can add value to SAP customers, one needs a good understanding not only of SAPs mobile app development software and its technical capabilities, but even more so of the SAP back-end, and the business processes and day-to-day business needs of SAP customers. Absent these scarce skills, and the innovation value chain lacks its very first element. yy Infrastructure. The actual mobile product development requires more than the SAP mobile app development platform it also requires a functional development environment that includes the SAP back-end. This would require either access to a variety of skilled resources to set it up, or paying a hefty fee to a SAP service provider. As such, this infrastructure requirement will certainly serve as a barrier to entry. These barriers to entry again emphasises the limited scope for comparison between the SAP Store and the consumer mobile app marketplaces: while the typical college IT graduate would be able to swell the ranks of the Android or iOS developer communities, this would not be the case with SAP mobility despite free development licenses for SAPs mobile platform and free online training in its use. It is pure fantasy to think that SAP mobility will ever have anything near the large developer communities that grew around the consumer mobile app marketplaces. For the most part, SAPs mobile development partner program is only making it easier for enterprises with existing SAP back-end expertise and infrastructure to diversify into SAP mobile development. From an industry-structure perspective, this is a positive conclusion: while SAP has cleared the path (mainly) for enterprises who are already in the SAP ecosystem to diversify into mobility, the threat of large-scale entry into the SAP mobile development industry remains insignificant.
threat. However, given that mobile devices are becoming functional extensions of ourselves always at hand and easy to use mobile apps should increasingly gain the upper hand. Keep in mind that mobile devices are not limited to smartphones with their relative small screens and relative weak processing power, but also include tablets that can in some cases match or surpass the desktop standard. Mobile apps can accordingly range from the simplest one-click productivity app to complex dashboards and analytical apps.
Conclusion
In order for SAP to ride the wave of enterprise mobility, it needs a critical mass of apps that run on its mobile platform, which in turn requires a vibrant developer community. This much SAP has clearly recognised. However, as I state in the introduction, in order for SAP to build a vibrant mobile developer community, the SAP mobile development industry must be structurally strong. In the analysis above, I have highlighted certain structural weaknesses in this industry, which centre on SAPs role as sole supplier and dominant competitor: in its role as sole supplier, SAP demands a significant slice of the value that the industry creates; in its role as dominant competitor, SAP drives prices down to zero. The strategic damage done by SAPs zeropricing is accentuated by the fact that SAP back-end software is well known to be expensive, with the rationale that SAP differentiates itself on quality. What is the signal sent to the potential buyers about the value of SAP mobile apps? Seductive as emulation of successful consumer mobile app marketplaces such as the Apple iStore and the Android Store may seem, cognizance must be taken of the pertinent differences between the consumer and SAP mobile development industries, rendering such emulation beset with strategic landmines. The weaknesses in the SAP mobile development industry is of SAPs own making, and also within SAPs power to remedy. The remedial action is clear invert the current pricing model: Put a price tag on all free apps. SAP itself should take the lead to turn the app-on-the-house trend around, and clearly signal to buyers that SAP mobile apps add real business value. The consumer mobile app marketplace psychology of free or quasifree apps should be removed from SAPs strategic thinking. Make the SAP mobile platform free. SAP should perceive its mobile platform as a purely strategic, non-revenue instrument: It makes more strategic sense for SAP to focus on ensuring the sustainable profitability of the SAP mobile development industry and hence ensuring that its backend software will remain relevant in the mobile age than to insist on direct revenue from its mobile platform. These remedial actions may be bold, but will significantly strengthen the SAP mobile development industry structure, and accordingly provide the required solid foundation for SAPs mobility ambitions.
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Donrich W Jordaan, PhD is managing director of Ploion Innovations Ltd, in Dublin, Ireland, and Research Associate at the Intellectual Property Law Research Unit, University of Cape Town. He can be contacted at donrich@ ploioninnovations.com.
SOCIAL COLLABORATION
Next-generation networking
Leading organisations are embracing social as a means of networking and collaborating more effectively, and its coming to an SAP landscape near you, as Lynton Howes writes.
The death of email.
Thats the provocative title of a recent article which caught my attention, the main premise of which was, of course, that the continued uptake of social communication tools in our personal lives is seeing a fairly rapid end to email, and this will be mirrored in corporations. Now, before getting too excited about the demise of this ubiquitous but much maligned tool, remember that we have been here before. Remember Google Wave, which promised to reinvent electronic communication, yet was quietly euthanised by Google in early 2012? Remember the French CEO who issued a ban on email in 2011? This time its different there is something to potentially take its place. Enterprise social networking (ESN) is here, now, and over the course of the next ve years, its going to revolutionise the way we work. instant messaging and wikis, which allow for real-time communication and centralised information sharing, are far superior. Furthermore, one of the benets of ESN is its ability to unlock the rich veins of information normally locked in email inboxes, making relevant content accessible and searchable for the entire company. All for as little as $3 per user per month. 3
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SOCIAL COLLABORATION
SAP claims that its approach will solve the two key problems currently facing ESN, namely: Vague return on investment gures, inhibiting sponsorship at the executive level, and generating scepticism; and Lack of business context, leading to low adoption. The majority of organisations are nding that only 10-20 per cent of their eligible workforce are actively using the networks 6. In addition, SAP has added a series of more structured collaborative tools, such as dynamic meeting agendas, pro/ con tables (to rate feedback from others) and a decision sign-off tool. And the video capture tool means that anyone can capture and share video from a smartphone, webcam or screen recording and share it in seconds perfect for informal learning.
it. Social requires a pull approach, which is best supplemented by an effective change management program, characterised by visible sponsor-level support, explaining the why? and articulating the whats in it for me?. Security and control is a standard concern as soon as the term social is used, however these tools are internallycontrolled, and compliance and governance features typically come standard. In reality, the risks are similar to that of email usage, which are mitigated with policies and common sense. More threatening for some organisations is the attening of the organisational hierarchy that results when shop-oor staff can view and participate in a discussion initiated by the CEO.
Social is now
ESN software truly heralds the next phase of the knowledge evolution for the workplace. The early versions mimicked Facebook and permitted networking, microblogging and not much else; now they are integrated with SAP, Sharepoint and can largely replace email. Whats the next phase going to bring? One thing is certain its going to seriously shake up the way we work, and has enormous potential to help our workplaces to become more collaborative, engaging, creative and productive. Whats not to like about that?
The independent magazine for SAP professionals
Lynton Howes is a director of Adapt2 Consulting (http:// adapt2consulting.com.au). Together with his business partner, Mari Lambrechts, they have nearly 25 years of experience delivering successful change, training and communications solutions for SAP clients across a diverse range of industries.
References
1. http://deloitte.wsj.com/cio/2013/02/21/enterprise-socialnetworks-another-tool-not-a-panacea/ 2. http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2319215 3. https://www.yammer.com/about/pricing/ 4. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/yammerintergrates-into-sap-software/ 5. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57571235-93/ linkedins-next-target-yammer-salesforce-chatter/ 6. http://www.zdnet.com/enterprises-grapple-with-socialengagement-7000005263/
On the Move
Here we bring you our regular round-up of who is going where in the industry. If you have changed jobs recently or hired some new staff, email us at editor@insidesap.com.au. By Eleanor Reader.
Michael Kovacevic and Gladys Akle, SAP Australian User Group
The SAP Australian User Group has welcomed Michael Kovacevic as its new communities and content manager and Gladys Akle as its new office manager. Kovacevics role will see him managing the Special Interest Group (SIGs) relationships and continuing to grow the network. He is also the main point of contact for the content and speakers for SAUGs four annual conferences. I am excited about working for such a passionate and dedicated group of professionals, Kovacevic said. I especially look forward to increasing the value that all members have from participating in the Special Interest Groups and communities and developing valuable user experience based case studies and content. Prior to gaining this position at SAUG, Kovacevic worked on customer reference and customer advocacy programs for SAS Institute Asia Pacific and has recently completed a contract role with Criterion Conferences. Akle will be responsible for the SAUGs financial, membership and website operations. She recently returned to Australia after working for three years in Dubai for the Infosalon Group as general and office manager.
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worked as the account director for utilities and managed clients such as SP-Ausnet, United Energy, Santos, QGC, Jemena and Multi-net Gas. He will be responsible for Plauts existing Victorian client network, with particular focus on the manufacturing and utility sectors within the region. Moore said this appointment underpins the companys commitment to building and consolidating its business in Victoria in 2013. Michael has over 20 years experience in the IT industry across Asia Pacific and we are delighted to welcome him to our team, he said. The most recent addition to the Plaut team, as of March 2013, is Stephen Collins, who joins as southern delivery manager responsible for Victoria and South Australia. Collins will drive customer delivery, quality and be responsible for the measurement and ongoing focus on customer satisfaction across the two states, drawing on his expertise in practice and project management. Moore says the appointment supports Plauts commitment to caring for its customers and ensuring that they deliver on business outcomes With over 16 years experience in SAP CRM, logistics, practice and project management, Stephen brings a depth of understanding and expertise to the Plaut IT Australia team, he said. With our increased focus on manufacturing and supply chain management in 2013, we are employing the best people in the industry to accelerate our growth objectives Collins has extensive SAP consulting experience across a broad range of industries and has worked in various roles in global and blue chip organisations such as Lease Plan, Unisys, IBM, Officeworks, and Mitsubishi.
the best performing businesses. Suprakash, in his new role as MD, will continue to drive SAPs strategic innovation roadmap and shape and sustain our industry leadership position in India. Chaudhuri takes up the permanent position after acting in the role since mid-2012, following the resignation of previous MD Peter Gartenberg.
the construction space and we are looking for partners to work with us in developing this solution. Gannon has more that 17 years SAP experience working on both the client and consulting aspects, across all SAP components delivered throughout Australia, Asia, Europe and North America. Harms and our clients are fortunate to have the benefit of Davids extensive international experience. He is meticulous about everything he undertakes and as a result, delivers effective and innovative solutions, said Harms managing director, Detlev Harms.
Knowledge is having the right answer Intelligence is asking the right question Genius knows where to get intelligent knowledge
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NEW BOOKS
Managing Custom Code in SAP
By Tony de Thomasis and Alisdair Templeton
Published: 2012 Publisher: Galileo Press Format: Print, eBook Custom code is a vital component of any successful SAP implementation. But it must be managed, or it becomes an obstacle to future enhancement and innovation. Take the proactive approach to taming your custom code with this book: always be in control, make changes when and where they are needed, dont get slowed down by bad code, and always be ready for the next upgrade. Use SAP Solution Manager to monitor the amount and efciency of custom code in your system Learn how to take advantage of tools such as CCLM, SCOV, SAP Clone Finder, the Custom Development Management Cockpit, and more Explore custom code best practices and reporting techniques w: www.sap-press.com/products/ManagingCustom-Code-in-SAP.html
Published: 2012 Publisher: Galileo Press Format: Print, eBook With any new product, its not always easy to get straightforward information. Is SAP HANA a database or an appliance? Can you use it with non-SAP BI tools? How do you build views and replicate data? In this book, get the information you need with advice and instruction from SAP HANA experts who have demonstrable knowledge, practical experience, and no agenda. Heres your chance: separate the hype from the facts, and the roadmap from the reality. What SAP HANA is, whether its the right t for your business, and how to plan an installation Detailed, step-by-step instructions for data modeling with SAP HANA Studio and Information Composer Data provisioning with SAP Data Services and other tools w: www.sap-press.com/products/SAPHANA%3A-An-Introduction.html
Explore how SAP BPC 10.0 can impact your organisation. This updated and expanded edition gives you a comprehensive overview of the SAP BPC features, functions, and best practices. Referencing a detailed case study, nd out how to use SAP BPC for NetWeaver for budget planning, forecasting, and consolidation the building blocks of a complete planning and consolidation solution. Learn what to expect from a BPC application and how to get it using SAP BPC 10.0. w: www.sap-press.com/products/SAPBusiness-Planning-and-Consolidation-%283rdEdition%29.html
Xcelsius 2008 was recently included in SAPs BusinessObjects 4.0 family, rebranding Xcelsius Enterprise as SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.0. With features like exible design and what-if scenarios, the powerful dashboarding software allows enterprises to make business decisions at a glance, and this book allows you to go far beyond the basics of these techniques. This cookbook full of practical and applicable recipes will enable you to use the full latest capabilities of dashboard design to visually transform your business data. A wide range of recipes will equip you with the knowledge and condence to perform tasks like conguring charts, creating drill- downs, making component colors dynamic, using alerts in maps, building pop-up screens, setting up what-if scenarios, and many more. w: www.packtpub.com/sap-crystal-dashboardand-presentation-design-cookbook-raw/book
Published: January 24, 2013 Publisher: Springer Format: Print, eBook This book provides an introduction to the various facets of building and operating an SAP infrastructure exploiting cloud technologies. It describes and discusses the latest developments and challenges and suitable solutions, and also outlines future trends where possible. To ensure that this book is also useful to readers who do not consider themselves experts in this area, this book explains in detail the backgrounds of the various solutions. Also, practiceoriented case studies are provided throughout the book in order to make the reader aware of essential but perhaps less obvious points. w: www.springer.com/ business+%26+management/ business+information+systems/book/978-3-64231210-6
Sail out of the storm; discover why so many SAP Vendors and End Users have partnered with Everjoy Consulting over the past 8 years. We source the best for their business, right across Australia. Greenfield, Upgrade, Template-Rollout, Integration, Production Support or BAU, we understand the process and your requirements.
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EVENTS
Whats On
Each edition of Inside SAP includes a diary of upcoming events for the SAP community around Australia and internationally. To have your event listed, email editor@insidesap.com.au.
SAP Predictive Analysis Technical Academy 4 April 2013 Melbourne SAP Predictive Analysis Technical Academy will bring together SAP partners who invested in HANA in 2012 to teach how they can increase the value theyve already delivered and gain the insights to further their trusted advisor states with customers. w: www.predictiveanalytics. sapeliteevents.com/registration-apj. html BI 4.0 Elite Enablement 15-19 April 2013, Sydney 8-12 April 2013, Singapore This exclusive session covers a wide range of topics and offers different tracks for customers and partners for both SAP and non-SAP application back-ends. As an advanced class, it will offer deep dives into con guration, troubleshooting, best practices, and tips and tricks, with the aim of making an SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 project go-live as smooth as possible. w: www.bi4.elite-enablement.com/ registration.html SAUG 41st Plenary 7 May 2013 Hilton Hotel Brisbane Each year, the SAUG Plenary in Brisbane covers pertinent local topics including innovative customer experiences and the latest SAP updates. Hear about new concepts and exchange ideas with 200+ delegates and sponsors. As users of SAP technology, the daily challenges you face are an opportunity to learn and grow. This event is a great way to discuss how you face up to them. w: www.saug.com.au/events/ category/qld Mastering SAP Financials 13-15 May 2013 Novotel Sydney Manly Pacic, Australia If you want to discover new and different ways to use SAP for nancial reporting, planning, compliance and governance to get business results then this is the event for you. Return to the of ce with new knowledge, enhanced skills and a renewed sense of con dence in your abilities and your organisations technology direction. Youll hear essential tips and techniques from leading experts, designed to help sharpen your skills and accelerate our career growth. w: www.masteringsap.com/ nancialsau SAPPHIRE NOW + ASUG Annual Conference 14-16 May 2013 Orange County Convention Centre, Florida SAPPHIRE NOW and ASUG Annual Conference bring together unparalleled insights and opportunities from the worlds premier business technology conferences in one place. From customer-driven education and best practices to visionary technology and business strategies, the conferences offer a unique platform for attendees to see their business from all angles providing invaluable knowledge sharing and networking opportunities for SAP customers, partners, business team members and industry experts. w: www.sapandsaug.com SuccessConnect Sydney 22-24 May, 2013 Hilton Sydney With the gathering of customers, partners and employees coming together to learn, collaborate and celebrate our collective accomplishments, SuccessConnect will be our largest customer event of the year. SuccessFactors global customers represent companies of all sizes and industries from all over. You are the thought leaders among your industry peers. Gone are the days of waiting for innovation. As of right now, you dene innovation and it starts by making connections in the cloud. w: www.successfactors.com/en_us/ successconnect/sydney/about.html Mastering Analytics with SAP and SAP BusinessObjects BI 5-7 August 2013 Crown Promenade, Melbourne This program has been speci cally designed to enable organisational performance and decision making. Where business and IT people from organisations using SAP and SAP BusinessObjects BI for Business Intelligence come together in the same place for three days. Someone in this community has the answer to Mastering Supply Chain Management with SAP September 2013 Melbourne Specially designed to enable supply chain excellence, this event is where organisations using SAP for Supply Chain Management come together in the same place at the same time for three days. Using a uniquely crafted research methodology and expertly guided by a Conference Advisory Team, the agenda has been developed to provide you answers to current challenges and the inspiration to embrace future opportunities through presentations and sessions in six tracks over three days. w: www.masteringsap.com/scmau SAP Insider BI 2013 2-5 September 2013 Singapore Dont miss BI 2013, one of the most important event of the year for professionals that use and support SAP solutions for reporting, business intelligence, and data management. The schedule includes in-depth sessions, networking events, and demos showcasing the latest updates and best practices for SAP business intelligence solutions. w: www.nancials2013.com/singapore SAP TechEd Las Vegas 2013 21-25 October 2013 The Venetian, Palazzo Congress Center, Las Vegas The SAP TechEd conference empowers and connects you and your team with the essential training and community support needed to gain instant value from your IT investment in SAP. Develop practical skills through hands-on workshops and demo enhanced lectures focused on the SAP NetWeaver technology platform and SAP BusinessObjects solutions. w: www.sapteched.com your most pressing business or technical challenges. Includes presentations and sessions from international and local companies, roundtable discussions and special sessions. w: www.masteringsap.com/ analyticsau
PARTNER DIRECTORY
Acuity Search
Acuity Search is one of Australias leading SAP specialist recruitment rms. All of the consultants at Acuity Search have over 10 years of exclusive SAP domain recruitment experience and have a real passion for their work, this depth of experience is something that is unique in the Australian market. We have huge networks of pre-qualied SAP consultants across the Australian region and throughout the globe.
BPSE Consulting
BPSE Consulting consists of a team of people who are all passionate about improving our customers' experiences with their SAP solutions. We provide SAP solution design and implementation services and have developed intelligent solutions to address key issues all customers are facing with their SAP solutions.
Esker Australia
Esker is a recognised leader in document process automation solutions for SAP. On premise software solutions and SaaS solutions include: sales orders processing; accounts payable; e-Invoicing; e-Procurement; and enterprise faxing and mail services. Customers achieve signicant operational efciencies, cost savings and measurable ROI in less than three months. Since 1997, over 1,700 companies in ANZ have trusted solutions from Esker Australia.
IQX
IQX provides SAP customers with packaged and bespoke business solutions delivering enhanced business insight, collaboration and productivity bene ts by leveraging Microsoft Technologies. We improve the user experience across all core functional areas of SAP for all user types. IQX solutions include Excel add-ins, SharePoint Web Parts, SharePoint Forms, K2 & Nintex solutions and native mobile apps for SAP. See, Share and Do more in SAP via IQX.
ReadSoft
ReadSoft is a world leading supplier of Document Process Automation solutions, specialising in Accounts Payable Automation for SAP. Their AP automation solution seamlessly integrates with SAP and has been selected by an impressive range of multinationals seeking to improve control, efciency and overall performance, along with an attractive ROI. We invite you to contact us for a free consultative workshop and to squeeze more from SAP.
SUSE
Established in 1992, SUSE is the original provider of the enterprise Linux distribution and the most interoperable platform for mission-critical computing. With a portfolio centered around SUSE Linux Enterprise, we power thousands of organizations around the world across physical, virtual and cloud environments. Now operating as an independent business unit of The Attachmate Group, SUSE continues its unwavering focus on the bene ts of open source and the needs of its commercial partners and customers.
UTS
If youre serious about developing your expertise in SAP ERP, UTS Business School is your only choice. Taught by pioneers of SAP-blended business education, your options range from our full agship program, the Master of Accounting Information Systems, to Certicate 1 short courses.
Winshuttle
Winshuttle provides software products that improve how business users work with SAP. For customers who struggle with rigid, expensive and inefcient processes that limit their ability to adapt to changing business conditions, Winshuttle has the solution. Winshuttle supports customers worldwide from ofces in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and India.
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Delivery focus
Acuity Search comprises Alex Gomez, Sam Vargas (Directors) and Chris Long (SAP Recruitment Principle). All three of us have experience recruiting SAP professionals dating back to 2000/2001. This depth of SAP recruitment experience is second to none in the Australian market. As SAP is the only focus of our business, this allows us to keep up to date with market trends and identify candidates in niche areas ahead of hiring curves. This can be invaluable to clients who need new and emerging SAP skills for project work with immediate effect. We understand the tight timeframes that are associated with hiring programmes and the adverse effect of not attracting the right resource to a project at the right stage of proceedings. We have the capacity to provide both contract and permanent resources covering the entire SAP spectrum, ranging from senior SAP leadership and management right through to SAP graduates. We can provide ad-hoc resources at short notice or build entire project teams from the ground up.
ROI
Due to our transparent view of the SAP market we are able to consult on what the value of a particular SAP resource may be at any one time. Rates/salaries tend to fluctuate greatly in the SAP market based on demand and shortage of skills. Because we are considered experts in our field many of the candidates that we deal with are happy for us to consult on what their current value is at any particular time. This allows us to ensure that rates/ salaries are not inflated due to over confidence. It is also our aim to purely deal with the very best proven SAP consultants working on the best projects in Australia. These are consultants who have the focus, drive, articulation and professionalism to ensure that projects do not drift and that re-work is kept at zero.
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