Manufacturing Executive - September 2008 - (Page 37)

The €4 billion elevator and escalator company line ERP platform, as Pentagon is doing. has used SaaS-based applications from SaaS piHaving launched BBD last year in a flurry of oneer Salesforce.com to support its global CRM SaaS optimism, SAP has since scaled back its activities for over a year. It’s a substantial operglobal rollout as real-life practicalities emerge. ation, supporting 2,000 users serving a global Currently available in only six countries, the customer base with 800 ser vice centers in software is taking longer to implement, costing 43 countries. SAP more in sales support than the company Hiekkanen-Mäkelä says the effort has cerwould like, and reportedly suffering a few pertainly been worthwhile. “Moving from product formance problems. sales to customer service management has def“The approach is unique in the industry,” SAP initely been one of the key benefits that we have co-CEO Léo Apotheker told delegates at the comseen as a manufacturing company. With the SaaS pany’s recent Sapphire event in Berlin. “We are approach, we were able to concentrate on the not just bringing one aspect, like CRM. We are business change and the process change, rather bringing a full end-to-end business suite. So the than running this as an IT project. We could challenge — and the opportunity — is larger.” scale the system week by week on rollout, and someone else took care “SaaS is good if people have a clear process in of all the security settings, backup, mind and want to get a very quick start — and and duplications, so we were able to focus on the business imple- they don’t want to develop something from mentation with only a small IT scratch.” — Ulla Hiekkanen-Mäkelä, Kone team,” she says. Overall, Kone estimates, the move has saved German capacitor manufacturer WIMA in the business five months’ worth of IT developMannheim, Germany, knows all about the chalment and will hit ROI within three years. “SaaS is lenges. The company has been one of the first good if people have a clear process in mind and manufacturing test sites for BBD since July 2007. want to get a very quick start — and they don’t A privately owned company, WIMA produces want to develop something from scratch,” capacitors for automotive, consumer, industrial Hiekkanen-Mäkelä adds. electronics, and lighting customers, including Bosch and Siemens. ‘FAST START’ APPEAL The BBD HR module has been running since That fast-start, low-up-front-cost appeal of using September 2007, but the rest of the system — SaaS to supplement core systems is driving adopSCM, SRM, CRM, and project management — is tion among European manufacturers, accordnot yet live. ing to industry market research company IDC. “The problem in the beginning was that we In a recent sur vey covering SaaS spending had a very fragmented IT structure,” says Frank plans across 2,000 European companies in Her rmann, inter nal business consultant at France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United WIMA, who has worked closely on the pilot SAP Kingdom, more than one-third said they intend system. “Each production side had its own softwithin the next 24 months to invest in SaaS for ware for each area at three different sites. We replacing or supplementing the functionality of needed to install a new network, found that some existing ERP and CRM solutions. data was not digitised, had to develop new article Report author Bo Lykkegaard, program mancodes, and now we are trying to adapt processes ager for European enterprise applications at IDC to fit the BBD system. That’s the biggest chalin Denmark, concludes, “We believe SaaS spendlenge for user companies — and for SAP.” ing will be directed at new applications and at Pentagon also found that it needed to rethink replacement of broken applications, rather than its internal structure in preparation for the move at ripping out and replacing working solutions. to SaaS, but company management see that as a European organizations seek to leverage the good thing. SaaS delivery model to reduce risk, complexity, “The process has acted as a very good vehicle and up-front costs of new IT initiatives. It is to shake our business down and help us analyse much more about co-existence rather than ourselves,” Lindhop says. “We have already replacement.” made some significant improvements along the That is true unless you take up one in the way. It has standardised process between the new wave of SaaS offerings, such as SAP’s Busitwo sites, given us synergy across the group, ness by Design (BBD), that promises a full onand will give us real-time visibility about what September 2008 37 http://Salesforce.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Manufacturing Executive - September 2008

Manufacturing Executive - September 2008 Contents Editor's Letter Opinion By David Humphrey Starters Road Trip Part 1: Innovation or Efficiency? Part 2: The Innovation Gap Opinion By Lisa Bodell Special Report: Great Aspirations Supply Chain: The New Money Machine Product Design: Fruehauf Gets into High Gear with 3D CAD Business Intelligence: Food Distributor Turns Up the Heat on Manufacturers Software: Manufacturers Face SaaS Hurdles Dialogue Opinion By Pierfrancesco Manenti

Manufacturing Executive - September 2008

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