SAP Adds Enhancements to SAP ERP Application

SAP AG has announced the availability of the second enhancement package for the SAP ERP application. SAP enhancement packages for SAP ERP simplify the way customers manage and deploy new software functionality, enabling them to take advantage of the latest software innovations while minimizing disruption to ongoing operations. Announced at the end of 2006, SAP's enhancement package strategy provides customers a more economical and less disruptive way of adopting and managing software releases.

Customers can selectively implement software innovations from SAP and activate selected functionalities and enhancements as driven by business demand. This unique delivery and deployment method for enterprise software, enabled by the flexibility of enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA), allows customers to get new capabilities while meeting a key customer requirement to leave core ERP functionality stable. As a result, customers can isolate the impact of software updates and quickly bring new functionality online through shortened testing cycles without impeding core business processes.

All innovations in the second enhancement package for SAP ERP are available to customers for rapid deployment and include horizontal and industry-specific functional enhancements, process and user-interface (UI) simplification, and targeted new enterprise services. The second enhancement package for SAP ERP delivers highly targeted business benefits, including:

• Improved flexibility and ability to innovate core processes. The enterprise service bundles in the second enhancement package offer customers the ability to simplify order-to-cash processes by improving access to customer and sales order information, streamlining invoices and payments, and improving visibility for accounts-receivable representatives and cash managers.

In addition, each of the core applications within SAP ERP are improved with the second enhancement package:

• SAP ERP Financials streamline planning and forecasting, financial consolidations, billing, credit, collections and dispute management. The new SAP Bank Relationship Management application increases efficiency, lowers costs and streamlines communications processes across multiple banks through integration with SWIFTNet, the financial messaging network built by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication
• SAP ERP Human Capital Management include the availability of SAP Enterprise Learning environment. The environment includes the SAP Learning Solution and virtual classrooms powered by Adobe Connect. SAP Learning Solution received SCORM2004 (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) 3rd Edition certification on July 17, 2007 from the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative.
• SAP ERP Operations include new roles and work centers for internal sales representatives to access customer information, and simplification of sales order management processes that allow for easy searches of sale and billing documents. In addition, manufacturing companies will receive innovations that support the control and monitoring of Kanban processes and facilitate smooth production in repetitive manufacturing steps according to the Heijunka method.
• SAP ERP Corporate Services
  --SAP Travel Management offers a new intuitive user interface and tools to increase the simplicity and flexibility of the solution, help speed user adoption and implementation time and enable integration with partner applications leveraging enterprise services.
  --SAP Real Estate Management supports additional corporate real estate scenarios such as simplified management of space, rooms, moves and service charge settlements, as well as improved support for global operations through enhanced lease management in multiple currencies.
  --SAP Enterprise Asset Management provides end users with simplified and flexible access to maintenance planning and scheduling business processes.