Around 60% of SAP customers believe there is scope to further exploit the vast capabilities of SAP solutions. The key to achieving this is through streamlining and simplification, according the Fujitsu KISS Report.
In support of this, 87% of customers asked believe that streamlined and standardised SAP landscapes help to better respond to business needs. In addition, 87% find that managed hosted or cloud services can help to simplify internal processes. And 87% agree that ‘simplification’ is the basis for helping to improve many other areas (costs, flexibility, harmonisation) – it is definitely not considered to be just another business buzzword.
In fact, four areas were identified as having the greatest impact on their SAP landscapes: business processes (66%), IT operations (56%), analytics and data (54%), cloud (50%) and mobility (30%).
The “Fujitsu KISS Report: Keeping IT Simplified and Streamlined to maximise the business value of SAP Applications and SAP HANA” shares insights from senior stakeholders at international businesses across a range of industries. The report explored their perceptions and expectations for achieving the business advantages offered by SAP business applications and the SAP HANA platform.
Fujitsu, which has more than 8 000 customers worldwide using SAP software, has worked successfully with thousands of organisations to enable them to quickly achieve better business outcomes, exceptional return on investment, and a more efficient enterprise than would otherwise be possible.
Respondents’ business requirements from SAP solutions were found to vary between markets. On average, each customer has four key requirements which are likely to be: improve efficiencies (especially important to businesses based in Germany), to serve external customers better or faster (UK and US), to streamline applications and systems (all), and to drive business continuity (the Nordics).
This “trend of four” was mirrored by IT requirements, with the most common being to align IT better to respond to business needs (UK and US), to standardise and globalise systems (Germany), to improve cost reductions, and to make full use of the functionality and innovations of SAP solutions.
However, respondents also cited challenges in integrating systems and data migration. In comparison, key factors of a successful SAP software landscape transformation highlight the need for supporting internal resources, particularly with project management (57%) and in attaining the necessary level of internal skills (45%).
Leading results differed across the researched countries. For example, in the US having a good supplier relationship is most important (47%), while in Germany change management and end-to-end impact analysis are the priority (both 47%).