SAP Makes Collaboration Core to Business Applications

WALLDORF, Germany, May 4, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Delivering on its strategy to bring collaborative capabilities to every application and facet of work, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced that the cloud-based collaborative application SAP® StreamWork™ is now available to integrate with SAP business software. SAP enables individuals, teams and entire organizations to better collectively problem-solve, brainstorm and make decisions directly within their business applications and with the information they know and use every day — without switching to another disconnected collaboration solution or having to rely on mountains of email to drive projects forward.

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Since the launch of SAP StreamWork and the addition of advanced security and integration capabilities in the enterprise edition of the product, it has been used by people in thousands of cities around the world. Building upon this momentum, the new integration capabilities expand its reach even further so that all types of people — employees, clients, partners and suppliers — can have the opportunity to benefit from secure social collaboration in the context of their work. For IT, SAP StreamWork delivers a secure, social solution that companies can standardize on across complex landscapes with many applications, eliminating the management of multiple collaborative solutions with differing technology and security capabilities.

SAP and partners have already delivered integrations with SAP StreamWork, and additional integrations are in development. SAP StreamWork can be integrated easily into SAP applications with the help of a consultant, SAP partner or by a customer's own IT department.

"Social and collaboration capabilities have the potential to improve the quality and transparency of decisions and drive positive outcomes if they can be married to a user's existing applications, information and business processes," said Rita Sallam, Gartner research director. "Collaborative decision-making applications that are linking with existing business processes like performance management, CRM, forecasting, and procurement, bring the right people together and provide the tools they need to make better decisions. For example, BI users, such as sales managers evaluating sales performance across regions or products, or product managers deciding which new product ideas to fund, or finance managers allocating capital expenditures across strategic projects now have an efficient way to bring the right people together to analyze and discuss results and agree on a course of action – and capture the entire process – rather than the disconnected manual efforts of the past."

SAP StreamWork, enterprise edition, now offers integration with several SAP applications, including the SAP® Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) application for social CRM, enabling sales leaders to bring teams together — sales, customer service, consultants and more — to help close sales opportunities more quickly. Sales teams can also collaborate directly with their customers to help ensure the products and services are delivered when expected and to help address the requirements defined.

Other integrations for SAP StreamWork have already been delivered for the SAP® Product Lifecycle Management (SAP PLM) application, helping drive product ideation and uncovering insights to bring innovative, differentiated products and services to market, as well as the SAP® BusinessObjects™ Strategy Management application, helping companies become more productive, agile and risk-aware by collaborating and defining key performance indicators (KPIs) across the organization. Additionally, SAP is currently planning for the integration of SAP StreamWork with the SAP® BusinessObjects™ Business Intelligence (BI) platform, which would give customers the ability to deliver collaborative BI throughout their organizations, giving end-users the freedom to data hypothesize, analyze and make fast, informed decisions with the team.

Customers Collaborate More Efficiently With Social Integration

For the Toronto Chapter of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers, SAP StreamWork has enabled the organization to increase communication and collaboration among its members and move projects forward between board meetings. Within the application, board members conduct polls to approve board meeting minutes, vote on new initiatives and gather feedback on committee work. And when meetings run out of time, SAP StreamWork provides an avenue for them to keep discussions moving along while making sure everyone is informed.

"I love the fact that SAP StreamWork integrates seamlessly with our existing infrastructure, instead of forcing us into using a separate solution," said Adrian Davis, president of the Toronto Chapter of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers. "SAP StreamWork is intuitive and easy to use, and it brings structure to what could otherwise be unstructured communication. We can also tie it into any project we're working on, both inside and outside of our organization. The Business Tools Catalog is particularly useful, because it helps give life to more fruitful collaboration and discussion around the decisions we have to make, which allows us to achieve better results and grow."

"More and more our customers ask us how they can use collaboration strategically in their businesses," said Jack Miller, global vice president, Global Collaboration and Cloud Analytics, SAP. "With SAP StreamWork, we've delivered a contextually-relevant approach that's easy for business people to learn and use within their current processes, while at the same time serving the security and flexible management needs of IT."

SAP StreamWork is currently available in enterprise, professional or basic editions. For more information, visit the Business Analytics newsroom. Follow SAP BusinessObjects on Twitter at @businessobjects and SAP StreamWork at @sapstreamwork.

Next Major Event: SAPPHIRE® NOW Conference

With SAPPHIRE® NOW, SAP offers customers, partners and prospects even more opportunities to engage in dialogue with peers, participants and thought leaders at the premier educational and networking event. Being held in Orlando, Florida, May 15-18, 2011, the SAP customer conference connects attendees on site with global participants through state-of-the-art broadcast studios and an online experience that incorporates the latest social media and community functionality. Whether on site or online, participants can gain insight as to how SAP is delivering on its product strategy and helping organizations around the world to run better. For more information, visit www.sapphirenow.com. For announcements, blog posts, videos and other coverage leading up to and during the event, visit the SAPPHIRE NOW newsroom at www.sapphirenow.news-sap.com. Follow SAPPHIRE NOW on Twitter at @SAPPHIRENOW.

About SAP

As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 170,000 customers (includes customers from the acquisition of Sybase) to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

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SOURCE SAP AG