SAP Redefines Enterprise Social Software With New Cloud Offerings

PALO ALTO, Calif., Oct. 31, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- As companies catch on to the potential of enterprise social software to drive business results throughout the organization, vendors are competing to deliver the next evolution of solutions. With a pedigree of being a leading enterprise software vendor, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today unveiled its social strategy to transform how business people connect, engage and transact with customers, colleagues and partners. By infusing social and collaborative capabilities into on-premise and cloud applications or mobile devices, SAP enables better engagement to effectively serve customers and partners and supports streamlining of work processes and decision-making to drive rapid business results.

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Delivering on its social strategy, SAP introduced two new offerings: the SAP® Jam social software platform and the SAP® Social OnDemand solution. SAP Jam enables today's workers to drive rapid business results by integrating social capabilities into their applications and daily business processes, eliminating social silos. SAP Social OnDemand transforms social media conversations into rich business insights. The solution helps marketing and customer service organizations better engage with customers to increase brand loyalty, manage reputational risks and capitalize on opportunities.

Social Collaboration at People's Fingertips

SAP Jam meets the needs of organizations of all sizes in any industry — for people in functions ranging from sales to finance to human resources — to help them get their work done. The design principle behind SAP Jam was to create a unified environment in which users can easily connect with colleagues and collaborate around data, content and processes right where they are working, to more effectively solve problems, make decisions and drive results. Innovation between SAP and SuccessFactors brought SAP Jam to life. The platform combines the best parts of SuccessFactors Jam for enterprise social networking, the SAP® StreamWork® application for social workflow and problem-solving as well as new capabilities.

"The enterprise social software market is maturing quickly with a 39.8 percent year-over-year growth rate in 2011,"¹ said Vanessa Thompson, research manager, IDC, Enterprise Social Networks and Collaborative Technologies. "Today's organizations are looking to collaborate in real time and in context, inside and outside the firewall, to include employees, customers, partners and suppliers. SAP Jam can provide the ability to intelligently filter information so that employees can, with system help, surface important information in the work context."

Collaborative business processes are supported via integrations with SuccessFactors Business Execution (BizX) Suite, the on-premise SAP® Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) application, the mobile client for the SAP® Financials OnDemand solution and the SAP® Sales OnDemand solution for social onboarding or learning, collaborative opportunity or service request management, and social customer or partner engagement

"Consumers are increasingly connected and informed today and this has transformational implications on how organizations engage with them, serve them and innovate for them," said Sameer Patel, global vice president and general manager, Social Software Solutions, SAP. "Deploying social software in a silo isn't enough. Social software needs to be pervasive across our business applications and our devices, not in social silos, so the best minds can come together where collaboration is needed the most to continuously meet both business execution objectives and to delight the end customer. This is the core design principle behind SAP's social strategy."

Listen and Engage With Customers Via Social Media

Just as social collaboration is enriching business processes, the social media channel can be used to enrich business decisions and increase customer engagement. SAP Social OnDemand helps marketing organizations take action on insight by simplifying the process of prioritizing and engaging on social media and honing in on key trends. With real-time monitoring, routing and escalation, it helps ensure that critical conversations are not missed and that responses are appropriate, based on a poster's profile that includes social influence metrics as well as customer data from other enterprise systems. Robust integration with on-premise CRM and an existing knowledge base allows companies to turn customer service into a marketing multiplier.

To learn more, see: "SAP Infographic: Social Software Drives Results." For a closer look at SAP Jam, view: "Screenshots: SAP Redefines Enterprise Social Software." For more information, visit the SAP Newsroom. Participate in the conversation on Twitter by using the hashtag #SAPSocial.

¹"IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Enterprise Social Software 2012 Vendor Analysis" by Vanessa Thompson, Amy Konary and Michael Fauscette, October 2012.

Next Major Event: SAPPHIRE® NOW + SAP® TechEd Madrid

In 2012, SAP again brings together its largest ecosystem education event series with its premier customer conference for a co-located event to be held in Madrid, Spain, from November 13-16. With SAPPHIRE® NOW, SAP offers its customers, partners, and prospects even more opportunities to engage in dialogue with peers, participants and thought leaders around the globe, and can gain insight as to how SAP is delivering on its product strategy and helping organizations around the world to run better. SAP® TechEd brings IT managers, software developers, administrators, and business process experts together to learn in an interactive environment directly from the experts responsible for cutting-edge SAP technology. The co-located event provides access to the entire SAP ecosystem and enables attendees to learn how SAP can help their organizations run like never before. Follow on Twitter at @SAPPHIRENOW and @SAPTechEd, and join the conversation at #SAPPHIRENOW and #SAPTechEd.

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 197,000 customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

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SOURCE SAP AG