The new IT model in the SAP Cloud architecture Change Environment

Friend Letter Line Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "friend Letter Line") is a main footwear industry adhesives and other chemical products company, headquartered in Macau, sales company located in Guangzhou, the production plant located in Zhuhai. As the business grows, the management decides to divide a sales department under the Zhuhai plant, set up an independent subsidiary to operate, and request IT systems to complete the adjustment and deployment as soon as possible. It took only 3 days for the IT department, with only 5 employees, to complete its mission, adjusting the ERP system in the Zhuhai plant and deploying the required IT services for the new subsidiary. If a year ago, to You You, the IT manager Wang Bin, this is almost impossible to complete the task.

Founded in Macao in 1987, the Goodwill Bank was originally a small shop which operated chemical products such as chemical raw materials, solvents and thinner. 2006, Friends of the bank set up their own production plant, began to transform to do their own brand of chemical products agencies. The company quickly adjusted its organizational structure, and an ERP system deployed in 2002 was only managed at the level of sales, finance and logistics. For the chemical manufacturing enterprises such as friends, the cost of materials accounted for a large proportion of the company's overall operating costs, raw material prices in the market changes are also very large. Poor control of raw material sales will result in a backlog of funds. The more serious problem is that after the production of chemical products, the need for a large number of expensive reactor in full bloom, if the production arrangements are not well controlled, the production of products even stacking places are not. The demand for it in the production plant becomes very urgent. Friends of the bank decided to upgrade the original system. But the IT department has found that the cost of system upgrades, new module implementations, and added hardware is almost the same as that of the original system, exceeding 2 million.

Compared to the system upgrades need to invest a large amount of capital, so that the company's management more worried and hesitant, if the company's business or organizational structure changes in the future, IT system will have to go through a toss, to the back?

After 4 months of demand research and selection of tenders, the company abandoned its original idea of upgrading to an existing system and decided to try SAP Business ByDesign products based on "cloud computing"--without rebuilding the complex IT infrastructure and addressing previous IT problems, Even the data center, computer room can be completely simplified, as long as the network can achieve all the application.

Friend line the original server placed in Guangzhou city, an office space, not only is very narrow, but also often encounter power outages or air-conditioning problems, the company's data and hardware security investment has been not very optimistic. "The SAP Cloud architecture is very impressive: security is secure enough, including physical security and data security." "Li Betao admits that there is no concern about the security of the data, which stems from the good business credit of SAP, the German company.

"We have done the input-output ratio analysis, the result is cloud computing products more advantages." "Li Betao explained. From the total cost of 5 years, the traditional it approach is higher. And the cloud computing charging model is the system implementation fee plus quarterly service rental fee-implementation costs in the system to build the implementation of one-time payment; The rental fee includes all general IT support service charges. For example, the company creates a new department, organizational structure changes and changes, IT systems do not need to carry out two development or implementation, only to check the system in the corresponding module services. When you select a feature in a module, as long as a check is made before the project, the system automatically expands a more detailed list of issues that exactly matches the business logic, each of which corresponds to each switch that determines the direction of the business, as long as you are familiar with the business and answer the question, will be able to deploy the system to the same as the business model, or even a lack of it background managers can easily intervene in IT system construction and operations.

In contrast, the traditional service model not only to buy software, building rooms, equipped with IT personnel, escalating, but also to bear the data center of electricity and so on. In addition, as it products continue to improve, enterprises enjoy the service is also upgrading, but not with the system upgrade or improve the additional payment of service charges. This means that in the future you can spend less money but enjoy better service. If you encounter problems or anomalies during system use, you can ask SAP experts for support 24 hours a time online. Six months ago, friends of the bank found a business in the IT system of an anomaly, Wang bin immediately call the SAP's BYD Support research center to seek help. A few minutes later, the service side identified the system in which the unit of measurement had transformed the problem and quickly responded to how he handled it.

Of course, the on-demand model is not perfect. Li Betao also admits that the system can not fully fit the business Operation model, for some personalized needs can not be fully satisfied, "not arbitrary." But for small and medium enterprises, which are constantly changing and growing, the economic situation, market, product changes in the big environment has a great impact on the enterprise in the process of change and growth, the most embarrassing thing, "is this year to buy clothes very fit, but the second is too fat to wear." "It system is too" close ", nor is it a good thing.

"Now the market changes quickly, which determines the product and business to respond to changes at any time, the company's organizational structure will continue to change, it should be at any time to match the company's business and organizational structure changes, can not lag." "Li Betao added," Compared to large enterprises, small and medium-sized enterprises have less resources, investment in Non-core business, we hope the simpler and more transparent the better. Professional people do professional things. ”

SAP Cloud Strategy

While cloud users enjoy better services, they do not mean they will cost more.

Wu with four |

Cloud computing is increasingly being recognised by CIOs, a trend that has led to the convergence and transformation of IT application management software vendors to cloud computing. In SAP, SAP Business ByDesign has been playing the role of landing its cloud computing strategy. With the expansion of the SAP Business bydesign feature, ByDesign has become a mature cloud computing product based on SaaS mode. The business Value Magazine interviewed Heiko Mauersberg, Vice president of Asia Pacific and Japan, Business ByDesign, and exchanged ideas on SAP's cloud computing strategy and bydesign products.

Q for SAP, a management software company, how to judge the future trend of cloud computing enterprise application?

A in fact, cloud computing has been around for a long time, except that we didn't use the name "cloud computing", some called hosting, ASP, or Internet network applications, so we don't think cloud computing is a new concept. Of course, now the industry is in a new perspective to look at these cloud-related technologies, in particular, more and more enterprises are beginning to try this new system Information systems and service deployment, let us see the future huge demand. For SAP, the current focus of our cloud computing strategy is on bydesign products for SME customers, and we hope to meet these companies ' demand for cloud computing. For large enterprises, we also have the corresponding on demand products based on SaaS mode. In 2011, we will extend ByDesign's cloud computing applications to large enterprises, which will allow for good integration between SME customers and large enterprise customers.

Q In your opinion, what are the advantages of an enterprise choosing a cloud computing model to deploy information systems and services, compared to the traditional approach?

A in fact, the use of cloud computing products, for those information systems and services front-end users, will not feel the change, because the front-end operation is the same as before. However, we often talk about "specialization in the surgery industry", which gives sap the backstage things, and we have professional people to help the enterprise to do the work. CEOs, CIOs, and CFOs can devote more time and energy to their business.

Q Does this mean that companies will spend more?

A I don't think the cost will be higher. SAP at the same time for many companies to do the application hosting, this will have the scale of benefits exist, but also allows us to have enough space for enterprise users to reduce costs. And, for enterprises, they do not need to be in the initial application deployment of large-scale capital expenditure, do not need to deploy the application system to purchase servers, storage and other hardware facilities, they just need to buy the appropriate services.

Q There are more or less differences in the demand for it applications in different enterprises, so many enterprises need to customize the two development of the software products purchased. Like ByDesign this based on the public cloud products, how to meet the customization needs of customers?

A This we have fully considered, and in July this year, the function of ByDesign products can be expanded, customers can use the system scalability, a lot of customized adjustments. And, in the new version we're about to launch, customers will enjoy more flexibility and customization.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)