VMS supports mid-sized companies with SAP

Heidelberg, 2007/04/16 – SAP optimizers help use the complex software

The word ‘mid-sized company’ is not often used in connection with SAP. SAP began a few years ago to come up with solutions for mid-sized companies. And now, innovative German mid-sized companies are putting their faith in SAP. VMS, as an SAP optimizer, helps companies like Impress and Bauerfeind AG to keep their SAP landscape competitive, and assists them in implementing SAP software.

Bauerfeind AG in Zeulenroda, Germany, has been an SAP customer for a number of years. The company, which belongs to the worldwide leading manufacturers of therapeutic products, employs approximately 1,300 employees at three locations in Germany, and operates in twelve countries internationally. Bauernfeld carried out a comprehensive SAP implementation (with SAP ERP, CRM, BW, and XI), and rolled it out worldwide. In order to ensure quality and to keep the SAP system costs under control, Bauerfeind works together with VMS. The company uses the VMS Monitor to constantly monitor the system, and produces a quarterly report about the performance and cost structure. “In a mid-sized company that has implemented SAP on a large scale, there are hardly any comparison metrics with respect to the SAP costs”, states Treitz. “The customers want to be sure that their expenses, costs, and organization are in a solid relationship to the IT costs”.

There is a reason why mid-sized companies have put their trust in SAP. Ralph Treitz, the business director of VMS is convinced that “SAP is definitely one of the world’s best products for getting business processes into IT processes”. It is probably not a big surprise that he worked on SAP’s R/3 product in the mid-1990s. For that reason, but not only that reason, he knows about the problems that mid-sized companies can have with SAP. With VMS, he has helped companies for years, from mid-sized companies to large corporations, to efficiently use their SAP systems. VMS has measured thousands of systems since then, and by doing so, created the largest database of such information, worldwide. “The problem is that SAP has created a very powerful, but also very complex software solution”, states Treitz. “Unfortunately, to this day, it has not been possible for them to reduce the product to a special mid-sized company solution with lower complexity”.

VMS has been very successful in helping mid-sized companies to identify the essential components, and in that way, to use SAP more easily and efficiently. Treitz has found out: “In the mid-sized companies, there is considerably more direct competitive pressure on IT. Thus there is a need to work much closer to best practices, for that reason”.

That mid-sized companies purchase SAP solutions without there being a real mid-sized SAP product, can be confirmed in the experience of the German flooring manufacturer, Impress. After the company consolidated three companies into one entity, SAP will be implemented as its ERP system for 300 users. VMS supports the implementation and supports the IT department in selecting an appropriate SAP operating model and a provider.

About VMS

VMS has been optimizing SAP landscapes since 2002. VMS scans SAP installations from the process-level to the transaction-level and, partnering with CIOs, and identifies strengths and weaknesses. In doing this, VMS works with an integrated concept that comprises the IT infrastructure and the IT and business processes. VMS’ methods are “minimally invasive”, because the work puts only a minimal strain on the client’s resources. VMS offers the collected experience and data from about 2,600 SAP systems that it has measured, and that enables VMS to provide action-oriented advice on optimization and cost management. The structure and dynamics of the IT environment are then reproduced in a final VMS Report, which is used as the navigation system of the SAP landscape.