Globalization with SAP and UNIORG

Today, globalization is no longer a factor only affecting a handful of very large companies. Rather, the number of medium-sized companies producing and/or selling their products at different locations is also on the increase. It's readily apparent that, without regard to the size of companies, the complexity of products and the number of product variants are increasing while the average product life cycle is ever shorter. In the face of diminishing customer loyalty and global competition, many businesses find themselves confronted with the task of reducing costs for personnel, administration and production while striving to secure new markets.

Thus, on the basis of flexible delivery networks, companies must for instance be capable of reacting to any potential business incident in real time. For this, however, coordinated and mutually adjusting activities between marketing, sales, logistics, production, procurement, accounting and financial management, as well as between all partners along the supply chain, are indispensable. To achieve these goals, it's useful to continuously map all business processes across countries with an appropriate SAP solution, at the very least within the company. For an international presence affords the company no competitive advantage if not buttressed by globalized processes, full transparency of all national companies and accelerated reporting. Then, integration of customers and suppliers into a harmonized IT system landscape becomes the next logical step. The resulting synergies, reaching beyond the limits of the company itself, represent another key to success in global competition. Here, it's immaterial whether improvement of inter-company processes and reduction in process lead times are primarily due to technical standardization of hardware or standardization of software. Rather, it's essential to identify all aspects of the relevant (sub) project and to recognize any potential issues and problems well in advance, so that these can be taken into account in designing the approach.

These issues do not merely concern a company's IT department, which needs to adjust network performance and bandwidth or to set up tight maintenance periods as a result of time-zone constraints. It will also prove necessary to determine the extent to which supplementary solutions from SAP NetWeaver Framework (BI, XI (exchange infrastructure), portal, etc...) are used, thus laying the foundation for a forward-looking, service-oriented IT architecture (Enterprise SOA). Moreover, potential employee resistance against the new SAP software (roll-out) and cultural differences between the national companies will have to be overcome. In the organizational area, issues pertaining for instance to country-specific legal requirements, master data harmonization or recasting of organizational and operational structures must be settled.

These are all very good reasons to rely on a consulting partner who understands your motives and goals in harmonizing your IT landscape. UNIORG is an SAP consulting partner experienced in the international business environment, supporting you with innovative methods in the forward-looking realization of your consolidation project. Thus, for example, we suggest an approach to international roll-outs in which you remain the process owner, and roll-out is carried out by your employees and ours working together. A pragmatic approach with a high rate of success and minimal risk. We'll be glad to meet with you for an initial mutual briefing session. Give us a call (0231/9497-0), or use our contact form!