Johannesburg, 20 Jan 2013
On 9 August 2007, BNP Paribas announced it was ceasing activity in three hedge funds, indicating to the global market that financial crises may be developing. On 15 September 2008, the investment bank, Lehman Brothers, went bankrupt, waking up the world to the knowledge that banks are not too strong to fail, and forcing the financial powers to give attention to the stability of the banking world.
The banks were given attention, but the global economy was forced into a recession. It was soon evident that it is no longer possible to obtain credit easily, and confidence in the markets was lost. There are some economists predicting this recession is not coming to an end, and that there will be long periods of weak growth culminating in the global economy plunging further back in 2013.
Even though it seems the current recession will remain the status quo, business managers still have to survive and keep their businesses running. People still need to make a living, buy food and pay their home loans. Astute business managers are therefore looking deeper into cost-cutting and improving productivity and efficiency in order to survive.
Business is not one-dimensional, however, and a business success intervention needs to look at many different business activities in order to make an impact. Responding to the need in the market, various business management solutions have been developed or improved. Graham Henderson, from Blue Pencil Consulting - a company that specialises in SAP Solution Manger and offers SAP consulting and training solutions - warns that an effective business management solution is one that encompasses as many of the business activities into a single, integrated software solution as possible, while also being capable of reflecting the business on a real-time basis.
Many business managers have the perception that these solutions are beyond the reach of a medium or even smaller sized company. The truth is that if you can afford a SAP implementation, you are ready for it. Often, the need for an implementation is forced by the need to remain globally competitive or the need to improve efficiency by integrating solutions and technology. Another perception is that, despite a large investment, a solution implementation will not render adequate results. There are statistics, such as a 72% fail rate on IT implementations that purport to confirm such perceptions. In order to counteract these statistics, products such as SAP Solution Manager that can create transparency within the SAP landscape with respect to technical stability and business efficiency have been developed. These products are also useful in supporting and managing the change process in order to ensure the production environment remains stable, while supporting the need for innovation and change from the development environment.
"The larger the SAP landscape, the greater the value of a product such as SAP Solution Manager," holds Henderson. "It consolidates the daily maintenance and support of the technology landscape to a single source for monitoring of the technical and business aspects of the SAP landscape, and has the ability, if configured, to highlight performance issues and assist in identifying the cause. Through such consolidation, and by creating a clear picture of the technical and business process landscape, efficiency is gained." Ninety percent of problems or complaints in business can be tracked back to a variance from processes. With a business solution in place, a manager will have the ability to monitor the throughput and backlog of mapped process steps. This allows for the measurement of the effectiveness and efficiency of the business streams.
In addition, it is often found, especially in smaller or medium-sized businesses, that business processes are immature or non-existent. In other cases, the processes are well developed, but not implemented, and users are not well trained in the maintenance of the processes. In such a case, a SAP Solution Manager's Solution Documentation Assistant can be used to create a process blueprint baseline of used functionality accelerating the process mapping exercise.
Ultimately, it comes back to the management cycle of planning, leading, organising and controlling. In order to manage effectively, managers need solutions and information, data of history, data of the current situation and indications of future scenarios.
It involves keeping control of the micro-environment and navigating through the macro-environment. The modern-day manager has various tools at his or her disposal to enhance business success. SAP Solution Manager, for instance will create technical transparency through regular, fully formatted management reports for ongoing management and control. Such data will not ensure business success, however. This is ultimately up to the leadership, marketing and operational excellence of the organisation - but having the right technology is what keeps businesses globally competitive.
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