Following a lengthy period of project preparation, Siemens Southern Africa has just completed an upgrade and implementation of SAP Enterprise, the first such site to go live in Africa. By upgrading from SAP version 4.5 straight to Enterprise - SAP's latest version - Siemens has introduced new functionality to the system while eliminating the need for SAP upgrades for the next five to seven years.
"This breathing space allows us to focus on the process consulting aspect of SAP as well as new dimension products such as CRM or e-business, rather than keeping us fully occupied with implementing upgrades to keep in line with SAP's release strategy," says Paul Kahle, enterprise project manager at Siemens Southern Africa.
The corporate/shared account services R/3 system went off-line early last month, leaving the CIO department and the business units to work over time, upgrading and then testing the system. "Released ahead of schedule, we were pleased to announce that there were no major issues and the system is running stably," adds Kahle.
The benefits offered by the Enterprise version include new technologies provided by the SAP Web Application Server as well as new application functionalities provided by the SAP R/3 Enterprise Extensions, which can make the business more efficient and replace many modifications that are expensive to maintain. Upgraded modules included finance, controlling, material management, sales and distribution, while human resources is seen as a separate project and is scheduled to go live on 1 August this year.
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