Boosting the bottom line - SAP leads the way with IT Enterprise Services Architecture implementation

Al Khobar and Dubai will host consecutive 'The Best of SAP World Tour' seminars on June 7 and June 8 respectively. The presentations aim to strengthen SAP's relationship with existing clients and promote the company's Enterprise Services Architecture (ESA) adoption program.

SAP is the world's largest inter-enterprise software company and the world's third-largest independent software supplier overall, offering innovative IT solutions for a wide spectrum of business sectors worldwide.

Its ESA program is a new services-oriented architecture (SOA) that offers a formalised, step-by-step approach to help companies manage strategic transition based on their individual needs, while maintaining the productivity of existing systems.

Based on the SAP NetWeaver comprehensive integration and application platform, users can work with their existing IT infrastructure to enable and manage change.

NetWeaver enables them to flexibly and rapidly design, build, implement, and execute new business strategies and processes, driving innovation throughout the organisation by combining existing systems while maintaining a sustainable cost structure.

SAP has joined forces with heavyweights such as Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, and Symantec in a licensing agreement for NetWeaver that marks a major shift in the dynamics of the IT industry.
As a result, the ESA adoption program addresses client needs to harmonise business and IT objectives by providing services-based, enterprise-scale solutions and flexible IT infrastructures by using NetWeaver.

The Al Khobar and Dubai events are scheduled to feature leading SAP executives - Sergio Maccotta, managing director for Middle East; Dr Klaus Dahlke, business development manager responsible for global business development and strategy; and Dr Hichem Maya, who heads the NetWeaver advisory office for Southern Europe.

SAP clients and partners will contribute presentations on how ESA can bring measurable benefits to a wide spectrum of business sectors.

In Al Khobar, guest speakers are Etienne Gottschalk, Middle East project manager of Atos Origin; and Mohamad Turani, Hewlett Packard Saudi Arabia's FD HP-SAP alliance manager for the Middle East.

In Dubai, speakers are Martin Dvorsky, enterprise applications sales manager for IBM eServer zSeries, EMEA; and Darren Cherry, business development director for Axon Global Middle East.

Middle East customers are investing heavily in business software, according to Phil Blower, Dubai-based sales director for SAP Arabia.

"Regional growth is estimated at about double compared to other markets around the globe, and we already have more than 150 customers across the GCC, in Iran, and Egypt," he says.

"Investing heavily in localising our solutions has further stimulated the enthusiastic response from regional market. Our Arabic edition has boosted our business around the region and a Farsi version is being developed to meet the huge potential in Iran.

"The Best of SAP World Tour marks the mid point in a five-year plan for ESA adoption based on NetWeaver that will continue to create simplicity and integration while reducing the costs and complexity traditionally associated with IT implementation."