Configit Quote at SAPPHIRE – SAP for the Information Worker
The recent Sapphire Now in Frankfurt and Orlando featured the trinity: “Sustainability, In Memory, On Device” as the driving forces behind a whooping doubling of the total market for SAP.
This doubling occurs when sustainable businesses invest savings from IT-rationalizations in IT-innovation to stay competitive and replace carbon-costly business processes with IT-supported collaboration and data delivery. In addition, SAP in memory database technology powers on demand solutions and supports a multitude of on device solutions for new types of SAP data consumers.
SAP for the Transactional Worker, Microsoft for the Information Worker .. or?
In many companies less than 15% of the employees have SAP as their primary platform whereas most employees use Microsoft Office (typically Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint) as their key daily efficiency tools. Microsoft uses the term “Information Worker” for this type of user and extends the meaning to cover users who use SharePoint to facilitate collaboration. In contrast, users of the SAP platform are sometimes characterized as “Transactional Workers” or “Task Workers”.
Configit Quote Integrates Information Workers in SAP Business Processes
With Enterprise Services, the Sybase Acquisition and the scalability of In Memory technology SAP provides a platform where partners create applications that consumes SAP data and present it to the Information Worker. “Configit Quote, recent triple finalist in SAP TechEd Demo Jam, is a prominent example of SAP for the Information Worker”, explains Marin Ukalovic, Solution Architect, Industry Solutions SAP EMEA and board member of the SAP Configurator Workgroup.
“Configit Quote consumes pricing, configuration, products and customer information from SAP and delivers it to the information worker in a standalone office application similar to Outlook, Word and Excel but packed with the power of SAP. This means that Configit Quote turns offline users into real SAP users and integrates the information workers in the SAP business processes”.
Sustainable business with greener SAP Quoting
Information Workers generate quotations to other Information Workers and quotes crisscross between sales, business partners, customers and back office. Configit Quote allows a collaborative quoting process where Information Workers collaborate and share the Quote as a single shared and traceable object.
Configit Quote for SAP eliminates different paper-based versions of quotes and quote revisions, reduces travel and supports “customer self quoting”. The focus on user-friendliness is required before the Information Worker will adopt SAP-powered applications and this focus on user friendly applications is perhaps the most drastic change from business as usual with SAP. Configit Quote for SAP makes life a lot easier for the information worker and makes the information worker “look good” and feel empowered.
In this way Configit Quote for SAP both supports the “green aspect” of sustainability and supports business sustainability with new innovative collaborative quoting processes.