New York August 29, 2002 German e-business uberprovider SAP this week rolled out a new employee portal application and a warranty claims application that targets the auto industry.
SAP said its Employee Productivity Suite (SAP EPS) comes at a time when the market is requiring businesses to empower their employees to take a more active role in managing their careers, collaborating in projects and accomplishing key business objectives.
According to the software company, the role-based SAP EPS enables employees with various roles and accountabilities to access the information and processes most pertinent to them and in a way they expect to receive it.
For example, executives can use the suite to access a high-level view of operations to develop strategies, monitor projects and manage corporate training, commissions and benefits. Field service managers can use the solution to check service orders, organize work schedules and manage requisitions.
Alternatively, customer service representatives can use the suite for access to shipment history, to review statistics and to submit vacation requests. Employees throughout the business can use SAP EPS to manage their own work environment, while SAP sai that managers can use the suite to more effectively manage their teams.
The point of the application, the provider said, is to allow companies to leverage existing resources and better align employees with the organizations' ultimate business goals.
"We are empowering employees to directly impact the company's bottom line by drawing on SAP's expertise in employee roles and business processes across the enterprise," said Deborah Schmidt, SAP global vice president for human capital management.
Meanwhile, SAP also took the wraps off its new warranty claims solution for the auto industry, promising reduced warranty processing costs and increased customer loyalty.
The new Warranty Claims Processing with mySAP Automotive meets the specific needs of the automotive industry by linking complex business processes into a logical flow, the provider said. The solution flexibly integrates the warranty process into vehicle sales, financials, controlling, spare parts management and engineering. The objective is to allow automotive companies to use financial programs, leasing options, maintenance packages, insurance programs and extended warranties to decrease turnover and encourage their customers to remain loyal.
SAP asserted that today's longer warranty periods and greater range of parts that carry warranties have led to a considerable increase in warranty claims, meaning that the conditions for a warranty claim are becoming more extensive and complex. Mileage or age-dependent restrictions, authorization processes and extensive review mechanisms make this a work-intensive process.
"Processing warranty claims is a complex business that involves different business partners," said Kerstin Geiger, head of SAP's Industry Business Unit Automotive. "Customer satisfaction and retention heavily depends on the professional way of resolving these claims as fast as possible in an automated manner, while keeping process costs low."
The provider said it worked with its auto industry customers to develop the solution and is currently piloting the solution with several original equipment manufacturers, suppliers and importers.
The solution's portal-based integration increases speed and cuts processing costs, its use of rules to automatically check and process claims helps to reduce administration costs, and intelligent control of processes reduces the amount of manual processing, SAP said.
With warranty processing, information can later be used to track the processing of the claim in detail and analyze damage symptoms. The resulting evaluations can be used to introduce preventive measures for improving the product.
Warranty processing also covers special cases such as authorized goodwill claims, recall campaigns, return part handling and complex business warranty cases in which there is more than one reimburser for the items claimed under warranty.
