Tempe, AZ May 31, 2001 Hewlett-Packard and SAP this week announced they will offer joint solutions aimed at improving supply chain management and supplier management capabilities for global companies and their respective trading partners.
HP and Walldorf, Germany-based SAP plan to cross-train sales teams and consultants to design, develop and deliver solutions that combine mySAP Supply Chain Management (mySAP SCM) software components and HP hardware and middleware. The companies have set up solution centers at HP and SAP locations to pre-configure and pre-test components to speed up and facilitate implementations.
The companies are targeting their combined solution at enterprises in the technology, consumer products, automotive, aerospace and defense, and engineering and construction industries. Palo Alto, Calif.-based HP also has entered into agreements to participate as a "most valued partner" ("MVP") in the SAPMarkets Partner Program.
Guenter Klamer, senior vice president for information technologies and logistics at BMW, lauded the new alliance. The SAP-HP combination will enable BMW to achieve better visibility into its key business metrics and to anticipate the market need to plan its supply chain more accurately, he said. "With our suppliers worldwide, we need the visibility and flexibility to track critical information in real-time," Klamer explained.
Karen Peterson, research director for SCM enterprise and supply chain management at Gartner, has predicted that the market for supply chain management solutions will grow by 25 percent to 35 percent annually over the next five years.
HP has used mySAP.com to manage its own factories' supply chain processes. HP says that, as a result, it has achieved reduced manufacturing cycles and improved on-time customer delivery. HP's global implementation of mySAP.com will support HP's factories worldwide.
