Inside The ASUG Turnaround – Interview with ASUG CEO Bridgette Chambers

Two years into her tenure, ASUG CEO Bridgette Chambers provides ERP Executive with an inside view of ASUG’s turnaround, her vision for ASUG’s future, and insight into new initiatives including ASUGnews.com and the forthcoming revamp of ASUG.com.

Esselte Group Does More with Less by Embracing Lean IT

ERP Executive talked with Mark Katz, senior VP and CIO for Esselte, who explained how lean concepts that work well on the shop floor can be applied to IT, including to SAP, to free up capacity and help IT do more with less.

Voice of Experience: The Head of SAP’s Oldest User Group (VNSG) Talks Technology

VNSG holds a special place in SAP history as the first SAP user group. VNSG counts among its members 80% of all SAP Business Suite customers in the Netherlands and Belgium. ERP Executive spoke to Rob Van der Marck, Managing Director of VNSG, about how his group influences SAP product direction.

The SAP Dialogue – Straight Talk from the Chair of SUGEN

The SAP User Group Executive Network (SUGEN) is an influential umbrella organization for SAP user groups where the groups can coordinate feedback on issues and present them to SAP with a united front. ERP Executive talked with Tonnie van der Horst to learn more about how the group operates and how it achieves its goals.

How DSAG Impacts SAP’s Product Direction – The ERP Executive Interview

DSAG is one of the largest and most influential SAP user groups in the world. Based in SAP’s home country of Germany, it has regular meetings with SAP executives to give users a voice in product direction and strategy. ERP Executive talked with Mario Günter, Managing Director of DSAG, to learn more about how DSAG influences SAP’s direction.

How the Army Normalizes Disparate ERP systems – and Gets Better Data

Large corporations face a common problem: difficulty normalizing data that comes from different business units or even companies that fall under the same corporate umbrella. ERP Executive talked to Matt Cozzi about how he is tying together disparate SAP systems on the U.S. Army project.

Meeting the Compliance Challenge: How Abiomed Manages and Mitigates Risk for its SAP Users

At last year’s SAPPHIRE conference, Abiomed CIO Sharon Kaiser presented a case study on how she is meeting the compliance challenge, by determining where compliance risks exist and taking steps to mitigate those risks. ERP Executive spoke with Kaiser to learn more about her approach to governance, risk management and compliance (GRC).

Quantifying Change: How Holly Corporation Makes SAP Optimization Count

Holly Corporation is a petroleum refiner with more than $8 billion in annual revenue and about 1,700 employees. The company installed a bevy of SAP applications in 2007, everything from the core ECC 6.0 system including SD, MM and FI, to SAP XI and SAP BW. Nellson Burns, Vice President of Information Technology, talked to ERP Executive about what he’s learned at Holly Corporation and the results he’s seen.

Lextron Goes Virtual with SAP – and Starts Counting the Benefits

Lextron, Inc. is a wholesale distributor of animal health pharmaceuticals with about 700 employees, 60 locations across 20 U.S. states and upwards of $500 million in annual sales. Until recently, as a result of mergers and acquisitions, it also had four separate ERP systems. When Lextron decided to consolidate to a single SAP implementation in 2009, Tim Hays, Lextron’s IT Director, opted to do so in a virtual environment – and he’s never looked back.

Transparency as a Discipline: SAP CIO Oliver Bussmann on SAP’s Internal IT Transformation

To say that SAP CIO Oliver Bussmann has his hands full would be an understatement. Since he joined SAP as CIO twelve months ago, Bussmann has been leading SAP’s internal IT transformation. For this edition of the ERP Executive Spotlight, Bussmann talked to us about how an SAP CIO should handle the converging trends of mobility, cloud computing, sustainability, and enterprise collaboration.

Ten Winning SAP Upgrade Tactics from Ten SAP Executives

Want to upgrade to ERP 6.0 the right way? How about learning from ten SAP upgrade projects that stepped into the fray and came out with a successful upgrade and the numbers to prove it? Here are ten keys from SAP IT Managers to “upgrading the smart way.”

A 3-Pronged Approach to Simplifying SAP by Culling Custom Code

After using SAP for more than 12 years, Pactiv Corp., makers of Hefty products, has developed its share of custom code. As it preps for an upgrade, it spent the last 2 years culling that code, using a 3-pronged approach and scoping out the latest tools.

Critical Keys to Success with SAP ERP 6.0 – Omnicell Shares Go Live Secrets

Omnicell provides automated solutions for medication and supply management. They run ERP 6.0 with most of the ECC components, including financials, human resources, and supply chain management.

We recently spoke with Sue Pranes, the company’s Senior IT Director, about why Omnicell chose SAP ERP 6.0. Learn from her team’s experience in managing the go live project.

How TiVo Keeps SAP Humming 24×7

TiVo uses SAP to handle all its customer-facing billing and ordering systems, making it imperative that the system be consistently available. Here’s how the company keeps SAP running virtually around the clock.

Richard Rothschild, Senior Director of IT at TiVo, outlines the strategies he uses to get through hardware and software upgrades and other changes while limiting the effect on customers.

How Newell Rubbermaid Went Mobile With Their SAP Portals

Good luck keeping up with Willi Candra, the Senior Manager for Web and Mobile Technology at Newell Rubbermaid. Willi’s team is charged with keeping 3,000 internal users happy with their SAP Portals and mobile SAP access. He’s also accountable for the e-commerce and e-marketing platforms for Newell Rubbermaid.

I caught up with Willi before his presentation at ASUG/SAPPHIRE 2010. We discussed how he builds a business case for mobile projects, and the potholes in the road for SAP users who want to deliver on the promise of mobile without getting burned by the hype.

Who Needs Business Alignment? How Pacific Coast Building Products Mashes IT and Business

Ann Foley is the Director of Program Management for Pacific Coast Building Products in Sacramento, California. Ann has always been a tech/business hybrid, so it’s no surprise she gravitates towards that treacherous gap between business and IT where careers are made, or sometimes ruined. We caught up with Ann prior to her presentation at ASUG/SAPPHIRE NOW 2010. Top of our mind? How to close the business/IT gap.

Change Management: Don’t Leave Home Without It

Software change management isn’t just for life or death applications – you need to use it when tweaking everyday SAP functions. SAP veteran administrator John Belger explains why and how.

Advice from “Mr. SAP Networking”

Bob Oldrati is IT director and controller at Powell Electronics in Swedesboro, NJ. The firm’s connectors, switches and relays are used so widely Oldrati boasts that some are still on the moon and Mars as parts of space probes. Closer to home, Oldrati is a master at networking in the SAP world and chairs two ASUG special interest groups. We caught up with Bob to learn what works for him.