Here are 4 more actions from which you can derive multiple benefits:

• “Smart” data archiving and data volume management can dramatically reduce storage costs and boost system speeds
• Improving audit efficiency by automatically performing tasks that previously were manual saves money
• Decommissioning legacy systems minimizes support costs and mitigates legal risks, too
• Automating SAP business processes such as accounts payable and accounts receivable tracks the process and provides visibility throughout which can also lead to better decisions and add to your bottom line

These hidden opportunities for cost reduction are just below the surface. Technology can help achieve business objectives in many ways that were previously ignored. Let us show you how we may be able to find additional cost savings within your business processes.

Contact Dolphin at contact@dolphin-corp.com or call 1-888-305-9033.

Dolphin has a solution, the Dolphin Data Management Cockpit (DMC), which offers traditional SAP archiving and serves GRC objectives. DMC permits data encryption at the field level. It works with /virsa/ tables (especially the firefighter log tables – which can build up fast), and allows this data to be archived with standard SAP archiving protocol (using SARA). The SAP application provides archive capabilities; this is not true archiving but more of a download/upload process. The download/upload process can take time to accomplish and can affect system performance.

The DMC solution uses the standard archiving process, which has minimal effect on your system. For data retrieval, we can update SAP Tcodes for GRC to read the archive data, making both online and archive data available to end users.

The cost of storing data in an active database can be expensive regardless of your SAP system and even more so for those using SAP HANA. Implementing an archiving strategy with transparent access to the data is a much more cost efficient alternative when data is no longer used by end users on a regular basis.

Plus an added advantage to archiving – once data is archived, data cannot be altered or deleted which ensures compliance when it comes to audits.

To find out what Dolphin’s doing to help companies running SAP applications achieve compliance with today’s regulations, check out our solutions: www.dolphin-corp.com/information-lifecycle-management/sap-data-security-management/.

For a compilation of resources to help you find and understand security and privacy laws, regulations and guidelines, visit: www.aicpa.org/INTERESTAREAS/INFORMATIONTECHNOLOGY/RESOURCES/PRIVACY/Pages/default.aspx

Tax and freight processing automation in AP at a a leading industrial manufacturer in US
One of the goals of business process automation and optimization initiatives is to capture and consolidate an individual’s memories of the process execution into institutional memory. In a process like Accounts Payable that historically has very low turn-over, this can be a daunting task. During the new process blueprinting, you frequently hear statements such as “We can’t really explain this through a process map; Debbie has this in her head and she has been doing this for 25 years. She just knows what’s taxable and what’s not.” Such situations are neither good for Debbie, the example knowledge worker, nor the organization. It creates process risk for the company and hinders that knowledge worker from moving up or across the ladder or sharing the work load. For organizations, this also means an inability to leverage new technology to bring efficiency or introduce organization changes such as a shared service center in different geographies.

Recently I came across such a scenario at a leading industrial manufacturer in the US where its Accounts Payable organization recently introduced automation through OCR and eInvoicing technologies. They were already using Dolphin’s imaging and workflow solution within their SAP system that substantially cut down on invoice lead time compared to their old paper-based manual process a couple of years earlier. During a health check of the system, we learned that they were not getting the level of automation that was expected out of the system. The main reason was their choice to disable automatic posting of indirect PO-based invoices. When we dug deeper we found that this was done so that AP users get a chance to review the vendor specified tax with the expected tax for each invoice line and take certain corrective actions if things don’t match. They had a list of those steps laid out on a cheat sheet developed by a knowledge worker who had been on the job for a very long time. This was our moment to capture that individual’s knowledge, turn it into institutional memory and introduce that in to the automation process.

Working with the AP team we further refined the steps that were manually taken by the AP user. We came up with a set of business rules that would be applied by the system automatically when the vendor specified tax did not match the expected tax that came out of the external tax software. The possible outcomes included actions such as short-payment of an invoice with special notes on check or accrual of the taxes. Within days of activating those rules in the production system, the auto-posting rates for indirect PO invoices went up by 80% and the company was able to finally realize, and exceed, savings that were expected when they began the automation initiative—a clear example of how a small gain in efficiencies has tangible bottom-line impact!

Keep tuned for more such examples in this series.

And this brings me to the topic of Data Archiving. A stretch? Maybe not if you look at data as a ‘picture’ as does the Infographic referenced above. In ERP systems there are great volumes of data that need to be tamed so that it can be sorted, arranged and presented. But in ERP systems, the data is more complicated and how to manage it can get dicey depending on the stakeholders involved and their requirements. For corporate databases, growth must be kept in check or it becomes unmanageable. And, for those using the data, it must be available instantly whenever and wherever it is needed.

So it begs the question: Why not archive it? After all, archiving saves money on a variety of levels! Isn’t that what the boss wants? Ahh. You have to build a Business Case for Data Archiving? Enough said. Let’s go back to the picture concept….. Click here or on the picture and let me know if this helps.

In other words, sustainability programs have been elevated to executive offices. According to an Ernst & Young survey of 272 companies with revenues greater than $1B, the top five drivers of sustainability in the next two years are: cost reduction, stakeholders’ expectations, managing risks, revenue generation and government regulation.

That somewhat mirrors the objectives of business process optimization. Over the last few years, CFOs recognized that automating financial processes not only reaped productivity efficiencies, it also reduced cost, better served their business partners, and the reduction of paper met sustainability objectives. Working with electronic documents has fostered huge improvements in business performance, and financial operations such as accounts payable, purchasing and order processing have become efficient knowledge centers that add to the bottom line. Being able to do more business with less of what it takes to run a business is a win-win for management, customers, suppliers and stockholders.

Reducing cost + managing cash flows + mitigating risk = transformative results. Dolphin understands this. We know SAP back to front because that’s our only focus. And, that’s why we’ve tailored our business solutions so that they support your business practices and initiatives.

Stuart sums up her article saying sustainability efforts are increasingly about efficiency and growing the bottom line. How’s this for being in sync?

For more information on optimizing business processes to grow the bottom line, email contact@dolphin-corp.com or click here.

We don’t see such photographic issues or inconsistencies very often these days as innovation has progressed in camera and film technology, and certainly the advent of the digital age has all but eliminated the double exposure. There is always the capability of PhotoShop to crop, tint or manipulate the image as we see fit, but the unreliable nature of old photography processes has largely been abated. This is very much the same for many of our core business processes. Technology and process awareness has meant that we are able to deliver more superior service and faster functionality than we were capable of even 5 years ago, but at times it feels as if some organizations are still running important processes with disposable flash bulbs and 110 film and waiting at the Fotomat to see the results.

Looking at near-cash processes—Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable—we know that capture, processing and analytical aspects of these critical business processes offer ways for organizations to turn these back office functions into strategic tools:

• The reinvention of near-cash processes can provide tighter control to our treasury and finance teams and unparalleled visibility to cash flows.
• Reliance on banks for lockbox processing or Supply Chain finance can be muted.
• Accuracy in forecasting significantly improves.
• Other productivity efficiencies are typically quickly realized.

These improvements can lead to reduced cost structures, optimized cash flow and minimized risk within the organization. So why are some finance organizations still shaking their critical cash processes like a Polaroid picture waiting for change? Oddly, many users within these organizations would like to optimize these processes, but either the need has not been identified or it has not been properly prioritized to get to a project acceptance state.

For these changes to be accomplished, we need to be able to take a snapshot of the current process—no matter how grainy or out of focus—and share it with the rest of the organization. Then move to the next page in the album where the future-state process is captured in full color with brilliant clarity. This can only be accomplished by understanding the current limitations and pain points of the process and then projecting the transformation that is possible. Benchmark against other organizations, participate in industry groups and conferences, and identify available options from the vendor community. High level ROI models will get the attention of the finance types, while SAP-centric solutions will appeal to the IT gurus in your organization. While change is often considered a four-letter word in many teams and organizations, some dose of radical new thinking must accepted.

It’s time to throw off the yoke of old, outdated technologies and processes and reinvent our organizations. In 2010 the final roll of Kodachrome film, originally pioneered for color photographs in 1935, was sold and processed. Paul Simon probably owns a digital SLR Nikon now. So too we should move forward with change, and take the leap to make these important ‘back office’ functions more strategically valuable. Nice bright colors and the greens of summer are ours for the taking.

This “nexus” is really the hot topic in technology. CFOs and CMOs are talking about the exciting possibilities for leveraging data for real-time analytics, social channels for engaging customers and Smartphones for processes such as approval workflows. One nagging question that hangs in the background, though, is where will the money come from to pay for this nexus of capabilities?

According to a September Forbes article, a significant portion of large corporations still spend 70 to 80 percent of their IT budget simply maintaining the legacy infrastructure they already have. In an environment where Forrester predicts that corporate technology spending will only increase by a modest 5.4 percent, funds for the hot new solutions will be hard to come by. There is no denying that the march towards the nexus technologies is here to stay, especially with CMOs wielding greater influence over IT spending. The key, now more than ever, will be seeking ways to optimize and transform existing corporate infrastructure.

For SAP-based organizations, two areas for freeing up funds for reinvestment are data management and inefficient cash cycle processes. Data archiving and even legacy system decommissioning can halt and reduce escalating storage costs as well as prepare the way for Big Data applications. In addition, optimizing critical processes such as accounts payable, accounts receivable and sales order management not only lowers total cost of ownership but also significantly increases the “speed of business”.

As 2013 gets into full swing, keep an eye on the nexus of hot new technologies but reap tangible results (and free up much needed cash) by reducing your corporation’s dependence on maintaining its existing infrastructure.

In this era of Big Data, the information that companies store, how they manage it and their policies for protecting it also says a lot about an organization, its values and operations. What are your organization’s policies for generating and using personal information?

This is a valid ethical question raised by the big data phenomenon, and enterprises need to reconsider business decisions concerning privacy and identity. Authors Kord Davis and Doug Patterson in their recent book, Ethics of Big Data, assess techniques to help your business engage in a transparent and productive ethical inquiry into your current data practices.

Because data is the foundation of predictive analysis in the marketplace for just about everything—products, customers actions, suppliers, finance, banking and preferences from food to opinions including politics—what data to dissect and how it is disbursed can be called into question. With so much information, we are now starting to recognize that there needs to be balance between using data responsively and how it is retained particularly when it comes to securing personal identifying data, intellectual property and other sensitive information. Questions need to be asked, and answered, as to what is going too far and where does invasion of privacy begin.

There are many approaches for managing data and placing it so that the right data is available in the right place when needed by the right people. A multitude of factors, including business requisites, technology costs and regulatory requirements, contribute to shaping a successful data strategy. This also includes an end of life process for data destruction when it no longer needed and/or its regulated retention time has expired.

Think about how your organization manages Big Data. If you don’t know, you should ask. And, if no one can say, the time to act is now. Because how you manage Big Data tells customers, partners and employees a lot about your organization.

For information on how SAP customers can manage data, click these links:

www.dolphin-corp.com/information-lifecycle-management/

www.dolphin-corp.com/information-lifecycle-management/sap-data-security-management/

www.dolphin-corp.com/information-lifecycle-management/retention-management-cockpit/

Undoubtedly business process improvement efforts such as automated data entry, optimized workflows and streamlined systems require time, effort and resources to make your company more efficient. New technology spending, investments in training, and downtime associated with system conversions all contribute to the total cost.

But new evidence reinforces our belief that business process improvement efforts can result in real financial gains.

A new study commissioned by CFO Magazine indicates that more than 60 percent of finance and procurement executives agree strongly that improving the performance of their organizations’ financial and administrative processes would deliver meaningful financial benefits to their companies.

The study also found that taking the time to understand processes can be especially useful for identifying areas within your company that are ready for improvement. This is also helpful for convincing skeptical decision makers to embrace business process improvement initiatives.

In essence, seeing is believing. Many companies don’t understand the negative impact of doing things the same old way because it is easier than changing. The inertia comes at a cost.

Across three decades of working with companies running SAP systems to improve business processes in the areas of procure-to-pay and order-to-cash has taught Dolphin that not every business benefits from increased efficiency equally. That’s why our solutions are designed for flexibility. It is important for us to understand process flow and the specific needs of your organization in order to ensure the solution is one that fits your specific needs. And, if a penny saved is a penny earned, then cutting internal processing costs is as effective as increasing topline revenue.

The best run businesses always do both.

Click here to learn about business process management solutions from Dolphin

Software, like Patches, is a wonderful thing. It is a living, breathing creature, growing and testing boundaries, branching out in new directions. And every once in a while, an exception is discovered, a bug is identified, or an enhancement is made. Ok, that happens more than just every once in a while. And then these modifications to the ‘core’ product need to be distributed to the customer base. They are bundled up in a periodic ‘patch’ or ‘enhancement pack’ and sent out to customers to accept the changes so that they may benefit from the new and improved version.

Back to Patches. Being a semi-independent creature, she may not always garner the attention she deserves. Indeed, she shares many other similarities to software as it turns out. And we need to pay close attention to both, or we risk ending up with some unintended consequences. It can be tricky making sure new software patches are tested thoroughly given potential complexities in our integrated business processes. This process demands a keen attention to detail. Here are some thoughts when considering the application of the latest and greatest from software vendors:

Review & Assess the Change:

• Perform an upfront evaluation of what is contained within the update. These are typically covered in “Release Notes.”
• Determine if the patch is a ‘Technical’ or ‘Functional’ upgrade, or both.
• If there is new functionality, does it impact the existing business processes?
• If the patch contains a ‘bug fix’, is the bug currently impacting the process?

Test the Change:

• Who will conduct the Unit testing, focused specifically on the new functionality? What will be the measure of a successful test?
• Who will conduct Regression testing, focused on the integration of the new functionality to the existing environment to ensure no negative impacts? What will be the measure of a successful test?
• Are there automated testing scripts that need to be updated to address any new functionality?

Manage the Change:

• Is a sign-off or User Acceptance test required?
• Will end user training be required to ensure proper use of new functionality?
• What communication and change management tasks will be required to ensure a smooth installation?
• Are there other projects that need to be considered/consulted when planning the patch installation?

Often times these processes are managed by the IT or Production Support teams. They may or may not understand the functional implications, so it is important to work together to ensure a complete understanding. The patches might come on a periodic basis, such as every quarter, but may be bundled together into a version upgrade on a more infrequent basis, such as annually or every 18 or 24 months. The review and assessment of the periodic update should take place to ensure nothing critical is being delayed if your organization only updates such patches as full upgrades.

So, Patches the cat and patches for software are both our friends. We need to be aware of the possibilities they offer to us to ensure we aren’t missing something that might happen to bring a smile to our face, brighten our day or lighten our load.