Current Problems and Requirements

With its software product SAP Strategic Enterprise Management/Business Analytics (SAP SEM/BATM), SAP has introduced a new software solution to the market for both strategic and operational enterprise planning and decision support.

Many of the more recent publications on application systems for enterprise management attempt to motivate you to continue reading with an introduction something like this: “Globalization, increasing environmental dynamics, more intensive competition, and higher cost pressures lead to ever-growing demands...” “New” problems and solutions are heralded by consultants, software producers, and even experts, in the area of finding a corporate strategy that promises success and that can be practically converted into reality. But when examined more closely, these “new” problems and solutions are not so new, and at times appear more like clichés. So what are the benefits of a new software package such as SAP SEM/BA and yet another book on this subject?

The need for new solutions arises on the one hand from still unsatisfactorily solved basic problems related to the flow of information to strategic and operational management, and on the other hand from current – in part industry specific and business-type-specific – economic developments. Above and beyond this, the pressures of new technologies, led largely by new database technologies and the Internet, demand new information logistics.