In today's volatile and demanding economic environment, leading high-tech companies are differentiating themselves by being first to market with innovative products and technologies. The result? Higher profit margins before commoditization sets in.

The most effective way companies are decreasing time to profitability is by bridging existing silos and establishing decision-support dashboards to holistically measure the critical combination of products, processes, and financials. However according to a recent AMR report, "closing the loop from actual manufacturing execution, field operation, and financial performance back to product development for continuous improvement has yet to become standard practice with product life-cycle management." *

With a portfolio of software and services from SAP and our partners, best-run high-tech companies have minimized time to profit by significantly:

• Shortening development times through collaboration
• Cutting costs for materials and components through an increased sourcing window
• Reducing quality-related issues and costs through smooth production ramp-up

Solutions for Streamlined Product Development

Tying together in-house and outsourced development, sourcing, and manufacturing, SAP provides market-leading software and services that enable these core activities into end-to-end business processes:

• Collaborative development – Gain full visibility and control over product data and documents, engineering changes, and cost, while dramatically reducing development times.
• Strategic sourcing and product compliance – Identify optimal component suppliers early in the development process, enabling cost savings through an increased sourcing window, adherence with regulations, and component reuse across the development portfolio.
• Integrated Manufacturing – Avoid quality and scale issues during production ramp-up through seamless processes, a common material master, and aligned development and manufacturing bills of material – all enabled by SAP Business Suite and the SAP NetWeaver technology platform.

In addition, SAP provides portal and business intelligence technologies that give real-time insight into key processes and performance indicators across your entire business network.

We understand that your business is unique and existing systems are indispensable. To support your specific situation, SAP Consulting Services and our partners will help to implement the right processes and data models and will integrate the SAP solution with your existing landscape – putting all the capabilities in place that will help you to shrink time to profit.

* AMR Research, PLM Top Business Drivers for 2008, Jeffrey Hojlo and Michael Burkett, Jan 25, 2008.

Learn More

• Find out more about SAP partner solutions and services.