SAP Fiori Simplifies The Enterprise Software Experience With Consumer-Style Apps

The way people work, consume content and experience technology to get things done is changing at a rapid pace, and there is a growing expectation and demand in the workplace for consumer-friendly experiences when using technology to accomplish tasks. Addressing the needs of recently business user, SAP has launched SAP Fiori, a collection of apps that are simple, easy-to-use and provide an intuitive user experience for broadly and frequently used SAP software functions, across a variety of devices — desktop, tablet, smartphone — to help easily get the job done. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE NOW, being held May 14–16 in Orlando, Florida.

The first release of SAP Fiori includes 25 apps for the most common business functions, such as workflow approvals, information lookups and self-service tasks. SAP is redefining the way business users perform their daily tasks by creating a more intuitive format and user experience, similar to the way they interact with technology in everyday life.

“We are on a mission to renew the experience across all of our applications. Users demand simplicity and ease of use, and SAP Fiori brings this experience to our customers,” said Vishal Sikka, member of the Executive Board of SAP AG, Technology and Innovation. “SAP customers can adopt SAP Fiori immediately and bring instant value to all their employees.”

SAP Fiori was developed by working closely with over 250 customers to understand the most commonly used business functions and ways in which the user experience for those functions could be improved and simplified. Early users of SAP Fiori have reported tremendous business benefits, including increased employee productivity and satisfaction, reduced work completion time and increased adoption of business processes.

“We have deployed SAP Fiori at Colgate and the feedback from our first group of business users has been very positive. They are excited about the ease of use and simplicity of the app,” said Tom Greene, chief information and business services officer, Colgate. “We worked very closely with SAP on the vision and mission of SAP Fiori and we think the first release looks great. We believe SAP Fiori will help to provide a consumer-grade user experiences to our employees.”

“I am very excited to see such positive results from SAP’s user experience strategy in such a short time frame,” said Benjamin Salter, enterprise architecture and application development, Valero. “The apps in SAP Fiori are as easy to use as Facebook, Google or Amazon. This is exactly what end users are looking for.”

SAP Fiori is a collection of apps that can be used on mobile devices and desktops using browsers that support HTML5. SAP Fiori leverages responsive design, the concept of making apps sensitive to the form factor of devices with a single user interface. The SAP Fiori apps can be deployed in multiple ways; as a collection of apps with a single launchpad, as multiple Web apps, and they can be consumed from SAP or third-party portals. SAP Fiori can also be configured to give access to a sub-set of apps based on user roles.

“SAP’s commitment to renewing the user experience of its applications is an important step for its customers,” said Joshua Greenbaum, principal, Enterprise Applications Consulting. “Employees in all industries and walks of life are looking for better, more intuitive user experiences, and their employers recognize that these improvements will allow for higher productivity and greater user acceptance.”

The first release of SAP Fiori includes apps for the following four user roles: manager, employee, sales representative and purchasing agent. Some of the example apps are: approve leave requests, approve travel expenses, timesheet,  paystubs, create sales orders, customer invoices and track purchase order. For the full list and additional information, visit experience.sap.com/fiori. SAP Fiori is available immediately and is priced per user.

For announcements, blog posts, videos and other coverage during SAPPHIRE NOW, visit the SAP Newsroom.

SAPPHIRE NOW
With SAPPHIRE NOW, SAP offers its customers, partners and prospects even more opportunities to engage in dialogue with peers, participants and thought leaders around the globe. Being held in Orlando, Florida, May 14-16, 2013, this enhanced, real-time event connects attendees on site with global participants through state-of-the-art broadcast studios and an online experience that incorporates the latest social media and community functionality. Whether on site or online, participants can gain insight as to how SAP is delivering on its product strategy and helping organizations around the world to run better. For more information, visit www.sapphirenow.com or www.news-sap.com.