Announcements

The Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) announced that the SAP University Alliances Community is a recipient of a 2009 Commendation of Excellence in the Collaboration and Co-creation category from the Society for New Communications Research awards program. The Society honors innovative organizations that are pioneering the use of social media, ICT, mobile media, online communities, and collaborative technologies in the areas of media, marketing, public relations, advertising, entertainment, education, politics, and social initiatives.

SAP will roll out the new business strategy at the SAP Influencer Summit 09 December 8, 2009. This year we are excited to broadcast live so you can hear SAP's ‘Clear Path Forward' message from the comfort of your own office!

This is an invitation-only event in which you will be able to view the sessions via live video and you will have the opportunity to participate and ask questions - just as if you were at the event.

Virtual participants will have exclusive access to keynote presentations, Meet the Expert programs, educational sessions, and blogs written by senior executives. You will learn how SAP is implementing a holistic, customer-centric strategy to improve how our solutions are applied to real-world business processes. You will also discover how SAP is extending value by delivering best practices.

As an academic influencer, the content and ideas shared during this event can be utilized in your classes to provide students the most up-to-date information about technology, ERP, SAP and the larger SAP ecosystem. It may help you identify new areas of ERP-related research to explore. Lastly, the strategy outlined will help the global University Alliances program set the direction for our 2010 initiatives - and we invite you to be a part of it!

If you are interested or would like more information, please email diem.lam@sap.com with your name, email address and university. This event is open to University Alliances program (UAP) members only.

In a recent German TV show called, "Maybrit Illner" Prof. Dr. h.c. Hasso Plattner, co-founder and head of the SAP Supervisory Board, shared insights on creating new industry jobs which will positively impact the global economy. In this roundtable discussion he points out that "only new knowledge can create new jobs." In addition, he leads the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design with offices in Potsdam (Germany) and Palo Alto (USA).

SAP TechEd took place from the 27th to 29th of October in Vienna, Austria. The University Alliances Community was represented by nearly twenty members of the EMEA region. Two specific UA Workshops were scheduled to discuss together with the community members important steps for the future UA product portfolio. The event was furthermore used to encourage the exchange of ideas for further projects among the community itself. With Prof. Dr. Helmut Krcmar from the Technical University of Munich the UA community participated on the "RoundTable Enterprise 2.0 / Google Wave" which was the most popular topic among journalists to listen at. Read more.

University Alliances in North America announces its November / December webinar topics and its Winter 2010 workshop schedule. These workshops are available to any professors / lecturers at University Alliances member campuses (i.e. individuals actively using SAP software in their classes or preparing to do so).

To learn more about the workshops, view HERE.
To see other UA events, view HERE.

At the RoundTable Prof. Dr. Krcmar from the Technical University of Munich was the first participant to start off the discussion giving his view on the Enterprise 2.0 topic, followed by Orestis Terzidis, Vice President SAP Research Karlsruhe, Germany. Topics were key trends in the sector of Enterprise 2.0, that are affecting organization's ability to optimize performance and how SAP provides solutions that leverage these trends to provide the ability to optimize business performance. During the RT they discussed about SAP Gravity, a prototype providing real-time, cloud-based collaborative business process modelling within Google Wave. Google Wave is Google's new real-time collaboration platform that combines features of e-mail, social networking, wikis and instant messaging in one integrated browser-based client. Leveraging the collaborative features of Google Wave, all business process modelling activities get propagated in near real-time to all other participants of the Wave. Lars Rasmussen,software engineering manager Google, gave a demo on SAP Gravity followed by Timo Elliot, SAP BusinessObjects, Social Media Evangelist, giving a sneak on SAP's Social Network Analyzer. To view video and read more, click HERE.

SAP Crystal Reports course is comprised of slides and case studies that allow the students to understand how to...
1. Plan a report
2. Create a report
3. Select and organize data in the report
4. Represent data visually
5. Create reports from SAP OLAP data sources

Remember to visit BI Library for a free download of Crystal Reports 2008 to do the course!

On October 23, 2009 in Lancaster University the SAP University Alliances UK and Ireland had the 2009 Academic Forum. The Forum is meant to bring together members of the University Alliances Program, industry partners and customers from across the UK and Ireland. It provides an invaluable forum for networking and professional gathering as well as an opportunity to share experiences, ideas and opportunities for growth and development within the UK&I Program. Click here to view some of the event presentations.

Join Hopenhagen! On December 7, 2009 delegates from 192 nations will gather in Copenhagen to discuss a global climate agreement. To make your voice heard, you can sign the Hopenhagen petition.

For more information, read James Farrar's blog about the upcoming Copenhagen conference that will help set a framework for how world governments respond to climate change through a reduction in carbon emissions.

Also, see the Welcome Center to read the Featured Blog by Bob LoBue, the SAP Vice President of Global University Alliances, as he leads a series of three blogs about Hopenhagen.

The movie shows the "Management Cockpit Laboratory" of the department of business informatics at Reutlingen University. This Management Cockpit is a build up from master students together with Prof. Dipl.-Kfm. Armin Roth, Leader of the research institute "Enterprise Performance Management and Business Intelligence" at Reutlingen University.
The goal of this project was to show, how it is possible to support management meetings and management processes with actual communication- and IT-technics. Therefore a laboratory with twelve separately assignable 42 inch LCD screens, a large digital whiteboard and a possibility for video-conferencing was designed and built up.

See how the Management Cockpit, established with SAP BI 7.0 Software, supports miscellaneous management process scenarios including planning and simulation.

For more BI information and resources, see Thought Leadership - Business Intelligence.
For BI curricula and materials see the library.

PR News PR People Awards showcase communications professionals who have made a tremendous achievement and who have set the standard in PR.  This year, SAP's Vice President of Global Communications, Don Bulmer, was inducted into PR News' PR People's Hall of Fame. To learn more, click HERE (scroll up to view).

18 - 20 November, 2009
Shangri-La Hotel
Xi'an, China

Learn more about the conference and register here.

The UAC has published the Business Intelligence Quick Start, the second of the series, which provides quick references to course materials and curricula that professors, lecturers and students can use in the classroom.

This guide will be updated regularly. We welcome your contributions and feedback.

More information and content on Business Intelligence can be found in the UA Business Intelligence Library.

• Frutado Case: Advanced Planning Using SAP SCM (offline / interactive datango tool)
• Supply Chain Management With GBI Using SAP SCM

View descriptions, additional details, and download links in the UA Library's Operations and Supply Chain Management page.

On 21 August 2009 the 3rd Annual SAP Sponsored Academic Research Conference 2009 took place. Learn more about the coference and access the Hasso Plattner and Ike Nassi keynote presentations. View here.

Listen to this 15-minute podcast by Jon Reed as he interviews Claudine Lagerholm, a Senior Product Manager with SAP about the recently launched SCN Career Center. Find out how hiring managers and job seekers can gain from the Career Center's integration with SCN. For employers, post your job openings free until the end of September 2009!

This year's students were outstanding not only in the areas of academics, but also in the area of community stewardship. Applications were reviewed based on thoughtful answers, academic achievement and community involvement. Collectively, this years winners have donated more than 4,470 hours to communities across North America. This group of future leaders truly demonstrated excellence in all areas of the review criteria, and we are happy to welcome them into the SAP ecosystem as award winners.

Click HERE to view the 2009 scholarship winners.
Read more information on the scholarship here: 2009 North American Scholarship Program.

The Career Center, a new part of the SAP Community Network (SCN), is now available and open to employers and applicants worldwide. It specializes in SAP-centric job positions, helping employers target their recruitment efforts. Plus, it enables job seekers to showcase their skills in the collaborative environment of SCN - resume postings are free! All job postings are free of charge until 30 September, so make sure to take advantage of this special offer! Read the new blog from Mark Yolton, SVP of SCN, for all the details.

Now available on the UAC - UA Course Catalog! 
This catalog provides a list of all courses available to UA program members. Both members and non-members can access overview information while members can also access the course material in the private workspace. The UA Course Catalog is available in the library.

Also new to the UAC - UA Image Gallery.
These images are hosted via Flickr and we will be adding photographs from our numerous events. We welcome any contributions that you may have. Please send them to diem.lam@sap.com.

A student team was tasked with developing a Web-based solution offering a self-service environment to consultants to simplify a room-booking process, which was mainly based on e-mail communication and Microsoft Excel. Learn more.

SAP's Learning on Demand provides access to elearning material, white papers, forums and discussions and more. Click here to learn more about how Learning on Demand can help you futher your or your students SAP training.

The UAC has published the Accounting User's Guide, the first in a series, which provides quick references to course materials and curricula that professors, lecturers and students can use in the classroom. 

This guide will be updated regularly. We welcome your contributions and feedback.

More information and content on Accounting can be found in the UA Accounting Library.

IT Project Management in Medium-Sized Enterprises 

For typical conflict situations in the consulting business, scenes in the form of a play were designed in which mistakes were intentionally included and ideas on how to handle these problems were posed for discussion. This discussion included the whole student audience which was challenged by the scene actors to question the strategy of the play.

This collaborative project was accomplished by the practitioners of SAP University Alliances, consultants of itelligence AG and academics of Very Large Business Application Labs (VLBA Lab) at Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg. As a result, a teaching concept emerged which is so far unique to impart soft skills in IT Project Management.

Learn more about this innovative teaching concept by reading the full article: Interactive Consulting Showcase

Students at Lancaster University and the University of Surrey have the chance to win one of 11 separate bursaries totaling £53,000 in all for students studying on SAP-related Masters courses.

Students at Lancaster University studying for the Masters Degree in E-Business and Innovation can compete for the SAP Scholarship worth £3,000 towards their tuition fees. Lancaster is one of the UK's most respected universities and one of the founder members of the UK University Alliances program.

Students at the University of Surrey can compete for one of ten SAP Scholarships for any Masters course each valued at £5,000. The scholarships are only open to those who get a 'First Class with Honours' - the highest undergraduate degree achievable in the UK and also rate highest in their English language skills.

Both scholarships are paid for by the universities representing a massive £53,000 investment in their SAP relationship.

Last month, senior executives, business managers, and decision makers came together at SAPPHIRE 2009 to explore how innovative business solutions foster long-term, profitable growth. Beginning now, SAP's most viewed SAPPHIRE 2009 keynotes and sessions are available to help you become supremely efficient and effective, deliver excellent customer service, and to prepare for the future. Register now for access.

Use this collection to gain insight from SAP executives and customers who discuss best practices and lessons learned on subjects that matter most to your business, including:

• Seeing Your Way Clear in the New Reality
• The Power of Speed
• Clear Business Value, Delivered
• Explore Your Business At the Speed of Thought
• Leveraging SAP BusinessObjects and BPC Solutions for Operational and Strategic Reporting
• Transforming Your Business Through Improved Analytics
• SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation in the Oil and Gas Industry
• The Coca-Cola Company Business Transformation Enabled by SAP CRM
• How Adobe and SAP are Changing the User Experience
• Microsoft and SAP - Better Together

University Alliances Community participants are invited to view a free download from SDN. To view the guide during installation and operation: click here.