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Monday January 26, 4:01 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
Telecommunications Companies Worldwide Vote for SAP R/3, Further Expanding SAP's Global Industry Market Leadership
MCI (USA), CRT (Brazil), SPT TELECOM (Czech Republic), BSI and MGTI(Indonesia), Telecom Eirann (Ireland), Time Telecommunications (Malaysia) Accelerate Adoption of R/3
WALLDORF, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 26, 1998-- SAP AG, a global provider of leading business software solutions for the telecommunications industry, today announced eight new telecommunications customers worldwide: Bukaka SingTel International (BSI), Companhia Riograndense de Telecomunica Coes (CRT), MCI Communications Corp. [Nasdaq:MCIC - news], Mitra Global Telekommuni Kasi International (MGTI), SPT TELECOM, Telecom Eirann and Time Telecommunications Sdn Bhd.
These companies selected SAP R/3(TM) to streamline their business processes and meet the increasingly competitive challenges of a fast-moving and deregulating telecommunications industry.
To compete in today's marketplace, telecommunications companies must provide operational and organizational flexibility, unfailing product and service quality, lower prices, and timely delivery of services. Global IT solutions with integrated application software allow telecommunications companies to satisfy market and customer requirements. The R/3 solution will provide considerable return on a company's investment through more efficient, integrated business processing. Four of the world's five largest telcos have implemented R/3. New SAP customers in Europe, Asia, Australia, Latin America, Canada and the United States showcase an already strong presence in the telecommunications industry.
''SAP customers in this market represent half of the top 25 telecommunications companies worldwide,'' said Harry Tse, director of enterprise applications for the Yankee Group. ''This number is even more significant when you realize that these top 25 companies represent an 80 percent share of the market. This demonstrates a sizable commitment to SAP by the industry.''
New Customers
MCI Communications Corp., one of the world's largest telecommunications companies, with 1996 revenues of $18.6 billion, recently signed a contract with SAP to streamline back office financial and procurement activities. ''In the past, financial systems have been viewed more as overhead than tools that enhance our ability to compete,'' said Albert George, vice president of financial systems for MCI Corp. ''Our R/3 implementation project, Unison, changes that. It will put enabling technology in the hands of our business partners, increasing their ability to directly access, analyze and manipulate data. This will make our partners more effective and MCI more competitive.''
In Brazil, CRT (Companhia Riograndense de Telecomunicacoes) recently licensed SAP R/3. Deregulation has ended the state monopoly of telecommunications, ushering in new private companies and the privatization of state-owned companies. CRT was going through very deep, fast and strategic process changes due to specific government regulations and increased competition, and needed to streamline and integrate its business processes to thrive in the current business environment in Brazil. The first Brazilian telecommunications company to implement R/3, CRT has 4,000 employees and revenues of $1 billion.
''We started a new process to provide our company with a management model appropriated to our current needs,'' said Cristiano Roberto Tatsch, president of CRT. ''This is the reason why we have chosen SAP R/3.''
SPT TELECOM, a dominant telecommunications provider in the Czech Republic, with revenues of $1 billion, needed a major transformation to bring itself into today's competitive market environment from the prior ''planned economy'' arena while complying with strong governmental regulations. This involved dramatic cost and staff reductions while increasing efficiency and, most important, a complete culture change. The R/3 implementation is supporting a companywide business process reengineering. The full R/3 suite including financials, logistics and human resources, as well as the R/3-based Cable Solution, will become productive through the next three years for 3,500 users.
Bell Canada's Frank Barfuss, director of financial operations and systems said, ''R/3 has already substantially improved performance for Bell Canada's procurement and materials management functions, and we are quickly expanding the footprint enterprisewide to fully capitalize on the power of integration.'' As chairperson of the global SAP Telecom Special Interest Group, Barfuss has observed firsthand how quickly SAP is becoming the business solution of choice in the telecommunications industry. ''At our first user group meeting in Australia in March 1996, there were fewer than a dozen telcos participating. Today, we count more than 60 member companies worldwide, and that number continues to expand rapidly,'' Barfuss said.
Other significant signings worldwide include Telecom Eirann, Mitra Global Telekommunikasi International (MGTI) and Bukaka SingTel International (BSI) and Time Telecommunications Sdn Bhd (Malaysia). MGTI and BSI, known as KSOs, which are joint-venture partners with PT Telekommunikasi in Indonesia, will install Financials, Logistics and Human Resources modules.
SAP Commitment
''We are very pleased to have successful partnerships with so many telecommunications companies around the world,'' said Prof. Dr. Henning Kagermann, executive board member, SAP AG. ''SAP is vigorously committed to the telecom industry and to the success of our customers in this market. We will continue to strengthen this commitment by working closely with new as well as current customers to develop robust solutions that enhance their business processes in the rapidly changing telecommunications arena.''
The comprehensive R/3 business solution for telecommunications offers a full range of modules that support enterprise, management and business support processes for telephone service providers, cable and television broadcasting, and satellite and cellular communications companies. SAP, with more than 120 telecom customers worldwide, provides a comprehensive business applications framework for large telecom organizations as well as a powerful, flexible and scalable business solution for smaller enterprises including start-up companies. |
