20th August 2007 SAP has announced the availability new enhancements for the SAP ERP application including new operational capabilities and industry-specific functionality for the media, telco, utilities and trade industry segments. The Second Enhancement Package for SAP ERP includes horizontal and industry-specific functional enhancements as well as process and user-interface (UI) simplification.
SAP says that the enterprise service bundles in this new release offer customers the ability to simplify order-to-cash processes by improving access to customer and sales order information, streamlining invoices and payments, and improving visibility for accounts-receivable representatives and cash managers.
Enhancements in SAP ERP Financials streamline planning and forecasting, financial consolidations, billing, credit, collections and dispute management. SAP says, t he new SAP Bank Relationship Management application increases efficiency, lowers costs and streamlines communications processes across multiple banks through integration with SWIFTNet, the financial messaging network built by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication.
SAP ERP Human Capital Management is also given a makeover. SAP Enterprise Learning environment, includes virtual classrooms powered by Adobe Connect. Finally, innovations in SAP ERP Operations include new roles and work centres for internal sales representatives to access customer information, and simplification of sales order management processes that allow for easy searches of sale and billing documents. In addition, manufacturing companies will receive enhancements that support the control and monitoring of Kanban processes and facilitate smooth production in repetitive manufacturing steps according to the Heijunka method.