Our customers have spoken loud and clear. They want to build a social enterprise. They want to transform the way they collaborate, communicate and share information with both customers and employees. They want to shift IT from being a cost center to a catalyst for innovation and a driver of business growth. But a large “reality check” confronts their vision every day…an SAP back office infrastructure, which houses their most critical data but limits data accessibility.

This is why we’re excited to announce a new program to unlock their valuable SAP back office environments, creating a path forward to the social enterprise for thousands of companies without spending more on complex software or hardware infrastructure. The program combines consulting and integration services that enable SAP customers to build apps that integrate seamlessly with their SAP data and processes using Force.com, our cloud platform for building social, mobile and real-time apps.

IT departments have invested millions in standardizing on SAP ERP over the last twenty years. Integrating Force.com on top of an SAP core immediately increases the business value of existing SAP investments by building a layer of agility around a company’s core data and processes. Force.com unlocks and extends data trapped in those systems to every department and employee through custom social and mobile cloud apps. As a result, businesses will develop new and innovative best practices, employee collaboration and productivity will rise and information can move at the speed of the business with fewer resources and half the cost of traditional on-premise platforms.

Getting started is easy:

• Unlocking SAP begins with a free half-day evaluation. We will work with companies to review their previous experiences with cloud apps and architectures; current goals and ongoing projects; and existing apps and use cases best suited for Force.com. Based on the review, we develop a project plan for extracting and sharing back office SAP data using Force.com.
• Salesforce.com then simplifies the integration, providing quick access to all the resources customers need, from strategies and best practices to access to experienced integration partners such as IBM, Informatica and SKYVVA.