Working with CRM SOA - A look at Composite Applications Timothy Faugh

The excitement around the myriad of Enterprise Services delivered with CRM 7.0 has not abated. However, the difference between excitement and real concrete plans for SOA are two entirely different things.

In our ramp-up program we had a high percentage of customers tick off the "we will be using SOA" box, however a more moderate number have actually been able to share with us exactly what they plan on doing.

The intent of this blog is to help customers who are interested in SOA, but not sure what to do with it, consider one of the powerful scenario possibilities.

As I have mentioned in previous blogs, presentation, and papers, there are essentially two major sub categories of scenarios for SOA.

1. System Integration - This is where two systems talk directly to each other with Enterprise Services and there is no user interface in between (can be internal or with external partners).

2. Composite Applications - This is where a user interface allows a user to communicate with the backend application directly through Enterprise Services.

Today I want to shed some light on composite applications. A composite can take many forms, but the golden rule is that it must have a user interface. This user interface is usually created to serve a special niche interface that is not available in our core CRM application. This could be a special reduced or tailored UI for sporadic, geographically diverse, or external users. It could also be used to incorporate data and functionality from multiple applications in a single UI.

Composite applications can of course be programmed in any way that a User Interface can be programmed. However today we will look at an application from SAP CRM called Visual Composer that is built to help people "model" composite applications. Modeling essentially means programming without actually writing code.

My intent is to quickly show you the capabilities of modeling a composite application to get your creative juices flowing. Once you have fully absorbed that you now have the ability to create user interfaces on the fly, I hope it will kick off a brainstorming session at your company, eventually producing many scenarios where a composite application can bring about a quick and meaningful ROI.

I hope you enjoy the video! You can acces the full screen version using the link below:

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/50c02221-adfa-2b10-009f-e402c9eec7

New opportunities in economic crisis - how does the current economic crisis change the Chemical Industry sector? Thorsten Wenze

The economic crisis has also reached the Chemical Industry. The current situation will, therefore, accelerate change beyond consolidation and classical cost savings in purchasing, logistics and general sustainability. Product and technology cycles will continue to be reduced and innovation is and remains a pivot for successful development.

If we think about Research & Development in Chemicals throughout the last two centuries, we will find very few joint development approaches in the past. Since a couple of years this is changing. It started via co-operations within the chemical ecosystem between different chemical producers, also promoted via demerger and out-sourcing activities. A few chemical producers are ahead of this development. They are entering into the so called Hybrid Innovation Area, which can be described by joint or custom development activities crossing industry boundaries, developing new products and applications including stakeholders like universities, research institutes, other industries, customers and even competitors.

Especially the role of the sales representative is changing from a classical sales function towards a more customer process oriented application engineer. Appropriate IT infrastructures and processes are required to cover the need to exchange information and data between all parties involved.

Based on Service Oriented Architecture, product innovators are able to orchestrate alliances and intellectual capital. SAP is actively working on this topic together with our customers in order to shape a solution able to cover these complex IT requirements beyond the company boundaries.

We would be glad to welcome you for these discussions and opportunity to share experiences and expectations. Please contact me or simply provide a description of what you would like to see in this type of application on this site.

Thorsten Wenzel Director Business Development IBU Chemicals