SAP Introduces New Applications for Governance, Risk, Compliance

SAP announced on June 30 the rollout of two new applications designed to help the enterprise comply with government regulations, manage risk and ensure their organizations have the proper internal controls in place.

Both of the applications, SAP BusinessObjects Risk Management and SAP BusinessObjects Process Control, have been imbedded with SAP BusinessObjects business intelligence (BI) solutions, software that provides users with a simplified dashboard and analytics for a top-down view of their business processes.

In essence, the software allows for the continuous and automatic monitoring of risks and internal controls within their enterprise – for example, allowing quality-control issues with a new line of products to be identified and solved before the problems magnify out of control. In addition, the software also allows numerous risk and compliance programs to be monitored simultaneously.

Risk managers and auditors can use the dashboard and analytics provided by SAP to view data and then create a customized report or dashboard detailing the issue at hand. The technology even allows for visual displays of information, such as "heat maps" that show trouble spots within an organization’s structure. This centralized approach allows for more efficient following of regulations such as HIPPA and Sarbanes-Oxley.  

SAP has continued a busy schedule of rolling out new enterprise-oriented programs despite the global recession, including SAP Business Suite 7, which it made available worldwide to customers on May 5.

SAP Business Suite 7 fits the latest enterprise trend of introducing modularity into a software platform, allowing customers to deploy certain modules without necessarily needing to spend the cash to upgrade their entire platform. The application’s modular software library includes SAP ERP, SAP Customer Relationship Management, SAP Supplier Relationship Management and SAP Supply Chain Management.

In addition, the platform includes some 2,800 enterprise services and a built-in solution manager for implementing content changes to applications.

In May 2009, SAP also collaborated with Hewlett-Packard on speeding business transactions for messages sized from 7MB to 15MB, with a server-based XML accelerator from HP that speeds the mapping of XML messages within SAP’s Netweaver Process Integration technology.

The companies claim that the technique translates in a 700 percent improvement in the processing time needed for a single XML message, as well as a 400 percent boost in the volume of messages processed.