May 2004 in Walldorf, Germany

CWG Meeting May 2004 in Walldorf, Germany

Summary

With 130 participants (and a growth of 30% in meeting participation) the spring user group meeting on product configuration with SAP was the largest meeting the Configuration Work Group (CWG) so far had. Among the 69 represented organizations there were 37 customer companies, The 24 represented partners companies were mostly smaller partners with strong expertise on product configuration, but there also were a few representatives from large partners. Besides the SAP development organization 7 SAP country organizations were present. With more than 380 members the CWG noticed a growth of 20% in the last 6 months – it now represents more than 150 organizations.

According to the motto “ERP, Product Configuration and the Future” the focus of the meeting was on the new release mySAP ERP 2004 and the new Product Modeling Environment for Variant Configuration which is part of the ERP Central Component. Eight customer presentations on product configuration with SAP – mostly on standard scenarios like SAP Internet Sales or mySAP CRM Field Sales – illustrated what business processes based on SAP standard software prove of value.

There were 16 workshops held with smaller groups to enable intensive discussion on various topics ranging from “People Centric Order Configuration with Integrated Supply Chain Optimization” and “Constraint Based Modeling” to “Applying Secure Protocols between Backend Components”.

The offered usability workshops on the new Product Modeling Environment for Variant Configuration were appreciated by many customers and there were many useful suggestions for future improvements.

The CWG community took the opportunity to broaden its scope by founding two new CWG Focus Groups on “Pricing” and “R/3 Variant Configuration” – the latter so far consciously had been excluded since the CWG was focusing on the Internet Pricing and Configurator in the past. There are now 5 different CWG Focus Groups that offer a forum for experience exchange and actively participate in the SAP roll-in process.

The feedback in general was very positive; especially the parallel sessions focusing on expert talks and the possibility to network with other customers and experts in informal talks were appreciated most.

Even with the support of the sponsors it has been a real challenge to host a CWG meeting with 130 participants. The organization team would like to thank all sponsors of the CWG. Main sponsors of the meeting have been SAP (www.sap.com) and Sybit Business Solutions (www.sybit.de). Further on the following companies granted sponsorship: BTC AG, Innovate, Orisa, Stoneball, ThomCAT, TSC and Integrity.