Small and medium-sized companies are growing increasingly dissatisfied with their outsourcers   More and more customers are complaining about the poor performance of their outsourcing contractors. They are frustrated not only by a lack of transparency and flexibility but also by a poor cultural fit between the companies involved. Small and medium-sized companies are therefore increasingly looking for providers that allow them to respond flexibly to the requirements imposed by an increasingly dynamic environment despite the fact that they have outsourced their IT operations. REALTECH is now addressing this problem and is currently working with a number of customers to develop an alternative model to help companies better overcome organizational hurdles. The objective is to achieve optimum integration, giving outsourcing customers a service model that guarantees best possible support not only for their IT operations but also for any ongoing or future projects.

The Microsoft Platform in the SAP Data Center

Commodity servers, based on x86-64 processors, provide high amounts of processing power, thus eliminating the need for proprietary hardware for any SAP installation.

Windows Server 2008 has the features needed to harness this computing power for SAP installations and to ensure stability, green IT and reduced costs through consolidation and virtualization. It also provides the opportunity to react flexibly to changing business requirements. The Microsoft SQL server achieves this through features that provide high performance, disaster protection and cost reduction by decreasing the amount of disk space needed.

DSAG Congress 2009 With some 3.000 visitors, this year's DSAG (German-Speaking SAP User Group) congress drew a strong turnout. Participants showed a keen interest in exchanging information during presentations and accompanying events. This made the congress a rather uneventful one for exhibitors because only few visitors found their way to their booths. Many decision-makers REALTECH talked to said that the budgets for 2010 have not been finalized yet and that they have therefore been unable to decide on most of next year's projects. However, the overall mood was much more positive than it was at other events this year – particularly in early 2009. The CIO dinner that REALTECH hosted during the first evening of the congress was a resounding success. REALTECH was able to welcome 14 participants despite a competing CIO event held at the DSAG congress. They enjoyed the pleasant atmosphere and delicious food and took the opportunity to engage in insightful and interesting conversations with their peers. This also gave our guests a chance to identify and discuss new and interesting topics – particularly with respect to the coming year. Despite the current market conditions and an ongoing sense of crisis, attending the DSAG congress was an important and worthwhile thing to do.

REALTECH once again awarded for its SAP expertise

As in previous years, SAP AG has once again recognized REALTECH's expertise. In 2009, REALTECH was awarded with an impressive total of five Special Expertise Partnerships (SEP).

• SAP NetWeaver Application Server
• SAP NetWeaver Process Integration
• SAP NetWeaver Business Process Management
• SAP NetWeaver Identity Management
• Business Objects Intelligence Platform

These SEPs gained in a variety of fields show one thing – REALTECH is and remains the SAP NetWeaver company. Moreover, REALTECH was able to compellingly demonstrate its competence through a wide range of projects in the field of SAP Business Intelligence. Whether these were projects involving Management Cockpits, BI introduction, or Integrated Planning – the success story is multi-faceted.

More Meet the Experts Breakfast Sessions coming up soon

On February 28, REALTECH launched its new series of Meet the Experts events, the first of which was immediately fully booked.

The event sparked great interest and demand which was in no small part due to the often hotly disputed issue of SAP Solution Manager. The combination of presentations and discussions allowed for an inspiring exchange between the 30 participants. In addition to outlining the level of maturity of SAP Solution Manager, REALTECH also presented clear strategies and possible roadmaps for using the solution.
Due to the overwhelming success of the events, additional breakfast sessions will be held in March:

March 17, 2009
REALTECH Meet the Experts Breakfast Session Berlin
March 18, 2009
REALTECH Meet the Experts Breakfast Session Düsseldorf
March 24, 2009
REALTECH Meet the Experts Breakfast Session Stuttgart
March 25, 2009
REALTECH Meet the Experts Breakfast Session Munich

Be sure to register today, there are only a few slots left!

IA4SP and RAAD in St. Leon-Rot, Germany: Opportunities 2009 – Market Potential and Strategies for SAP Partners

On March 17, St. Leon-Rot in Germany hosted the "Opportunities 2009 – Market Potential and Strategies for SAP Partners" event. In addition to various companies working in the field of SAP, REALTECH was also present. The event featured a number of presentations that dealt with SAP's partner Econet and, primarily, with the current situation of the IT market in Germany.
The studies that were presented at the event showed once more that IT budgets are becoming ever tighter. 41% of IT managers, for example, expect that the financial crisis will have adverse effects on the IT investments of their companies. Particularly those projects that have not yet been planned and budgeted for 2009 in 2008 will be difficult to realize. This will affect the individual industries to various extents. Strong SAP industries such as the automotive, mechanical engineering, and retail industry in particular expect the most significant investment cuts.

From REALTECH's perspective, this confirmed its emphasis on the five hot topics for 2009. With its focus on

• Migrationen & Upgrades
• SAP Solution Manager and Run SAP
• Human Capital Management
• SAP GRC and Identity Management
• SAP Business Intelligence and Management Cockpits
REALTECH chose the topics that analysts regard as those with the biggest potential for 2009.

Companies are cutting their IT budgets

According to an IT study published by the German newspaper Handelsblatt and the management consultancy Droege & Comp., companies are cutting their IT spending in the face of the current economic crisis and ongoing uncertainty. This was the result of the IT study 2009 that was presented by Handelsblatt and Droege & Comp. on March 4 at CeBIT. It shows that the IT budgets of the surveyed companies will be reduced by 4.2%.
"Generally, IT budgets are declining.. The good news, however, is that there are still companies that are investing all the more in this time of crisis," said Torsten Frankenberger, a partner at Droege & Comp.

The study also shows that of the 322 companies in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland that were surveyed, 43% will cut their IT investments, of which 15% will cut them by one-tenth or even more. On the other hand, 34% said that they are planning to step up their investments despite the current crisis. 11% of those companies even indicated that they are going to increase their spending by 10% and more. A large portion of these investments will go towards expanding their business, that is, growth. This means that the sales departments will get the lion's share of the funds. This trend continues from last year.

According to the study, business process harmonization, infrastructure consolidation, application clean-up, and establishing IT process efficiency are the top priorities for IT decision makers in 2009. Consequently, the objective of companies is to bring higher quality to their IT budgets. REALTECH adapted its portfolio accordingly as early as Q4 2008, thus providing the perfect foundation for the better use of IT budgets.

CeBIT 2009: Crises as a driver of change

A lot has been said and written about the world's largest technology trade show over the past days and weeks. REALTECH, too, once again participated in 2009!

Some 4,300 companies from 69 countries came to this year's CeBIT. As a consequence of the current economic slowdown, participation dropped by almost 20% to approximately 400,000 as compared to last year.

REALTECH joined 25 other employers and 5 human resources consultancies at the job & career forum that was sponsored by the German trade journal "Computerwoche". REALTECH's representatives talked to potential employees and were able to make the company known as an employer to professionally experienced visitors. Many graduates and young professionals had already done their own research on REALTECH before coming to CeBIT, which allowed them to take an informed approach to these professional exchanges.

Naturally, the economic and financial crisis was widely talked about by trade visitors and exhibitors. And although there was no flood of visitors, the quality of the talks had notably improved. Some visitors had even taken a few days off work to talk to potential suppliers and partners at CeBIT.

The importance of Microsoft Office SharePoint in the field of SAP is growing

SAP's future strategy is to place greater emphasis on applications and structured contents and to leave the management of unstructured contents and collaboration features to third-party vendors.

REALTECH will carefully assess this new SAP strategy with respect to Content Management, collaboration, and processes, thus enabling its customers to make the most of both worlds.

Their daily routines are forcing users to increasingly rely on a large number of applications – Microsoft Outlook, Excel, Word, SAP applications, websites and many more. Unwanted process interfaces and user interfaces with different features require users to familiarize themselves with various menus and functionalities. The seamless integration of SAP and collaboration processes with Microsoft Office SharePoint (MOSS) enables users to access their process steps in Microsoft Office. From now on, end users no longer have to leave their familiar environment with the well-known look & feel. In addition to delivering better usability, the use of MOSS also improves processing times and reduces the number of communication interfaces. This leads to a reduction in process costs.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is the perfect complement to the Enterprise Content Management solution. Moreover, the use of MOSS and other Microsoft products in the field of collaboration opens up many new opportunities with respect to the modern Web 2.0.

The integration of MOSS and SAP NetWeaver yields the greatest benefits in the field of SAP. The combination of the portal solutions from both vendors does not translate into cannibalization. On the contrary – both solutions fully leverage their respective strengths.

REALTECH at the SAP World Tour 2009

On June 8 and 9, 2009 the SAP World Tour will make a stop at the Congress Center Rosengarten in Mannheim, Germany!

"Strategies for Success in the New Reality" is the theme of the event that is dedicated to the use of SAP in ever more complex environments. Here, globalization and the current economic situation play an increasingly important role.

REALTECH is convinced that the challenges of this new reality can be overcome with the help of modern IT infrastructures – and we will bring this conviction to the event on June 8 and 9, 2009 at the Congress Center Rosengarten in Mannheim, Germany, where we will participate as an exhibitor and partner of the SAP World Tour!

Listen to the opinions of such distinguished speakers as Hasso Plattner, SAP co-founder and chairman of the supervisory board at SAP AG and Peter Graf, Chief Sustainability Officer at SAP AG and take advantage of this two-day event to constructively compare strategies with other experts! For the agenda, go to www.sap.com/worldtour.

REALTECH will be in Mannheim to provide expert answers to any questions you might have – come and talk to us!

SAP World Tour, June 8 & 9, 2009, Rosengarten Mannheim, Germany, booth P35