Service Level Management for Shared Services and BPO -- Strategic Global Webcasts to be Conducted by SAP, Digital Fuel and EquaTerra

Webcast events on September 27th and October 4th titled: Show Me The Facts -- Demonstrating the Value of Shared Services to Your Business Units.

San Mateo, CA (PRWEB) September 27, 2006 -- Digital Fuel, the leader in software solutions for Service Level Agreement (SLA) Management (http://www.digitalfuel.com/products/sla-management.aspx) and Service Cost Management (http://www.digitalfuel.com/products/cost_management.aspx) , SAP, worldwide leader in CRM, ERP, and supply chain software, and EquaTerra, a multi-national outsourcing and insourcing advisory firm are hosting two webcasts entitled: Show Me The Facts -- Demonstrating the Value of Shared Services to Your Business Units. The webcasts will focus on understanding the value that a Shared Service organization or Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) relationship offers and how to align it with the business. Speakers for the events are Mike Beals, Outsourcing Management Practice Leader, EquaTerra (http://www.equaterra.com); Bernhard Fischer, VP Solution Management - BPO, SAP (http://www.sap.com/usa/index.epx); and Tom Schaefer, EVP Marketing, Digital Fuel. The first event is scheduled for Wednesday, September 27, 2006 at 14:00 GMT for the European markets and the second event is scheduled for Wednesday, October 4, 2006 at 11:00 am EST for North American markets.

A key challenge for today's businesses is to demonstrate the value that a Shared Service organization or Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) (http://www.digitalfuel.com/solutions/index.aspx) relationship offers that is aligned to the business. The foundation of a well-structured Shared Services (http://www.digitalfuel.com/solutions/shared-services.aspx) or BPO initiative rests on clearly defined governance principles, defined key performance indicators (KPI's) and the associated Service Level Agreements (SLA). The key elements of successful service provision are lower cost, higher service levels, visibility of improvements and adherence to the commitment.

Generating visibility can be difficult due to concurrent service contracts, complexity of the service supply chain and time constraints. Leveraging technology allows the buyers to remove these obstacles and optimize efficiency and effectiveness through active Service Level Management (SLM) within their own Shared Services organizations and BPO relationships.

Hear SAP, Digital Fuel and EquaTerra discuss the following:

• Understanding and awareness of governance principles and practices

• Value of governance to outsourcing success

• Importance of measuring key performance indicators (KPI's)

• Practical advice on how to measure and manage KPI's

• Role of technology in governing Shared Services and BPO relationships

To register for these complimentary Webcasts: info @ digitalfuel.com

About SAP

SAP is the world's leading provider of business software*. Today, more than 34,600 customers in more than 120 countries run SAP® applications-from distinct solutions addressing the needs of small and midsize enterprises to suite offerings for global organizations. Powered by the SAP NetWeaver® platform to drive innovation and enable business change, SAP software helps enterprises of all sizes around the world improve customer relationships, enhance partner collaboration and create efficiencies across their supply chains and business operations. SAP solution portfolios support the unique business processes of more than 25 industries, including high tech, retail, financial services, healthcare and the public sector. With subsidiaries in more than 50 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE under the symbol "SAP." (Additional information at http://www.sap.com)

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning and related applications such as supply chain management, customer relationship management, product life-cycle management and supplier relationship management.

About Digital Fuel

Digital Fuel is the leading provider of SLA management and service cost management solutions, helping service providers and shared services organizations manage the performance, financial, and regulatory aspects of IT and business services. Digital Fuel has the largest deployments for SLA and service cost management in the world, with thousands of concurrent users, SLAs, KPIs and metrics. With Digital Fuel’s patented visual approach, customers are deployed rapidly to quickly drive value from automating the management of service level agreements with their customers and vendors. ServiceFlow manages billions in business and IT services for global companies such as Procter & Gamble, General Electric, Cummins, IBM, Siemens Business Services, O2, Telefonica, Atos Origin, and CSC. Digital Fuel is headquartered in San Mateo, California, with offices across North America and Europe. Learn more at www.digitalfuel.com.

About EquaTerra

EquaTerra sourcing advisors help clients achieve sustainable value in their business processes. With an average of more than 20 years of experience in over 600 global transformation and outsourcing projects, our advisors offer unmatched industry expertise. EquaTerra has in-depth functional knowledge in Finance and Accounting, HR, IT, Procurement and other critical business processes with advisors throughout North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Our people are passionate about providing objective, conflict-free advice to our clients, which has fueled our exponential growth over the past three years. We help clients achieve significant cost savings and process improvements with outsourcing, internal transformation and shared services solutions. It is all we do. www.equaterra.com

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