SAP Sapphire 07 Atlanta- creating a platform and applications

These days , my organizational studies and interactions encourage me to think as to what would be the situation if every organization had every process completely captured on an ERP system that was web based. These include internal processes like production planning, procurement, manufacturing, accounting and finance, sales and distribution. Also could include external stakeholders like the supply chain, customers, shareholders. In such a perfect world , there would be no "transaction" cost and managers would focus on their particular area rather than just trying to figure out their own page and whether everyone else was on the same page. SAP has been trying to achieve this utopia for its clients over the years.Here is Hasso Plattner’s piece on communities from YouTube:

The reports from Sapphire 2007 at Atlanta indicate that the long years of hard work by SAP have started paying off ; and SAP has become a technology platform beyond just an application provider. Details of various proceedings of the conference appear here . Being a platform  is naturally much greater than being merely  an application provider  and combining applications with in-depth understanding of client businesses is the key to the success of SAP. As the report in Industry Week suggests, Coca Cola explained to Sapphire participants how their business works. With 1.3 billion units sold (per day) any simplification of Coca Cola’s processes just drives directly to savings and enhanced customer satisfaction with better service. Guess what ? my friends at Pepsi tell me that they have moved to SAP and undoubtedly would benefit from the experience of SAP in that industry. This way Coke and Pepsi can focus on developing interesting offerings like "Coke Zero" and "Tropicana Lite" – core to their business !