By 2015, SAP wants a billion people using its software, and to help get there, it’s deepening ties with a company that logs that number in just one month—Google.

SAP is partnering with Google to integrate its SAP BusinessObjects software with Google Maps and Google Earth. Soon, users will be able to view and analyze corporate data through Google’s interactive mapping tools (SAP would not put a firm date on release, nor pricing). In one use-case example, SAP says a telecom operator will be able to use Google Earth and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer software to perform dropped-call analysis and pinpoint the geo-coordinates of faulty towers.

The project signals grander ambitions to collaborate further with the search engine giant, according to Steve Lucas, SAP’s GM of Business Analytics. Other “substantial capabilities” will be available very, very soon, he says, promising much more than consumer-grade “dog and pony mash-ups.” Integration with Google Docs and SAP’s StreamWork application—SAP’s team workspace—is already available. Users can also use StreamWork through a Google Apps account.

“SAP and Google have every intention of continuing to partner more often, more frequently and more deeply,” Lucas says, “in large part because there is no overlap between the two organizations.”

Lucas lent clues as to the nature of those “partnerships” by drawing attention to Google as a “repository of data.” Take Google Maps and Google Earth: Google already catalogs corporate location and addresses. Google has an unbelievably accurate set of data, Lucas says, and there are some pretty innovative things a company can do if it looks at Google as a system of record, or a directory.

In the longer term, data will flow not only from SAP into Google’s tools but from Google into SAP systems. In this scenario, a business could validate data in its CRM system against what Google has already logged—to do the quality check today that many businesses do by purchasing an address directory, he says.

“Everyone knows a CRM system is the most inaccurate source of data on the planet because you have sales reps entering the data,” he says. “In some respects Google, while not an ERP system, is an incredibly rich repository of reference data. We recognize that the consumer web is a very accurate source of information.”

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2 Comments for Google Plus SAP Deepen Ties, Deliver More Enterprise Integration

Jamie Oswald

Is it just me, or does this “Big Data” scare the crap out of everyone? Are enterprise customers really that close to saying 85% (or whatever other random number you want to spit out) accuracy is enough?

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Courtney Bjorlin

Fantastic question to pose. As SAP deepens integration with partners like Google, what are the issues, esp. data quality issues, presented by bringing in more and more “unstructured” data? We asked this of Steve Lucas and he gave the CRM example cited in the post — partners like Google can be an accurate source of information as well.

Interested to hear what the other “random” percentages companies are aiming for are as well.

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