Skolkovo Foundation and SAP, one of the world's leading companies in enterprise solutions, have announced the signing of a memorandum on establishment of sector-oriented IT solutions for management of rail cargo transportation, which will allow market participants to optimize the process and considerably decrease logistics costs.
According to expert evaluation, today in Russia and CIS logistic costs equal to an average of 20% of GDP, while in USA and Europe this indicator equals to 8.6% and 7.8% respectively. Therefore, large Russian industrial enterprises, that are the main customers of services for the transportation of goods by rail, are affected considerably in conjunction with the crisis. One of the industries going through a price decline cycle in particular is metallurgy.
“Today’s event very vividly expresses the essence of what we are trying to create at Skolkovo – an innovative ecosystem which consists of several directions”, stated CEO of the Skolkovo Foundation IT cluster Igor Bogachev. “One of them are startups, innovative young companies who bring new ideas to business. By the way, 40 years ago SAP also began as a startup with only 5 people in the team. The other part of the ecosystem are our key partners, international corporations, such as SAP – one of the leading partners of the Skolkovo Foundations in IT. The company brings to our knowledge ecosystem expertise and technology. And there is another important component of the innovation economy, representatives of which are also present today: these are customers of the innovations developed at Skolkovo, large manufacturers and trading companies. As an example of such large companies I can name JSC “KAMAZ”, which has recently added to its equipment a new multimedia project created by Intel in cooperation with small innovative companies at Skolkovo.”
“Optimization of logistics will allow Russian metallurgical companies to increase competitiveness without affecting main manufacturing processes”, commented Director at SAP CIS Natalia Parmenova. “Taking into account the scale of the task, not only the best practices and technologies which have proved successful in various countries, but also innovative solutions, reflecting Russian specific requirements must be applied.” Natalia Parmenova also marked the social importance of the projects connected with logistics optimization: “For our country railway is something bigger than just a part of transportation business. Costs of products and services consumed by the people who live in our country are directly connected with the transportation costs. Consequently, a decrease of costs and increase of transportation efficiency is an important social task, which will affect the life of each of us.”
Today, the prices of a number of metals are at 2009 levels, supply exceeds demand. This situation is typical both for Russian and foreign markets, where many large manufacturers have already announced cutting down production volumes by 5-9% due to high electricity prices and low metal prices. According to the Vice-President for Logistics Alexander Sapronov (company NLMK), “ The unstable situation in the global steel market dictates the rules: today our priorities in logistics are costs reduction and finding ways to improve efficiency in the use of available resources. This results in a growing interest in the possibilities of information technologies. Metallurgy, like other industries, where rail is the main method of transportation, is interested in IT solutions that will help increase accounting transparency of transported cargo and rationally plan the use of rolling stock, decreasing number of empty runs and idle cars.”
The rationale of such approach was discussed at the round table by leading experts and participants of the transportation logistics market for railway shipment, leaders of Skolkovo project participant companies.
The round table participants got acquainted with the possibilities of the SAP Transportation Management (SAP TM) solution for management of transport and logistics. Tens of millions of euros have already been invested into its development. SAP TM allows to manage different types of transport – transportation of container, dry bulk and liquid bulk cargoes, as well as aviation and maritime transport, and to conduct full cost accounting. In the future, systems of this class can become the main solution for transport and logistic problems on federal level.
SAP
One of the world's leaders in the market of enterprise solutions, SAP helps organizations of any size and specialization to manage their business more efficiently. Whether it's back-office services or board of directors, warehouse or store, desktop or mobile applications – SAP solutions allow to increase efficiency in cooperation between colleagues and organizations as a whole, forming a deep understanding of the business and creating competitive advantages. SAP solutions and services are used by more than 232,000 clients. The company’s advanced technologies guarantee high profitability, promote permanent adaptation and stable growth.
In 1992 SAP AG opened its office in Moscow. During the past 20 years SAP representative offices were opened in Yekaterinburg, Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Rostov-on-Don, Almaty, Minsk and Kiev, while the number of personnel exceeded 1050 people.
SAP: essence in a nutshell! http://www.twitter.com/sap_cis
Skolkovo Foundation
Skolkovo Foundation, Development Center for Development and Commercialization of New Technologies, is a non-commercial organization created on the initiative of the head of the state in September 2010. The aim of the Foundation is mobilization of Russia’s resources in the sphere of modern applied science, creation of favourable environment for completion of scientific developments in five priority directions of technological development: energy efficiency, space, biomedicine, nuclear and computer technologies. The project envisages establishment of Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech), research institutes, business incubator, center of technology transfer and commercialization, representative offices of foreign companies and R & D-centers, residential and social infrastructure, and the subsequent spread to other innovative regions of Russia .. Activities of the Skolkovo innovation center are regulated by a special law which provides its residents with special economic conditions.
Roman ShcherbakovSkolkovo Foundation Press Office HeadTel.: +7 (495) 967 01 48, доб./ext. 2260Fax: +7 (495) 967 01 96E-mail: rs@sk.ruwww.sk.ru