FLM Accelerates Deployment and Management of SAP® Interactive Forms by Adobe and Extends Business Processes to Mobile Devices
LONDON – July 20, 2011 – Arch (www.arch-global.com), a market leader in forms management solutions for use with SAP® Interactive Forms software by Adobe, today announced that its Forms Lifecycle Manager (FLM™) is now an SAP-endorsed business solution. FLM is an enterprise software product that simplifies the implementation, deployment and management of SAP Interactive Forms by providing a run-time environment with forms monitoring, version-control capabilities and other centralized services. It will also enable the use of HTML-based forms and integrates forms-based processes with multiple mobile devices that leverage the Sybase® Unwired Platform.
Through the use of FLM, enterprises can improve the efficiency of forms-driven business processes. It provides seamless and configurable integration with SAP applications and automated provision of key information to users. By automating the deployment and centrally managing and monitoring forms, enterprises can realize significant cost savings and efficiency gains across many process areas.
FLM also extends forms-driven business processes to mobile devices, including iPad, Blackberry and Android, enabling improved communication and workflow approval. Arch is committed to further extending mobile capabilities that leverage the Sybase Unwired Platform. And with support for HTML forms processing, planned to be generally available in the fourth quarter of 2011, this multi-channel user-interface support enhances the rich enterprise-class functionality inherent in PDF-based forms.
Customers Benefit From Use of FLM and SAP Interactive Forms
Customers OCS, an international property support company, and Linklaters, a leading global law firm, have both benefited from the use of Arch FLM with SAP Interactive Forms to significantly automate form generation and processing.
“At OCS we needed a fast, easy way to develop forms within our SAP environment,” said Jenny Sener, director, Shared Services at OCS. “It was important that people found them easy to use, and critical that processes were sped up by automating them as much as possible. The early adoption of FLM integrated with SAP Interactive Forms has helped us improve both the speed and quality of forms development and processing to support efficient, integrated business processes. The forms have been well received by OCS users and we are continuing to extend our use of forms across many process areas in our SAP solution-based environment.”
“Using Arch FLM integrated with SAP Interactive Forms allows us to develop forms quickly, and with the skill sets we already have in house,” added Simeon Brewer, enterprise architect, Linklaters. “We look forward to working with Arch in the future as we roll out forms across our business services functions.”
Solutions endorsed by SAP are complementary to SAP software offerings, are developed in accordance with SAP development guidelines, and provide additional choices and flexibility for businesses running SAP applications. As part of the agreement between Arch and SAP, both companies will share technology and product roadmaps.
“FLM simplifies and automates forms processes using SAP Interactive Forms, without requiring users to learn new skills,” said Henry Blythe, CEO, Arch. “It is easy to use and provides seamless linkage with business processes for forms processing. Speeding up delivery and making it easier to manage a portfolio of forms provides significant cost and resource savings for organizations, which helps further ensure accuracy and efficiency across the board. And by leveraging the Sybase Unwired Platform, we can further extend the capabilities provided to users in the office and on the go.”
“By endorsing solutions such as FLM, SAP continues to build its ecosystem, support our customers’ businesses, drive new levels of collaboration, and provide additional choices and flexibility to our customers,” said Kevin Ichhpurani, senior vice president, Ecosystem and Channels, SAP. “The use of FLM with SAP solutions will enable our customers to improve employee productivity and streamline existing business processes, thus accelerating the return on investments in SAP solutions and lowering overall total cost of ownership.”
The integration of Arch FLM and SAP Interactive Forms provides further benefits to the SAP partner ecosystem. “Arch’s FLM solution combined with SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe has helped us to further support our customers by providing services to speed up forms generation, allowing forms to be more quickly integrated with the associated business processes,” said David Lowson, head of SAP Sales at Capgemini UK, an Arch partner and an SAP services partner. “We believe the forthcoming support for mobile devices will benefit our clients.”For more information on Arch FLM integrated with SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe, please see the announcement issued by SAP titled “Customers Increase Business Agility With SAP Interactive Forms Software by Adobe and Arch Forms Lifecycle Manager”. Also, register here for an on-demand rebroadcast of a previously recorded webinar, including customers Anglian Water, OCS Group and Zalaris using SAP Interactive Forms and FLM together.
Arch is an Adobe Enterprise Partner and an SAP software solution partner. The company has also been recognized by Gartner as “Cool Vendor 2011” in the SAP ecosystem* as innovative, impactful and intriguing.
About Arch
Founded in 1998, Arch is a software provider specializing in enterprise-class forms management solutions for use with SAP solutions across PDF and other digital channels. Its Forms Lifecycle Management (FLM) solution is a marketing-leading, SAP-endorsed business solution. The company is privately owned and headquartered in the U.K.
*About Gartner’s Cool Vendors Selection Process
Gartner’s listing does not constitute an exhaustive list of vendors in any given technology area, but rather is designed to highlight interesting, new and innovative vendors, products and services. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness of a particular purpose.
Gartner defines a cool vendor as a company that offers technologies or solutions that are: Innovative, enable users to do things they couldn’t do before; Impactful, have, or will have, business impact (not just technology for the sake of technology); Intriguing, have caught Gartner’s interest or curiosity in approximately the past six months.
FLM is a trademark of Arch.
SAP and all SAP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries.
Sybase is a trademark or registered trademarks of Sybase, Inc. ® indicates registration in the United States.
All other product and service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.
For more information, please contact:
Charlotte Graham-Cumming, charlottegc@icebluesky.com +44 1494 858340
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