The primary business process for all trading companies is organising and managing the flow of goods and services. If possible, the simultaneous handling of purchasing and selling should be carried out within a single department. Of crucial importance is a structured and clearly-laid-out organisation of purchasing and selling activities. Trading transactions can be carried out conveniently and economically with the standard SAP module GTM (Global Trade Management). The benefit to companies: business processes are considerably accelerated with no increase in staff size.

SAP GTM is superior to other systems by virtue of its reliability and detailed representation of business processes. The high degree of openness also offers the option of implementing a broad range of customisations and additional specific add-ons. Scarcely any other software is able to link one-sided purchase trading contracts with sales trading contracts and thereby create a direct connection to position management.

Preparing for introduction

Before the system can be implemented successfully, the company must decide which trading processes are to be mapped. The ideal tool for this purpose is a study that establishes in advance which processes can be mapped with standard settings and for which processes individual add-ons need to be developed. After that, the cost estimate can be calculated before the project goes into the planning phase. A project period of from six months to one year is required, according to the usual estimates, for successful implementation. It is time well invested, considering the potential for substantial savings.

Implementing the system

GTM consists of four key elements: Trading Contract, Trading Expense, Position Management and the Trading Execution Workbench. The main function of the GTM module is the Trading Contract. With this function both one-sided and two-sided contracts can be created. By linking purchasing and sales, two-sided contracts offer the option of carrying out both of these business processes in parallel. This minimises stock-keeping requirements, resulting in savings in terms of time and costs. Planned and unplanned expenses can be entered and processed in the integrated "Trading Expense" component. This enables a clear representation of costs along with a more precise valuation of profits.

GTM is suitable for any company that engages in any form of trade. If you already use SAP, then you benefit from the fact that SAP GTM is a standard module. That is to say, it imposes no additional licence fees on the company. There are no costs to invest other than the costs of introduction.

Are you already using SAP MM for purchasing and SAP SD for selling? No problem! Documents created in MM or SD from GTM can also be processed from GTM alone. There is a clean separation between trading business and other operating business.

Unfortunately, SAP GTM is not included in the IDES system (see note 587170). Those who would like to test GTM in IDES must copy the settings from the 000 client and expand them. The procedure is described in the GTM introduction guide, which is included in note 1539636.

Another option for testing SAP GTM is to use the SAP Best Practice that is available for ECC 6.0 EHP5 (see note 1576846). You will find the SAP GTM Help Texts here.

We will be happy to assist you in setting up SAP GTM for testing purposes on your testing system. If you have yet to become an SAP customer, we will be happy to demonstrate the functions of SAP GTM for you.