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Maple Leaf Foods Selects SAP Software to Enhance Business Efficiency

Posted on: Monday, 16 March 2009, 08:00 CDT

Canada's Leading Food Processor to Implement Business Solutions from SAP to Increase Visibility Across Global Operations and Drive Growth

TORONTO, March 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SAP Canada Inc., a subsidiary of SAP AG (NYSE: SAP), today announced that Maple Leaf Foods Inc. (TSX: MFI) will implement SAP(R) software to provide an integrated technology platform across its global operations, help increase operational efficiencies and support its growth plans.

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Headquartered in Toronto, Maple Leaf Foods is a household name in the Canadian food industry, with a portfolio of leading brands such as Maple Leaf, Dempster's, Olivieri and Schneiders, and has significant and growing bakery operations in the United States and the U.K. To support its goal of establishing a highly efficient and fully integrated systems and shared services organization, Maple Leaf Foods will implement SAP(R) Business Suite software and industry-specific applications.

"Maple Leaf Foods requires a flexible, integrated information system that provides a single, consistent view of data to support our growth as a global food company," said Michael Vels, chief financial officer, Maple Leaf Foods. "The capabilities of SAP will streamline our customer interface, increase our speed to market and reduce operating costs. The software will provide us with the ability to incorporate best practices in the consumer packaged goods industry in North America and worldwide. SAP's best practices and deep integration in consumer packaged goods functionality will help us achieve our business goals."

Maple Leaf Foods will implement SAP solutions using a phased approach. The company will first leverage SAP's market-leading enterprise resource planning application, SAP(R) ERP, which helps companies continually improve their core processes, including financials, human resources, manufacturing, sales, procurement and logistics. In addition, SAP enhancement packages are designed to enable leading organizations like Maple Leaf Foods to embrace continuous innovation while minimizing any potential disruption to its business. SAP enhancement packages allow customers to select and deploy only the functionality they need without upgrading their entire solution--leaving long implementations, upgrades and disintegrated point solutions in the past (see related Nov. 12, 2008 press release, titled "Latest Enhancement Package from SAP Delivers Innovation and Value to Customers in Challenging Economic Times").

Maple Leaf Foods will also deploy the SAP for Consumer Products solution portfolio, a set of applications with industry-specific functionalities to help food companies become more demand-driven. The applications serve to enable innovation of business processes and products, speed time to market for new products, reduce operating costs, meet regulatory requirements and increase visibility and responsiveness throughout its supply chain. In addition, Maple Leaf Foods will leverage solutions within the SAP(R) BusinessObjects(TM) portfolio, which help organizations better monitor business performance, increase process transparency, spot inefficiencies and identify and leverage growth opportunities.

"Consumer products companies such as Maple Leaf Foods operate in a very competitive market," said Mark Aboud, president and managing director, SAP Canada Inc. "To gain a competitive edge, these companies need to meet the volatile demands of their customers by introducing affordable quality products much faster than their competitors and meet increasingly stringent industry regulations. SAP's industry-rich solutions are expected to help Maple Leaf Foods to further strengthen its business processes, tighten costs, increase sales and marketing effectiveness, manage risk and enhance global competitiveness."

Maple Leaf Foods joins more than 3,000 consumer products companies worldwide that use SAP solutions to power their businesses.

About Maple Leaf Foods Inc.

Maple Leaf Foods Inc. is a leading food processing company, headquartered in Toronto, Canada. The Company employs approximately 23,500 people at its operations across Canada and in the United States, the United Kingdom and Asia. The Company had sales of $5.2 billion in 2008.

About SAP Canada Inc.

SAP Canada Inc., based in Toronto, is a subsidiary of SAP AG (NYSE:SAP), the world's leading provider of business software*. SAP delivers solutions to help Canadian enterprises of all sizes to create efficiencies across supply chains and business operations, optimize performance and profitability, reduce costs, and increase competitive advantage. In addition, SAP Labs Canada, a division of SAP Canada Inc., develops cutting-edge software for a wide array of SAP applications from its Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver locations.

SAP Canada Inc. and Business Objects Corporation have collectively more than 1,200 customers and over 2,000 employees across the country. SAP Canada Inc. has been named as one of the 50 Best Employers in Canada for 2009 by Hewitt Associates.

For further information, please visit www.sap.ca.

About SAP

SAP is the world's leading provider of business software(*), offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses. With more than 82,000 customers in over 120 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE, under the symbol "SAP." For more information, visit www.sap.com.

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning and related applications.

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "predict," "should" and "will" and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

Copyright (C) 2009 SAP AG. All rights reserved.

SAP, R/3, mySAP, mySAP.com, xApps, xApp, SAP NetWeaver and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Data contained in this document serve informational purposes only. National product specifications may vary.

Note to editors:

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For more information, please contact: SAP Canada: Joy Chan, +1 416-250-3347, j.chan@sap.com SAP Press Office, +49 (6227) 7-46315, CET; +1 (610) 661-3200, EDT; press@sap.com

SOURCE SAP AG

Source: PR Newswire

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