OREANDA-NEWS. July 06, 2011. SAP AG Concern has granted the status as a strategic partner: Premier Customer Network SAP to TATNEFT Company. This is recognition of the successful implementation of ongoing SAP projects and professionalism of the team engaged in the project implementation and management. The same status have such world known companies as Shell, BP, Exxon, BASF, Gazprom, Rosneft and Lukoil, reported the press-centre of TATNEFT.

Premier Customer Network status provides a start to move to a fundamentally new level of interaction between the companies within the management model agreed by the parties (Governance Model) and the joint strategic activity planning. The transition to this new level of relationship between the companies also includes the exchange of experience and the best practices of the global oil and gas industry with the other members of the Premier Customer Network, as well as participation of TATNEFT in oil and gas industry branch SAP's councils on innovations.

Welcoming TATNEFT as a new strategic partner, Steve Tsikakis, senior vice president of SAP, emphasized that the assignment of the status not only nails down the success of the ongoing projects, but the Company is enabled to attract the best industry and product experts from different corporate divisions of SAP.

Yunir Giniatullin, SAP Project Manager of TATNEFT, noted that the assignment of the Premier Customer Network SAP status is a natural result of the joint team work of TATNEFT, SAP and Energy Consulting - General Partner to implement SAP solutions at TATNEFT: "We expect that the new level of interaction with the vendor will significantly expand the possibilities of SAP-systems development in TATNEFT".

Mikhail Ponomarev, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Energy Consulting, said that the new level of interaction of SAP with TATNEFT Company is an important event and evidence of the success of joint partnership work: "TATNEFT being traditionally one of the most high-tech oil and gas companies of Russia, has received additional opportunities for further development of up-to-date management technologies".

Reference Information
SAP Company is one of the world's leaders at the software solutions market for business management.

Founded in 1972 SAP company is the world's largest software developer and is the third largest independent software company in the world.

SAP solutions for business management allow improving customer relationships, enhancing partnership collaboration and creating efficiency of the companies' performance within their logistic supply chains and business operations.

SAP AG office was opened in Moscow in 1992. Also over the last 19 years SAP offices have been opened in Yekaterinburg, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Rostov-on-Don, Almaty, Minsk and Kiev.

Energy Consulting is a Russian consulting group offering a wide range of professional services.
Energy Consulting is one of the leaders at the market of implementation of SAP in Russia both in the terms of business volume and level of the professionals' qualification.

By the assessment of "Expert RA" rating agency Energy Consulting belongs to TOP-10 largest audit and consulting groups in Russia, being a leader in the ERP-Consulting segment and holds a leading position in the market of system integration. The company is also among the top ten companies providing consulting services in the field of personnel management.