In order to ensure that this information is secured, manufacturing organizations must implement measures that eliminate any and all threats to the business before they evolve. To effectively do so, all businesses must administer preventative measures such as continuous monitoring on their core business data, applications and systems.

Manufacturing operations are run by applications such as enterprise resource planning solutions, manufacturing integration and intelligence, as well as SAP’s enterprise inventory optimization software. This is why SAP systems are considered pivotal for enabling manufacturers to make better decisions, reduce costs and increase their performance. But pervasive applications that reveal what’s going on within a company by providing access to critical business data in one place, must be valued highly and protected accordingly.

While many business processes running on Microsoft, web site software and network infrastructure are top of mind for security teams, SAP applications and systems are often overlooked. SAP is one of the most critical systems that manufacturers need to protect, but is considered by security professionals to be “covered” by traditional methods. However, these methods leave security teams without visibility into business-critical applications running on SAP. Without proactive measures in place, most security teams are flying blind on critical systems. When SAP systems are left unsecured, the same ERP systems that reduce complexity for business heads and departmental administrators will also open up a consolidated picture of business performance to malicious external threats or internal error.

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