Philadelphia Media Holdings, which prints The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, said it would deploy software from SAP America Inc. to manage its financial data.

The mySAP ERP software will also be used to oversee procurement and expense management operations, said Jeffrey Berger, vice president of systems and technology for PMH.

“We thought SAP brought strong value,” he said. “They were competitive, and had the industry experience and also let us consider industry-specific applications down the road.”

Berger said the app will be used by more than 400 staffers, and could serve as a foundation supporting other SAP newspaper products aimed at circulation and advertising.

Replacing KR app

PMH is deploying the software this month, replacing Oracle software the publisher used when it was part of Knight Ridder Inc. As part of the agreement, SAP is hosting the software for PMH.

PMH is the latest newspaper publisher to roll out SAP, following the lead of other users that include The New York Times, Washington Post, The Boston Globe and Cox Ohio Publishing.

Publishers are migrating to SAP because of its ability to support critical business operations, said Jenny Trautman, SAP’s director of field services, Americas.

“We’re seeing in Philadelphia a trend among newspapers to move up to a (enterprise resource) platform that has a more robust architecture behind it,” she said.

“Now that there are cost pressures affecting publishers, it’s more important to have a framework that will let them be flexible with the decisions they make.”