Introduction
Invariably, businesses growing from boutique firms to sizeable businesses always struggle with their teams becoming more and more disconnected from an overall business process flow point of view. It's very easy for companies to fall into this trap in the middle of aggressive growth and consequent demands on delivering to customers - before the management realizes, is is very likely that the company has developed information silos and disconnected departments, resulting in organizational inefficiencies hindering further growth and a reliable profitability analysis. This is where business management software solutions come into the picture to rescue. There are a wide variety of sotware vendors providing business software solutions, but
my focus as a veteran SAP consultant is going to be on SAP and their offerings.
With over 35 years of experience in helping customers with business software, SAP's increased focus and investment in solutions for Small and Midsize enterprises provides great value proposition to the businesses in this space. Although SAP has been working on these solutions for a few years now, there was a small tide back in the 2006-2007 timeframe, which was severely subdued by the market recession in 2007. However, there has been a lot of talk again since 2010 about these solutions and the European and Asian markets are already sailing big through the tides as it seems. It's good timing for the US markets and businesses to pick up on this wave, because the solution has already seen some ups and downs and there is a lot of functionality built into the system that will give small and midsize companies to get a kick-start on organizing their business processes around a matured business software system, especially giving due consideration to the fact that SAP has extensive experience built under the belt in this area. Without hype, let's get into the details of these offerings.
Solution Proposition
SAP provides a full range of solutions for small businesses and midsize enterprises ranging from on-premise to on-demand solutions. The sections below are intended to provide an understanding of the product suite at a high level. You should determine the best solution for the type and size of your business by engaging with SAP or one of the channel partners.
SAP Business One
SAP Business One is the solution for small businesses. Although there are partner companies offering solutions on the cloud for Business One, primarily this is a completely on-premise solution suite, meaning that your company will host and manage the software. The software runs on Windows Server and Sequel Server database platforms resulting in affordable investments into the IT infrastructure to support the software. Although there are no hard limits on the number of users that the solution is applicable for, this solution is most applicable to businesses that have a maximum number of around 30 end-users that would use the system on a daily basis beyond things like time entry. SAP gives you the ability to choose the functionality your organization needs and keep adding to the suite as your business need grows. SAP provides complete business functionality around the following business processes:
SAP Business ByDesign
Business ByDesign is a cloud-based solution, meaning that SAP will host the software on their servers and manage all the upgrades / maintenance for you. The solution footprint can be expanded to grow with your growing business needs by scaling up the availability of software. It is intended provide customers with a world-class business software system without the extensive IT expense required for it.
SAP Business All-in-One
All-in-One is essentially SAP ERP with deep industry best practices built into the software. It leverages the breadth of functionality available in the SAP R/3 / ERP suite, but tailored to specific industries with micro-vertical solutions. This solution is intended for customers with less than 2500 employees. These are a few facts from SAP:
Please feel free to respond to this blog with your comments and uggestions.
Invariably, businesses growing from boutique firms to sizeable businesses always struggle with their teams becoming more and more disconnected from an overall business process flow point of view. It's very easy for companies to fall into this trap in the middle of aggressive growth and consequent demands on delivering to customers - before the management realizes, is is very likely that the company has developed information silos and disconnected departments, resulting in organizational inefficiencies hindering further growth and a reliable profitability analysis. This is where business management software solutions come into the picture to rescue. There are a wide variety of sotware vendors providing business software solutions, but
my focus as a veteran SAP consultant is going to be on SAP and their offerings.
With over 35 years of experience in helping customers with business software, SAP's increased focus and investment in solutions for Small and Midsize enterprises provides great value proposition to the businesses in this space. Although SAP has been working on these solutions for a few years now, there was a small tide back in the 2006-2007 timeframe, which was severely subdued by the market recession in 2007. However, there has been a lot of talk again since 2010 about these solutions and the European and Asian markets are already sailing big through the tides as it seems. It's good timing for the US markets and businesses to pick up on this wave, because the solution has already seen some ups and downs and there is a lot of functionality built into the system that will give small and midsize companies to get a kick-start on organizing their business processes around a matured business software system, especially giving due consideration to the fact that SAP has extensive experience built under the belt in this area. Without hype, let's get into the details of these offerings.
Solution Proposition
SAP provides a full range of solutions for small businesses and midsize enterprises ranging from on-premise to on-demand solutions. The sections below are intended to provide an understanding of the product suite at a high level. You should determine the best solution for the type and size of your business by engaging with SAP or one of the channel partners.
SAP Business One
SAP Business One is the solution for small businesses. Although there are partner companies offering solutions on the cloud for Business One, primarily this is a completely on-premise solution suite, meaning that your company will host and manage the software. The software runs on Windows Server and Sequel Server database platforms resulting in affordable investments into the IT infrastructure to support the software. Although there are no hard limits on the number of users that the solution is applicable for, this solution is most applicable to businesses that have a maximum number of around 30 end-users that would use the system on a daily basis beyond things like time entry. SAP gives you the ability to choose the functionality your organization needs and keep adding to the suite as your business need grows. SAP provides complete business functionality around the following business processes:
- Accounting and Financials
- Sales and Customers (Integrated CRM functionality)
- Purchasing and Operations
- Inventory and Distribution
- Reporting and Administration (Reporting complete integration with Crystal Reports)
- Software Development Kit for easy software extensions
SAP Business ByDesign
Business ByDesign is a cloud-based solution, meaning that SAP will host the software on their servers and manage all the upgrades / maintenance for you. The solution footprint can be expanded to grow with your growing business needs by scaling up the availability of software. It is intended provide customers with a world-class business software system without the extensive IT expense required for it.
SAP Business All-in-One
All-in-One is essentially SAP ERP with deep industry best practices built into the software. It leverages the breadth of functionality available in the SAP R/3 / ERP suite, but tailored to specific industries with micro-vertical solutions. This solution is intended for customers with less than 2500 employees. These are a few facts from SAP:
- The software is available with over 10,000 customers and 50 country specific configurations.
- There are over 950 certified partners with over 650+ solution extensions.
Please feel free to respond to this blog with your comments and uggestions.
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After more than a year, you are back with another good write-up Murali.
ReplyDeleteNice to see you back in action.
Amaresh Makal