Most professionals I know take one look at SAP and go: ‘Harrumph…way too expensive.’ Well – that may in part be true. SAP has always commanded a premium price but then so does a BMW or Mercedes-Benz. You can argue whether the comparison is appropriate but then we are talking German engineering. Anyhoo – last week I was SAP’s guest at its Business Influencer Summit in Boston along with 274 other analysts, media and customers. I spent most of my time learning more about what SAP calls its SME business applications: Business ByDesign, Business One and All-in-One Solution.
The last year I have devoted most of my time looking at Business ByDesign (BYD) and latterly All-in-One so it was good to get an update on Business One. In summary:
Business ByDesign – is a SaaS ERP offering that has a minimum user count of 25 and is currently being tested, evaluated and in some cases put into production among 100 customers. It is a highly configurable solution that has yet to go into general release but which shows great promise for those companies wanting a reasonably complete ERP but without the pain of on premise software. Despite my past reservations, it will be the one to watch in 2010.
Business One – is what SAP calls its entry level system. It has a chequered history but the product has matured and is getting attention from SAP’s partner ecosystem who develop add-ons and implement the system. The demonstrations we saw show that B1 has come a long way since I last took a good look and now competes more than adequately with products like Microsoft Dynamics NAV. My colleague Oliver Marks got a close up look of some of the new features. He says:
The self explanatory small business video above demonstrates how the clunk of SAP interfaces of Christmas past are being replaced by surfacing in the moment process, analytics and workflow across browser and mobile surfaces.
I concur. The video runs 23 minutes but serves as an excellent mini-demo for those who might have dismissed B1 in the past. It is a genuine eye opener and one that has changed my opinion about this product.
All-in-One – is both configurable and customizable. It is aimed at the 100-500 person business. It can sit alongside BYD in shoot outs but will win where the customer needs industry specific customizations. A couple of months ago I met with Dishman, a Netherlands based pharmaceuticals manufacturer which has implemented A-i-O. They said they had managed to implement in around 3 months. That goes against the grain of what the market perceives as long winded SAP implementations. The short video interview is here.
It was clear from the presentations that SAP is putting a good deal of emphasis on its SME offerings for 2010. How that’s articulated given the amount of effort it puts into the much larger (and more expensive) Business Suite through its various events and channels remains to be seen. However, SAP now has a credible range of solutions that span all but the very smallest businesses across a wide variety of delivery mechanisms. Professionals that run tech consulting and implementation units should consider SAP for 2010 and beyond. BYD will be especially interesting for those whose clients are thinking of transitioning beyond a Sage or equivalent offering or which are establishing new business units and need a reasonably complete ERP up and running in a short time span.
As always with a company like SAP, price negotiation needs to be taken seriously as this impacts the ongoing TCO arising out of maintenance costs. That’s not true for BYD where the price includes ongoing maintenance. Watch out however for ‘extras’ sneaking in. For the more ambitious implementer, SAP is holding out the promise of an SDK which will allow for some custom development. Precisely what the SDK will allow has yet to be determined but the promise is that those 5-10% tweaks that customers always insist upon will be accommodated.
Disclosure: SAP paid most of my travel costs. I am an SAP Mentor but have had no commercial relationship with the company for more than 12 months.
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