I happened to attend one of the largest event of SAP . But I was shocked to know that their senior executives/ techies could not answer my question “ Whether SAP has published it’s data model ? “. They were fumbling for words & were asking stupid questions back to me ?. Whether it was a deliberate strategy to avoid the question I do not know. (I got a surprise gift from them during the session !!)

The following are my views on ERP products

1. The vendor must have published his data model.
This the vendors may not do (or at the best do half & half) due to fear of others stealing his IP. The model would help us evaluate how best it fits into the business model with minimum customization. Otherwise we end building those in to the process leading to problems & costly errors.

2.Most ERP vendors do not take up
implementation. It is left to consulting companies who keep guessing so & so process updates so & so & so … table. So the product must have been accurately documented.

3.Buying ERP is nothing but willingly walking in to the trap. (You cannot go back to your legacy system nor you are realizing any special benefits ). So purchasing the product should be linked to benefits realized & the onus of showing the benefits should be on the consulting company ( who happily walk off after sign off by customer, leaving the customer high & dry & stupid)

4. So I would suggest buy only a few modules with a commitment to buy other modules only if hyped benefits are shown by the consulting company.

5.Lastly I wonder why media is giving so much publicity to only one ERP product ie. SAP and ignoring the rest.

Hi Anonymous,

to the best of my knowledge SAP has not published its data model - although once you installed the thing you have access to it (and the application source code!). Nevertheless I find it not relevant in deciding for a solution to dig in 16,000 database tables. You may want to try http://help.sap.com - tons of information there - including very technical information.

SAP (R/3 aka mySAP aka SAP ERP) is a development platform that I found VERY professional when it comes to deployment. The coding, the tables etc may come as a little bit awkward sometimes, certainly not the "cleanest", hottest, sexiest. But the same it true for what I've seen from Oracle (just to name some other product - what is there else? Important enough to mention?).

The benefit in deployment is
- what I would call process templates - every company does purchasing, selling, invoicing, A/R, A/P, GL. Annoyingly every company believes to be so special that they have to do this and that to the software. And once they have grown old enough to understand the software they see the mess they requested. And then it starts with digging deeper - and seeing that SAP did stop in some ways. Ask your SAP rep to show how demands show up again in a supplying plant, if the requesting one rejects a delivery for quality reasons and the link has been established using cross company supply - doesn't work since 8 years. Here SAP should have asked the customer what he wants instead of riding the colorful Internet train or trying to establish a demand for a Business Process Platform, or trying to reinvent remote procedure calls and call them SOA. The value of SAP in this area is not the datamodel or advanced coding but the fact that you buy integration that (can) work(s).
- but back from business to IT - set up a scenario where two teams work on two ERP related projects, you have a system for development, one for testing/integration and one for production - and then compare (and challenge) SAP's and Oracle's "solution" - to make sure what has been developed is being tested is being set productive. In my eyes one of the most important things in this environment. (My two cents - would be worth it for Oracle to look at SAP's solution - of course with an anonymous IP address ).

Finally to comment the article - good points - although I'm not sure the 6-monthly enhancement packages are easier to chew than one upgrade every 2 - 4 years. You have to test integrated processes! And you don't want to test too often. And whether an enhancement package requires touching a billion records in a 100 GB table or whether it's an upgrade - it costs time, money and produces a lot of white hair.

I personally rather like SAP as the business specialist that they used to be rather than a technology company - but this might be the German "Ingenieur" requiring the change.

And finally - after all the years of new speak I still don't understand why if I want integration somebody is trying to sell me a "software bus" where every supplier riding the bus can finger point to the other for problems. I want integrated solutions! Hopefully it becomes true what has been pointed out - industry solutions will get more focus.

Regards
A

Today most companies are using SAP implementation as A selling point to their customers(like Y2K hype!!). So no body wants to speak out the fact SAP implementation is nothing but old wine in new bottle. Only in private discussions they admit the entire money invested is a waste. Especially the companies that buy all and sundry modules without even effectively implementing a few basic modules.

Consultants are gone and insiders hardly know anything about the modules . Simply gazing at the sky and calling up the consultants for all problems.

Admittedly there are those companies. But there are also companies that successfully implement ERP systems - SAP, Oracle, Sage, ...

What does it tell you about a company if their insiders are gazing the sky? It tells me that these companies have a lack in valuing IT as a foundation infrastructure for doing business in today's world.

Life's not easy, business is not easy - why should ERP systems be?

The reason behind a successful ERP implementation - Oracle, SAP or roll-your-own - is a mature organization and a _total_ buy-in of management and team. I wouldn't attribute more than 5% on the product - 10% on the vendor and 30% on the consultant. And I've seen several!

One Size Fits AllSAP is still a one-size fits (squeezes into) all, offering. Its baffling that we are moving to an age of such personalisation yet installing packages such as SAP that forces our businesses into tight fitting systems (or tailor them significantly).

Golden Rule of IT
A golden rule of IT systems "If the business process is generic to most businesses then a package is more likely to be suitable; (why reinvent the wheel?

However, if the process is business critical, or a unique strength of the business then a bespoke system is more likely to provide the business benefits. Technology is a key asst in competitive business. You need to maintain that lead by providing your business with the EXACT systems it needs.

p.s. I just witnessed a SAP Business Objects conference. I'm old enough to have heard the sales pitch before. I couldn't help thinking Excel does all of that for 100,000th of the price.

p.p.s. I have 11+ years configuring and managing SAP R/2 and R/3.

Thinking...
p.p.p.s. What comes AFTER SAP? Like life, it surely ends.

Any off-shelf-package should meet the following criterion and ERP is no exception

1.It must have been cleanly designed data model (with well analysed & debated data model)
2.With a clean process model integrated with data model(reusable processes & meeting the business objectives)
3.Proven bug free software
4.Well documented

Issues not important
1.Bells & whistles (e-mail support, EdI support etc)
2.Need not cover every area of business
3.Impressive GUIs
4.3tier , 4tier architectures etc.

We had lot of home grown ERPs in 80s which failed miserably due to not meeting the above criterion. Why SAP be an exception ?

I am afraid that I find the "annonymous" comments INCREDIBLY NAIVE !!!!

- I can share a real life example when a user wanted to review data model from SAP. I gave him 500+ fields and attributes that you can assign to a Customer Master in SAP ... he didn't ask again!!!!

- If you tell any medium to large size company users that the report they have just generated in their ERP system can not be emailed or that thousands of transactions that they exchange with their business partners on a monthly (or even daily) basis will have to be entered manually because the ERP system doesn't support EDI or some such interface ... you may be laughed out of their office

- ERP stands for "Enterprise" resource planning. If it doesn't cover all (or at least most) areas of business, then it is an isolated system. It can be an excellent stand alone system and may ensure job security of IT people who develop interfaces ... but it is not an ERP system

- 3 tier / 4 tier structure helps you in changing underlying operating system or databases with relatively minimum impact on the business logic and applications. Obviously these things don't happen annually, but even they happen once during the "lifetime" of an ERP system (in 15 / 20 years) ... it is worth it without having to redeploy and redesign your system

Hi MPatel

In my posting the first list is mandatory & the second is nice to have.
I sympathize with your user. If I were to be him I would NOT have taken it from you that way. I would have insisted on a data model & not all & sundry fields.

You are displaying your naivety by not knowing design & architecture.
Address the arguments(if you can) & DO NOT make personnel attacks as if you are too smart.

Sincerely
Anonymous

Well written and spot on. We implement the HRIS suite in the public sector arena and we see the new features and effort from SAP to fine tune the applications to work properly in K-12 schools and state and local governments
Bob

(sigh !!!)... okay let me try to explain this way. I didn't give that user 500 fields to "show off" my knowledge. I gave the list to him because it is INDEED possible to use all those fields in SAP for a customer ---- DEPENDING on what business processes they want to use.

If all business processes of that company were well defined and the client was willing to spend and pay the project team next two weeks in helping that user understand each of those 500 fields ... I would have been more than happy to oblige. Similarly, if you are willing to understand data model of SAP on your own, go ahead ... get access to any SAP system and I will be happy to send you some of the transactions where you can look at the model.

But expecting to understand it during a tightly controlled project timeline or over the counter during a marketing event indeed is NAIVE !!! As one of the other person has mentioned in the comments, business is not simple and ERP implementations are not simple.

And just to clarify, I am attacking your oversimplified arguments ... not you. So these are NOT personal attacks (another sigh !!!). Plus, with a name like Annonymous, there can't really be any 'personal' attacks .. now can there?