It’s no secret, ever since SAP brought enterprise resource planning (ERP) to small to midsized enterprises (SMEs) with SAP Business One, it’s been one of the most successful solutions for the mid-market. SAP Business One was notable in that it brought to SMEs access to the functionality once reserved for large enterprises using tier-one ERP. Today, over 80% of SAP’s 345,000 customers categorised as SME are leveraging SAP solutions to manage their growing businesses. Despite this success, there are still a few lingering misconceptions which remain. By separating fact from fiction, business can ensure an objective decision making during the ERP selection process.
Myth 1: SAP Business One is Too Complex for SMEs.
When a business owner hears the name SAP, it sometimes elicits an association with tier-1 ERP solutions for large enterprise. But an association with SAP is a good thing. After all, SAP understands complex business process and operations. The myth is that SAP’s flagship solution for the midmarket, SAP Business One, is by association too complicated for the needs of a small business. The truth is that SAP Business One was designed with scalability in mind. Meaning that a business owner only need to use the functions they need today without over complicating their business’ systems. Which leads to the next myth:
Myth 2: ERP solutions are too complicated for business users.
With its browser-inspired design, SAP Business One enables users to easily navigate the customisable SAP Business One dashboard, accessing mission critical business information relevant to a specific user. By breaking up major business functional areas of the application into separate areas, users can limit their use to the information they need today. This simplifies operations considerably and unlike some ERP solutions gives users the ability to choose the reports that they need front and centre for a convenient snapshot of their business. As your business grows, performance isn’t affected by the addition of more users, and indeed the application can be easily scaled up to accommodate new employees.
Myth 3: SAP Business One Requires too Many Customisations
First of all, SAP Business One can be used out-of-the-box as is; it comes complete with standard modules including full financials and banking, sales opportunity management and CRM, purchasing, production, inventory, materials requirements planning (MRP), HR management, and real-time reporting. However, where the real value of SAP Business One can be felt is in its ability in conjunction with an experienced ERP partner to be further tailored to your business' specific industry needs. SAP Business One is supported by an extensive ecosystem of solutions regardless of your industry. Said another way, add-ons for SAP Business One don't plug feature gaps in the application, rather they provide the ability for the solution to be further molded to your business for greater alignment of your business goals with transformative technology. Unlike some ERP solutions, SAP Business One gives SMEs to flexibility to work in tandem with other applications without imposing processes on your business' operations.
In part two of Misconceptions About SAP Business One and the Truth, we’ll dispel a few more SAP Business One myths to help SMEs make educated decisions about their next ERP solution. In the meantime, if you're interested to learn some facts about SAP Business One, read Vision33's SAP Business One FAQ.
