SAP Critical Analysis - Essay Example

127155 SAP ANALYSIS Founded in 1972, SAP is the recognized leader in providing collaborative business solutions for all types of industries and for every major market. Serving more than 33,200 customers worldwide, SAP is the world's largest business software company and the world's third-largest independent software provider overall. They have a rich history of innovation and growth that has made them a true industry leader. Today, SAP employs more than 36,600 people in more than 50 countries. Their professionals are dedicated to providing the highest level of customer service and support. SAP provides extensive documentation and support to its customers and clients. SAP has leveraged our extensive experience to deliver a comprehensive range of solutions to empower every aspect of business operations. By using SAP solutions, organizations of all sizes -- including small and midsize enterprises -- can reduce costs, improve performance, and gain the agility to respond to changing business needs. Many of today's most profitable businesses run ERP solutions from SAP. Considering the significant investment in SAP ERP systems, along with the increasingly demanding and competitive business environment, organizations need to achieve return on the investment. SAP ERP solutions take businesses a long way toward standardizing -- bringing together interrelated business processes under a standard architecture that helps the enterprise become more efficient, productive and agile in response to changing business conditions. Within the enterprise, SAP ERP solutions do an excellent job of automating and integrating many aspects of business processes. SAP ERP has got extensive support for various business processes and can be molded according to individual requirements. SAP can be used with various databases at backend. Customizations in SAP can be done using their Net-Weaver software package designed to provide a graphical user interface to make customizations and also provides features to code the customizations required. ORACLE ANALYSIS Oracle applications provide business information for effective decision-making, enable an adaptive enterprise for optimal responsiveness, and offer a superior total ownership experience that drives profitability. Oracle is committed to providing the leading solutions for your industry, including banking, insurance, communications, life sciences, manufacturing, retail, public sector, and high tech. Oracle Applications, running on a foundation of Oracle technology, address the unique business needs and challenges of your industry. Oracle provides extra features of data mining, warehousing and CASE tools as supplementary packages to enhance the capabilities of the Oracle Applications and their ERP package. Oracle provides oracle or any other front end interface to be used with Oracle applications. Oracle provides its customers with an easy to use software packages with very little training and learning required. SAP vs Oracle Oracle E-Business Suite (Oracle) SAP R/3 (SAP) Does the General Ledger Module Support: 1 Multiple Currency Transactions Y Y 2 Foreign Language Y Y 3 Consolidations Y Y 4 Allocations Y Y 5 Statistical Accounts Y Y 6 E-Mail Financial Statements Y N 7 Scheduled Financial Statements Y N 8 GL Drill Down to Source Document Y Y 9 Financial Statement Drill down Y Y Does the Inventory Module Support: 10 Matrix Pricing Y Y 11 Serial Numbers Y Y 12 Multiple Bins Y Y 13 Lot Tracking Y Y 14 Multiple Warehouses Y Y 15 Pictures Y Y 16 Bar Code Tracking Y Y 17 Consignment Inventory Y Y 18 Shelf Life Tracking Y Y 19 Bill of Materials Processing Y Y 20 Exploding & Imploding Quantities Y Y Does the Project Costing Module Support: 21 Estimating Y Y 22 Time & Billing Y Y 23 Retainage Y Y 24 Job Phases Y Y 25 Resource Tracking Y Y 26 Critical Path Reporting N Y 27 PERT Charts N Y 28 A.I.A. Billing Y Y Do the Manufacturing Modules support: 29 A Product Configurator Y Y 30 Multi-level Bill of Materials Y Y 31 Production Planning N Y 32 Machine Scheduling Y Y 33 Make to Order Y Y 34 Make to Stock Y Y 35 Engineer to Order N Y 36 Shop Floor Control N Y 37 Process Manufacturing Y Y 38 Scrap N Y 39 Machine Setup and Break Down Y Y Does the Product offer the following Advanced Solutions: 40 Contact Management or CRM Solution Y Y 41 An E-Commerce Web Store Solution Y Y 42 A Supply Chain Solution Y Y 43 A Time & Billing Solution Y Y 44 A Point of Sale Solution N N 45 A Human Resources Management Solution Y Y 46 Strong integration to Microsoft Office Y Y 47 FRx Solution Y N 48 Crystal Reports Solution Y N Non Functional Requirements 49 Reliability and support Excellent Support Good Support 50 Ease of Implementation Requires Experts to implement Easy to implement 51 Security Highly Secure Good Security 52 Functionality Excellent Good 53 Customization Possibility Provides NetWeaver for this Can be customized 54 Business Modeling All types of businesses Good for Simple ones Business Requirements vs. Available Functionality Requirement SAP Oracle How to manage diverse operations in different outlets SAP provides support for multi site operations and also caters to needs for multi org setups. Oracle supports multiple locations of offices to work How to avail volume discounts Inventory Management module provides them extensive support to place orders from single point for all locations and offices, giving them the ability to avail volume discounts Oracle also provides support for consolidating all orders into a single big order to get discounts on big orders. How to keep track of inventory Inventory can be tracked easily by the inventory management provided by SAP Inventory management is done by its inventory management module, but keeping track of it might not be very easy How to manage distribution of supplies for various outlets The sales and distribution module provides them the support for managing their supplies and distributions The system supports the muti-site operations and thus provides features to manage supplies How to keep track of sales Sales module helps them keep record of sales and returns Sales can be easily looked into using the sales module To conclude, the support is provided in almost all areas by both the vendors but SAP provides more extensive support for many of the core areas whereas Oracle requires a lot of work to make them work. With the comparison, we can conclude that both the packages provide almost the same functionality and an almost equal level of support and features, but SAP being a more commonly used package and a more extensively developed system, is a better choice between SAP and Oracle. The use of SAP as an ERP package for the coffee business and supplying will provide the company with various cutting edges over its competitors. The company can analyze their past sales and transactions on store basis or geographic location-wise to determine the need of supplies in various outlets. Besides this, the company may also choose its distribution locations based on the location of clients and customers. Automating and computerizing all data will enable them to manage their operations and supplies in a better way. The human resource, recruitment and appraisals can be all done automatically with very high degree of accuracy and preciseness. CRM section will allow them to manage their customers and contacts in a better way by giving them prompt alerts for follow-ups and feedbacks regarding their purchases and promotional campaigns. At a later stage, the company can also go for online ordering and supply of goods with customer given access to their systems to place order and receive quotes online. This will inbuilt in the company faster order processing mechanism and more accurate invoicing and ordering process. Modules provided by SAP and Oracle SAP provides the following modules as a part of its ERP package. Asset Master (Fixed Assets) Module FI/CO (Financial Accounting and Controlling) Module AR/AP (Accounts Receivable / Accounts Payable) Module SD (Sales and Distribution) Module MM (Materials Management) Module PP (Production Planning) Module Oracle Applications provide support for the following areas Corporate performance management Customer relationship management Human capital management Financial management procurement Project management Supply chain management Works Cited 1. www.sap.com 2. www.oracle.com 3. http://www.accountingsoftwarenews.com Read More