SAP begins a series of regional launches for its Business One suite of generic management products for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Cape Town today.
"Business One means that an integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that provides a single view of customers and operations is no longer out of reach for SMEs," says Patricia Martins, SAP small business manager.
Business One is aimed at businesses with between 10 and 100 employees and is to be sold exclusively through channel partners on a per user basis.
Martins says SAP is not merely packaging its enterprise product for smaller businesses. "Instead, Business One is developed to meet the ERP needs of the SME market in terms of complexity, cost and ease of implementation."
SAP Business One is an out-of-the-box solution with country-specific localisation that covers the core operations such as accounting, reporting, sales and distribution, purchasing, and warehouse and partner management.
Martins acknowledges strong competition in the market from products by ACCPAC, VIP and FrontRange, but says Business One`s competitive-edge lies in its scalability, embedded customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities and integration with a large install base of SAP systems.
"Business One is scalable enough to grow with most smaller businesses backed by a rapid pace of product development, making replacement unlikely unless rapid expansion occurs through acquisition," says Martins.
Business One is supported by an ongoing enhancement process, with annual product updates, she explains.
"Embedded CRM is a key differentiator, providing extremely tight integration because it is built in from the source upwards," says Paul Vermaak, SAP business development manager.
Leveraging its current install base among larger local and international companies is part of SAP`s marketing strategy for Business One. Martins highlights the advantages of integration between Business One and other systems. "Most proprietary applications used by SMEs don`t allow for integration with the systems of their larger customers, making them a liability in an extended supply chain."
Although designed as an out-of-the-box solution, SAP Business One also comes with a built-in development kit for customers or channel partners to implement any necessary customisation.
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