SAP AG - known more for its enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution R3 - has changed the parameters for its business and, just like everyone else, is touting an e-business solution to beat them all.
Even SAP's detractors have to acknowledge this software specialist's success in the ERP space, but the company is trying to establish itself as more than an ERP vendor. Its new initiative - mySAP.com - takes it into an entirely different product sphere.
"We are transforming SAP from an ERP vendor to an Internet solutions company," says Simon Carpenter, GM of mySAP.com components, SAP SA.
MySAP.com emerged in May last year, and since then has moved from a sideline value-add for ERP customers to SAP's flagship product. ERP has taken the role of a mySAP.com component, rather than a business solution within itself. In fact, mySAP.com makes allowances for non-SAP ERP solutions within its framework.
MySAP.com is the key element in what SAP terms "collaborative business solutions". As part of the SAP Internet-Business Framework, it is the portal that attracts the 10 million licensed users to interact with one another, predominantly on a business-to-business level. While the framework is the more important strategic part of the solution, mySAP is the most attractive, so the name has extended to the framework, rather than vice versa.
"It is a brand," explains Carpenter. "There is less emphasis on individual products. It is the most comprehensive offering in the market for a company that is changing into an e-business."
The framework includes CRM, APO, data warehousing, strategic management tools, and of course ERP, as well as the ability to plug further SAP or third-party IT business tools into the e-business framework.
"We have fully Internet-enabled all of the components," says Carpenter. This delivers the advantage of zero-installation on the client, allowing for greater flexibility for pulling partners into an e-business extranet.
The Internet is where mySAP.com Workplace fits in, serving as a portal for SAP's clients and their respective partners to link into the various mySAP components.
This openness and ease of connecting to an Internet-based enterprise IT solution may seem strange to traditional SAP users, but not as surprising as SAP's new ethos. The four "Cs" that SAP now lives by are: community, content, commerce and collaboration. Other changes for the German company include a drive into the application service provider (ASP) market - an initiative that it hopes will penetrate the middle-tier, which it tried to do with Accelerated SAP - as well as more flexibility and adaptability in its products.
"In terms of flexibility and adaptability, we now have many more tools to make changes. The changes for a customer taking on our solution will be big, but they must remember that we spent a long time finding best practice worldwide."
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