SAP's platform for the future

Must-use for all SAP customers, given that it is critical to SAP's success as an enterprise software company.

Pros

Started using HANA 5 years ago with v1 SPS5 back when it was just released for SAP BW. Back then it was "only" an in-memory DB. With each new SPS release, HANA became better with more DB features integrated. Fast forward to today, it is a full-fledged database platform with enterprise features that rival (and in some cases) even bests Oracle, MSSQL, DB2, et al. For customers who intend to use SAP for the foreseeable future, you would no doubt have HANA already as part of your existing if not future SAP roadmap, given that support for the traditional DBs is until 2025.
SAP HANA, which is re-written from the ground up to fully take advantage of today's modern hardware, supports multi-threaded CPU architecture, use of terabytes of memory to run its in-memory database capabilities, columnar & row based database with full-fledged compression, full support of PL-SQL and many other application components.
From a hardware perspective it is a 2-horse race with the commodity Intel x86 platforms becoming more powerful with each CPU iteration and better CPU core-to-memory ratio support, and IBM with their Power-based CPU architecture. As hardware prices continue to fall and become more powerful, it is only a matter of time before HANA hardware becomes truly commoditised.

Cons

Today SAP HANA is not only a competent database platform, but also is a very robust applications platform. As HANA continues to grow its feature set naturally there are more bugs as a result of a multitude of features. Development of SAP HANA is also diversified across multiple locations around the globe (Walldorf, India, etc.). SAP must do a better job in responding quicker to customers with issues.

One of the best business ERP solution

Overall very good ERP solution, it is also to be noted that 90% of fortune 500 companies uses SAP for their all business solutions.

Pros

SAP AG is Germany based company who has developed business integrated ERP software which cater all your business requirement.
1. SAP has different modules within the software like material management, sales and Distribution, fixed asset etc which very well integrates with each other and helps to provide in depth solution for all business requirement.
2. SAP has ability to maintain complete audit trail, which helps the business user to fix the accountability of each user.
3. Data analysis is the one of the best feature that ultimately helps the business to take effective decisions.
4. User security, user authorization system is also added advantage which helps in managing authorized access to any system data.

Cons

1. SAP is mainly suitable for large enterprises having employees strength more that 300-400, and where all roles and responsibility of the uses is clearly identified.
2. Its implementation cost and maintenance cost is high and sufficient training is also required to be given to all concerned users.
3. it is essential to have separate team who can help the user to solve all the issues related to SAP or some agency needs to be hired for such problems, which ultimately increases the cost of company.
4. Unless the roles and responsibility are not clearly identified there is no much benefit of the so called ERP solution.
5. In nutshell unless the company has good employee size and business then only SAP is suitable.

All in one & easy

For an all in one suite ERP, this is the best. Although some areas are not quite as robust as some would like, SAP really nailed it with this one. They address a huge span of customers with the one product, which is completely customizable if you want to spend the money. However, most of the time, companies find that they can walk with the product, no customizations for the first 6mos. Then they get a good feel for what they want to change.

Pros

SAP took all of the knowledge gained with ECC, B1, etc. & published it into this cloud solution. You buy the license, and you have access to all modules. It is not a new charge to add in Project Management for example. You just turn it on. Online help documents are outstanding, and you can literally learn the entire software functionality by following them. With it being a cloud solution, you get auto updates every 3mo, which is nice. It updates some of the default government fees, for all of the countries you have in your system. Expense reporting for example.
There is very little administration needed to let the software flow once you turn it on. And the best part is that you just need internet to access the software.

Cons

It is for mid-size businesses. So for larger organizations, the licensing can get pricey. There is a limited amount of knowledge in the field on the product, so it can take some time to get answers for some topics from the partners, or to find info online.

Everything is done for you!

I have been working with this product for almost 2 years now. Most of my knowledge is self-taught from the online documents. This system is as robust as you wish it to be. The thinking has been done. Language packs, which apply in all modules, Country-specific financial rules that are updated constantly (IRS Guidelines for Expense Reporting for example), auto calculations, multi-currency use within one transaction. A counter part in Germany can operate in German, while all of mine can be in English when I am troubleshooting their issues, I think is outstanding. SAP is constantly updating, they have a great team backing the product, it is very personable user experience in my opinion. We use it for Order to Cash. We use the Supply Chain set up, full Financials. Production of Materials, Purchasing, Customer Service, just not POS. Although it has the ability, our business does not operate that way.

Pros

The process is built in, it is native to the operation of the system. SAP's been in the business long enough to be able to take all of the success from Enterprise ERP applications that they have built, and merge this into an online application. The product is very versatile for what I would think many styles of business. I personally enjoy the idea of not having to program the system to react a specific way, I work through the process in a test, using the online documentation, some time with an SAP Partner (Consulting Company), but the hours spent there are little. We also have the additional SDK, so we can write some personalization to the product if we wish to.
The SAP Support tools are wonderful, there is probably too many resources to reach out to.

Cons

Not available in HTML in the production environments yet. Some users have been testing out the HTML in the test tenants. It is completely different layout. We would love to be able to drag & drop attachments instead of having to browse to them.

SAP Hana is a memory data platform that accelerate the business processes,deliver process inteligene

Pros

The best multi combination platform that are driven with data platform and as report generation tool. Best part of this software is it removes the burden of maintaining any additional system to hold our data it acts as 2 in 1 which holds and generates output results.so that we can run live and make better business decisions in the new digital economy.The features are like reduce its complexity, we can run this any where and can give accurate and real results some more additions operations it include are Transform data management,Process data in memory,Leverage advanced analytics, and can develop advances applications. Best storage as well as analytics based software that stores in Idoc data presentations

Cons

The SAP Hana was very least thing to say because it is very best in tool for holding large massive data and its generation of the reports but we requires additional changes in the page layout and design of the SAP lOGON need to be changed and immediate password change assitance need to be required. if they implement this software will be very more useful

SAP HANA provides an in memory database for fast data access and processing

I what find is that since SAP is firmly sticking with in memory computing and making all of their processes compatible with in-memory computing. This eventually forces customers to migrate to HANA but the user experience in HANA is much better compared to the alternate in my opinion. This is recommended for any SAP customer with large volumes of data that needs processing, reporting and analysis. I would recommend with training

Pros

I like hat HANA is in-memory computing technology that provides an in memory database for fast data access and processing to users. Properties like faster data fetching, quick execution times, speedy access to external Apps make it a very useful technology. The business problems being solved with the product are as the data volume grows, the conventional database based reports and processes tend to slow down. This at times negatively affects the year on year trend analysis and processes requiring multiple data fetch. HANA, being in memory database virtually eliminates these issues. The data fetch is almost instantaneous and the processes run much faster.

Cons

I see nothing negative about the technology in itself. The roll out of this platform could have been done in a better way. The cloud integration of SAP has been slow as well. These I thing that can be looked into

SAP S4HANA makes the company run faster and effecient

Inox Air Products has upgraded the SAP landscape to SAP S4HANA. Performance issues of ECC 6.0, challenges in adapting new technologies and sap innovations, moving to user-friendly interfaces and business analytics propelled us to adopt S4HANA. The vision from management, especially our director, to move the organization processes to next level by digitalization of business processes. We needed a solid technology and platform, on which we can digitalise and scale. Adoption of FIORI solutions for better user experience with workflow and to build analytics is a major reason for moving to S4HANA. Performance issues of SAP ECC 6.0, challenges in adapting new technologies and sap innovations, moving to user-friendly interfaces and business analytics propelled us to adopt S4HANA. The vision from management, especially our director, to move the organization processes to next level by digitalization of business processes. We needed a solid technology and platform, on which we can digitalise and scale. Adoption of FIORI solutions for better user experience with workflow and to build analytics is a major reason for moving to S4HANA

Pros

Architecture, Performance, Adaptability and Easy to use Interface

Cons

A better price is desirable.

SAP is one of the most trusted brands within the enterprise resource planning software industry.

SAP on-premise systems, human capital management (HCM) and payroll functions include payroll automation, core HR, talent management, HR service delivery, strategic workforce planning, workforce analytics, payroll, workforce deployment, employee file management, organizational visualization, and HR outsourcing. Business ByDesign CRM is often a starting point for SAP's cloud customers. CRM provides a relatively simple gateway for first time cloud adopters who can then add other SAP SaaS functions over time.

Pros

SAP is one of the most recognized and trusted brands within the enterprise resource planning (ERP) software industry.
ByDesign is offered in four enterprise software categories: customer relationship management (CRM), financials, professional services automation (PSA), and supply chain management (SCM). These solutions each include a combination of different modules, and they can be acquired as stand-alone capabilities as well. The entire ERP software suite includes the following:

Customer relationship management (CRM)
Accounting and financials
Project management
Supply chain management (SCM)
Supplier relationship management
Human resources (HR)/payroll
Analytics
Compliance management.

This is something covers all aspects of business relation model.

Cons

SAP is a cloud based technology and initially it has targeted toward SMEs with 25+ users, the solution can be used by organizations with as few as 10 users. The ideal range is 25-500 users, but the cloud scalability should facilitate more users if required.

ANALYTICS AND ERPS - WHAT BUSINESSES NEEDED

It is very reliable, fast and efficient. It has enabled many companies to streamline processes and access a myriad of information related to their companies in real time

Pros

1. The data processing speeds are greatly improved on the HANA platform. This is due to the in-memory technology incorporated into the system.
2. Very easy to set up and integration with SAP is almost flawless. This is especially true with cloud.
3. The user interface is not only eye catching, it also incorporates analytics which enable the users to create interactive dashboards, graphs and widgets.
4. Since it is a database in itself, which supports data to be stored in columns (as opposed to the previously used MS SQL, which stores in rows), it allows for faster data processing, analytics and more efficient storage of data.
5. It allows a company to monitor key KPIs.
6. In terms of security, it is very efficient. It relies on encryption, patching and best practices when it comes to security. It is also linux-based which provides a very secure platform

Cons

1. The hardware and software specifications required to run HANA may be unavailable to some businesses hence if a company wants to use it, the would have to acquire them.
2. The dashboards and some of the analytical features are unavailable on mobile.
3. While customizing and writing stored procedures, one must be very careful as the application is linux-based hence it is case sensitive.

A step into the future.

With SAP HANA, my skills in view calculations have increased, I have another point of view about how to create one type of report or another. It is also very productive and very fast response. In addition with other tools like SAP Lumira, Qlik View / Sense and Tableau you can get a nice result, it leverages BI to another level and makes your experience even better.

Pros

SAP HANA, or Netweaver over HANA DB (HDB) is a step into the future. Before this concept of in-memory computing and memory storage (without reading the disk all the time), some reports took very long to load. Now you can get access to a larger piece of data in seconds. HANA also brings BW to another level of real time reporting, even detailed information can be shown in no time, its very fast. The way we build views by using the HANA Modeler is very simple but yet powerful, you can do a lot with little knowledge and much more with some expertise.

Cons

The tools used to work with HANA are both the HANA Studio or Eclipse with SAP HANA plugins. In my opinion, it could be better than it is; with more components, less bugs (you have to restart the environment every once in a while) and a better explanation about how the aggregation you see has been formed (Simpler than PlanViz).

SAP Business ByDesign the real cloud ERP

It is a true ERP in the cloud, with all the advantages of being 100% web, it is a solution in HTML5, with which you can manage it 100% on your tablet or mobile phone. It has BI and CRM, that surpasses the traditional ERPs and with Hana accounts with very good operating performance.

Pros

SAP Business ByDesign is an ERP very easy to use, to implement and that allows to have 360º information of the whole company in real time. It is very easy to learn to use by the end users. It has very good integrated BI reports. It's the beautiful SAP

Cons

SAP does not do much promotion to the product, to success stories and not much is known about its strengths in what the cloud managed by SAP itself. I consider the ERP's weakness in advanced manufacturing functions, in the management of mass purchases and in the capacity of large batches of information.

Awesome product

First and foremost is - I always wonder how they could cover all possible scenarios in one single application. This is a massive creation by SAP which makes all enterprise runs smoothly. My experience with SAP ERP was very good. Below are some of them, 1. Navigating to different screens was easy 2. The shortcuts provided for each screen navigation as well as field/option navigation was very great 3. Various types of reporting facilities was again one another big feature of this. 4. By these many reporting features, be it admin or process owner or business management, could easily make use of the data being stored over a period of time.

Pros

Flexibility and artificial intelegence

Cons

For me, the learning did take little time. Learning materials were not made available online (public) Not sure not it is made public or not.

I am not sure why they have not thought about some in-house/in-Application automation. this would have been very massive creation, it there is any.

All in one ERP

Pros

1- Data processing speed is better than any other ERP with it's in memory Technology incorporated in the system
2- Very secure from user security setup to data encryption and patching.
3- easy to use interface for users
4- it comes with best practice for any business, so you only need to follow their defined process for your business
5- it has all the modules any business will need "Financials, auto payment, Purchasing, Material Management and Monitor, Treasury Management, online bidding and More.
6- Easily integrate with other systems if you have other operational Systems
7- it has Powerful HCM that manage Employee life cycle " Recruitment with auto screening and staging - onboarding - Transaction Payroll - Training and developing - Performance Management and succession planing
8- Reporting and Analysis tools to help evaluate company performance.
9- Budgeting and planning through out the System

Cons

1- cost of acquiring the software or the needed hardware.
2- implementation time and cost are very high compared to other ERP systems
3- Maintenance contract cost is also high.
4- the need for a dedicated experienced team to Administrate the system
5- the need for the company to define all its processes before purchasing such huge system as you may spend more than what's actually needed for your operations to run

SAP Review

- Overall SAP is very efficient, reliable, and user-friendly

Pros

Easy to use and understand, like the save query as it saves me alot of time in repetitive searches I have to do
Reports such as: accounts payable open items, cash reconciliation, cash - open items, payment monitor, and supplier account information are easily generated and always accurate

Cons

-When entering invoices with many lines in SAP, calculated tax amounts for each line sometimes changes as I add more lines in the invoice. Software sometimes has trouble calculating correct tax and gross amounts for invoices when multiple lines, cost centres, GL accounts, tax codes are entered
-As I enter invoice items while entering an invoice in SAP in the view all screen, I'm unable to enter a credit memo line item. To do this I'd have to go back into basic view, enter the credit memo, then go back into view all.

REVIEW OF SAP-BUSINESS-ALL-IN-ONE by Ehinmero Phillip

The training is very useful as it gives more edge over other ERP. If you can work with any SAP products, other ERP Software will not difficult to understand and navigate.

Pros

1. It allows for future expansion of different organisation's operations as more features can be deployed to improve operational efficiency.
2. It guides users to make use of best general accounting accepted principles while performing their functions.
3. It reduce time in executing jobs and increases efficiency in project execution.
4. it is very user-friendly if well understood with in-depth training.
5. It synchronise seamlessly with Microsoft Office products such as Outlook, Excel, and Word.

Cons

1. It make use of specialised alphanumeric figures there making it very difficult to set-up by users of other ERP softwares.
2. It is not cost efficient for companies of unstable financial status.
3. Its installation is difficult for non-IT expert as it obeys the OSI layers: Application, Database and Network.
4. The distribution per use is not really flexible compared to other ERP Software.

Best tool for any big organization

Pros

SAP Business All-in-One has all features which an organization needs, including HRMS, ERP, FI-CO, etc. I will say this tool is comprehensive. You can enter as much information as you want on transactions. It fits for all types of businesses.

Cons

Most of the people think that SAP is too complicated to inplement considering its SAP GUI. It has numerous fields on the screen. However, this all is customizable. Moreover, this tool is All in one, hence you do not have flexibility to choose a single module in the suit. Sometimes you end up not using few modules throughout your organizational process.

Awesome System

Not at this time.

Pros

I like SAP because it makes my job life more easier to get the important tasks done in a timely manner. Our organization can also create custom made reports to fit each department's needs. It is a fast system, up to date, and works very well for me and my job responsibilities.

Cons

You have to open separate windows to do multiple tasks. I wish I do multiple job tasks all on one session instead of opening numerous sessions to do more than one task. I may need the other window open to review some information and cannot do all that on the same window.

More than 10 successful implementations in different kinds of industries. In time and within budget.

Gain of experience on different business process in several kinds of industries, like retail, pharmaceutical, media, manufacturing, etc.

Pros

It's amazing how this system is capable to change the culture within an organization, enabling it to compete in a globalized world and to achieve corporate and financial goals.

Cons

It requires the allocation of human and financial resources in order to achieve the expected results. Also, is very important to select carefully the SAP implementation partner who will support and guide you during the implementation, from the start to the go live.

Best In memory database so far

In data modeller perspective, SAP HANA studio is a great tool to work on. It offers good data compression rate and faster data processing when compared to existing conventional databases.

Pros

1. GUI is very user-friendly.
2. Easy to integrate with other SAP tools.
3. Real-time analytics is possible through HANA.
4. Can store data from both heterogeneous and homogenous databases.
4. Columnar storage provides high data compression.

Cons

1. Cost of the RAM.
2. Doesn't support all the conventional SQL functions.
3. occasional bugs but they will be resolved by SAP.

SAP Hana: a solution to Big Data

Handling, processing, and analyzing big data in real time is easier and faster with SAP HANA.

Pros

SAP Hana may be the best choice to go with Big Data processing. It's in-memory approach makes processing much faster than traditional approaches when dealing with huge amounts of data to process. It's columnar representation and handling of data makes it more efficient and compressed, being able to use less memory than the actual required.
As a Data Scientist, I like and find really useful all the built-in functionalities to work with Analytics, Machine Learning, and statistical models. There are even features to work with Graphs and Trees. In addition, the text and spatial engines make HANA a great choice to work with Natural Language Processing or with Spatial Analysis.

Cons

The setup for some functionalities may be cumbersome and require a lot of code. For example, to train a Machine Learning model usually you need a lot of setup and writing many instructions, while the equivalent on a scripting programming language may require much less code and setup.