Does anyone know of any good websites that given a simple basic overview of SAP, the associated terminology and very high level functionality?

I don’t need to understand it in technical detail!

SAP consists of a number of different products.
Which one are you interested in?

Although it doesn’t matter really. They’re all a load of crap. Awful, awful software. Hate SAP with a passion. You can tell they’re well founded in the IBM ethos which is ‘make a copy of something good, badly’

Anyway, try this site.
http://www.erptips.com/Learn-SAP/What-Is-SAP/Introduction-To-SAP.html

SAP = select another package…..

Although it doesn’t matter really. They’re all a load of crap. Awful, awful software.

Yeah, but I wish I was earning SAP consultant rates 🙁

Yep, we’ve got a load on site at the moment making more and more work for themselves. Shysters (although very rich shysters) .

It’s a database with a terribly designed GUI and nothing more but because it’s sold to the accountants as the best product out there, they sign up for it.

SAP are terrible to deal with as a company too because they’re so big. Any interfaces with the systems has to be done their way.

And don’t even get me started on the security of the thing.
Ha ha…. HA HA HA…. I said ‘security’ and ‘SAP’ in the same sentence.

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAAA!!!

SAP can be really good – but in order for this to be the case you have to have REALLY good understanding of your products and services and the business processes that support these need to be at least level 4 maturity (documented, repeatable) and you need to really have a strong set of requirements (and I mean proper requirements; a description of problem not quasi-solutions) before you can even think about using SAP

problem is that people think that SAP and the attached consultancy services will solve this, which is why it fails

SAP is a great product. It’s often poorly.implemented when business people decide they know better than SAP people. It works very well at my company and my previous one. I know many places where it doesn’t.

Saying it’s crap is like saying a bike is crap because it’s been spec’d and built by someone know knows nothing about bikes.

SAP works well when implemented as a proforma product (ie change your business processes to fits SAP’s), anything different to this costs serious cash (to implement, run and maintain).

edhornby has it spot on. Unfortunately many companies fake their capability maturity (usually by setting a level as a target rather than by honestly discovering where they are). SAP is utterly inflexible and will expose you if you’ve cheated. Of course, your business may actually be making excellent product at a low maturity, and in this case SAP will ruin you.

I’ve clearly never worked at a company where they have a good understanding of their maturity level and products then because I’ve never seen it working well.

And you have to question how good a product is when it demands that companies fit into a specific template just to make some software work.

But anyway, my beef is not really with how well it does its job but that GUI that was designed by a blind monkey and the laughable security.

Would be really interested on some specifics samuri.

To the op, feel free to email me directly if you.have any specifics.

All ERP systems are the same, they are a logical structured way to run a business. Unfotunately most businesses aren’t run like that and most senior managers aren’t capable of operating in that sort of environment, they’re used to making snap decisions based on how they feel on the day. As mentionned above any system will hand you your backside on a plate if you continue to manage like that post implementation.

Thanks for the good replies and also the offer Clubber may well take you up on it.

I’ve found a few PPTs and PDFs that coupled with these replies have given me enough information for now. My question was more generic than for a specific SAP product / module as i am curious about key considerations for a successful implementation; short version seems to be get your business processes in order first, clarify the business requirements, give early consideration to how to perform the data migration from legacy systems and adapt your business processes to SAP rather than adapting SAP to your business processes (unless you want huge customisation costs and higher ongoing maintenance costs)

get your business processes in order first,
clarify the business requirements, give early
consideration to how to perform the data
migration from legacy systems and adapt
your business processes to SAP rather than
adapting SAP to your business processes
(unless you want huge customisation costs
and higher ongoing maintenance costs)

sounds pretty spot on. Basically commit or don’t do it. Do it right and it’ll mean you have a well organised company and system. Do it wrong and it can close you down.

On the GUI or the security?
The GUI is easy. Just walk around a company office on Monday morning while people are trying to input timesheets. It’s horrendously unintuitive. The buttons are all in the wrong place, even someone who uses it every day can get confused by the layout. SAP should try looking at people with really succesful GUI’s like Microsoft (windows 8 excluded) and Apple to understand how to get it right.

Security is directly a result of the complexity of the product. No-one understands it. You need dedicated SAP security professionals in permanently to make sure everyone has the right level of authority within the system. Name me another product a company installs where you have to have dedicated security administrators….

Password controls are ten years behind everyone else. The arrogance of SAP ensures that you can’t tie central administration into any other product and since SAP is rarely the chosen central directory for assets, people and systems that’s a whole world of hurt right there. I’ve seen numerous companies using spreadsheets to manage contractors and portable assets entirely because of this restriction.

What else?
Client to server communication. You want it encrypted? Errrm, sorry.
File exports to BACS systems. yeah sure, we do NFS. What’s that, you want the company payroll on a file sharing solution that isn’t the weakest in the world? Errrm, sorry.
Patching? You can’t patch, it’ll take the system offline. Resilience? What’s that?

That’s the top of my head stuff. I can produce more if you want.

It’s the complexity by far. Any business implementing a SAP upgrade program will have deadlines to meet. The security of the thing will always be secondary so it’ll never happen and I’ll keep coming across people with the ability to change their own payroll and ten year old passwords that have never been changed.

Why looking at SAP and not othes? I’m an Oracle Applications consultant BTW.

SAP is a great product.

Are you on crack? 😯

Never mind the usual GUI issues etc, but its stability makes the first version of Win95 seem a reliable system

Other than a couple of instances of servers going down because of server issues (eg nothing to do with sap), I can’t recall our SAP going down in 10 years…

Again, it’s a great product that’s often poorly installed and or managed.

Anything with a GUI that would make a text prompt seem user friendly to an illiterate by comparison can never be described as ‘great’

Like Mudshark, I am in the ERP implementation game and have worked with both SAP and Oracle but specialise in Oracle and would recommend taking a look at it especially the Oracle Accelerator program if you know what it is you need.

Unlike a lot of the ‘consultants’ though I have actually worked in finance and implemented Sarbanes Oxley for a two large companies (BAE Systems and Genzyme) so look at not only the package but the underlying processes and get the best solution.

s already stated if the basic business processes are not only in place but properly enforced then ANY ERP implementation is going to fail. You alos need to include all bisiness stakeholders in the process right from the very beginning in order for it all to work.

Jeff