At this point, you may argue that there was sufficient reason to establish specialized systems for a dedicated purpose. Indeed, this approach is called the best-of-breed implementation. However, it is the very reason for the disconnected enterprise. In this book, SAP Business ONE will be used to overcome this challenge by means of industry-specific add-ons that are fully integrated with the software. Essentially, SAP Business ONE is a business engine which provides the most common business management and financial features. This engine can be transformed to seamlessly represent industry-specific requirements.
Introducing key terms and concepts
We will introduce the key terms and concepts related to the SAP world. The following areas will be covered in the process:
- Real time and islands of data
- Positioning SAP Business ONE against other SAP products
- Profitable growth
- Establishing metrics
- Prototyping
- The virtual enterprise
- SAP 100-word definition
Real-time information instead of islands of data
The SAP Business ONE system provides better information in real time. Therefore, it helps to minimize the risk involved with the daily decisions the entrepreneur or business owner has to make.
Many business owners have taken a don’t-fix-it-if-it-is-not-broken approach and stay put with their solutions that are already in place. The solutions are most often a combination of a small accounting package and some home-grown software to fix a business need. As their business evolves, new solutions are added, which will lead to a patch-worked solution. In order to make the right decisions, usually Excel reports are created to analyze data for reporting. You may also consider license requirements, different platforms, and programming languages that ultimately lead to a scattered environment with a high cost.
In this environment, manual steps are often required to synchronize data. Extra effort is needed to prepare the reports and they are never 100% accurate. This is not exactly a 360-degree view of a business. However, a complete view of the key performance indicators of a business is precisely what is required to make the best decisions.
The patchwork approach of managing a small business facilitates the status quo environment. However, in today’s business world, change is a permanent factor. The scenario mentioned above most commonly leads to islands of data and inadvertently tends to paralyze the business as key information is not obtained. This happens because the existing system produces not enough or too much information in multiple locations.
The aforementioned scenario, which is described as islands of data, also surfaces in the best-of-breed approach. The best-of-breed, also known as the best-in-class approach, is a valid strategy for larger companies where software solutions are selected on a departmental level in order to meet the needs of every individual in a department.
The departmental level that contributes to the value chain of a business is described as an enterprise resource. Traditionally, enterprise resources were highly specialized and disparate systems. Companies were faced with systems that could not easily communicate. It was virtually impossible to obtain real-time reports because the information was hard to integrate and analyze. On the one hand, the systems produced a massive amount of information, and on the other hand, the information could not be used as it was impossible to integrate the data with the other information sources.