I use this solution for finance and procurement.
The solution is deployed on-premises and on a private cloud, and it's running on the Azure platform.
I use this solution for finance and procurement.
The solution is deployed on-premises and on a private cloud, and it's running on the Azure platform.
The features are very useful for finance.
They frequently change their strategy with the product, which they didn't do before. There are too many versions. In previous generations, SAP was stable and the roadmap was very predictable, but currently it's very difficult.
I have been using this solution for more than five years.
It's stable.
It's scalable.
Technical support could be improved. I would rate them 2.5 out of 5.
The initial setup was medium difficulty. We had more than 100 people working on it for two years.
I would rate this solution seven out of ten.
My advice is that products fail or succeed depending on the organization that is implementing the solution.
We are a manufacturing company and customers of SAP.
This is a robust solution with a lot of control measures. They provide extensive documentation and I recommend it for an enterprise organization. The Asset Manager feature is great and the solution has good integration.
I think that implementation could be simplified.
I've been using this solution for about eight years.
The solution is stable.
The solution is scalable.
We have in-house support but can use external support when necessary.
The initial setup is somewhat complex and requires advanced planning.
The solution is quite expensive but for an organization the size of ours, I think it's worthwhile because of the information that goes into it and what it provides.
If you plan to implement this solution, the most important thing is to spend time in the planning. It's important to have an extensive checklist and set up the test environment before going into production.
I rate this solution eight out of 10.
In the past, it was a pure on-premise solution. As the market has gone on, SAP is all also delivering hybrid or public and private clouds. Because you can configure SAP for huge automotive factories — like Rolls-Royce and Mercedes-Benz, for example — they do have some development inside of these kinds of software. Therefore, it's really difficult to bring everything into the cloud.
So, although SAP is making a lot of business with the hybrid or private and public cloud solutions, I think there are still others who would like to use solutions other than pure cloud solutions. This is my impression.
I'm an old-fashioned guy, so I feel better when I have GUI. So, not a web browser. This makes me feel better because of security issues.
If big companies are going for SAP and they would like to install it, they should know that it still needs time. Implementation will cost a lot of money. I would really appreciate it if the software tools had something like template solutions where you didn't have to spend too much time and effort to configure. Instead, the process would run in the software with just a click. So, I'd like to see better provision of templates.
I started as a consultant. I have 25 years of end-user experience and experience as an implementation consultant.
Right now, because of all these different deployment methods like cloud, the scalability is very good. There are plenty of options you can select. It's not a pure public cloud solution. You still have the possibility to go for on-premise or to go for hybrid and use these super large services like Amazon Web Services or go with a small private IT provider. Scalability is very high in my opinion.
Their technical support is available 24/7. They provide good support. On a scale of 1 to 5, I would give it a 4.
Initial setup is complex. I would rate the setup a 4 out of 5.
I would rate this solution 8 out of 10.
There are many interfaces, so you really can build satellites around it like with other SAP stuff or even third-party stuff. The entity relationship is the basis for the whole business in the world. For example, the relationships between the customer, vendor, materials, orders, invoices, and so on. For me, this system is very logical. It's complex, but once you understand it, it's perfect.
My experience is in finance and logistics. We use it for Treasury accountants, GL (General Ledger), Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, etcetera. It's actually with the SAP solution, maybe for treasury banks, managing bank accounts, and other solutions within SAP ERP.
The integration is a valuable feature. Actually, in S/4HANA, the most valuable part for me is the Universal Journal because, in one table, you have all financial topics or financial data. So it's very easy to report and manage this information and consolidate, for example, the intercompany transactions and manage treasury cash flow. For me, the most important part is the Universal Journal.
There is room for improvement in the integration of the solution, especially in the payroll area. Usually, mid-sized companies need a separate solution for payroll because the existing parts are from a different system. So, many companies require better integration of payroll into the ERP, especially for small and mid-sized companies.
I have been using SAP ERP for ten years, and currently, our company is the partner.
The solution is very stable.
The scalability of SAP ERP is very good, allowing companies to grow and expand their operations in various areas and industries. The scalability is the best.
Customer service and support are good.
Positive
The initial setup of SAP ERP is very easy because it provides best practices and building blocks. In the last version, it has greatly improved. For example, the user experience is now completely for the user. Users do not require training because the latest version of SAP HANA is very easy to use.
There is ROI in three years of business operations.
SAP is now the cheaper option, but if you compare pricing and the scope of the solution, SAP is the best option in terms of pricing because the scope is more comprehensive than other cloud solutions.
Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
SAP ERP is essentially used for back-office functions, such as payroll and HR, as well as covering financials. It has many functional modules that can be used depending on the needs of your business.
Implementing SAP is typically very costly, and it takes a long time to deploy because of the huge amount of complexity. For smaller organizations, the implementation can be particularly challenging. Maybe the integration capabilities could be improved to increase the rest of the three tools. If you're trying to plug it into other best-of-breed products for HR or reporting, that's where you'll have charges.
I would suggest that the implementation lifecycle could be made simpler. Therefore, it would be easier and faster to implement and cost less.
I've been using SAP ERP for fifteen years.
It is a very scalable solution but it can be cost-prohibitive at the same time due to the time it takes.
The deployment process depends on various factors. For the bare minimum setup, the solution would take six to nine months to deploy. But the likelihood of it taking six to nine months is very low. It's probably going to be more like a year to eighteen months to get the whole thing up and running and fully working as you expect for an organization of over six thousand people.
The time taken to deploy the solution depends on the implementation approach. More than likely, you would roll it out to one part of the organization, which could take six to nine months. Then you would expand it to other parts of the organization, which would take longer. So, there's a deployment that could be done in six months, but it's unlikely that the entire organization would be fully onboarded in that time.
If you're a large, professional organization with significant complexity, then SAP ERP would be a good fit as it comes with out-of-the-box support for more complicated processes. However, if you're a smaller organization or a quick-build company that's not planning to grow larger, then SAP ERP may not be advised. It's more about the complexity of the business you're running, and we run a manufacturing distribution component that is quite sophisticated compared to something you would find with Dynamics or 365. But it's more about the organization's size and complexity that determines how useful SAP ERP can be. It may be the right solution for some and not for others, so it's subjective.
Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten.
We use the solution to manage our organization's financial supply chain and customer interactions.
The solution provides a lot of essential features to meet our business goals.
The solution's UI could be better. Also, they should improve the initial setup process.
We have been using the solution for eight years.
It is a stable solution.
It is a scalable solution; our organization has around 250 solution users.
The solution's technical support is good.
Positive
The solution's initial setup process is complicated.
The solution is less expensive than its competitors. But it is costly for ERP services.
The solution caters to different business requirements. If you have a good user base and many business processes to manage, you should opt for SAP ERP.
I rate the solution as an eight.
I like the solution’s features in finance, supply chain, sales, and distribution.
I would like to see more integration with other partners. Some of our customers already use specific or in-house applications for their business processes. They do not want to replace those applications.
I have been working with the solution for ten years.
I would rate the tool a nine out of ten. The tool is stable.
The tool is scalable and I would rate its scalability a nine out of ten. We have around 40 customers for the solution.
There are different teams based in various regions. They are available 24/7. You can raise a ticket either day or night. The support is very good and they respond within a short period of time. Our customers are comfortable with it.
The tool’s setup is straightforward. From the technical perspective, we can complete the solution’s deployment in less than a month. However, on the business side, the deployment depends on the customer’s requirements such as finance, supply chain, etc. It can take around four to six months for those aspects to complete. We follow the SAP Activate methodology for the tool’s deployment. This methodology has different phases to deploy the solution. Apart from the methodology, we use a tool called Solution Manager for the deployment.
The on-premises licensing model comes with annual maintenance whereas the cloud-based licensing model is a yearly subscription. The tool’s pricing is normal and not expensive.
I would rate the solution a ten out of ten. This ERP solution is useful for large enterprises and companies with complex code structures. A lot of manufacturing companies in my country use SAP ERP. They have a lot of integrations with other products and legacy systems. The tool is a complete business solution that is continuously transforming and innovating. There is no comparison for SAP ERP.
Everyone who uses SAP ERP has benefited from the functionality.
I think the most valuable feature is that we get live real-time reporting.
I would like to see the customization of the reports become easier to work with instead of having technical support have to assist us. I would also like to see them continue adding new features.
I have worked with SAP ERP for the past eighteen years.
The flexibility is excellent on a scale of one to ten I would rate it a nine.
I would say that the scalability is around a seven on a scale of one to ten.
The initial setup has some complexity to it.
The depolyment can take anywhere from six to eight months. We have a team of around forty five people that help us with the implementation.
When we talk about pricing it is expensive. On a scale of one to ten, it would rank a two. There are no additional fees but the user licenses are high.
SAP ERP is mainly for big businesses, so just try to see that if your business is big enough to handle such an expensive ERP system because, for mid businesses we have NetSuite, but for large businesses we have SAP. I would rate SAP ERP a ten on a scale of one to ten.
We implement this solution on-prem and on cloud for our clients. Our customers use it for their entire business process and end-to-end operations. It involves everything from production, to financial planning, sales and procurement.
The most valuable part of ERP is the well-integrated technology. The different modules talk to each other very seamlessly. The solution is also multilingual and multi-currency. It provides that level of support and is highly flexible. When it comes to integration with third-party softwares you can integrate with a lot of technologies and a lot of different data feeds. If I'm selling something on Amazon and I want to check product performance, I can directly interface with SAP and see all the dashboards and reports. That is the beauty of SAP.
We face a lot of challenges with SAP. The support is very slow. When you do get a response, it's not as technical or as detailed as a customer would expect. I've also found them to be lacking in flexibility in terms of their pricing and they are not competitive with other solutions. If you have budget constraints, then SAP might be beyond your reach; they never provide any discounts. Our on-prem customers don't want the cloud model for now because they are concerned about their data transparency, but SAP won't offer an on-prem license. Those are the challenges we currently face.
I've been using this solution for 15 years.
The solution is stable but there can be product bugs or performance issues. A couple of our customers have high volumes and a lot of interfaces. They are facing challenges in terms of stability when scaling. Several of our customers with retail businesses are currently in this position. We raised requests with SAP but the response was very poor and customers were totally fed up. SAP eventually provided a workaround temporary solution. The system is running but it's not up to the mark.
The technical support provides valuable advice but they don't respond in a timely fashion. There are delays which create pressure for the customer and eventually they will lose business as a result and will move away from SAP.
Neutral
As a consulting company, we can deploy ERP quickly. Our clients are unable to implement alone, it requires some expertise. Our last couple of deployments have taken six to eight months. The solution is easy to maintain but it requires support, either external or internal. SAP charges a maintenance fee that is quite high at 25% of your initial license cost.
I rate this solution seven out of 10.
Primarily, I'm the account manager for an account that has the largest SAP implementation in the world in the utility segment. It is being used by a national utility service provider, and they use everything SAP, except for SAP SuccessFactors.
We primarily have on-premises solutions being sold in this region for the utility companies. In UAE, there are a lot of data residency regulations because of which cloud solutions are not preferred. Companies prefer on-premises solutions.
It is a utility-focused solution, and the deployment is very much aligned with utility service providers. If you look at the supply chain and the overall business model of a utility service provider, SAP is something that fits very well. That's because the company has invested tremendously in creating appropriate workflows pertaining to this segment or domain.
It could always be cheaper. There is no doubt about it.
In terms of features, it is as good as it can be. It cannot be anything more with its current structure. When a new challenge comes up, they're going to scale up to meet that challenge.
I have been working with this solution for quite a number of years. It has probably been more than 10 years.
I am absolutely satisfied with its stability and performance.
It is very scalable. There are only a few companies that can actually deliver an ERP or the overall business model solution at this scale. There are not a lot of players. We have SAP, and we have Epicor and others too, but we know that Epicor can never scale up to what a national service provider would need. We are talking about serving 80,000 or 85,000 people on a daily basis, so a different type of business scalability is required. Overall, we have about 10 clients who use this solution.
We have dedicated support from SAP, and there is nobody more knowledgeable than SAP when it comes to SAP products.
If we need to change anything, we can just call up SAP, and they would come down and do it for us because we are not an SME. If it were an SME, then obviously, SAP, Oracle, or other big companies will not be able to do a change for us, but because of the size that we have, if we need to make a change, SAP will go ahead, invest, and make the change in the application itself.
It is an extremely complicated deployment. The deployment is completely customized for my customers here, and it could not be made simpler.
It could always be cheaper. They don't have a very easy model of licensing, but large entities would get the upper hand in negotiating the license.
For a large organization, SAP is the best way to go. It is also perfect if you are into manufacturing, oil and gas, natural resources, utilities, etc. If you're into finance, you can go with Oracle. If you are a small and medium business, you can go with Epicor or something else. It depends on the business requirements you have and the scale of your organization, business operations, customer base, etc.
I would rate it an eight out of 10. It is definitely up in the top three. No product will ever reach a 10 because the landscape keeps on changing in terms of the requirements within the business and the requirements of the customer. So, there is nothing that can be 100% aligned to meet all business requirements. We are in an evolving, constantly changing business environment, so it is not something that is practical. You can keep on striving, and you can keep on trying to improve your processes, tools, technologies, and the people who work on them, but at the end of the day, when you're looking at an ERP system, it is not about 100% alignment. It is about going for the best-fit approach, and in my opinion, SAP is a good fit for customers.
