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What's SAP?

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Re: What's SAP?

#511

Post by qubex »

jsmith99 wrote: post #492
tomnipotent wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SAP can do can be done at the local level using intuitive software No they cannot. ERP's are beasts of expert domain knowledge hidden in shitty codebases, but don't be confused for an even a moment to think you can do it yourself. It's a fools errand, and I'd fire or not hire anyone that tried to intentionally do this rather than just build something basic to hedge time until you have to implement something more se…

As a financial auditor, if a client uses SAP or some other standard ERP we can just ask for a general ledger report and get to work. If they are using something bespoke I would probably put my head in my hands and send an urgent email to our dreaded IT systems audit team, at major expense to the client.

Yeah... when my family business installed SAP the auditors were delighted. But... here’s the thing: standardised ledgers that make a company easy to audit have no positive correlation with corporate effectiveness and competitive advantage. It’s great that your work is simplified, but frankly, it’s totally irrelevant. I’d rather my auditors had to hail their dreaded IT departments than having the whole firm rendered essentially paralysed by Satan’s Accounting Package.

Re: What's SAP?

#512

Post by qubex »

S3raph wrote: post #494
cr0sh wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once worked for a company that let me go because I looked bad on their bottom line and they were looking to sell the company, around 2003. So, severance package in hand, and one week later I had a new position at another company making much more than I was originally. Anyhow - I was essentially the sole developer of a simple ERP system written in VB6 and using an Access 2003 MDB file for storage. It was being used…

Great story, I don't want to know the number of companies that run business critical stuff on excel vba macros + access DB some guy wrote 15 years ago.

My family business was very happily centralised on IBM’s (admittedly legacy) ADB package running on an ultra-reliable AS/400 (later iSeries).

SAP was a disaster.

Re: What's SAP?

#513

Post by chris_wot »

neves wrote: post #468
cptaj wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For someone with a web development freelancing background wanting to get into enterprise software, would you recommend going into SAP? Would Salesforce be a better path? Which one is better for a freelancer working from home (if any)? Feel free to share any other thoughts on the matter

I don't know about Salesforce, but SAP courses are really expensive. Just corporate users do them. It's almost impossible to self educate yourself without working in a SAP Consulting firm.

This is the reason I hate SAP. There are a small bunch of people who can know it, and they make huge money largely because of this artificial scarcity.

Re: What's SAP?

#514

Post by antaviana »

jsmith99 wrote: post #492
tomnipotent wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SAP can do can be done at the local level using intuitive software No they cannot. ERP's are beasts of expert domain knowledge hidden in shitty codebases, but don't be confused for an even a moment to think you can do it yourself. It's a fools errand, and I'd fire or not hire anyone that tried to intentionally do this rather than just build something basic to hedge time until you have to implement something more se…

As a financial auditor, if a client uses SAP or some other standard ERP we can just ask for a general ledger report and get to work. If they are using something bespoke I would probably put my head in my hands and send an urgent email to our dreaded IT systems audit team, at major expense to the client.

This reminds me an interview to Eric Schmidt [1].

Here is the interesting excerpt on Google decision to buy Oracle instead of building their own ERP.

"__ How did you convince them that you needed to do this? __

Well, it was actually very interesting. Larry and Sergey suggested that we should build our own, because most of the existing accounting systems weren't any good. And I said, "I'm sure that's true, but you'll never get it audited," And I thought that was a pretty clever argument. The auditors would never pass financials (generated out of software) that we built ourselves. And Larry and Sergey today will complain about the Oracle system, but they'll also say "We had to get one that was auditable.""

[1] https://www.wired.com/2007/04/my-other-interv/

Re: What's SAP?

#515

Post by hutzlibu »

fefe23 wrote: post #70

People complaining about how user-unfriendly SAP is or how companies adapt to SAP instead of the other way around are missing the point of SAP. The point of SAP is that the module for your type of business is being implemented at the market leader in your area, because they are the only ones who can afford it. SAP will come to the market leader and put their processes into software. Then everybody else adapts to SAP…

"If you go look at an airplane cockpit, where actual research was done into how to optimize user interfaces so that the pilot will not be confused under stress, you will see that there is a separate button for everything. There is no "shift key", no different modes. If you need to use it, there is a button for it. To someone who has not learned how to use that UI, it appears alien and unfriendly. But the the trained pilot it is the pinnacle of perfection. "

My design professor used cockpits as a example of bad UI. Grown over the years and understood only by repetive drill and not at all intuitive.

So there might have been research to better it, but I doubt there was a major redesign, or was there?

Re: What's SAP?

#516

Post by user5994461 »

cr0sh wrote: post #414
chadash wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I (am actually told to) teach that changing the business to fit SAP is preferable to changing SAP to fit the business. And it's accurate advice. It shouldn't be, but it is. SAP is SAP. It doesn't care about your USP. Or your custom approach to business. As far as SAP is concerned all businesses are the same, they do the same things, and all must conform. Resistance is futile. I've worked in companies making decisio…

I once worked for a company that let me go because I looked bad on their bottom line and they were looking to sell the company, around 2003. So, severance package in hand, and one week later I had a new position at another company making much more than I was originally. Anyhow - I was essentially the sole developer of a simple ERP system written in VB6 and using an Access 2003 MDB file for storage. It was being used…

That must be the magic of Windows in action. Software still running after 15 years.

I have to do some maintenance or decommissioning of very old apps in an old bank. I find anything Linux and C or C++ related is the worst, because the system libraries themselves are unstable. Applications fail because of .so dependencies breaking, both system libraries and application libraries (themselves forming a tree of dependencies). It can be extremely hard to rebuild and relink the software with the whole chain of dependencies for the current platform.

Linux executables die along major OS releases every few years, but Windows binaries can keep working for more than a decade easily.

Re: What's SAP?

#517

Post by singingfish »

mr_gibbins wrote: post #230

I teach enterprise systems at a university, with emphasis on SAP. It's hideous. Hideous. My students complain it is unusable (agree), doesn't make sense (agree), that they can't see the point (agree). When you look at the underlying database 'schema' (inverted commas deliberate) you'll find it's a massive, denormalised mess. Much of what SAP can do can be done at the local level using intuitive software. Reports, for…

I integrate my work systems with SAP. It's not just SAP that's a mess, I think it's a property of ERPs in general.

That's because it's not code for running your business, it's code to write code for running your business. So you have two obvious problems here. First is all the shortcuts made by SAP to get something out the door to customers. Second is all the shortcuts your business used on top of SAP to get things out the door. This is a pattern that can easily create a huge mess. I've experienced this working on a product in a similar space to SAP in the past.

Second thing: I don't find working with SAP too hard. One of the tricks is to work out how to keep SAP as out of scope as possible during the discovery phase using existing functionality or workarounds (that don't impact on sap as the source of truth).

Re: What's SAP?

#518

Post by user5994461 »

achow wrote: post #443
majewsky wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understood GP perfectly. What I'm saying is that the future need for a different business process does not necessarily outweigh the benefit of standardizing on something else today, just like a USB-C future does not invalidate the original decision of standardizing on USB-C.

Sure. But let's examine the question in this light - Today a new CEO was hired in a new company, she is smart AND has multi-millions to spend on an ERP, which she considers absolute must for smooth running of company operations. Now since she is smart, she is aware of SAP's reputation - i.e., SAP has absolutely nailed down today's optimal business processes (never mind those are actually decades old practices), howev…

Can she even get SAP for 5 million? Enterprise software doesn't come cheap, then some more money in integration and training.

She should look into SAP and major competitors. Maybe some cheaper ones.

Sure thing is she's not going to develop an ERP with much features for 5 million. That can cover a team of a dozen people for 1 to 3 years. They can develop some stuff but really not much.

Re: What's SAP?

#519

Post by commandlinefan »

OldGuyInTheClub wrote: post #32

SAP has enabled/mandated an army of people at my company who manage it and ruthlessly control even read access to it. The software is user-hostile, intentionally obscure, and all requests for slightly customized reports have to go through a multilayered approval process - often up to corporate - where it competes for funding against other survivors. Needing something custom invites constant questions of why the stand…

> intentionally obscure

Never attribute to malice what can equally be explained by stupidity.

Re: What's SAP?

#520

Post by user5994461 »

BlobRunner wrote: post #336
MagnumOpus wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Banking (especially in US) is a total complexity nightmare. Yet you have Stripe.com who simplify it. In this analogy the ERP system is the Stripe plumbing that simplifies it for the endpoints (factory logistics manager, salespersons etc) just like Stripe does for its endpoints (merchants and customers). You might find that re-implementing Stripe is not so simple because of the nightmares of naturally-grown internat…

Please note that I am not saying it is easy ! Far from it. I say it is possible to obtain something friendly that actaully help you get the job done. I discovered that Lidl spent 500 millions $ for nothing (literally) trying to implement SAP. Give 500 millions euros to a talented group of Stripe - like engineers and, maybe, you will have something sorted out and maintained for a few decades. Half a billion dollars...…

Even if you're in France working for the worst staffing companies, the lowest bill for a developer is 400 E a day, times 218 working days per year so roughly $100k a year.

So we're already starting at almost double what you planned for and there are much more costs to cover than just staff. Large scale projects are insanely expensive and hard. It's not just mismanagement.

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