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What's SAP, and why's it worth $163B? (2020)

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Re: What's SAP, and why's it worth $163B? (2020)

#251

Post by PeterStuer »

ssdspoimdsjvv wrote: post #193
forinti wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the motivation to switch to SAP? Was the in-house solution lacking?

In-house tooling requires a dedicated team, not just developers but also analysts, testers, etc. Often a company inside the company. If the software needs to change due to industry changes or regulations or something like that, it will probably be a lot more expensive to implement it yourself compared to using an off-the-shelf tool developed by a company who's sole purpose it is to respond to those kind of changes.

The idea that the SAP solution will be "off the shelf" is just not true. You will need as many of those roles, probably many more, to keep the SAP based solution running.

Re: What's SAP, and why's it worth $163B? (2020)

#252

Post by hef19898 »

PeterStuer wrote: post #240
hef19898 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the duration of the ERP project, SAP is not different to any other vendor in that regard, from preparation through hyoer care after go live, yes. Yes, you have 3-5 expensive SAP, or other ERP system, consultants sitting next one internal IT guy and another 3-5 internal business people with a very deep understanding of the business processes in question and solid basic knowledge about ERP systems. Otherwise you se…

"'sitting next one internal IT guy and another 3-5 internal business people with a very deep understanding of the business processes in question and solid basic knowledge about ERP systems"' Where do you think the customer is going to find that army of hyper competent experienced staff ideling around their premisess waiting for the day an SAP project drops?

The externals arw hired as needed, expensive of course. The latter because having good people helps in any scenario.

Re: What's SAP, and why's it worth $163B? (2020)

#253

Post by mdip »

_glass wrote: post #27

I am an SAP developer since kind of forever, my first job after university (since 2009). First I hated it, but the deeper I am entrenched, the more I see why you choose SAP: Because there really is no alternative. The data model is so complex because it is growing iteratively since the 80s. Hacker News is valuing businesses that adjust to the customer instead of going for some kind of purity. Another complexity espec…

After participating in the hiring of an SAP developer I realized -- financially speaking, anyway -- that I picked the wrong thing to specialize in.

The first time we brought in someone truly experienced in SAP development, we paid him more than any other developer on staff[0]. I appreciate the different take on SAP. Can I ask -- is it still as lucrative to be an SAP developer?

[0] This was a global multi-national telecom who ran an in-house developed audio conferencing service (written entirely in C++, interacting with a lot of hardware) ... the skillset of some of our devs was incredible, which made this all the more surprising.

Re: What's SAP, and why's it worth $163B? (2020)

#254

Post by hef19898 »

j-bos wrote: post #242
hef19898 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the duration of the ERP project, SAP is not different to any other vendor in that regard, from preparation through hyoer care after go live, yes. Yes, you have 3-5 expensive SAP, or other ERP system, consultants sitting next one internal IT guy and another 3-5 internal business people with a very deep understanding of the business processes in question and solid basic knowledge about ERP systems. Otherwise you se…

Then why would any one choose to use SAP with that additional tax?

Becasue the alternative might even be more expensive, business wise. Also, ERP projects are not be taken lightly.

Re: What's SAP, and why's it worth $163B? (2020)

#255

Post by shp0ngle »

wheels wrote: post #56
theshrike79 wrote: post #10

This is a good time to remind everyone of the rules of SAP integration: 1) Your company processes MUST adapt to SAP processes. That's it. You can try customising SAP to fit your processes, but you will just waste time and hundreds of millions of money and then you will fail. Lidl spent almost a decade and 500M€ on its SAP project, but didn't follow rule #1: https://www.henricodolfing.com/2020/05/case-study-lidl-sap-d…

Again, as I noted elsewhere in the thread, I worked in R&D at SAP for 4 years (16 years ago), but I have no deep love for it. But I do have some understanding of where it fits in the landscape. What you've said is absolutely true, but it's mostly a feature, not a bug. Once you get big enough to need SAP, it's actually useful to put your business processes on a standardized platform. It's painful, always mind bendingl…

I mean, Lidl is a big company that knows what they are doing.

Either is SAP though so, who knows.

Re: What's SAP, and why's it worth $163B? (2020)

#256

Post by Gareth321 »

dandare wrote: post #74
meibo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a genuine question, I don't mean to rip on you: Why is everything SAP I've used terrible? From payroll, employee/student management to industrial control systems - the UX is horrible and it seems so brittle that you're happy if you're out of there as quickly as possible. I've had to reach out to my school's IT multiple times over the years since random parts of the SAP tool they used break.

The UX is horrible because: a) Engineering: Nobody will rewrite 20 year old views just to improve the UX. In many cases, nobody even dares to touch the 20 years old spaghetti code. b) Sales: The buyer is not the user. The buyer (playing golf with a sales rep) doesn't give a damn about the actual productivity of what he is buying. c) Management: There is a solid economical rationale in not giving a fcuk about UX. Over…

I am so thankful to be working in an organisation which is reshaping its delivery teams into product teams. Our users are customers and if they want a better UX, they get a better UX.

Re: What's SAP, and why's it worth $163B? (2020)

#257

Post by jordanbeiber »

Gartner has at least one thing down that I believe is “the way” - they call it “postmodern ERP”. [0]

In a postmodern ERP there is no ERP.

It’s a strategy where you accept that different domains and companies know their business and processes best and you integrate best of breed systems & services with homegrown solutions.

You trade the convenience of letting SAP or Salesforce own your processes against flexibility and actual agility.

The cost is competence - you’ll need developers working in stable, dedicated domain teams, even within the administrative/cost-center areas such as HR & Finance. But there is a massive potential in this approach. It forces ownership of processes and allows for rapid changes of digitized processes, integrations and technology.

I must stress stability of the teams: agility comes from building domain knowledge and continually working on contracts between organizational units over time. This is the complete opposite to classic project management.

SAP caters to non-tech savvy businesses people striving for control, which is something they think is achieved through “one system”. I personally call it the “one system trap”.

In the end what matters is data, and that data do not have to reside in one database. In fact, it’s better for everyone if it doesn’t - this is what ELT is for.

[0] https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology/glossary/p...

Re: What's SAP, and why's it worth $163B? (2020)

#258

Post by tiborsaas »

PeterStuer wrote: post #246
forinti wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the motivation to switch to SAP? Was the in-house solution lacking?

Their most succesfull salespitch to the CEO is that you're not a real company untill you join the SAP club.

Kinda genius pitch, if a company can't burn millions without serious troubles it's not really a stable, big player :)

Re: What's SAP, and why's it worth $163B? (2020)

#259

Post by saiya-jin »

PeterStuer wrote: post #246
forinti wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the motivation to switch to SAP? Was the in-house solution lacking?

Their most succesfull salespitch to the CEO is that you're not a real company untill you join the SAP club.

Or you don't have a solid business until it withstood trial by SAP implementation and subsequent reality check
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