In a bid to help small and medium-size manufacturers deploy ERP systems more rapidly and better understand the cost of software implementations, SAP today announced plans to roll out what it calls a "fast start" program for users of its Business All-in-One product.
The program includes online configuration tools, pre-defined industry-specific processes, and an online cost-estimating tool. The program, already rolled out in Austria, Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, will be available in the United States early in the second quarter and other areas later this year.
"In the SME space, customers want a starting point," said Sheila Zelinger, SAP vice president for SME solution marketing, in an interview with Managing Automation. "What we are doing with the fast-start program is creating a well-defined scope of functionality and best practices that partners can deliver and guarantee at a specific price."
The fast-start online configuration tool walks prospective All-in-One users through a series of questions about their businesses. Based on the answers and the individual manufacturing company's operating model, the tool recommends specific business processes to be supported and All-in-One modules to be deployed. A manufacturing company with both process and discrete operations to support, for example, would receive an All-in-One configuration that supports that operational model, Zelinger said.
SAP is providing online configuration tools for manufacturing, wholesale distribution, and service companies.
In most cases, Zelinger said, SAP reseller partners will complete the configuration using the information and recommended processes and best practices determined by the fast-start online configuration tool. The online configuration tool will help partners streamline what, in the past, has been a fairly manual process, she said.
Besides identifying recommended business processes and software modules for a given manufacturing company, the online configuration tool will estimate the total implementation cost, including the operating system and database management system. Using the online configuration tool, for example, customers can specify deployment using Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise operating system, Unix, or another operating system. And customers can specify deployment using the SAP MaxDB database or another database management system.
SAP, in a prepared statement, emphasized that the cost estimate is not binding. Rather, the figure "is an estimation only and not valid for partners; partner cost estimation may differ."
The fast-start program for SAP All-in-One is part of the company's push to rapidly build its business in the growing SMB market. Today, 30% of SAP's revenue comes from customers with annual revenue below €1 billion. By 2010, CEO Henning Kagermann has said, the company wants 45% of its revenue to come from that segment.
Kagermann has also said that SAP wants to double its overall customer count, mainly by boosting its share of the SMB market. The company is shooting to have a total of 100,000 customers by 2010, up from its current 46,000. Eleven thousand of those are customers of All-in-One, which targets companies with 250 or fewer employees. Business One, SAP's product for smaller businesses, has 17,700 customers.
In addition to making All-in-One easier and quicker to deploy, SAP is attempting to boost its SMB presence by rolling out Business ByDesign, an on-demand ERP product for companies with 100 to 500 employees. Introduced last year, ByDesign is being deployed gradually. So far, SAP has 150 customers and is shooting for 1,000 by the end of this year.