SAP Introduction Business and Markets Products Organization

Introduction SAP was founded in 1972 by 5 former IBM Engineers In 1976 "SAP GmbH" was founded and the following year it moved headquarters to Walldorf. SAP AG became the company's official name after the 2005 annual general meeting

Business and Markets It operates in three geographic regions –  EMEA, which represents Europe, Middle East and Africa;  the Americas (SAP America, headquartered in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania), which represents both North America and Latin America; and  Asia Pacific Japan (APJ), which represents Japan, Australia and parts of Asia. In addition, SAP operates a network of 115 subsidiaries, and has R&D facilities around the globe in Germany, North America, Canada, China, Hungary, India, Israel and Bulgaria. SAP focuses on six industry sectors: process industries, discrete industries, consumer industries, service industries, financial services, and public services. It offers more than 25 industry solution portfolios for large enterprises and more than 550 micro-vertical solutions for midsize companies and small businesses

Products The company's main product is SAP ERP. SAP ERP is one of five major enterprise applications in SAP's Business Suite. The other four applications are: customer relationship management (CRM) - helps companies acquire and retain customers, gain deep marketing and customer insight, and align organization on customer-focused strategies product lifecycle management (PLM) - helps manufacturers with a single source of all product-related information necessary for collaborating with business partners and supporting product lines supply chain management (SCM) - helps companies enhance operational flexibility across global enterprises and provide real-time visibility for customers and suppliers supplier relationship management (SRM) - customers can collaborate closely with suppliers and integrate sourcing processes with applications throughout the enterprise to enhance transparency and lower costs Other major product offerings include: the Net Weaver platform, Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) solutions, Duet (joint offering with Microsoft), Performance Management solutions and RFID. While its original products were typically used by Fortune 500 companies, SAP is now also actively targeting small and medium sized enterprises (SME) with its SAP Business One and. On September 19th, 2007 SAP announced a new product named SAP Business By Design complementing its portfolio for SME.

Organization Functional units of SAP are split across different organizational units for R&D needs, field activities and customer support. SAP Labs are mainly responsible for product development where as the field organizations spread across each country are responsible for field activities such Sales, Marketing, Consulting etc. Head office located in SAP AG is responsible for overall management as well as core Engineering activities related to Product Development. SAP customer support, also called Active Global Support (AGS) is a global organization to provide support to SAP customers worldwide.

SAP Modules Overview SAP now are moving away from describing their system as a set of modules, and now are using the term ‘solutions’, Financials Human Resources Customer Relationship Management Supplier Relationship Management Product Lifecycle Management Supply Chain Management Business Intelligence

List of Modules FI Financial Accounting includes General ledger Book close Tax Accounts receivable Accounts payable Consolidation Special ledgers CO Controlling basically your internal cost/management accounting, including Cost elements Cost centres Profit centres Internal orders Activity based costing Product costing AM Asset Management – track, value and depreciate your assets, including Purchase Sale Depreciation Tracking PS Project Systems – manage your projects, large and small, including Make to order Plant shut downs (as a project) Third party billing (on the back of a project) HR Human Resources – ah yes, people, including Employment history Payroll Training Career management Succession planning PM Plant Maintenance – maintain your equipment (e.g. a machine, an oil rig, an aircraft etc), including Labour Material Down time and outages MM Materials Management – underpins the supply chain, including Requisitions Purchase orders Goods receipts Accounts payable Inventory management BOM’s Master raw materials, finished goods etc QM Quality Management – improve the quality of your goods, including Planning Execution Inspections Certificates PP Production Planning – manages your production process, including Capacity planning Master production scheduling Material requirements planning Shop floor SD Sales and Distribution – from order to delivery, including RFQ Sales orders Pricing Picking (and other warehouse processes) Packing Shipping CA Cross Application – these lie on top of the individual modules, and include WF – workflow BW – business information warehouse Office – for Workplace Industry solutions New Dimension products such as CRM, PLM, SRM, APO etc