mySAP.com
SAP, which stands for "Systems, Applications and Products (in Data Processing)" is the world's largest inter-enterprise software company and the world's fourth-largest independent software supplier. The company was started in 1972 in Germany by five former IBM executives. Their original concept of the company was to provide systems whereby customer companies could run their businesses by interacting with a common corporate database over a comprehensive range of business applications.
As of December, 1998, SAP has over 20,000 employees in over 50 countries, and has engaged in over 15,000 SAP R/3 installations. More than half of the world's top 500 companies use SAP software - for example, Chevron, Colgate Palmolive, IBM, Microsoft, Sony, and Volkswagen, just to name a few. SAP's software also services thousands of small- and medium-sized companies.
SAP has recently recast its product offerings under a comprehensive Web interface called "mySAP.com" (www.mysap.com/). At the center of mySAP.com is the ability of SAP to deliver customer-specific, personalized and collaborative inter-enterprise business solutions. It enables companies of all sizes and industries to fully engage their employees, customers and other business partners to capitalize on the new Internet economy. All software marketed by SAP is deliverable to customers through mySAP.com and is accessible through the open and extensible mySAP.com Workplace, a role-based business portal.
mySAP.com reflects the SAP commitment to e-business - a significant step beyond e-commerce - as companies seek to extend their investment in technology to adapt to the modern Internet business landscape. The flexible mySAP.com offering can be implemented to fully integrate an organization's operational business processes from finance, human resources and manufacturing to sales and distribution, while enabling the company to reach out to its customers and business partners along the supply and value chain.
Thus, mySAP.com is the unifying environment that ties together all SAP components, industry solutions, and other key initiatives. It extends beyond the boundaries of SAP to encompass content, services, and software from virtually any source.
The collaborative business environment of mySAP.com can save a company both significant time and money. Everyone in the organization gains access to everything they need to get their job done, using Web-based applications. The application hosting feature of mySAP.com provides a customer company with the programs they need when they need them. In summary, one-step business is made possible by :
- front-end to back-end integration of core business systems
- a seamless flow of data from one enterprise to another
- the ability of all participants to communicate openly regardless of their systems.
Some of the mySAP.com application areas are: e-commerce, supply chain management, strategic enterprise management, human resources, logistics, manufacturing, financials, etc. Each of these areas can be supported with mySAP.com applications
mySAP.com applications are enabled by the underlying mySAP.com application components. In most cases, more than one mySAP.com application component contributes to enabling applications needed for business processes or collaborative scenarios in a specific application area.
One major application component is the SAP R/3 Enterprise Resource Planning. In layman's terms, ERP is an integrated system that plans and controls all resources needed to take, make, ship, and account for customer orders in a manufacturing, distribution, or service company. In other words, ERP encompasses everything it takes to run the business. Accordingly, mySAP.com's ERP application component brings together and allows interfacing between all the major functional areas of the business.
A major subsystem of any company is that of financial control. The Controlling component in the SAP R/3 System provides the functions required for effective internal cost accounting. It offers a versatile information system with standard reports and analyses for the most common questions. In addition, the Report Painter includes simple functions for creating custom reports to supplement standard reports. The Controlling component in R/3 has subcomponents that can handle such specialized functions as overhead cost controlling, cost center accounting, overhead orders, activity-based costing, product cost controlling, cost object controlling, and profitability analysis.
Some additional interesting related web sites are:
For up-to-date info. from SAP - www.mysap.com/sapflash/index.htm
The SAP Professional Journal - www.sappro.com/
For some "SAP Made Easy Guide Books" - 207.105.30.55/ind_guides.htm
A general source for SAP news, articles, job postings, etc. - www.erpcentral.com