SAP has been talking publicly about its new product SAP Business ByDesign (formerly
code-named SAP ‘A1S’) for a few years; it was been referred to increasingly by SAP’s
senior management when they were articulating SAP’s product and technology roadmap
for the coming years.
The official launch of SAP Business ByDesign was in 2008 following testing with early
pilot customers and partners, however the main-stream launch and general availability
will more probably be in 2011 following further functionality and performance improvements
as well as go-to-market strategy and support development. SAP has reorganized its
small and medium sized business unit and planned to invest an extra €200m to €300m
during 2007 and 2008 to help make sure SAP Business ByDesign makes an impact in its
initial target market of mid-sized business with between 100 to 500 employees. This
extra investment has been scaled back whilst SAP revisits its development, go-to-market
and support plans.
SAP’s ambition is for SAP Business ByDesign to be, as SAP put it, a ‘game changing’
product and be adopted by small and medium sized businesses where the existing SAP
ERP, SAP Business All-in-One and SAP Business One products are not appropriate.
Business ByDesign is initially only available on-demand (Software-as-a-Service (SaaS))
and SAP is claiming up to 90% TCO reduction.
Kew Consulting Opinion - SAP Business ByDesign is critical to SAP’s endeavours in
growing its small and medium sized customer business unit. Just as importantly, SAP
Business ByDesign is a means for SAP to try to innovate and establish new go-to-market
sales and delivery models, new pricing structures and new on-demand or SaaS deployment
without disrupting its existing customer base.
We believe that SAP Business ByDesign is more than just a business application for
small and medium sized businesses; it represents the starting point for the next
generation of SAP’s Enterprise SOA type business applications from 2011 onwards eventually
augmenting and replacing the existing SAP R/3, mySAP ERP and SAP ERP and Business
All-in-One systems. Let’s not forget that SAP R/3 came to market in the early 1990’s
before most people had sent emails and used the Internet...
It is clear to us that SAP Business ByDesign will have an impact on SAP’s existing
customers and partners and SAP Business ByDesign together with SAP’s Business Process
Platform positioning of SAP Business Suite and SAP NetWeaver represent an interesting
comparison with both Oracle’s Fusion Application and Middleware efforts and Microsoft’s
Dynamics offerings and of course an obvious alternative to on-demand products such
as NetSuite and to some extent Salesforce.com. SAP Business ByDesign will probably
be positioned initially to SAP’s existing customers as a solution for the subsidiaries
and branches of larger organisations and for supply chain collaboration.
Kew Consulting has collated a wealth of information on SAP Business ByDesign and
we have worked out its likely impact, consequences and implications for end-user
organisations, software and consulting firms and investors and analysts. We help
organisations understand the possibilities and issues they face and plan their strategies
and tactics accordingly for more effectiveness, lower cost and risk.
Please Contact Us if you would like to learn more about SAP Business ByDesign (‘A1S’).
