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Hi! (I'm one of the editors of this post.) When I was researching SAP, I found a fact sheet: https://www.sap.com/docs/download/2017/04/4666ecdd-b67c-0010-82c7-e

by dvdhsu 7y ago

Hi! (I'm one of the editors of this post.) When I was researching SAP, I found a fact sheet: https://www.sap.com/docs/download/2017/04/4666ecdd-b67c-0010-82c7-eda71af511fa.pdf https://www.sap.com/docs/download/2017/04/4666ecdd-b67c-0010..., that has quite a few interesting facts: * "[SAP] customers distribute 78% of the world’s food and 82% of the world’s medical devices" * "[SAP] customers include 98% of the 100 most valued brands" * "77% of the world’s transaction revenue touches an SAP system" Wow!

john_minsk 7y ago
TBH SAP is almost required for big corporations as they usually are publicly traded companies, require external audits from BIG4(and these guys know how to get data from standard SAP models, not so much from you self-developed system) and have to report their financials in consistent way. For example Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google all can use SAP internally. But it would be false to state that all their businesses are run on SAP...
- wrdalex 7y ago
  Every respectable ERP provides ways to export/access the data in a way that covers all national/international requirements for audits and reporting. This is not SAP-specific.
  - john_minsk 7y ago
    I didn't say that there are no other factors (like for example that CTO won't be fired when SAP/Oracle implementation fails, but will be 100% fired when ERP_X implementation fails) I only pointed out that the statistics in parent post can be skewed due to the sample of top 500 corporations which can implement SAP for reasons different to running the business.
- fogetti 7y ago
  I would be interested to know if they are actually using SAP. These companies are so much better at software development and they are swimming in so much money that they could even implement something by themselves.
  - mrich 7y ago
    Why would they? It's none of their core business and SAP already has everything covered. Think of all the legal/financial stuff. The UI is not that important in that field, your domain expert in that area knows how to navigate stuff.
    - zxienin 7y ago
      I won't wave that question off completely. It wasn't Amazon's core competency to offer IaaS/PaaS, before they did. GCP and AWS are closely playing in SAP's enterprise customer base. There is huge addressable market there. They've innovated better than SAP in technology space, on parts other than business software. If they can succeed developing their own ERP, better than SAP, they could even redeploy the development teams from being cost center to profit center. If I am SAP, I see them as strategic long term risk.
    - golergka 7y ago
      Event Microsoft does it (https://www.erpsoftwareblog.com/2012/11/why-does-microsoft-hq-use-sap-instead-of-microsoft-dynamics-erp/ https://www.erpsoftwareblog.com/2012/11/why-does-microsoft-h...), despite the fact that they have their own ERP product (Dynamics).
    - ptruesdell 7y ago
      Established ERP systems take so long to configure that sometimes, it makes more sense to write your own in-house. Tesla did just that. And in only 4 months.
  - kthejoker2 7y ago
    Google, Apple, and Microsoft do, Amazon does not, based on some moderate Googling for job postings, staff on LinkedIn, and conference attendees.
    - solarkraft 7y ago
      That's impressive. Of course Apple distributes hardware, so it makes the most sense to me. Microsoft, I suppose, had to distribute Windows boxes at some point, so it makes some sense to me. But I definitely wonder at which point Google started seeing a need for SAP. As soon as they started selling gadgets? Before then, to generally manage finances?
number6 7y ago
Also lidl sunk 500 mil € in SAP and cancelled the gig after that. SAP has a reputation to take down businesses *edit: mistook aldi and lidl
- baxtr 7y ago
  I think you are referring to "Lidl" https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lidl-cancels-sap-introduction-after-spending-500m-euro-andrea-cravero https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lidl-cancels-sap-introduction...
naniwaduni 7y ago
> * "[SAP] customers include 98% of the 100 most valued brands" That, er, ought to be exactly 98 of the 100 of them, shouldn't it??
- SiempreViernes 7y ago
  That sort of report customisation will cost you about £500 /s
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - naniwaduni 7y ago
    For a moment I misread that as pricing by the second...
danielbarla 7y ago
I always wonder about the reality of these kinds of statements. The truth ranges from the optimistic version "we're heavily making use of this software" through "we made use of it a few years back, and are now phasing it out" and "we use it for one or two core services, but everything else is run on Y" all the way to "we have a single instance somewhere we forgot to switch off and we still pay for", etc. This is a bit of a special case, but still, the reality is probably somewhat different than the face value.
collyw 7y ago
> "[SAP] customers distribute 78% of the world’s food and 82% of the world’s medical devices" That sounds wrong, as I am pretty sure the majority of the worlds food is distributed in places that can't afford or need SAP (and is essentially sold black market). I doubt that street markets in India use it for example.

by dvdhsu 7y ago

john_minsk 7y ago

TBH SAP is almost required for big corporations as they usually are publicly traded companies, require external audits from BIG4(and these guys know how to get data from standard SAP models, not so much from you self-developed system) and have to report their financials in consistent way. For example Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google all can use SAP internally. But it would be false to state that all their businesses are run on SAP...

wrdalex 7y ago
Every respectable ERP provides ways to export/access the data in a way that covers all national/international requirements for audits and reporting. This is not SAP-specific.
- john_minsk 7y ago
  I didn't say that there are no other factors (like for example that CTO won't be fired when SAP/Oracle implementation fails, but will be 100% fired when ERP_X implementation fails) I only pointed out that the statistics in parent post can be skewed due to the sample of top 500 corporations which can implement SAP for reasons different to running the business.
fogetti 7y ago
I would be interested to know if they are actually using SAP. These companies are so much better at software development and they are swimming in so much money that they could even implement something by themselves.
- mrich 7y ago
  Why would they? It's none of their core business and SAP already has everything covered. Think of all the legal/financial stuff. The UI is not that important in that field, your domain expert in that area knows how to navigate stuff.
  - zxienin 7y ago
    I won't wave that question off completely. It wasn't Amazon's core competency to offer IaaS/PaaS, before they did. GCP and AWS are closely playing in SAP's enterprise customer base. There is huge addressable market there. They've innovated better than SAP in technology space, on parts other than business software. If they can succeed developing their own ERP, better than SAP, they could even redeploy the development teams from being cost center to profit center. If I am SAP, I see them as strategic long term risk.
  - golergka 7y ago
    Event Microsoft does it (https://www.erpsoftwareblog.com/2012/11/why-does-microsoft-hq-use-sap-instead-of-microsoft-dynamics-erp/ https://www.erpsoftwareblog.com/2012/11/why-does-microsoft-h...), despite the fact that they have their own ERP product (Dynamics).
  - ptruesdell 7y ago
    Established ERP systems take so long to configure that sometimes, it makes more sense to write your own in-house. Tesla did just that. And in only 4 months.
- kthejoker2 7y ago
  Google, Apple, and Microsoft do, Amazon does not, based on some moderate Googling for job postings, staff on LinkedIn, and conference attendees.
  - solarkraft 7y ago
    That's impressive. Of course Apple distributes hardware, so it makes the most sense to me. Microsoft, I suppose, had to distribute Windows boxes at some point, so it makes some sense to me. But I definitely wonder at which point Google started seeing a need for SAP. As soon as they started selling gadgets? Before then, to generally manage finances?

number6 7y ago

Also lidl sunk 500 mil € in SAP and cancelled the gig after that. SAP has a reputation to take down businesses *edit: mistook aldi and lidl

baxtr 7y ago
I think you are referring to "Lidl" https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lidl-cancels-sap-introduction-after-spending-500m-euro-andrea-cravero https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lidl-cancels-sap-introduction...

naniwaduni 7y ago

> * "[SAP] customers include 98% of the 100 most valued brands" That, er, ought to be exactly 98 of the 100 of them, shouldn't it??

SiempreViernes 7y ago
That sort of report customisation will cost you about £500 /s
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- naniwaduni 7y ago
  For a moment I misread that as pricing by the second...

danielbarla 7y ago

I always wonder about the reality of these kinds of statements. The truth ranges from the optimistic version "we're heavily making use of this software" through "we made use of it a few years back, and are now phasing it out" and "we use it for one or two core services, but everything else is run on Y" all the way to "we have a single instance somewhere we forgot to switch off and we still pay for", etc. This is a bit of a special case, but still, the reality is probably somewhat different than the face value.

collyw 7y ago

> "[SAP] customers distribute 78% of the world’s food and 82% of the world’s medical devices" That sounds wrong, as I am pretty sure the majority of the worlds food is distributed in places that can't afford or need SAP (and is essentially sold black market). I doubt that street markets in India use it for example.