Why SAP Business One

In a recent survey, SAP Business One customers were asked to highlight the key benefits that they had realised as a business as a result of implementing SAP Business One.  The top reasons are presented below, with an explanation of the benefits that customers themselves said they had received.  For the avoidance of doubt these are customers using SAP Business One, not necessarily customers that use Online50's hosted offering that supplies access to SAP Business One.

SAP Business One software provides an integrated solution for accounting and business management.  The core software covers a broad range of business processes and information needs (more information on the features of the product can be found here).  In addition to the core capabilities of the product SAP Business One has been designed to allow customisation of the product, and integration with other products, in different ways.  This means that users can have a fully joined up business management and information system using SAP Business One.

The top five benefits customers said they received:

Visibility

Customers reported that they benefited from increased visibility within their business as a result of implementing SAP Business One.  It is quick and easy to get access to real-time information anywhere in the system.  For example users can drill down into data and see how different elements of data are linked together (for example you can start from a Sales Order and then find everything else linked to it, including invoices, delivery notes, even purchase orders for direct delivery from suppliers).  It is also quick and simple to generate ad-hoc queries to extract information from the database.

“The ability to get information out of the system quickly and easily was a key requirement for us.  And we were looking for a future-proof system as well.”
Stephen Trillo, IT Manager, Lotte Chemical UK Ltd.

Top 5 Customer Benefits

Efficiency

Optimising business processes is an important tool for reducing costs and increasing productivity.  As SAP Business One is an integrated system there should never be any re-keying of data required, and the right information is provided to the right people.  An integrated system also offers benefits by supporting business processes end to end within the same system.  One user reported significant savings from improved stock control.  Before implementing SAP Business One left over parts from installations were often not returned to stock on time resulting in parts being 'lost' or eventually found damaged.  By implementing a 'return to stock' process following an installation that customer has reaped significant cost benefits that more than pay for the cost of the SAP Business One software and services.

“We have a complete, integrated solution to manage our entire business.  We improved purchasing planning significantly, reducing time and cost with better results.  This let us increase sales and profits with no additional resources.”
James Mills, Operations Director, Talar Made Ltd.

Top 5 Customer Benefits

Flexibility

Although there are many common requirements between businesses, no two businesses will be exactly the same.  The ability to adapt your business processes is important for businesses that want to maintain competitive advantage.  Although every system, including SAP Business One, will have constraints it is important, as far as is practical, to fit your software to your business, and not to fit your business to your software.

SAP Business One allows users to do this in a number of ways.  The system is flexible allowing users to choose to operate it in ways that are more appropriate to their business.  The user has access to a range of customisation tools in the standard product, without having to hire an expensive consultant, and a powerful Software Development Kit is also available that allows more extensive customisation by appropriately skilled individuals.  There is an existing library of Add-Ons that have been created by SAP Business One software solution partners, and of course it is possible to have completely bespoke work done for you.

With so many ways to tackle a problem, the decision is not normally “can it do it this way” but rather “how practical is it to do it this way”.  By ensuring that any changes to the system are sensible and practical users can ensure that SAP Business One not only gives them the flexibility to adapt but also does so in a cost effective way.

“SAP Business One was easily adaptable for different clients’ needs, and there are numerous products in the marketplace that work well alongside it.”
Jim Brown, Managing Director, BRAL Limited

Top 5 Customer Benefits

Growth

The survey also showed that for many users the ability to support growth was a significant benefit to them.  You can start with a single user system (although single user SAP Business One systems are rare) and scale to hundreds of users.  Flexible licensing and user authorisation allows different users to have the appropriate level of license and access, and the cost of the system will scale directly with the number of users.  SAP Business One is flexible enough to allow the integration of other systems if corporate acquisitions are made.

Unlike most other small business systems available, SAP Business supports international operation.  As well as supporting different operational rules and tax regimes it also supports a wide range of different languages for the user interface.  Users can have the user interface, including the help files, in the language of their choice, irrespective of the target localisation of the company.  This means that a company could be configured for UK operation with UK tax rules, but a particular user may choose to have the help files and user interface in Czech, another in French, and so on.

As well as supporting full multi-currency operations for transactions SAP Business One also supports dual currency on the nominal ledger, which means that where a corporate structure includes different countries in different territories all companies in the group can use a common system currency (for reporting purposes) and a separate local currency.  This also ensures that the system will always balance in both the group reporting currency and the local currency despite exchange rate fluctuations.

“We chose SAP Business One because it is a truly international product and can do everything we need it to do and more.”
Caroline Swain, Chief Financial Officer, The Big Bus Company Ltd.

Top 5 Customer Benefits

Fast Adoption

Although the capabilities of SAP Business One are extensive the user interface is clear and works in a consistent way across all parts of the system.  This makes it easier for users to gain familiarity with the system, even if they only usually work in a small proportion of the features.  Screens can be customised by individual users, and through the use of templates, to remove references to parts of the system that are not needed which further streamlines the user experience.  And if you do not to customise the user interface for your own use that can also be easily achieved (although you may prefer to have a specialist do this for you.)

Having an intuitive user interface means that the learning curve for users is minimised, allowing users to spend less time wondering how the system needs them to enter their data, and more time doing productive work.

Most SAP Business One systems will need some planning to setup appropriately, and most users will having existing data that needs to be imported.  As users will have different requirements the implementation times will vary, but it is possible to be up and running with SAP Business One in less than 5 days.

“Using SAP Business One is pretty intuitive.  Everyone at Big Bus has learned on the job and has taken to it like a duck to water.”
Caroline Swain, Chief Financial Officer, The Big Bus Company Ltd.

Top 5 Customer Benefits