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rapidly growing in popularity because they lead to better customer retention and satisfaction
and higher revenues. In 1998, SAP followed with industry solution maps, business technology
maps, and service maps, all of which were aimed at making its R/3 system dynamic and respon-
sive to changes in industry conditions. In 1998, recognizing that its future rested on its ability
to protect its share of the US market, it listed itself on the New York Stock Exchange fueled its
expansion in the US market.
In May 1999, Cochairman and CEO Hasso Plattner announced the mySAP.com strategy,
heralding the beginning of a new direction for the company and its product range. mySAP.com
connects e-commerce solutions with existing ERP applications using up-to-date Web technology.
In the same year, numerous mySAP.com customers are won, among them Hewlett-Packard and
the pharmaceutical company Hoechst Marion Roussel. The mySAP initiative was a comprehen-
sive e-business platform designed to help companies collaborate and succeed, regardless of their
industry or network environments.
To meet its customers' needs in the new electronic environment, SAP used the mySAP plat-
form to change itself from a vendor of ERP components to a provider of e-business solutions.
The platform was to be the online portal (SAP Enterprise Portal) through which customers
could view and understand the way its Internet-enabled R/3 modules could address their evolv-
ing needs. SAP recognized that its customers were increasingly demanding access to networked
environments with global connectivity, where decisions could be executed in real time through
the Internet. Customers wanted to be able to leverage new e-business technologies to improve
basic business goals like increasing profitability, improving customer satisfaction, and lowering
overhead costs. In addition, customers wanted total solutions that could help them manage their
relationships and supply chains.
SAP realized that cost was becoming a more important issue because competition from low-
cost rivals demonstrated that customers could be persuaded to shift vendors if they were offered
good commercial deals. Indeed, major companies like Oracle often offered their software at dis-
count prices or even gave it away free to well-known companies to generate interest and demand
for their product (and wean them away from SAP). SAP focused on making mySAP more afford-
able by unbundling its modules and business solutions into smaller, separate products. Customers
could now choose which particular solutions best met their specific needs; they no longer had to
buy the whole package. All mySAP offerings were fully compatible with the base R/3 system so
that customers could easily expand their use of SAP's products. SAP was working across its whole
product range to make its system easier and cheaper to use.
mySAP was aimed at a wider range of potential customers. By providing a simpler and cheaper
version of its application software coupled with the introduction of the many mySAP e-business
solution packages, SAP broadened its offerings targeted not only to large corporations but also to
small- and medium-sized companies. mySAP enabled SAP to provide a low-cost ERP system that
could be scaled down for smaller firms. For example, for small- to medium-sized companies that
lack the internal resources to maintain their own business applications on-site, mySAP offered
hosting for data centers, networks, and applications.
SAP's number of software installations and customers increased steadily between 1998 and
2002. The number of software installations grew at a faster pace than the number of customers,
a characteristic of the lock-in feature of investment in one ERP platform. In 2002, SAP was still
the number one vendor of standard business application software, with a worldwide market share
of over 30%. Oracle was next with a 16% share of the market. SAP claimed that it had 10 million
users and 50,000 SAP installations in 18,000 companies in 120 countries in 2002 and that half
of the world's top 500 companies used its software.
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