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companies that had huge IT budgets. Also, there were major competitors in this market segment
that had specialized in meeting the needs of SMEs to avoid direct competition with SAP, and they
had locked up a significant share of business in this ERP segment. By focusing primarily on large
companies, SAP had left a gap in the market that large software companies like Oracle, Microsoft,
and IBM took advantage to develop their own SME ERP products and services to compete for
customers and revenues in this market segment—one also worth billions of dollars in the years
ahead and the main growth segment in the future ERP market. So, to reach this growing market
segment as quickly as possible, SAP decided to develop two main product offerings for SMEs: SAP
All-in-One and SAP Business One.
SAP is facing competition in the SME market especially from CRM companies such as
salesforce.com that specializes in on-demand software downloaded directly from the Internet.
Complementing SAP's existing portfolio for medium-sized companies, a new solution Business
ByDesign was introduced to leverage on-demand and hosted delivery at a significantly lower cost,
and that will allow them to
try-run-adapt
the software to meet their needs.
5.1.8.1 SAP All-in-One
SAP All-in-One is a streamlined version of its R/3 mySAP Business Suite; it is much easier to
install and maintain and much more affordable for SMEs. To develop All-in-One, SAP's software
engineers took its mySAP Business Suite modules designed for large companies and scaled them
down for users of small companies. All-in-One is a cutdown version of SAP's total range of prod-
ucts like SAP Customer Relationship Management, SAP ERP modules, SAP Product Life-Cycle
Management, SAP Supply Chain Management, and SAP Supplier Relationship Management.
Despite its reduced size, it is still a complex business solution and one that requires a major com-
mitment of IT resources for an SME.
5.1.8.2 Business One
So, recognizing the need to provide a much simpler and more limited and affordable ERP solu-
tion for smaller companies, SAP decided to also pursue a second SME ERP solution. To speed the
development of a new suite of programs, SAP decided not to develop a new software package from
scratch based on its leading R/3 product, as it did with its All-in-One solution. Rather, it took a new
path and bought an Israeli software company called Top Manage Financial Solutions in 2002 and
rebranded its system as SAP Business One. SAP Business One is a much more limited ERP software
package that integrates CRM with financial and logistic modules to meet a specific customer's basic
needs. However, it still provides a powerful, flexible solution and is designed to be easy to work and
affordable for SMEs. Business One software works in real time; no longer does an SME need to
wait until the end of the month to do the accounts. The system manages and records the ongoing
transactions involved in a business such as cost of goods received, through inventory, processing and
sale, and delivery to customers and automatically records transactions in a debit and credit account.
5.1.9 SAP HANA
SAP is also working to be able to offer all of its customers the advantage of cloud computing as
it matures and becomes a more reliable and secure option. SAP BusinessObjects solutions are
continually being upgraded and developed to help companies optimize business processes on
premise, on demand, and on device.
