Database Reference
In-Depth Information
5.2.15 Partnering for Growth
Partnering has been one of the driving forces in the growth of SAP. SAP has adopted partnering
as a growth strategy not only with its business and technology partners but also with its custom-
ers. This partnership with customers has led to the success of its ISs. SAP combines the horizontal
functionality of its base solution with focused, vertical functionality provided by ISs that are
developed along with specific, best-in-class SAP customers in each industry.
Until the past decade, SAP did not consider itself to be in the implementation business per se.
Most of the SAP implementations have been undertaken by SAP implementation partners that
range from the erstwhile Big Six accounting firms and Big IT firms to national-level consulting
companies. Most of them have built exclusive practices for providing SAP implementation and
support services.
Technology partners are the leading software vendors of products that form the standard com-
ponents of the multitier client/server architecture of SAP implementations. These include vendors
of operating systems, databases, and networking products.
SAP has the following types of partners: hardware, consulting, technology, development, and
the traditional value-added resellers. Development partners are companies that participate along
with SAP's personnel in the development and enhancement of SAP. Additionally, SAP also has
partnerships with third-party product developers called Complementary Software Program (CSP)
partners. These are parties with specialized solutions like CAD, plant data collection systems,
process control systems, identification and access control systems, mobile data collection systems,
and geographical information systems (GIS).
5.3 other Significant Aspects of SAP
This section will mention briefly some aspects of SAP system operations that might not get high-
lighted in SAP literature yet are nonetheless, in my opinion, of great value in terms of their poten-
tial for leading to major gains in productivity. They are also indicative of the exactness of the
research done by SAP in the usability engineering of their system.
5.3.1 SAP Document
In analogy with the integrity of an accounting transaction document in accounting systems, SAP
has defined the concept of a SAP Document. A SAP Document contains all information pertain-
ing to a transaction and is always retained in its complete form. This enables tremendous advan-
tages in traceability, audit, and maintenance of document history.
5.3.2 Recording by Example (RBE)
SAP by design is oriented toward screen-based interactions. It religiously follows the principle
of recording any data only once. The system recognizes that this data entry effort is substantial,
however, and goes further to help in expediting this data entry effort by providing a facility that I
would term as Recording by Example (RBE).
Across the entire system, while doing data entry of any master or transaction record, SAP pro-
vides a facility to essentially provide a copy of relevant data from similar data items created earlier.
For instance, when creating a new vendor, the system prompts you to optionally give a reference
