Have you ever wondered why cloud is the way of the future? Are you familiar with the cloud? I’m not talking of the clouds in the sky itself but more in line with the technological lingo that means data are stored by another provider in a remote location. This gives the company freedom from being tied to conventional in-house system infrastructures and the costs and maintenance that goes with it. You can access the data from anywhere as long as you have an internet connection be it via desktop computers, laptops or even mobile devices. The advantages you get are greater financial flexibility, quicker reaction time, increased efficiency and immediate access. We have to admit that these are all vital components to run a successful business but let’s take a deeper dive into the last factor.
We are now in a time where technology is at its ascension. Everything we do is somehow connected to technology or the internet. Most headline making inventions or fads are either on the internet or caused by the internet. People now have become more dependent to it. Everywhere you look, you will see people busy reading, typing or playing with their mobile devices.
So why then is having immediate access to your business system important? Having a system that you can access anytime, anywhere does give you immense benefits. Before having real-time access to your data was a big thing but now, it’s a thing of the past. Nowadays, real-time data is not enough and it means nothing if you are not empowered to make decisions and changes based on it. But nothing seems to be bigger than the fact that having immediate access to your ERP system gives you the chance to be above or at least in line with your competitors. Let’s face it, one timing delay may cause a business to lose a considerable amount of money or be left out by the competition. The competitiveness of the business world now is very high that people are looking for ways to one-up the other in any way possible.
With this in mind, SAP utilized their industry leading expertise in creating real-time ERP systems and combined it with the cloud technology. Thus, it gave birth to SAP Business ByDesign. This ERP software is not really new, it has been in the industry since 2007 and have been through a roller-coaster ride. There was even talk about SAP Business ByDesign’s death but of course it was short-lived since ByDesign still exists up to this day. Somehow, the not so good way it started proved to be a blessing in disguise for SAP since they were able to identify the key challenges and is now bouncing back stronger than ever.
SAP wanted to start a cloud solution that would cater to Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s). They wanted to help businesses grow by providing their world-class ERP business software at a price better suited to SME’s pairing it with the cloud technology. What clients get is a full suite ERP business solution that is in the cloud. The user interface, navigation and help functions are better and easy to use and understand. The system has its own library that you can use as a reference and it even has a community center where people share their thoughts and questions about ByDesign. If that still won’t solve your problem, you can always log an incident (ticket) to SAP’s 24/7 support hotline.
The system has most, if not all, of the common functions that SME’s needed and can be configured easily. There are also functionalities – known as apps – that you can buy which are customised for certain business processes that are created and/or developed by accredited SAP Partners only. You can also do changes post implementation and the system will be able to respond quickly without having downtimes. The system currently undergoes quarterly upgrades which update the system functionalities to better cater to the needs and concerns of the majority. These upgrades are based from the on-going collaboration between SAP and its clients through user feedbacks as to what improvements they want SAP to make in ByDesign. This is a good thing since it empowers the users to be proactive and to do their part in improving the system.
SAP Business ByDesign can be summarized in 3 words: Intuitive. Flexible. Accessible. ByDesign has done a lot of developments and growing up since its inception and surely, the best is yet to come. As the saying goes, “Success is not by chance, it’s ByDesign.”
