Saturday, January 10, 2009

SAP, and the contribution to SMEs business

By Dave Torres

Back in the day when computers were infants, an engineer or IT tech (depending on which term more thoroughly describes the daunting challenge) was tasked with the logistics of juggling 100s, sometimes thousands of computer systems all at once. Every Last of these systems needed to be dealt, maintained, and looked after. And information coming from two various systems had to be matched, researched and utilised to the collective data points in a way that made sense. It was a tiresome task to say the least, and costly.

While organisations in the early 1970`s gladly chose for this bound mess of computer systems over old-fashioned hand written notes; they no doubt cared for a best way. In 1972, a savior was born in the tiny German town of Walldorf, that would anoint the industry with a solution.

SAP or Systems, Applications, Products in Data Processing, created a revolutionary system called SAP R/2 in 1979, just 7 years after the organization began processes. This system was the introductory scalable solution to enterprise management that integrated core capabilities into a single system. The launch was a success and was the impetus for a revision dubbed SAP R/3, only over a decade after, in 1992. It too, was a great success.

Nowadays having been on the market for several 29 years, you would assume that it would have penetrated all of the major markets; and it has, except when you reckon that India and China were far from superior yet merely a few years ago. Industrialization has passed the torch of wealth to some seemingly unanticipated nations and produced new markets along the way.

China`s rise to wealth though, may not be so unexpected; dealing that for the past 30 yrs, 80% of every consumer commodities came from this country. India, on the other hand has been just a blip on the map of global trade; til now. Walk down any big city, and you will likely find out a merchandise made in India. The widest steel manufacturer in the Earth, Arcelor-Mittal, is a native Indian. Don`t leave that most outsourced tasks end up in India, not to mention that some of the biggest enterprises in the globe, have satellite offices in here. This large inundation of wealth comes from plain supply and demand; cost drives require and India can acquire volume on the cheap.

All this new found wealth brings with it the prospect for opportunity. Within that framework, entrepreneurs will strive to begin businesses. And each 1 of these businesses will become interdependent on the need to manage data in effect. This realization has led the aforementioned enterprise, SAP, to open its personalized satellite office to handle the fundamental requirement. - 16459

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