So welcome back to another session of enterprise system, my name is Jason Chen, and I'll be leading the discussion for the topics of enterprise system. So to start off, let's do a brief recap of what we have heard so far. So, we have seen what a definition of ERP system is and we've talked about why businesses will want to use an ERP system. In particular, we have seen in our previous session how companies can utilize ERP systems such as that of SAP to help them execute through a major business process or business fulfillment. That starts with the process of getting customers to inquire about a product, and it ends with the step of delivering the product to the customer. So, I hope that through this two sessions you're able to see the value of ERP systems and get to appreciate why businesses are spending so much money and time in the implementation of such systems. So before companies can actually derive value out of ERP systems, the first step that they would need to do is to first choose and buy an ERP system. This is actually not an easy step because if we were to survey the entire landscape of ERP systems and it's vendors we'll see that there's a wide variety of different software out there, and it's not exactly clear which one a company should be picking because each of these vendors comes with their own sets of pros and cons. So, today our main objective is to step through the decision process behind the selection of an appropriate ERP software for your company. So, we'll begin by looking at some of the characteristics of major ERP systems. Because there are a wide variety of ERP vendors out there, we'll be focusing our discussion on the top three ERP vendors in the market. The top three vendors that we have today is SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft Dynamics. So, a good way to get information on these top three vendors is through this business report, titled, Clash of The Titans, An Independent Comparison of SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, and Infor. This is a business report that is provided for free by Panorama Consulting Solutions, and is updated on a regular, yearly basis. So for that, allow me to quickly summarize the main characteristics of this top three vendors on our board. So, let's spend some time to build up on this board here a summary of the different ERP solutions that are provided by the top three vendors in the ERP world. We'll be talking mainly about solutions from SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, and also Oracle. So first of all, let's talk about SAP, all right. As we build up this board, we'll be talking about the different solutions they have, the users that are likely to benefit from the particular solution that they have, and also some quick characteristics of the software system that they offer, three main things. Right at the top, SAP has it's black shape system known as the business suite. The business suite is actually one of the main things that they've created across a time when they started, and this is largely catered for mid to large size enterprises. What the business suite does is that is actually an integrated sets of applications, I just put APP for short, and it caters also to what's very specific, it has very specific functionalities to help industries perform their taxes, their business process. So, that's the business suite. We also have in the next line offered by SAP, the business all-in-one. This is slightly different from business suite because what the all-in-one package does is that it's mainly for clients that are small to mid-size enterprises, and then we'll just shot form this as SMEs. What we mean by the SMEs are typically companies that range from 100 to about 2,500 employees. Some quick characteristics about the all-in-one is that it's template-based, at the same time we can actually configure in all-in-one program and it caters for over 700 specific industries, specialized features for over 700 specific industries. Next in line we have by SAP as well, a business one suite, and this is mainly used by these small organizations that has fewer than 100 employees, basically for small businesses. It's basically a single integrated application. It only supports certain industries, not as wide range as the all in one, but with the right third-party adds on, you will be able to use business want for a larger set of industries, so let's put that down so we can actually work with third-party add-ons. Last but not least we have the by-design solution provided by SAP. What the by-design does is that is good for the SME as well, small to mid-size enterprises, typically in the range of larger than 100 employees. What is special about the by-design offering is that it is a S-a-a-S. What SaaS stands for is that is a Software as a Service. What this really means is that it's a form of cloud ERP, meaning that customers would pay a licensing fee to use this version of SAP on a regular subscription pattern. So, let's use another board to talk about Microsoft Dynamics. So let's continue to do the same for Microsoft Dynamics. In this board, we will be building a summary of the different solutions that Microsoft Dynamics have. The users that are most appropriate to use each of these solutions, and also a brief description of each of these solutions. Characteristics okay. So, a quick word about Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft is not a traditional ERP provider. They only came into the space of ERP systems when they acquired their very first ERP company. That happened in 2000 when they acquired Great Plains, GP. GP is the first accounting software that is made to be compatible with Microsoft Windows. What GP does is that it is an ERP system that is well suited for small to mid-sized enterprises. If you remember, just a few minutes ago this is catering to about 100 to 2500 employees, right. So, a quick word about the GP is that it is a simple out-of-box solution meaning that it is a software package that you can buy off the shelf and install into your computer and run it right next to that right. Microsoft also made another acquisition of NAV Vision, this is a Danish company specializing in accounting software. This software is actually made compatible with the Windows NT 2000 architecture. The NAV offering is also good for SMEs, but what is special about the NAV is that it has broader functionalities compared to the GP. So let's have that down on the board over here, broader functionality. At the same time it allows its users to customize it, ability to customize software. Next in line and perhaps the one that is most well known to the public is the AX version of Microsoft Dynamics. In this particular solution, it is meant for mid to large size enterprises. By mid to large size, we could be talking about companies that spends, they have operations across different countries. So, we will be thinking about things like AX or in the previous board we have SAP Business Suite right. AX is another solution good for large huge companies, and basically this is the flagship offering of Microsoft Dynamics, so let's put that down of MS. Finally, there's also an offering known as SL, which stands for Solomon. This is meant for SMEs as well, it's special in a sense that it's pretty much catered for project-oriented businesses right, businesses that does projects by projects. A specialty of the Solomon offering is that it is very good at CRM functions, CRM refers to Customer Relationship Management. So, let's take a moment to look at what we have derived on this board for Microsoft Dynamics and also for SAP. The reason why I have intentionally match each of this software solutions with the users that it caters to, is to allow you to see the point that if you were to go out to buy a ERP packet or software, you need to first consider what is the size of your company. If you are a small to mid size company, you need to look at certain types of offerings, and then if you are large company you're better off looking at specialized solutions like AX or the SAP Business Suite. So this is pretty much like yourself going out to a store buying clothes. If you have a small build you want to go out to buy clothes that fit your size. If you're much of a bigger build you want to buy clothes that fits you better, so that you don't have tight clothes all right. The same philosophy applies here as well when you're buying an ERP software, right. So moving on, let's also talk about the final giant that we have which is Oracle. Oracle is also a very special instance because itself it's not a ERP software in the beginning. They entered this market of ERP after making several acquisitions. So let me step you through a brief history of what happened. So, there is this major ERP software known as JD Edwards and JD Edwards is an ERP system that is very good at features related to manufacturing. At the same time, they have a rival known as PeopleSoft, and as you might have guessed, PeopleSoft is very good at dealing with features related to managing people, human management software. So what happened in 2003 was that JD Edwards merged with PeoplesSoft, so this is in 2003, for the simple fact that these are two ERP systems that fulfill very different businesses processes. So it makes sense for these two firms to join hands and to create even better ERP system. Then in 2005, Oracle saw an opportunity to acquire these two businesses and make them into a giant ERP software. So this happened in 2005 and we know that Oracle is pretty much a leader in the database world. This makes sense to have all of these three different businesses combined because ERP softwares if you were to think about the heart of it, it's softwares have to be storing the data and the program logic into databases. Oracle offers this capability because they are the leader in this area of databases. At the same time Oracle also acquired Siebel in the same year, this is also in 2005. Siebel completes this entire packet of the Oracle ERP ecosystem, because they are very good with customer relationship management features.
