From its origins in Walldorf, Germany in 1972, SAP has blossomed rapidly to the present state of having 44,500 installations in 120 countries with a monumental 10 million users. Five ex-IBM engineers convened to brainstorm and as good engineers love the process of "dreaming up" and formulating the dream into a practical and functional concept, they produced and perfected SAP. Founded in Germany it of course was given the Germanic name, Systeme, Andwendungen, Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung. To save you the stress of trying to pronounce that if you have no German language ability, the English translation is Systems, Applications, Products in Data Processing.
SAP AG has grown to become the third largest software maker in existence not only in its native Germany, but worldwide. The reason for its burgeoning success is directly attributable to the introduction of SAP R/2 in 1979. This first integrated, enterprise wide software application was an overnight success. SAP R2 runs on mainframes and went on to penetrate the majority of large businesses in Germany. With expansion into other European companies the founders recognized the growing popularity of client-server architecture.
SAP recognized and responded to that market with the development and release of SAP R/3 in 1992. This brilliant program was welcomed with open arms by the business community. SAP R/3 evolved into an unprecedented success especially after expanding into the North American market beginning in 1988.
Five years later SAP R/3 had grown from zero to 44% of all SAP sales worldwide. Currently SAP America has 3,000 employees and can lay claim to having many of the Fortune 500 companies as clients. We could present a laundry list of recognizable names including 7 of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies and 8 of the top 10 semiconductor corporations.
The significance of the numbers is readily understandable by even the most uninitiated in business concepts. Its popularity results from the ability to not only be a brilliant application but to its versatility and adaptability to a wide variety of businesses. One good example is the MIT implementation of modules in Finance/Accounting, Controlling, Project System, Funds Management, Materials Management and Sales Distribution.
Imagine for example, a global building materials corporation preparing an estimate on a major building renovation. Imagine the work involved in putting together amount of material required, man-hours needed to produce the custom-made pieces, cost variables, shipping times, assembly time for the on-site work, etc. Finally, imagine a program that can put it all together and deliver to you an estimate of projected cost and approximate date of completion. The value of having that efficacy at your fingertips is beyond imagination. Since the old adage of "time is money" is especially true in these modern times, SAP R/3 is obviously invaluable.
Many educational institutions are responding to the need for SAP trained individuals to diagnose, select and implement the modules which would best serve a company. An organization makes SAP R/3 purchasing decisions by choosing modules which will best serve their particular requirements. The integration and bringing to full functionality is a process that must evolve over time. Some programs can be fully implemented within 18 months while some large corporations require a ten year commitment. Of course, portions of the full scale SAP R/3 software become useful within a reasonable length of time.
At this time many smaller companies are discovering the components of the SAP R/3 software programs which are applicable to their needs. Each implementation results in increased success for the business owner plus future growth potential for SAP R/3.
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