SAP Business Suite
SAP Business Suite is a bundle of business applications that provide integration of information and processes, collaboration, industry-specific functionality and scalability. SAP Business Suite is based on SAP's technology platform called NetWeaver
At the start of February 2009, SAP unveiled SAP Business Suite 7 in New York. But what was new about it? While companies used to have to assemble their software by combining individual applications for functions such as resource planning (using SAP ERP), production (using SAP Product Lifecycle Management), and customer relationship management (using SAP Customer Relationship Management), SAP Business Suite provides a stable core upon which enterprises can base their business.
The suite currently comprises:
SAP ERP 6.0 (SAP Enterprise Resource Planning)
SAP CRM 7.0 (SAP Customer Relationship Management)
SAP SRM 7.0 (SAP Supplier Relationship Management)
SAP SCM 7.0 (SAP Supply Chain Management)
SAP PLM 7.0 (SAP Product Lifecycle Management)
At the heart of SAP Business Suite is the SAP ERP application, which is supplemented by SAP CRM, SAP SRM, SAP PLM, and SAP SCM. From financial accounting through manufacturing, logistics, sales, marketing, and human resources, all the key business processes that occur on a day-to-day basis in the world’s companies can be managed with SAP Business Suite.
SAP Business Suite maps typical business processes for these industries, for example:
Financial services and public sector (healthcare, universities, research institutes, insurance companies)
Manufacturing (aerospace and defense, automotive, chemicals, consumer products, construction, plant engineering, shipbuilding, high tech and electronics, industrial machinery and components, mill products, mining, oil and gas)
The service sector (media, telecommunications)
For the automotive industry, for example, these are processes for synchronized product development and enhanced CAD integration. Banks can use SAP Business Suite to manage deposits, loans, securities, and payment transactions, and to create contracts. For the consumer products industry, the suite offers special functions for logistics and order processing. The high tech and electronics industry can take advantage of enhanced functions for orchestrating outsourced manufacturing, such as batch traceability, mass processing of orders, and tracking goods during production. In the wholesale trade, users can calculate chargebacks and create contracts and discount campaigns. In the retail sector, store managers just log on to display all the information they need on a dashboard: sales data, customer master, and the processes at their store.
Customers can implement the applications step-by-step and they only pay for the features (for example, from SAP CRM) that they actually need.
Because SAP Business Suite is based on the SAP NetWeaver technology platform, non-SAP industry-specific applications – such as Web services – can be integrated, too.