3.8    Special Software for Medium-Sized Enterprises

In addition to the solutions for large businesses—such as the SAP Business Suite—SAP also offers solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses, which are briefly discussed in the following sections.

3.8.1    SAP Business One

With SAP Business One, SAP addresses customers for whom SAP ERP or the software products of SAP Business Suite are too complex or too expensive. SAP Business One can be used to map core functions such as financials, human resources, and materials management. This product can “grow” together with the enterprise and can be implemented at relatively low costs within a couple of days.

3.8.2    SAP Business All-in-One

SAP Business All-in-One is a solution for medium-sized businesses that offers different industry-specific features. Different solutions from SAP Business Suite are used as required. SAP NetWeaver is the technological platform for SAP Business All-in-One.

3.8.3    SAP Business ByDesign

SAP Business ByDesign is an on-demand solution, which means that the business that uses the solution only selects the functions it actually requires. The application server, which the customers use, is hosted by SAP and is available via a secured Internet connection. The server on which the applications are located is supported and managed at SAP’s data centers. The user can access the required functions via an Internet browser. The users’ access to the servers is provided via a virtual private network (VPN) connection that is secured in multiple levels (Figure 3.6).

Virtual Private Network

A VPN is a secure connection via the Internet. The data packages are transferred in encrypted form between sender and receiver.

Figure 3.6    SAP Business ByDesign: System Infrastructure

SAP Business ByDesign covers all business processes mentioned in this chapter: financials and accounting, logistics, human resources, customer relationship management, and so on.

Cloud Computing

An increasing number of companies decide to outsource their IT (hardware, software, data) to external providers whose services are “leased” for a certain period. Applications and data are no longer located within the company’s data center but are provisioned via the Internet. SAP Business ByDesign is one of several SAP products offered in the cloud. Another product that is also available in the cloud is presented in the following section.