Is SAP Business ByDesign right for you?

SAP Business ByDesign is a full-featured, public cloud ERP management suite. This cloud-based ERP provides powerful functionality and rapid implementation; the benefits are many. But is SAP Business ByDesign right for you? In this article, I'll explore some of the types of organisations that benefit most from SAP Business ByDesign.
 

Size Matters

SAP Business ByDesign is generally suited to organisations with less than 1500 employees. More than that and you may well be better considering enterprise ERP solutions like SAP S/4HANA – which can be deployed on-premises or via cloud. That said, many subsidiaries of larger global parents find that SAP Business ByDesign is an efficient solution for local needs while still providing connectivity to the more substantial enterprise ERP platform used by their global parent.
 

Meeting the Challenges of Growth

Organisations often make the decision to move to SAP Business ByDesign to meet various challenges of organisational growth. These growing pains can manifest in things like:

  • Agile ad hoc processes that served the organisation well in early entrepreneurial phases beginning to fray under growth pressures
  • Silos have begun to emerge in the growing organisation with an emerging need to implement standardised best practice processes
  • Beginning to interact with multiple countries and grappling with different currencies, tax systems and language requirements
  • Processes have become cumbersome and management systems are no longer adequate to support current business operations
  • Outgrown financial systems like Xero and MYOB that served the business well when it was smaller.
     

Mobility is Important

SAP Business ByDesign is particularly suited to organisations where mobility matters. This cloud-based ERP system is designed with a mobile-first design mentality. A modern mobile-friendly user interface makes it easy for employees in the field to interact with your central ERP on smart phones, tablets and laptops. It also has strong inbuilt training and learning capabilities which makes it easy to overcome training challenges for remote users.
 

Professional Services Organisations

While SAP Business ByDesign is used by organisations across the spectrum, professional services organisations will find a lot of value in:

  • Strong integration between project management, financials and purchasing functionality
  • Functionality ideal for IT consultancies, management consultants, advertising agencies, media businesses, engineering consulting, inspection services and other services industries
  • Full value cycle for services from CRM to invoicing
  • Strong collaboration features among teams and team members
  • Role-based mobile apps and rich user interface.

In particular, SAP Business ByDesign is a great fit for services organisation who are:

  • Projects-centric or provide contract-based service delivery
  • In need for process efficiencies such as the ability to run your entire Lead to Cash cycle in one system
  • Have Advanced Billing and Revenue Recognition requirements
  • Require transparency for real-time reporting on things such as utilisation, cost, liquidity, project progress, unbilled days, and profitability
  • Looking for mobility to deliver services to clients on site and directly interact with ERP through mobile devices.
     

Wholesale and Distribution Businesses

SAP Business ByDesign also enjoys strong adherents in wholesale and distribution businesses because core ERP capabilities include strengths in sell from stock, procure to pay and make to stock. 

ORDER
Sales

MANAGE
Service

FULLFILL
Service

SETTLE
Accounting

However, as with any cloud-based system, SAP Business ByDesign is not the perfect fit in all scenarios – it is important to understand your characteristics and specific needs.

Wholesale or distribution business who fit best include:

  • Make-to-Stock or Procure-to-Stock product business
  • Delivery-from-Stock of standard products with minimal variations
  • Own product distributors of non-commodity products

SAP Business ByDesign may be less suited and require customisation for wholesale or distribution businesses which have:

  • Customer-specific final assembly
  • Customer-specific development and production
  • Complex buy & transport analysis requirements
  • High inter-warehouse transfers
  • Rapid turnover of carried products: heavy logistics focus
  • Low margin products with high degree of costing complexity.
     

If in doubt, seek a trusted advisor to help assess your options

Selecting an ERP solution is a business discussion, not a technology discussion. Before you embark on a journey that is going to impact every aspect of your business, seek out a trusted advisor like NTT DATA Business Solutions to help assess what you need and how best to achieve it.

Read more about cloud-based ERP here.
SAP SolutionsJason ForsythCloud-ERP