♥ Princessa's Royal Diary ♥ - Royalty has never been so PINK!

First and foremost not last and foremost according to Tingtionary, let us "define" S-A-P.

The original name for SAP is German: Systeme, Anwendungen, Produkte, which means "Systems Applications and Products".

The original SAP idea was to provide customers with the ability to interact with a common corporate database for a comprehensive range of applications. Gradually, the applications have been assembled and today many corporations, including IBM and Microsoft, are using SAP products to run their own businesses.

It's amazing how little you know about something, even though you deal with it every single day?

I am sooo not admitting I do not know this, I'm just implying some do not? Haha. Kidding.

Moving on...

SAP, started in 1972 by five former IBM employees in Mannheim, Germany, states that it is the world's largest inter-enterprise software company and the world's fourth-largest independent software supplier, overall.

Interesting isn't it?

Oh okay... So I'm not fascinated by "history", sue me.

Though it may not fascinate me, but for those who are considering a career in the industry. This information might somewhat impress your employer? But of course, don't recite to him as though you're reading from a book. A causal approach may be more appropriate. - SAP Employment Interview 101?

Now, for the question of which, I've been pondering upon. What exactly is SAP?

According to websites and such:

SAP provides the capability to manage financial, asset, and cost accounting, production operations and materials, personnel, plants, and archived documents.

Short and sweet, yet still doesn't exactly sell very well does it? I mean, there are other softwares out there that meet these specifications. So why SAP?

And here I go, researching on "data" again, and...

Have you heard of the Michael Eugene Porter?

In case you read it wrongly. It's Michael Eugene Porter, NOT Harry Potter. Kindly DO NOT make remarks like "donno, I only know Harry Potter". Try not to degrade your intelligence in front of me.

Anyway...

According to, yours truly, the Wikipedia - Michael Eugene Porter is an American academic focused on management and economics. He has made important contributions to strategic management and strategy theory, Porter's main academic objectives focus on how a firm or a region can build a competitive advantage and develop competitive strategy.

Porter's strategic system consists primarily of:

- 5 forces analysis
- Strategic groups (also called strategic sets)
- The value chain
- The generic strategies of cost leadership, product differentiation, and focus
- The market positioning strategies of variety based, needs based, and access based market positions
- Porter's clusters of competence for regional economic development

I'm not off topic, in case you're wondering. This guy plays a somewhat important role in the whole "Why SAP" answer.

*Ahem* So now... Why SAP?

- Function rich
- In dept
- Proven
- Culture (as in huge community based support)
- Stability (in terms of system)
- Consistence (it advances together with technology)

When I say proven, it doesn't mean that failures do not occur. In cases where failure occurs, the cause of the failure isn't the "product" incompetence but vendor failure? There are many scenarios but I'm not going to name any. Point is, get the right vendor! :)

P/s: FYI - ObTech the company I proudly work for is a GOLD partner (the 1st in South-East Asia) for providing such implementations! Pardon me for the promotional attempt.

The 2000s: Innovation for the New Millennium

With the Internet, the user becomes the focus of software applications. SAP develops SAP Workplace and paves the way for the idea of an enterprise portal and role-specific access to information.

Currently, more than 12 million users work each day with SAP solutions. There are now 121,000 installations worldwide, more than 1,500 SAP partners, over 25 industry-specific business solutions, and more than 41,200 customers in 120 countries. SAP is the world's third-largest independent software vendor.

Today, with enterprise services-oriented architecture and the underlying integration and application platform, SAP NetWeaver, SAP is providing our customers with solutions for end-to-end business processes. With SAP NetWeaver, your company can integrate people, information, and processes within the company and beyond.

See what I mean by "consistence".

P/s: SAP has so many partners and yet ObTech still managed to be the 1st GOLD partner in South-East Asia. This isn't a promotional attempt, its pure "showing off".

Another very important fact is that SAP follows the ideology by Michael Porter on the topic "Strategy Management - Value Chain". I would like to explain the whole "Value Chain" thing to you, but seriously, I feel bored by myself already. If you're interested to find out what this theory is about...

Go to Google, type in the keywords like "Michael Porter", "Strategy Management", and/or "Value Chain". I did my homework, so it's time to do yours? Don't be lazy!

Every individual has a good side and a bad one. So does every "solution". In my opinion, for SAP the issue is with its flexibility.

A powerful application is a flexible one. But due to such "power", it also makes the application (as in SAP) somewhat like a "giant" (or perhaps an elephant). And a saying goes - "you cannot make an elephant dance..."

What I'm trying to say is that, it's like an airport. Filled with the facilities to make it so ... (don't know what words to use to describe it). Thus, being so "powerful" it seriously forsakes the logic of simplicity.

I "feel" the programmers/consultants.

Oh gosh, I can't believe I wrote all that. I wonder if anyone would actually bother reading? Hmmm...