What is ERP ???

ERP, which is an abbreviation for Enterprise Resource Planning, is principally an integration of business management practices and modern technology. Information Technology (IT) integrates with the core business processes of a corporate house to streamline and accomplish specific business objectives. Consequently, ERP is an amalgamation of three most important components; Business Management Practices, Information Technology and Specific Business Objectives.

In simpler words, an ERP is a massive software architecture that supports the streaming and distribution of geographically scattered enterprise wide information across all the functional units of a business house. It provides the business management executives with a comprehensive overview of the complete business execution which in turn influences their decisions in a productive way.

At the core of ERP is a well managed centralized data repository which acquires information from and supply information into the fragmented applications operating on a universal computing platform.

Information in large business organizations is accumulated on various servers across many functional units and sometimes separated by geographical boundaries. Such information islands can possibly service individual organizational units but fail to enhance enterprise wide performance, speed and competence.

The term ERP originally referred to the way a large organization planned to use its organizational wide resources. Formerly, ERP systems were used in larger and more industrial types of companies. However, the use of ERP has changed radically over a period of few years. Today the term can be applied to any type of company, operating in any kind of field and of any magnitude.

Today's ERP software architecture can possibly envelop a broad range of enterprise wide functions and integrate them into a single unified database repository. For instance, functions such as Human Resources, Supply Chain Management, Customer Relationship Management, Finance, Manufacturing Warehouse Management and Logistics were all previously stand alone software applications, generally housed with their own applications, database and network, but today, they can all work under a single umbrella - the ERP architecture.

In order for a software system to be considered ERP, it must provide a business with wide collection of functionalities supported by features like flexibility, modularity & openness, widespread, finest business processes and global focus.

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What is SAP ???

SAP, started in 1972 by five former IBM employees in Mannheim, Germany, states that it is the world's third-largest independent software vendor. The original name for SAP was German: Systeme, Anwendungen, Produkte. It means "Systems Applications and Products." The goal of the company was to provide large enterprise customers with the ability to interact with a corporate database in real-time. Today, the company states that its goal is "to offer the industry's most comprehensive portfolio of business performance and optimization solutions for companies of all sizes."

SAP's first software application was a financial accounting software suite that ran on a mainframe and was known for its stability. It eventually became known as the R/1 system. The "R" stands for real-time. During the 1980s, the company went international, and the second iteration of the R system (R/2) accommodated different languages and currencies. In the 1990s, the third iteration (R/3) moved from the mainframe to a client/server three-tier architecture composed of a database, software applications and a common graphical user interface (GUI). SAP used the name R/3 until the 5.0 release. At that time the name was changed from R/version to ERP Central Component (ECC). The most current version as of November 2009 is ECC 6.0.

When the Internet became pervasive, SAP responded by providing companies with the software they needed to sell goods and services online. Their product portfolio got a Web interface and was rebranded MySAP.com. MySAP was designed to be a corporate Web portal with role-based permissions for employees . The company promoted how SAP "solutions" could link commerce conducted over the Internet (e-commerce) with traditional bricks and mortar commerce to provide one seamless view of the business. Next came SAP NetWeaver, the company’s development and integration platform and middleware component, and Business Suite, a bundling of SAP’s enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), product lifecycle management (PLM) and supplier relationship management (SRM) applications. In 2008, SAP purchased Business Objects, a French enterprise software company that specializes in business intelligence (BI), which marked a major change in the company’s BI strategy, which was previously focused around SAP's Business Explorer tools.

Current products include:

• SAP NetWeaver - service-oriented technology platform (SOA) for integrating information and business processes across diverse technologies and organizational structures. NetWeaver provides the foundation for other SAP software bundles.

• SAP Business Suite - software applications for large organizations and international corporations. The applications support core business operations such as supply chain managment, warehouse management, sales, customer relationship management and administrative functions. SAP offers software for 25 vertical industries, including banking, insurance, chemicals, healthcare, retail and consumer products.

• SAP Business All-in-One solutions, SAP Business ByDesign and SAP Business One - software products that address the needs of small and mid-market companies.

(searchsap.techtarget.com)