re SAP:
My last post was mainly about the future, not the present.
I haven't spent much time looking at SAP's value chain; mainly focused on SAP, and SAP's competitors. So I don't know of Sand's competition.
From the articles I've read, most of SAP's customers would be willing to put up with the high cost of implementing R/3, but the time it takes to set it up, and then customize it (an ongoing process) is way too long.
Here's my vision of the future of ERP: A executive at _____ (insert any Old Economy Big Company here) will have a problem that they used to call up their IT dept. to solve. But ____ doesn't have an IT dept. any more. Instead, he talks to his friend Sally at RAT (Rent-A-Tech Co.; "end-to-end IT service, we speak English, and we do it today"). They talk, and a few days later (or maybe weeks if it's a big problem; never months or years) Sally calls back, and tells him (and anyone else at ____ who needs to know) how to get the data they need, where and when and how they want it. She has customized their software and hardware for them, and they don't need to know what she did, except how to use it. And she explained it in English, and it doesn't take months to do the explaining.
Today, this is fantasy. SAP, its products, and its value chain, are not set up to do it. But I think that, last year, SAP got a wake-up call, and they know the slowness and difficulty of setting up and customizing R/3 (and teaching everyone how to use it) are unacceptable.
The above should be considered blue-sky fantasy by someone with no technical training or professional experience in the field. |
