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Alternatives to SAP – building the e-business platform

Alternatives to SAP – building the e-business platform. Philip Carnelley Software Research Director. pxc@ovum.com www.ovum.com. TINA?. SAP’s value proposition is to help with all this. How does it stack up?. Business pressures on the IT function. Do more with less Reduce risk

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Alternatives to SAP – building the e-business platform

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  1. Alternatives to SAP – building the e-business platform Philip Carnelley Software Research Director pxc@ovum.com www.ovum.com

  2. TINA?

  3. SAP’s value proposition is to help with all this. How does it stack up? Business pressures on the IT function • Do more with less • Reduce risk • Exploit innovations

  4. But … ERP legacy~15 systems ERP non-SAP~25 systems,different versions SAP R/3~30 systems,Versions 3.11 – 4.6B E-Procurement 10 units Technicalsystems SAPMarketsEnterprise BuyerProfessional Edition Trading e-Sales Collaborative Engineering Source: SAP … complexity and heterogeneity are increasing

  5. What’s increasing complexity? New platforms, multi-channel delivery and web-centric applications Need to link businesses across the supply chains : creating the ‘extended enterprise’ Organisations are trying to move to a services-oriented architecture You’re trying to build an e-business platform

  6. What makes an e-business platform? Data access middleware Data replication Aggregation Co-ordination Portal Workflow User interactions Process Management Process Management Application processes Application Server EAI Transactions/ functions Data Pitched by the largest “platform” players… including SAP

  7. Fragmentation reigns … Ascential 250 BEA • Most independent integration-focused vendors are… • Ambitious and aggressive • BUT... • Struggling • Small • Pathologically averse to making money from services • “scalability” & market valuation is the focus • the dot.com hangover at work Business Objects Cognos eXcelon 200 FileNET Hummingbird Interwoven 100 Mercator Plumtree SeeBeyond Staffware 50 Stellent Sybase (eBD) TIBCO Vitria 0 webMethods Q401 Q102 Q202 Q302

  8. How to decide if SAP can meet your needs for an e-business platform …

  9. You might not want / be able to run mySAP/Netweaver as your e-business platform everywhere For knowledge management across the heterogeneous environment you may need to take a neutral third-party offering You may have several solutions today and be considering whether to consolidate mySAP Business Suite mySAPSRM mySAPSCM mySAPHR mySAP PLM mySAPCRM mySAPFIN mySAP Solutions SAP R/3 Enterprise SAP Web Application Server People Integration: SAP Enterprise Portal, Collaboration, … SAP NetWeaver Information Integration: BI, KM, MDM, ... Process Integration: XI, Business Process Mgmt. I assume you have core ERP from SAP … But… Source: SAP Key issue: how to decide about the platform ?

  10. How IT is meeting the core business needs Four classic IT initiatives today • Improving information access and worker collaboration • Taking control of unstructured data • Better business monitoring and control • Managing business processes and transactions – even across the stovepipes

  11. The Ovum Evaluations approach • Capability assessment: • Build a model of an ideal world offering based on need and possibility • Examine the offerings and how they compare • Assess the robustness, potential and the future of the supplier • Characterise the offerings to show how they fit into real-life scenarios • Which scenarios correspond to your own? This is a toolkit of techniques, not a regimented process

  12. Basic initiative 1 — Improving access and worker collaboration

  13. What we look for in Portals • user interface • search and categorisation • structured information access • unstructured information access • data and content management • integration • workflow and task management • collaboration and groupware • portal component development • Portal management These are fairly plug-and-play Supplier robustness is important

  14. The leading portal providers Ovum estimates Source: Ovum Evaluates Portal Software

  15. Issues to consider with SAP’s portal • You’re largely on your own with interfacing to other enterprise applications • But a great interface to mySAP ! • Drag&Relate technology is very impressive, but not magic • you need to have consistent database definitions and it can be hard work to set up • Unix/J2EE support only recently arrived So the usage scenario – SAP-centricity – is key

  16. Basic initiative 2 — Managing unstructured data

  17. Capability assessment of CM systems Internationalisation Document management Storage and control Web authoring and design Application development Workflow support Web publication Knowledge management Integration with other business applications A CMS can do all of this – but what do you need?

  18. IBM/Lotus* ** Microsoft* Documentum FileNet IXOS Interwoven Stellent Open Text Hummingbird Vignette $million 0 50 100 150 200 * Ovum estimated revenues ** IBM figures include revenues from both IBM DB2 Content Manager and Lotus Domino.Doc Source: Ovum (Ovum Evaluates: Content Management/Market forecast) The leading ECM providers Source: Ovum Evaluates Content Management

  19. Issues to consider with SAP and content management • Provides basic storage and archiving of R/3 content only • Partners with IXOS, FileNET and Documentum to provide full back-end content management • Solution spread between basic R/3 features and portal features • Not intended to manage external content • Not designed for web publishing You almost certainly will want to augment mySAP here

  20. Basic initiative 3 — Business monitoring and control

  21. End-to-end BI process Realtime data analysis Analytical applications Scalability Globalisation What to look for in BI Today’s business needs support for: Actionable decisions Transform and load Reporting and analysis Data warehouse & marts Timely information Transaction Data

  22. The leading BI providers Source: Ovum Evaluates BI Source: Ovum estimates Even within BI, the market’s fragmented

  23. Issues to consider with mySAP as a complete BI solution • Heavily focused on data within the SAP environment • Good (e.g. pre-configured templates) within this • Specially tailored versions for some vertical industries • Not good in a multi-vendor multi-database environment • Partner products needed to boost standard functionality, e.g. • Ascential for ETL • Crystal Decisions for reporting • Advanced functions (data mining etc) also need partner solutions This is one of the easiest technical areas to ‘plug and play’

  24. Basic initiative 4 — Managing, monitoring and controlling business processes

  25. What processes are you looking to manage? • Ad hoc collaborative • Formal structured person to person • Pure application to application business system integration E-process technology Production workflow Business management software Internal App2App EAI High B2B Marketplaces Messaging/ routing (IT infrastructure) Complexity of processes B2C Internal P2P Low Low High Transactional throughput

  26. The leading business process solution providers – four philosophies From four backgrounds … Pure plays (very small!) Bizapps providers BPM/EAI/ Workflow Asera Savvion SAP Oracle Siebel IBM Microsoft Tibco Traditional Workflow providers Platform providers Filenet Staffware Orchestrating process, people, applications

  27. Issues with to consider with SAP’s workflow • It’s designed to automate processes within SAP • Interfacing to other systems is on SAP’s terms • It’s not designed for ‘lite’ or ad-hoc processes • Also not designed for classical high-throughput, image –heavy document or case handling (eg in insurance) • But there is also the Exchange Infrastructure • Two solutions can be a bit confusing but ultimately v powerful • Also plays in the EAI space – big overlap • Focused on creation of ‘composite applications’ What really is your need?

  28. Issues to consider with SAP as a BPM provider • It’s becoming a strong point of the SAP platform • But how much do you need to create “composite cross applications”? • How easy is it to fold in processes from other systems – and indeed from your partner companies? • This is often an area driven by your SI – how do they want to play it?

  29. Is an EAI solution the answer? ERP legacy~15 systems EAI solutions offer: ERP non-SAP~25 systems,different versions • developer tools • adapters and connectors • For functions, data translation, process control • runtime quality of service • heterogeneity • synchronous and asynchronous connections • transactional integrity SAP R/3~30 systems,Versions 3.11 – 4.6B EAI hub E-Procurement 10 units Technicalsystems SAPMarketsEnterprise BuyerProfessional Edition Trading e-Sales Collaborative Engineering

  30. EAI market leaders • Consolidating on a few majors • MS, IBM really taking control • A few tier 2 players • A lot will fall away • Microsoft is the company driving change • .Net brings EAI to the masses

  31. Issues with Netweaver as an EAI solution • Netweaver is not really intended to address the classical EAI scenario • Though it includes much EAI capability, repository based • It will probably change (and improve) a lot over the next 12 months • So – what are you trying to achieve? mySAP application Market-places etc Other applications Partner apps Customer apps

  32. So – what to do?

  33. Building the e-business platform You need to assess: • Can the SAP offering meet your needs within the mySAP context? • How strong is your need outside the SAP environment? • If you are looking elsewhere and need a third-party offering, will the SAP offering also help or just increase your costs? • Use the three evaluation techniques • Product capability; company capability; usage scenarios

  34. Type conclusion statement here Going with the flow is not the only alternative – check out the others!

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