Why Do I Need SAP Training & Why is it Important For Your Career and Business?

In 1972, five ex-IBM engineers founded SAP. Translated from German, it means Systems, Applications, Products in Data Processing. The full name of the parenting company is SAO AG. Based close to the town of Heidelberg, SAP has subsidiaries in 50 countries. Because of their success, the original founders have marketed SAP AG into the third largest software maker in the world.

More than half of the world’s top 500 companies and over 17,500 customers make use of this software maker. There are over 27,000 employees worldwide and SAP AG commands a revenue of $7.34 billion and a net income of $581 million in FY01. Because SAP is listed in Germany it makes up the 30 stocks of DAX and on the New York Stock Exchange as ticker:SAP.

In 120 countries with more than 10 million users, there are 44,500 installations of SAP. Why did this company become successful? In 1979 SAP released SAP R/2 into the German market; it was an instant success! Every large German company had a SAP software and for years this company stayed within Germany’s boundaries. Eventually the software company expanded throughout Europe and towards the end of the 1980’s, client-server architecture became well known.

SAP released R/3 and in 1988 it was publicized in the North America region which resulted in an outstanding successful business venture. It took only five years for the North American market to adopt 44% of total SAP worldwide sales. More than 3,000 people have added the names of many of the Fortune 500 to their customer based list. Currently SAP is available in 46 specific country versions, incorporating 28 languages; industry specific versions number 21. Large companies are no longer the proud owners of SAP as smaller companies have seen the need to incorporate this software into their business.

There are good reasons why companies are implementing SAP. Replacing outdated and inefficient IT Architecture allows for a competitive advantage. Other good reasons are to enable business process change since it is easier to change companies process to adapt to SAP. There is a competitive advantage and of course this depends on the company. Behind every successful business is a cost benefit analysis. If SAP cannot be implemented with a positive outcome than it probably should not be embarked on. A ballpark cost would be $4,000 and is based on a price per user with an annual support cost of 10% and periodic upgrades. Check with SAP for additional information.

The shortest time to implement SAP is 45 days, and there are multi nationals who continue to implement SAP over 5 to 10 years and many have planned as successful global deployments but one should be able to get a single instance project completed in a little over a year. The least of SAP implementations can be done on a part time basis and the largest will involve up to a thousand individuals including armies of consultants. The smallest SAP implementations uses a production system box, a box for test and a box for development. The largest implementations use well over 100 boxes especially if programs are involved. This can cost from $400,000 to millions of dollars.

SAP can be all things to all companies, and it is here to stay.

Eli Griffin is a former Siemens SAP consultant with over 5 years of experience in 4 different companies. He is the founder of UltimateSAP.com - http://www.UltimateSAP.com UltimateSAP was founded to provide a one-stop cost effective training and certification course amist all the overpriced courses on the market. UltimateSAP contains hundreds of high quality SAP interactive CBTs which covers all major SAP modules including R/3, ERP, ABAP, DB, MM, Basis and more Discover the easiest way to attain SAP certification with certification resources, industry handbooks, workbooks and examination software applications Visit the official site now to download free handbooks and interview Q&As. Click on the link below: => Start your SAP training now! P.S: Bonus: It comes with a limited supply of exercises and study exam guides so check it out while stocks last. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Eli_Griffin