After years of development, SAP Business ByDesign im SaaS-SAP Business ByDesign has reached a high level of maturity in the area of ERP for SMEs. SAP Business ByDesign appears to be comparable to the strengths of SAP S/4HANA for larger company implementations. So what are the differences between SAP's two cloud products?
SAP S/4HANA Cloud the successor to SAP Business ByDesign
The market launch of S/4HANA by SAP in 2015 was a major step forward for the flagship SAP ERP offering. In addition to the many changes to the technological basis, the consistent focus on the cloud was added. However, this was not SAP's first foray into the cloud-based ERP world. Almost a decade earlier, the company had launched a pure SaaS ERP product called SAP Business ByDesign, which was functionally perceived as somewhere between SAP Business One and SAP ERP.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud, when it needs to be less specialised
If you want to compare SAP Business ByDesign and SAP S/4HANA, the first question to ask is how do SAP Business ByDesign and SAP S/4HANA differ? This applies in particular to the competing cloud versions. This is because SAP offers a slimmed-down version of S/4 HANA from the cloud for smaller, less complex companies. Why should a new customer opt for SAP Business ByDesign instead?
SAP Business ByDesign - The cloud pioneer
SAP originally introduced SAP Business ByDesign in 2007. The ERP-solution and is a combination of native code and elements taken from its flagship ERP system. This is software-as-a-service, i.e. enterprise software in the cloud. It is designed to support business processes in the key functional areas. The solution is accessed via the Internet using a browser. SAP Business ByDesign can be a good choice for medium-sized companies that want to quickly introduce an ERP with a wide range of functions, provided that the product's business processes meet the company's functional requirements down to the last detail.
SAP Business ByDesign - strengths and limitations
For SMBs, especially SMEs, Business ByDesign offers strong ERP capabilities with some distinct advantages, including the following:
- Customers can implement SAP Business ByDesign relatively quickly
- SAP Business ByDesign is suitable for companies that work in parallel with GAAP, IFRS and other accounting standards.
- As a SaaS product, it has centralised update management
- The purebred cloud solution shifts IT maintenance away from your own company
Potential customers should also be aware of the limitations of SAP Business ByDesign:
- Although SAP Business ByDesign in finance is strong, it may not be mature enough in other areas to keep up with S4/HANNA
- There are relatively few add-ons to extend SAP Business ByDesign. The central control of updates always harbours the risk that the timing and scope are not coordinated with the extensions. This can be expensive and/or lead to malfunctions.
- SAP Business ByDesign cannot usually be customised. Although a certain amount of configuration is possible, the scope of the customizing there are limits.
SAP S/4 HANA more functions for the cloud
Even though SAP S/4HANA Cloud is less complex compared to other versions of the same product, it is still more complex than Business ByDesign. SAP Business ByDesign was developed for mid-sized companies that need the functionality of a high-end ERP, but without the immense range of configuration options available in S/4HANA.
The package that should be compared with SAP By Design is SAP S/4HANA Cloud: a highly standardised, multi-client-capable cloud service for selected sectors and industries. However, it has a larger and more comprehensive range of functions than SAP Business By Design. The cloud version of SAP S/4HANA has similar goals: extensive cloud standardisation, high scalability and rapid innovation with relatively low total cost of ownership.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud offers faster upgrade cycles: quarterly, as opposed to annually for the on-premise version. This has advantages and disadvantages: as a customer, you are always using the latest version, but you also have to live with the risks of software that has not yet been "tried and tested" in everyday use.
In terms of extensibility, there are clear limitations in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud compared to the other variants of the SAP ERP software. In principle, extensions can be implemented with the SAP S/4HANA Extensibility Framework or with the help of the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) via a API can be realised. The user has exclusive access to this system via SAP FIORI and thus via a web browser.
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