SAP

SAP is the world's leading provider of collaborative e-business

solutions. With 56,000 installations serving 10 million users at 18,800
organizations in 120 countries across the globe, SAP ranks as the
world's third-largest independent software provider.

SAP has been in the business of e-business for 30 years. Founded in

1972 by five former IBM systems engineers, SAP now employs more
than 28,900 people in more than 50 countries. The company began
trading publicly in 1988.

The company is headquartered in Walldorf, Germany, with U.S.

operations headquarters located in Newtown Square, PA.Founded in
1972, SAP is the recognized leader in providing collaborative e-
business solutions for all types of industries and for every major
market. SAP is the world's largest inter-enterprise software company,
and the world's third-largest independent software supplier overall.
SAP employs over 28,909 people in more than 50 countries.

Most prominent among SAP's product range are the enterprise

application suites R/2 and R/3: R/2 applications for the mainframe
environment and the more recent R/3 applications for open
client/server applications. With both R/2 and R/3, SAP customers can
choose to install the core system and one or more of the component
sub-systems, or purchase the software as a complete package.

With over 1,000 business processes and applications built into the
software, SAP R/3 can integrate a company's entire organization. A
company's business information is shared real-time with employees,
suppliers and distributors – whether the company has 50 employees
or 100,000.

As mentioned earlier, SAP's R/3 (and R/2) applications are composed

of several tightly integrated components called modules. Some of the
more common SAP R/3 modules are:

FI (Financial Accounting): collects all corporate data relevant to

accounting, providing complete documentation and up-to-the minute
information for enterprise-wide control and planning.

CO (Control): compatible planning and control instruments for

company-wide controlling systems, with a uniform reporting system
for coordinating contents and procedures of a company's internal
processes.
PP (Product Planning): provides comprehensive processes for all
types of manufacturing, from repetitive, make-to-order, through
process, lot and make-to-stock manufacturing, to integrated supply
chain management.

MM (Materials Management): optimizes all purchasing processes

with work-flow driven processing functions, enabling automated
supplier evaluation, lowering procurement and warehousing costs
with accurate inventory and warehouse management.

SD (Sales and Distribution): supports sales and distribution

activities with outstanding functions for pricing, prompt order
processing, on-time delivery and interactive multilevel variant
configuration.

HR (Human Resources Management): provides solutions for

planning and managing a company's human resources, simplifying
personnel management tasks.

QM (Quality Management): monitors, captures and manages all

processes relevant to a company's quality assurance, coordinating
inspections, initiating corrective actions and integrating laboratory
information systems [SAP].
SAP Labs Locations:

There are six labs of SAP worldwide:

 India
 Japan
 Israel
 Bulgaria
 France
 North America

Major Competitors

Although SAP has dominance in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

industry, many of SAP's competitors are trying to attack it by
specializing in a key functionality. Following are the major competitors
of SAP:

 Oracle
 PeopleSoft
 Baan
 J.D. Edwards,
Bibliography:
www.sap.com
www.indiainfoline.com
www.netspace.org