System Applications and Products or SAP is an immensely popular enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. It helps create a system where every department in the firm can share and access data with each other. This helps in increasing the efficiency of the firm as a whole and the various departments in the firm no longer find it hard to coordinate with each other. System Applications and Products is currently considered the highest-selling Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software on the market. An enterprise resource planning software itself helps in managing the various business functions like sales, marketing, production, etc from one place. System applications and products are one of the many enterprise resource planning software available on the market.

System applications and products are made by the SAP SE corporation. It is a German company based in Walldorf. It is responsible for creating a variety of enterprise software but is best known for the System Application and Products software. SAP SE is currently the world’s largest non-American software company and also the largest German company by market capitalization. Some of the more recent products by the company are SAP R/3 and R/3 Enterprise, SAP ERP, and SAP Solution Manager.

The path followed by companies is as follows-

1 – A client would contact the sales team of the company and ask about the availability of a given product.

2 – The sales team in turn would enquire with the team in charge of the inventory.

3 – If the given product is not in stock then the sales team would ask the production team to make the good(s).

4 – The team in charge of production would then enquire with the inventory team and see if the raw materials needed to manufacture the goods are present.

5 – If the needed raw materials are not available then the production will purchase the needed goods from various vendors.

6 – The production team then sends the goods to the shop floor team for production

7 – The shop floor team would then send the good(s) to the sales team.

8 – The sales team sells it to the client

9 – The sales notify the finance team regarding the revenue generated from the client.

10 – The departments facing any issue go to the human resources.

There are two ways in which a firm would manage its operations – centralized and decentralized. In decentralized firms’ data is maintained locally and is not shared with other departments. This has the potential to create chaos as there is no real-time collaboration among the departments at any time. Then there are the centralized managed firms.

Some of the benefits of using a software like SAP for each department are-

Finance – It helps in maintaining all the accounting data along with ledgers, payable cash, cash management, and budgeting.

Human Resources – It helps in managing the employees of the company and their numerous benefits.

Manufacturing – It helps in maintaining the manufacturing processes like work orders, scheduling, etc.

Supply Chain Management – It helps in maintaining the logistical process of the company like inventory, order entry, etc.

Customer Relationship Marketing – It helps in managing the company’s relationship with customers through marketing, promotions, etc.

The overall benefits that a firm has from having an ERP are promoting consistent practices in the entire company, no duplication of data, automated monitoring of projects, flexibility in reporting, standardization of business practices, making planning and scheduling of tasks significantly easier, creating transparency in job roles and enables easy integration with e-commerce sites.