What the heck is SAP?

Before we even begin to delve further into the core of the SAP, we need to ask ourselves the main question. What is SAP? Does it stands for "Sistem Ayah Pin"? Or could it be a "Systemic Abundance of Pain"? Call it what you may, but in reality, it stands for "Systems, Applications and Products". Well not exactly correct. The original acronym should be something in the German language which I don't bother to find out.

Personally to me, SAP is a "System that caters All Possibilities". Before knowing SAP, I'm just like any other software developer who prefers to code stuff from scratch, or use some open-source stuff like PHP or MYSQL to develop software like say, An Asset Management System. But after a few hours of introduction to SAP, I knew that my "Homegrown" system is far more inferior than what SAP has to offer.

For example, my Asset Mgmt System only provides the usual Asset system like asset tracking, registration, preventive maintenance etc. But SAP, not only provides that, but the whole system is tightly integrated with Financial Elements, heck even HR is tightly integrated with it's asset system. Hell, after browsing the SAP solutions website, I knew, the project that I'm involved in only caters a small portion of the complete solution of SAP. We're just using the standard mySAP ERP solution + SEM BW stuff whereas, SAP provides more, including Product Lifecycle Management and Even CRM. I mean with the right customization, I'm pretty sure SAP can do my laundry too!

But with all greatness comes a flaw. Like Superman who's vulnerable to Kryptonite, SAP is so complex that when I first started in this project, I was completely blur! To make matter worst, SAP consultant like to use short-code. Stuff like FI, CO, MM, SD, PM, PS, HR is assumed to be well known to the uninitiated public! I will elaborate further on this in my future posting. For know, let's just assume that SAP is a world of jargon.

Anyway, to sum up the above, SAP is complete integrated solutions that covers the whole spectrum of Enterprise Applications, be it Back Office ERP Functions, or Customer-Facing CRM and Product Lifecycle Mgmt system. There. What a mouthful.