SAP AG Corporate Overview
30,000 - Total number of people employed by SAP
5,400 - Number of programmers employed by SAP
$7.024 billion - FY03 Revenue
$1.077 million - FY03 Net Income
12,000 - Number of companies using SAP
79,800 - Number of SAP installations
12,000,000 - Number of people using SAP
120,000,000 - Total number of people in the 12,000 companies who are using SAP
28 - Number of languages supported by SAP
46 - Number of country-specific versions of SAP
22 - Number of industry-specific versions of SAP
1,000 - Number of pre-defined best practices contained in the SAP system
10,000 - Number of tables requiring configuration in a full SAP implementation
55,000 - Number of SAP experienced consultants worldwide
28 - Number of years ago SAP was started
5 - Number of people who started SAP
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In the past when people were discussing SAP, the conversation very quickly boiled down to modules, for example:
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SAP training courses were structured along SAP module lines so that you would attend SAP MM 101, 102 and 103. While at the course you would learn many things about MM, but not much about the rest of the SAP system and how SAP MM fits into it.
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A conversation with a SAP recruiter might go something like this:
Recruiter … "which SAP Modules do you work with?"
Candidate … "well, I have a lot of purchasing process experience"
Recruiter … "yes, but which SAP Modules do you work with?"
Candidate … "well, it's purchasing functionality … so that would be, umm, SAP MM, SAP FI and SAP CO mainly"
Recruiter … "great I have just the job for you"
Candidate … "fantastic, is it purchasing?"
Recruiter … "well it says here that they want an MM, FI and CO person and that's you, right?"
Not necessarily! A MM, FI, CO role might include Inventory Management (MM), Accounts Receivable (FI) and Profitability Analysis (CO) – none of which a purchasing person is guaranteed to have
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Many programme teams were organised along SAP module lines, so that you would have a FI/CO, an MM and a HR team, for example. Training courses were (therefore) often prepared and delivered along SAP module lines too. The result of this was that solutions were frequently optimised along SAP module lines, and less often well integrated, and as for users, well, they were pretty much trained up in a SAP module and left to get on with it post go-live. Fortunately those days are mostly passed, and more and more programmes (from design to build to training) are being organised along process lines such as:
Order to Cash (including parts of SD, FI-AR and probably TY as well)
Purchase to Pay (including MM-Purchasing and FI-AP)
Record to Report (FI-GL etc)
SAP now are moving away from describing their system as a set of SAP Modules, and now are using the term 'solutions', which is much better, as follows:
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Financials
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Human Resources
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Customer Relationship Management
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Supplier Relationship Management
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Product Lifecycle Management
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Supply Chain Management
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Business Intelligence