SAP Modules Defined

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What is SAP?

SAP was founded in 1972 as System analyse und Programmentwicklung by five

former IBM engineers in Mannheim, Germany (Dietmar Hopp, Hans-Werner
Hector, Hasso Plattner, Klaus Tschira, and Claus Wellenreuther). The acronym
was later changed to stand for Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der
Datenverarbeitung ("Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing").

In 1976 "SAP GmbH" was founded and the following year it moved headquarters
to Walldorf. SAP AG became the company's official name after the 2005 annual
general meeting. SAP is the largest business application and Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP) solution vendor and one of the biggest software provider in terms
of revenue in the world.

SAP's products focus on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), which it helped to

pioneer. The company's main product is mySAP ERP. The name of its
predecessor, SAP R/3 gives a clue to its functionality: the "R" stands for realtime
data processing and the number 3 relates to a 3-tier architecture: database,
application server and client (SAPgui). R/2, which ran on a Mainframe
architecture, was the first SAP version.

Other major product offerings include Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO),
Business Information Warehouse (BW), Customer Relationship Management
(CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Supplier Relationship Management
(SRM), Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS), Product Lifecycle
Management (PLM), Exchange Infrastructure (XI), Enterprise Portal (EP) and SAP
Knowledge Warehouse (KW). The APO name has been retired and rolled into
SCM. The BW name (Business Warehousing) has now been rolled into the SAP
NetWeaver BI (Business Intelligence) suite and functions as the reporting
module.

The company also offers a new technology platform, named SAP NetWeaver
which replaces SAP Business Connector for Integration/middleware capabilities
and offers a systematic approach to Enterprise SOA solutions with a collection of
products. While its original products are typically used by Fortune 500 companies,
SAP is now also actively targeting small and medium sized enterprises (SME) with
its SAP Business One and SAP All-in-One.

SAP officials say there are over 100,600 SAP installations serving more than
38,000 companies in more than 120 countries, which are used by more than 12
million people in more than 120 countries.

SAP holds a partnership with Hewlett-Packard. This partnership will expand

around new services linked to NetWeaver and Enterprise SOA (service-oriented
architecture). The software infrastructure for business applications developed by
SAP is to be upgraded by Hewlett-Packard. One of the services to be upgraded is
the Discovery System which was launched by SAP earlier this year. Among other
services there are assessment, government and architecture for R3.
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An introduction to SAP R/3

SAP R/3 is a standard business application software system that integrates all
business processes and systems into one seamless and efficient framework.

SAP's R/3 is the world's most-used standard business software for client/server
computing

SAP R/3 is scalable and highly suited for many types and sizes of organizations.
The software is highly customizable. SAP’s development language is ABAP and
can be programmed across different platforms i.e. UNIX and Windows.

SAP R/3 is arranged into distinct functional modules, covering the typical
functions in place in an organization. The most widely used modules are
Financials and Controlling (FICO), Human Resources (HR), Materials Management
(MM), Sales & Distribution (SD), Production Planning (PP)

Terminology

Configuration - This is when the system is configured to meet the needs of the
business by using existing data.

Customising - This is when the system is customised or adapted to meet the

business requirements which is the process of mapping SAP into the clients
business process.

Functional Consultant - A functional FICO consultant evaluates the customer

requirements, works with business models to transform them into logical and
technical views. The functional consultant then customises/configures the
respective business area and makes sure the system works well in line with the
requirements. Functional consultants also prepare proper guidelines that allow
other consultants to do further changes.

Technical Consultant (ABAPER, Programmer, developer)- SAP FICO Technical

consultant may be an ABAPER, who has lack of knowledge of FICO configuration
and functional knowledge and is better suited for technical jobs e.g. reports
development, testing, debugging, coding.

Support - 1st and 2nd line support, fielding calls and resolving issues and
requests.

ABAP/4 Programming Language

ABAP (Advanced Business Application Programming) ABAP is a high level

programming language created specifically by SAP. Released in 1992. In 1999
SAP released an object-orientated extension to ABAP called ABAP objects along
with R/3 release 4.5, SAP’s most recent development platform, Net weaver,
supports both ABAP and Java.

Main ABAP tools for an ABAPER:

Reports (Classical, Interactive and ALV Reports)

Module pool programming
BDC's (session method, call transaction method)
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SAP Script
LSMW
SMART FORMS
BAPI/RFC
Business Add-Ins (BaDI)
User Exits
Data Dictionary

Core modules in SAP

FI CO (Finance and Controlling)

SD (Sales and distribution)

MM (Material Management)

PP (Production Planning)

HR (Human Resources)

SAP FI/CO

FI - Finance. Designed for automated management and external reporting of

general ledger, accounts receivable and accounts payable and other sub ledger
accounts with a user defined chart of accounts.

CO - Controlling. Represents the company's flow of cost and revenue. It is a

management instrument for organizational decisions. It too is automatically
updated as events occur.

Finance submodules

FI-AA: Asset Accounting

FI-AR: Accounts Receivable
FI-AP: Accounts Payable
FI-BL: Bank Accounting
FI-GL: General Ledger
FI-LC: Consolidation
FI-SL: Special Purpose Ledger
FI-FM: Funds Management
FI-TR: Treasury

Controlling submodules

CO-PA: Profitable analysis

CO-OM: Overhead Costing (cost centers, Activity based costing, internal Order
Costing)
CO-PC: Product cost controlling
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SAP SD

SD - Sales and Distribution. Helps to optimize all the tasks and activities
carried out in sales, delivery and billing.

Sales and Distribution sub modules:

Pre-sales support
Inquiry processing
Quotation processing
Sales order processing
Delivery processing
Billing
Sales information system

SAP MM

MM - Material Management. Supports the procurement and inventory functions

occurring in day-to-day business operations such as:

Material Management sub modules:

Purchasing
Inventory management
Reorder point processing, etc.

SAP PP

PP - Production Planning. Used to plan and control the manufacturing activities

of a
company.

Production Planning sub modules:

Bills of material
Work centres
Sales and operations planning
Master production scheduling
Material requirements planning
Shop floor control
Production orders
Product costing, etc.

SAP HR

HR - Human Resources. Complete integrated system for supporting the

planning and
control of personnel activities and HR module is sometimes equivalently referred
as HCM
(Human Capital Management).
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Human Resources sub modules:

HR-PA Personnel Administration

HR-PD Personnel Development
HR-RC Recruitment
HR-PY Payroll
HR-TM Time Management
HR-HCM Human Capital Management
HR-ESS Employee Self Services

Mysap - ERP New Dimension Products

BW or BIW (Business Warehouse or Business Information Warehouse)

CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

SCM (Supply Chain Management)

APO (Advanced Planning and Optimising)

SAP BW

For the modern enterprise, time wasted due to data loss and inconsistencies is
unacceptable, particularly when this can often be remedied easily through the use
of a data warehouse system. SAP introduced Business Warehouse Information
Systems (BW) in 1997.

SAP’s BW information model is based on the core building block of InfoObjects

which are used to describe business processes and information requirements.
They provide basis for setting up complex information models in multiple
languages, currencies, units of measure, hierarchy, etc.

The key elements in the SAP’s BW information model are:

DataSources –DataSources are flat data structures containing data. They are
responsible for extracting data.

InfoSources - are the group of InfoObjects that belong together from a business
point of view. It contains the transactional data obtained from the transactions in
online transactional processes (OLTP) and master data such as addresses of
customers and organizations, which remain unchanged for longer time period.

ODS Objects - which is formed as a result of merging data from one or more
info sources. In it information is stored in the form of flat, transparent database
tables that are used for preparing reports and quality assurance purposes.

InfoCubes - InfoCubes are multidimensional data storage containers for

reporting and analysis of data.

InfoProviders - InfoProviders refer to all the data objects that are present in the
SAP BW systems.
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MultiProviders - MultiProviders do not contain any data and are used to

combine data from different info providers. Their main purpose is to make this
data accessible for reports and analysis.

MySAP CRM

CRM (customer relationship management) Is an information industry term

for methodologies, software, and usually Internet capabilities that help an
enterprise manage customer relationships in an organized way.

CIC (Customer Interaction Centre) With its extensive call center functionality,
the Customer Interaction Center enables agents to provide a high level of
customer service, to handle incoming and outgoing calls and emails, to analyze
problems and find solutions quickly and effectively. The Customer Interaction
Center can be implemented in numerous scenarios such as the Service
Interaction Center, telesales and Telemarketing.

CRM Mobile Sales This supports field staff by recording orders, checking the
availability of goods, providing access to customer information and monitoring the
status of customer orders. It also allows field staff to enter information about the
customer into the system and thereby make this information available to other
staff both inside and outside the company. Assisting the organization to improve
telesales, account, and sales management by optimizing information shared by
multiple employees, and streamlining existing processes (for example, taking
orders using mobile devices, handheld computers.

CRM Marketing Helping an enterprise to enable its marketing departments to

identify and target their best customers, manage marketing campaigns with clear
goals and objectives, and generate quality leads for the sales team.

Netweaver

SAP NetWeaver is an application builder platform from SAP for integrating

business processes across various systems, databases and sources. It is the
technological foundation of all SAP products.

SAP NetWeaver is marketed as a service-orientated application and integration

platform (i.e. SAP NetWeaver is the interface between SAP applications)

It furthermore integrates with and can be extended using various technologies,

some of which you will see as Microsoft, .NET, Sun, Java EE and IBM Websphere.
SAP is fostering relationships with system integrators and technology providers,

many of the latter becoming "Powered by SAP Netweaver". The strong

momentum illustrates the power SAP holds over the market for packaged
software solutions.

SAP Netweaver can be seen as part of SAP's plan to transition to a new

architecture. From a technical point of view, one can say that SAP NetWeaver is
an evolution of mySAP technology, also known as simply SAP.
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NetWeaver's release is considered a strategic move by SAP for driving enterprises

to run their independent business applications on a single SAP platform. The list
of products you will hear of are:
SAP Web Application Server (Web AS), SAP exchange, SAP Exchange
Infrastructure (XI), SAP Enterprise Portal, SAP Master Data Management (MDM)
SAP mobile infrastructure (MI) SAP Business Information Warehouse, SAP
knowledge Warehouse (KW)

Industry Solutions (IS)

IS (Industry solutions) combines the SAP application modules and additional

industry-specific functionalities. As of February 2006, the following industry
specifc solutions are supported by SAP.

IS-Retail – Retail
IS-U – Utilities
IS-OIL – Oil
IS-A – Automotive
IS-ADEC – Aerospace and Defence
IS-AFS – Apparel and Footwear
IS-B – Banking
IS-HT – High Tech
IS- M – Media
IS-PS – Public Sector
IS-DFS – Defense and Security
IS-H – Hospital
IS-HER – Higher Education
IS-HSS – Hospitality Management
IS-REA – Recycling
IS-T – Telecommunications

BASIS

The SAP BC (Basis Components) is the root of the SAP Applications ERP software.
It provides the runtime environment for the rest of the R/3 Applications. It
ensures that applications are optimally integrated in the system environment.
The SAP Basis Components contains powerful tools such as CCMS (Computing
Center Management System) for easy system administration. It is also provides
the interfaces to the distribute system components and third-pary vendors (EDI,
RFC etc.).

PM - Plant Maintenance

Equipment servicing and rebuilding. These tasks affect the production plans.
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Portals/Enterprise - SAP R/3 Enterprise

Successor product to SAP R/3 (today: mySAP Enterprise Resource Planning).

Consists of a core (SAP R/3 Enterprise Core) and several extensions (SAP R/3
Enterprise Extensions), which are technically part of an add-on.

PS - Project System

On one hand, the market demands the development and production of new
products in ever shorter times. On the other hand, companies are forced to
reduce the costs for the development of new products by the growing pressure of
competition. Therefore, a process for research and development projects that is
both chronologically and organizationally perfect gains more importance .

The SAP Project System optimizes the business processes from project planning
through to carrying out the project and enables a project progress analysis. You
can plan, carry out and control projects in a target-orientated and a business
fashion.

QM - Quality Management

A quality control and information system supporting quality planning, inspection,

and control for manufacturing and procurement.

SEM - Strategic Enterprise Management

A suite of tools and processes that managers and executives can use to introduce
enterprise-wide, value-chain-orientated management practices. SAP SEM
provides an integrated, realtime overview of the performance of a company -

over and beyond its organisational structures. This enables managers to gauge -
and even increase - the value of their company.

SM - Solution Management

Management concept which ensures that SAP solutions have the services,
support, expertise and infrastructure they need to perform reliably at lowest cost
of ownership.

SRM - Supplier Relationship Management

mySAP Supplier Relationship Management (mySAP SRM) is a solution that

enhances and improves the processes previously covered by mySAP E-
Procurement. It enables companies to evaluate their procurement strategies,
connect up vendors and integrate them in the procurement process with mutual
benefit.
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WF - Workflow

Flow of structured or ad-hoc tasks including the organizational role and people as
well as business documents involved and along a business process. A computer-
supported workflow allows you to model, execute and control workflows, typically
with a graphical user interface. SAP has offered Web-enabled SAP Business
Workflow since SAP R/3 release 3.1 (today: mySAP Enterprise Resource
Planning).

WM - Warehouse Management

Subdivides the "Storage Location", which is used in the MM Module to define

inventory values by location, into "Storage Types" and then into "Storage Bins".
Control of stock to a physical level down to a warehouse bin. Placement and
removal rules can be configured, stock counts can be done.

XI - Exchange Infrastructure

SAP Exchange Infrastructure is a building block of SAP NetWeaver and runs on

SAP Web Application Server. Through the strength of its integration, SAP
Exchange Infrastructure enables a new breed of adaptive business solutions.

Different types of ERP

SAP, BAAN, JD Edwards, Oracle Financials, Siebel, PeopleSoft. Among all the
ERP’s most of the companies implemented or trying to implement SAP because of
number of advantages over other ERP packages.

Advantages and disadvantages of SAP ERP

Advantages
• ERP allows easier global integration (Barriers of currency exchange rates,
language, and culture can be bridged automatically)
• Updates only need to be done once to be implemented company wide
• Provides real-time information, reducing the possibility of redundancy
errors
• Creates a more efficient work environment making it easier for employees
to do their job which leads to effectiveness
• Vendors have past knowledge and expertise on how to best build and
implement a system
Disadvantages
• Locked into relationship by contract and manageability with vendor - a
contract can hold a company to the vendor until it expires and it can be
unprofitable to switch vendors if switching costs are too high
• Inflexibility- vendor packages may not fit a company's business model
exactly and customization can be very expensive
• Return on Investment may take too long to be profitable
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• SAP ERP implementations have a risk of project failure
• Expensive, very complex, demands highly trained staff, lengthy
implementation time.