
Ask HN: How to Beat SAP? - _1tan
Everyone hates it, still many CTOs buy it. How would you solve industry specific ERP?
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ThePhysicist
I would not focus on trying to replace SAP (which, to be honest, is nearly
impossible for a startup) but to find ways to improve it or profit from its
ecosystem.

For example, Celonis is a German startup with a >1BN€ valuation that started
by mining business processes from SAP systems to tell their customers how they
could improve their practices and save money. SAP could've done this
themselves of course but they ignored this market entirely, giving Celonis a
chance to grab it (now they're partnering with them). I'm sure there are many
other areas where you can create tremendous business value from the data in
SAP, which SAP doesn't pursue due to them being too "niche" for them or due to
ignorance. So I'd say find one of these cases and build an MVP around it,
which is more realistic than writing a full-blown ERP anyway given your
probably constrained resources.

~~~
thiago_fm
Read what this guy is saying. There is also other companies which profit from
the SAP ecosystem, selling commerce solutions(Hybris, now bought by SAP,
called SAP commerce) etc.

Just do something that is neatly integrated with SAP that other companies
would love to buy and you have possibly a good customer base already.

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mdorazio
You seem to be working under the assumption that SAP is the only ERP game in
town. This is not the case. There are, in fact, a ridiculous number of ERP
solutions, most of them operating within a specific niche. Do a search for
[industry of interest] ERP and take a look at the results.

Also, as a side note: CTOs buy Oracle and SAP because they are large,
established companies with a whole suite of offerings, a service ecosystem,
integration partners, an enterprise sales cycle, etc. etc. Not because they
are necessarily the best possible fit for a particular use case.

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nocubicles
I have worked as SAP consultant for most of my working life. Now lately I have
changed carees and doing programming full time.

I think from techology point of view SAP definitely can be challenged and
better product could be produced.

But all those business processes, edge cases, compliances with regulations.
Thats what makes beating SAP difficult.

If somebody is thinking of creating ERP related products I would be interested
in talking about it.

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CyberFonic
SAP, Oracle, IBM are purchased by CTOs because they have comfort that they are
dealing with "big enough companies to understand their enterprise needs" \-
which translates to "the sales reps have big expense accounts and wine and
dine me". I have worked with all of the above vendors and I have seen that so
much of the marketing budget goes towards "entertainment", junkets,
conferences, etc.

Besides buying from a big vendor makes them look good in the eyes of their
credulous board. There is too much risk in being blamed for buying from an
"unproven vendor".

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BjoernKW
This is a highly complex subject that - among other aspects - involves
enterprise sales, the peculiarities that come with it and the inherent
complexity and variation within larger companies and different industries.

If you really want to do this the key word for a solution here is "industry-
specific". A huge part of why SAP ERP is such a complex beast is that it needs
to accommodate each industry and each edge case.

An industry-specific ERP system could ignore that and focus on the particular
requirements of a specific industry, which if properly executed should result
in a much better UX.

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e2e4
Great Question. Would love to know the answer.

A major hurdle is providing 10+ of the typical ERP modules. E.g. production
module (PLM) needs access to sales/CRM module (so that it proceed with
ordering necessary materials etc. or plan for it in case of CRM); to do so it
needs access to the procurement module, and accounting one; HR (so you can
schedule workers), and things just keeps adding up. E.g. here are some of the
typical ERP modules: Human Resource, Inventory, Sales & Marketing, Purchase,
Finance & Accounting, Customer Relationship Management(CRM), Engineering/
Production, Supply Chain Management (SCM), etc. (e.g.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_resource_planning#/...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_resource_planning#/media/File:ERP_Modules.png)
)

The tricky part is that there aren't many standard modules used; probably with
the exception of the accounting (Quickbooks, Xero); e.g. some companies
bootstrap on top of accounting modules: *
[https://www.mrpeasy.com/xero/](https://www.mrpeasy.com/xero/) *
[https://www.mrpeasy.com/quickbooks/](https://www.mrpeasy.com/quickbooks/)

I'd love to hear any ideas of how the hurdle of needing to provide large
number of integrated modules could be overcome.

