Given the fierce competition and the ever-soaring demands of customers, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) today need to invest in having BI capabilities to stay relevant and meet these demands. Yet, with scarce resources available, the alignment of business and IT is vital to ensure success, and new options for hosted BI solutions freeing up cash flow are attractive options for SMEs.
SMEs Run SAP – Myth 4: SAP is not Agile Enough
Picture3
The 4th and last post on our SAP Myth busting series, this article intends to show how SMEs can meet their need for speed with SAP.A bigger business is a better business. It’s a common assumption, but it’s not strictly true. Small to medium-sized businesses (SMEs) have a number of advantages over their larger counterparts. Their size is often their strength – it makes them agile. In fact, most SMEs we speak to pride themselves on this. They can respond faster to changes in the market and take advantage of new insight and opportunities faster than larger organizations.
To capitalize on their agility, SMEs need systems that play to this strength. Unfortunately, some SMEs get bogged down by manual processes. They rely on off-the-shelf software that doesn’t quite meet their needs and depend on spreadsheets for their business intelligence. All these things slow their businesses down and mean they’re more likely to miss opportunities. In this environment, executives often resort to making important decisions on a gut feeling rather than the latest data.
That’s why it’s always a surprise to hear an SME wondering if SAP software will slow them down. Maybe the perception is that SAP software is only for enterprise organizations, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s another business myth. Rather than slow these businesses down, SAP helps them become more agile and able to capitalize on opportunities faster.
Clariba has helped companies streamline their internal reporting processes, arriving in a particular case to an 80% reduction in the time it took to produce monthly internal reports. We also allow organizations reduce reliance on manual data, improving reporting accuracy, reducing errors and promoting decisions based on solid information rather than just gut feeling.
More importantly, we have the expertise to speed up the implementation process, so that your company can start enjoying the benefits of an SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence solutions in a short time frame. Furthermore, if you are worried about the impact the change will have over your employees, Clariba has best-in-class trainers, with years of experience, ready to help your employees make the transition from a spreadsheet based organization to the innovative and integrated information hub they will soon benefit from.
Contact us to discover how much SAP and Clariba can deliver to your company.
SMEs Run SAP - Myth 1: You Have to be Big to Work with SAP
Myths and misnomers litter the business world. All small businesses are agile, all enterprises are big corporate entities, sales figures are the most important, customers will always buy the best product. As we all know, these don’t stand up to scrutiny. Some large businesses are agile, some small businesses aren’t, cash flow is more important than sales and the best product isn’t always the most popular. Business people can’t afford to make assumptions and to blindly follow these misconceptions. That’s why we do our research and base decisions on facts. We started a series of blog post about myths that surround SAP, the platform that Clariba chose to bring Business Intelligence (BI) to our customers. This first one intends to explain why you DON´T have to be an enterprise to work with SAP and SAP BusinessObjects.
SMEs can run SAP
SAP actually works with a client base composed by a majority of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). SAP software combined with Clariba´s implementation expertise allows them to automate processes and gain valuable insight into their businesses. By doing this, these businesses take assumptions out of the equation – it means that instead of relying on anecdotal evidence, they work with the facts. The result is they find it easier to spot opportunities and identify areas to improve.
However, before these businesses start dealing with the facts, they often need to challenge another set of preconceptions. One Clariba comes across frequently is that SAP only works with enterprise organizations. But this isn’t the case. More than 77% of SAP’s customers are SMEs. That’s about 88,000 businesses! What’s more, SAP has been working with SMEs for nearly 40 years. As a result, the company understands the unique challenges they face and the tools they need to grow.
Clariba´s work is to translate that to the customers, helping them match their requirements to the best SAP tool available. Our audits help SME´s to get an idea of where they are in terms of their BI environment and the benefits they could enjoy with Clariba and SAP:
our accessible pre-packaged solutions allows for rapid deployment
streamline processes by automating reporting tasks
improve data quality, reducing misleading information that leads to poor decision making
uncover hidden facts and make insights available to take the best course of action
help small companies improve management of different departments
If you are an SME and want to know more about SAP Solutions, contact us.