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  • SAP works like it was built in the 90s. It's slow as fuck, doesn't have good export capability, the worst user interface I've ever worked with, and is the least flexible ERP system I've ever encountered.

    I'd rather work with a custom built ERP in Oracle SQL circa 2000 than I would with SAP - at least then, I could get a clean table export in less than 3 hours. I mean, Nav is shit, but SAP is diarrhea locked behind a paywall.

    Sorry, I know there's a big push towards non-US systems right now (which I support), but SAP is not a solution - it's just another way to make your employees hate their job.

    • SAP works like it was built in the 90s.

      That's because most of its core is.

      It's slow as fuck

      Highly depends on what you're doing and how much data you're processing but in general this is incorrect. SAP uses in-memory computing for quite some time and looking at the vast amounts of data that is often processed, it's pretty impressive from my perspective if you keep in mind that everything must be traceable and consistent at every point in time. I worked with SAP a lot and also with many newer competitors and can guarantee you, that the more recently developed solutions, aren't any better.

      doesn't have good export capability

      You have Excel/CSV exports almost everywhere and where you don't have it, you can still always access all the data you need from the database tables via SQL, data extractors etc. Maybe not perfect but Oracle, Navision, Workday etc. aren't better IMO.

      the worst user interface I've ever worked with

      The old 'dynpro' UIs are pretty ugly compared to today's standard. SAP is aware of that and offers a new UI technology ('Fiori') for more than a decade. It's still not perfect but they're working on it.

      is the least flexible ERP system I've ever encountered

      Excuse me the harsh wording, but this is complete bullshit. SAP ERP is literally open source software (not FOSS!). Even if you are in the rare situation that your requirement cannot be fulfilled with one of the official enhancement mechanisms (Business Add-In, user exit, BRF+, enhancement points, database appends, etc.) you can literally just look at all the source code and adapt it to your needs. How much more flexibility can you have?

      I'd rather work with a custom built ERP

      If you are in a rather small company, I can get that sentiment. But in big corporations, building and maintaining everything yourself is just not an option in a world where legal and market requirements are constantly changing.

      I can understand when people don't love SAP. It's not perfect by any means. But I also don't understand why it's sometimes hated like here. I've been in several evaluations for ERP systems where it won against plenty of competitors. It definitely is a pretty flexible and powerful solution for big companies.

      • But I also don’t understand why it’s sometimes hated like here. I’ve been in several evaluations for ERP systems where it won against plenty of competitors.

        It really comes down to ease of use. For instance, I can get excel exports off of the financial reports I run from SAP. But the report takes an hour to run, and only specific subsections are exportable. The amount of data its parsing is maybe about 100k rows.

        In comparison, I have worked with a custom Oracle ERP built circa 2005 - this is what I was directly comparing SAP to. It had easily 10x the amount of data as the SAP system I work with now, and was not only managing inventory for 100+ stores across multiple countries, but was dynamically pricing and shipping them from the drop-shipper with the best price. Longest time for a report parsing 1mil rows was 10 minutes (via Quicksight - and that was dynamic draw, cached was drastically quicker).

        Even the oldest system I worked with, a COBOL based system called AMS, could pull reports quicker than the SAP I'm forced to use now.

        In comparison to Nav - any report is laid out fully exportable in under five minutes, usually less. If I have proper access in Nav, I can go straight to the core tables within the interface itself. There's drag and drop capability. ODBC connections are a breeze - every version of SAP I've worked with has had them locked down (this may be an admin issue rather than architecture, I admit here).

        That being said, each install of SAP is its own beast - I've heard the system is extremely customizable, and it's likely my current workplace is on an older version (because holy fuck does the interface suck - who the fuck thought a clock icon was good choice to run a report?). And I've only used it as an analyst / end-user.

        But if I had the chance to never work with it again, I'd jump at it in a heartbeat.

      • Thank you for your comment

    • Thank you for your feedback. I've seen Odoo mentioned in another comment, do you have any experience with it?

      • I don't with Odoo - looks promising, though.

        I do have a lot of experience with open source CMS and e-commerce software - what I would recommend if you go this path is to ensure you have an in-house developer to make up for a lower level of support you'll have access to. The challenge with using open source as part of a business system is that it almost always involves more hands-on maintenance, and often doesn't have long-term support available.

        For instance, Drupal can likely do most of what you're looking at SAP to do, but it's not an easy system to build with, and would likely rely on other modules (like Magento) to get you to where you really need to go - and each module / plugin you add decreases stability. Joomla is easier to work with, but less stable and requires even more plugin maintenance.

        Ultimately, I'd say your decision really depends on scale. If you're a company with less than 100 employees, open source is usually a good bet if you've got a good in-house dev who can scale up the system as your company grows. If your company is larger with established revenue and business processes, then it's usually wiser to look at a commercial solution.

        The other thing to consider is what you actually want to do with your ERP. If you're looking primarily at content management and e-commerce, open source will likely have the stronger software packages. If you're looking at a traditional business model, where you're looking for extensive inventory management from multiple locations, then I'd probably recommend a closed source solution - Dynamics Nav over SAP (despite Nav's headaches, it is a better system). Open source does great on the web, but since most open-source devs got their start in e-commerce, it tends to lag in supporting traditional business models.

    • It's pretty bad, but it's still so much better than AccountEdge. I hated using SAP, but AE is worse in every single way.

    • It is funny cause I work in a company that use both SAP and a Oracle SQL db for finance data, and I totally agree with you i'm in the Oracle team and I'm soo happy not the be in the SAP team, asking them simple monthly export take few hours vs less than minutes in Oracle. Plus the interface looks horrible and you can't really access the underlying data outside of their shitty UI.

  • I don't work for SAP, but I've dealt with the software both as a user and an administrator quite a few times. It's horrible, but all the alternatives are even worse. ERP is not a particularly nice field of technology. Corporate loves it though.

  • Odoo is the best alternative out there. It is developed by a Belgian company, but it is entirely Open Source and allows you to self-host it in order to completely own your data and avoid having to depend on a provider, even if European.

  • My company doesn't use SAP directly but we have several customers who do, and our accounting department complains every time they have to go into SAP Arriba and setup a new supplier account.

28 comments