Is SAP Business ByDesign Right for Me? Questions to ask yourself.
This is truly an exciting time to be a midsize business. Why? According to accountancy and business advisory firm BDO* midsize businesses in the UK grew faster and generated more profit growth in the last five years than the nation’s large and small companies combined. Read more of that report here. Then there’s the fact that British midsize companies created half a million jobs in the past 12 months and although they make up only around 0.5 per cent of all companies, they account for one third of all private sector revenue and jobs.
How are they doing it?
In many cases these fast-growing powerhouses are leveraging business software in the cloud to give them the leg up they need, using technologies that SMEs didn’t dare to dream of ten years ago.
Where once it was all about expensive on-premise software – cloud ERP has now broken through taking midsize business along with it. And head of the pack is Business ByDesign from SAP – a solution for the mid-market that is setting new standards.
Is SAP Business ByDesign right for me?
One of the first questions people ask is ‘Isn’t SAP too big and complex for us?’ The answer is a resounding no. Read more here. SAP Business ByDesign has been engineered with you in mind – it’s ideal for a midsize business with growth plans. Basically, it’s a solution in a box that does everything you want from the get go. You can customise it – our experts do this for clients all the time, but it’s USP is ease of use out of the box and of course ease of implementation – in some cases it can be ready to go in under 6 weeks.
Innovative new products
In addition – the SAP family of partners have been busy creating specialised options for your industry or line of business. SAP Certified Solutions allow you to choose from a wide range of packaged offers which include some exciting extras to help with specific problems. At InCloud Solutions we have created the Contract Utilities App or CUB which allows you to process complex billing requirements and there is more in the pipeline!
Plug in and go
SAP Business ByDesign is software as a service which means you access it via the internet or as we tend to call it – the cloud – and that brings a number of benefits. Not only can you access your data from wherever in the world you happen to be on any device but you also get automatic upgrades with no need for an IT team – that way you are always on the latest version and not falling behind.
Built for Growth
Fast growing midsize businesses like the solution because it is flexible and grows with them – you can add new users and open up functionality as you need it.
According to the IDC Info Brief “Using Cloud Capabilities for Competitive Advantage: How Small and Midsize Companies Worldwide Are Adopting Cloud Technology to Meet Key Business Goals,” cloud technology like this is now key to enabling companies to compete against much-larger enterprises. According to the report, 86.6% of midsize businesses worldwide are now taking advantage of the cloud.
So Where Do I Start?
If you have been asking yourself Is SAP Business ByDesign right for me then here are some questions to ask yourself.
- Is my turnover greater than £10 million and do I have more than 20 employees? (no-one will hold you to that, but it is a good starting point.)
- Am I looking to scale up or attract investment/be acquired in the next 5 years?
- Do I want a solution that can be implemented quickly?
- Do I need flexibility to add more users as I grow?
- Am I planning to expand to additional premises in the future?
- Will I need to comply with multiple sets of tax/accounting rules in different countries?
- Do I need to comply with complex health & safety laws?
- Do I want to automate functions like Finance, Warehousing, Production management, Procurement, Reporting, Analytics?
- Do I want a cloud product backed by a big name I can trust?
If you answered yes to all or many of these questions then you are well suited to SAP Business ByDesign and should certainly find out more about it. Start your digital transformation journey now by requesting a free demo here [email protected] or find out even more about how you can benefit from SAP Business By Design here.
BONUS TIP
Let me leave you with a bonus tip – Mid-market businesses wanting to scale and grow faster WILL need to get digital. But before you begin your search in earnest carefully define the business outcomes you want to achieve and then seek out the tech solutions that prove to be best fit. If you take this on board you’ll avoid mistakes.
* BDO’s latest New Economy report defines mid-sized businesses as privately owned businesses with a revenue of between £10m and £300m, private-equity o
