Some traditional ERP consultants and developers confused about the concepts of SAP Business ByDesign 2.6 and its new SDK?

Since becoming an SAP Business ByDesign (SAP ByD) partner, Skyytek (a company that has been deploying SaaS ERP solutions since 2003) has had the opportunity to interact with many third-party SAP developers, consultants, and business process people.

What we have discovered is that some SAP developers and consultants just do not get SaaS; consequently they think the old dynamics of on-premise deployment (with heavy customization) apply. 

SAP ByD (and many other SaaS multi-tenant ERP products on the market) is a completely different animal, to which the traditional methods of development and customization of a solution do not apply.  Deploying a SaaS ERP product empowers the customer to lower costs and increase efficiency at many levels and empowers the vendor to offer an affordable cloud-based solution.

The whole idea of a product like SAP ByD is to remove all technical aspects from a deployment.  In other words, the focus should be on business process and configuring the solution using the core product.  Any customizations that may be needed for a specific business are handled at the meta-layer level (either by purchasing an add-on or developing a unique customization) - versus changing the actual source code itself.  

So - a few advantages of this precedent emerge over traditional on-premise deployments:

• Generally easier to use
• Better UI's
• Better Analytics
• Extended quicker without changing source code
• Opens up opportunity for ISV's to marketplace their solutions
• SDK customization survivability (for the most part) during core product upgrade
• SDK prevents multiple versions of the core product existing for each customer

A word of warning though, to SaaS ERP vendors with a SDK!

Just because you have a SDK does not mean it will resolve all issues.  The usage and application of this SDK needs to be carefully handled - which leads us to some things to keep in mind: 

The whole idea of SaaS from a customer perspective

• Make things easier, not harder
• Reduce five year projected costs
• Less moving parts
• Have available marketplace solutions that are vertical - not so much horizontal

What might happen - if the vendor is not careful ?

NO NO #1- The publisher gets lazy and relies on the partner ecosystem to develop horizontal solutions (at a price).  For instance; if you are an eCommerce company which ships products, processes credit cards, captures leads on the web, and runs your own payroll - you could end up having to purchase the core product - along with a slew of add-ons!!!  This has the effect of negating the benefits of SaaS to a customer and in fact, can make things a lot more complex with more moving parts.

When dealing with ERP suite plays, the publisher should always strive for a great horizontal solution that covers the most basic needs of most businesses - hopefully at no extra cost !

NO NO #2- The ISV focuses on developing horizontal solutions.  Guess what?  If the vendor adopts NO NO #1 - then your solution will become obsolete - quickly.  Focus on vertical solutions.

To that end,  consultants and software developers may get a bit confused as to their role in SaaS ERP or be sceptical - however, it is not too different from what they do now except using different tools, a product that has only one version and using these tools to position their developed product as a add-on.   A move from a custom developer, if you like, to more of a "marketplace" developer.