Executive Summary

  • This is the Brightwork Research & Analysis software rating series.
  • We rate both the software and estimate the risk of implementing each application.

MUFI Rating & Risk for SAP BusinessOne

MUFI: Maintainability, Usability, Functionality, Implement ability

Vendor: SAP (Select For Vendor Profile)

Introduction

SAP Business One is SAP’s midmarket solution. The application has over 30,000 customers. In March 2002, SAP purchased TopManage Financial Systems, an Israeli developer of business applications, and branded their system as SAP Business One. Therefore SAP Business One was not actually developed by SAP and has no connection to SAP ERP ECC, although SAP often attempts to obscure this point when they pitch SAP ECC along with SAP Business One as part of a two-tiered ERP strategy. SAP Business One uses a completely different infrastructure and has a different heritage.

SAP Business One has a clean interface, and unlike SAP ERP is very easy to navigate. While it has clearly been given the SAP blue-grey and royal blue color scheme, it feels much more nimble and usable.

Inventory Transfer

SAP Business One can perform transactions like inventory transfer much more easily than in SAP ERP. Notice the navigation pane to the left is extremely easy to follow and to find what one is looking for.

Trial Balance

When doing things like requesting reports, SAP Business One does a nice job of placing many options in a small space.

Item Master Inventory

SAP Business One places inventory data, purchasing data and planning data all right with the item master data. This is an important feature of enterprise software, which is the ability to view related data on one screen. SAP Business One excels this, and it is a consistent feature of the user interface.

SAP Business One MRP

SAP Business One does not have a great deal of planning functionality, but what it does have is easy to find and easy to initiate. However, it’s very difficult for us to recommend using the planning functionality of any ERP system. The company simply loses too much in term of the quality of the planning output. While buyers will often propose that they are running an efficient business by relying upon ERP, we have yet to see any company using an ERP system solely to plan at an efficient level.

Overall, SAP Business One is the best product in SAP’s stable of products – something that would probably surprise a lot of people. It is also one of the few SAP products that are available at an appealing price.

MUFI Scores

All scores out of a possible 10.

MUFI Scores

Search for the vendor in this table using the search bar in the upper right of the table. Shortening Key: 
  • Ma. = Maintainability
  • Us. = Usability
  • Fu. = Functionality
  • Im. = Implementability

Vendor and Application Risk

SAP Business One is a relatively straightforward application to implement, which assumes a higher risk as SAP owns it.

Likelihood of Implementation Success

This accounts for both the application and vendor-specific risk. In our formula, the total implementation risk is application + vendor + buyer risk. The buyer specific risk could increase or decrease this overall likelihood and adjust the values that you see below.

Likelihood of Application Implementation Success and Failure

Estimates are for a typical project. A specific implementation requires details from the project to make a project-specific estimate.

Search for the application in this table using the search bar in the upper right of the table.

Risk Definition

See this link for more on our categorizations of risk. We also offer a Buyer Specific Risk Estimation as a service for those that want a comprehensive analysis.

Risk Management Approach

There are no special activities required for managing the risk of an SAP Business One implementation.

Finished With Your Analysis?

To go back to the Software Selection Package page for the Small and Medium ERP software category. Or go to this link to see other analytical products for SAP Business One.

References