SAP still pushing for growth in the mid-market

After watching a recent tennis tournament and getting blasted with SAP commercials I had to do a bit more research and read some feedback. Most of the commercials were focused on the mid-sized business market which I happen to have my hands on an implementation of this size currently.

I am not a manufacturing guru by any means or a SAP whiz either but I have a fair understanding of both. I have worked with and evaluated several ERP packages in my time and spent part of my career in manufacturing \ consulting.

The only question I would like anyone to give me an answer to is; What is your return on investment for implementing SAP?

I still have never had anyone sit down and show me. Show me how a $100 Million dollar manufacturer will get their money out of this investment? What I have witnessed is it can be if implemented correctly, very effective in large corporations where you would have X, Y or Z ERP package anyway.

But how does that mid-sized company benefit? After research I have found that aside from the high cost of the software\hardware you also have sky rocketing fee’s for consulting and training since your in house staff cannot get it done. I have read about instances where SAP will actually increase headcount. I have noticed that reports do not show the increase in staffing\recruiting fee’s to hire people with SAP experience which can add up to 20% extra  in compensation for a single person. Then if you hire someone without SAP experience you have to deal with the training and learning aspect which can take up to 3 months because it is not the easiest system to learn.

Now I know you will say you will have those problems with any ERP package but that is not correct. I have used other ERP systems that are much simpler to implement, train and cost far less.

So when it is all said and done and you have spent 1,2,5+ million on SAP, hardware, training, consulting, add on programs to do all the things SAP cannot do and pay for more skilled workers, where does SAP make up for all of those costs and save you money?

Does anyone know?

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