BS innovations 2013 (BS7i2013)

Following an approach that started within Business Suite 7 in year 2010 as new set of features within BS are delivered in subsequent years as well. There is innovation marked BS7i2013 available. As there were no EhP (enhancement packages) released in 2012 there is no innovation of the year 2012. Following are particular SPs that are delivered as per these innovations in innovation of 2013:

SAP Business Suite 7 Innovations 2013: contains enhancement packages per different component:

SAP ERP – EhP 7

SAP SRM – EhP 3

SAP CRM – EhP 3

SAP SCM – EhP 3

Moreover with focus on HANA it includes HANA optimized applications like: SAP Incentive and Commission Management application; Virtual data model for demand Planning powered by HANA query in SCM; Sales-document monitoring accelerated by HANA; Embedded Analytics by leveraging Hana Live for different applications etc. As next there are more than 150 in-advance shipments. In case of UX there is big improvement due to SAP Fiori. Also in case of Fiori its Search and Factsheets capabilities are powered by HANA. There are new functionalities for commodity management and offer to cash and more.

To see full blown overview of all different Lines of Business vising SMP here.

BS7 i2010

B7 i??? What? What this code is all about? Let’s start with explanation of BS short. BS stands for Business Suite. This is more less clear for everybody who is involved in world of SAP. BS is SAP’s flagship software solution. It basically comprises of different applications covering all the functions of organizations. By those applications are meant following: ERP (ERP as it-self is called ECC (Enterprise Core Component) with all the components like: FI, CO, SD, LO, HR, LO) followed by SCM, CRM, SRM and PLM.

Where came number 7 from? Most likely it is a version number. Yes currently we have this most actual version. However speaking about the versions it is usually tricky coming to SAP software.

SAP Business Suite has so far following version:

• SAP Business Suite 2005 SR3 (SAP ERP 6.0 SR3, SAP CRM 5.0 SR3, SAP SRM 5.0 SR3, SAP SCM 5.0 SR3)
• SAP Business Suite 7 (SAP ERP 6.0 EHP4, SAP CRM 7.0, SAP SRM 7.0, SAP SCM 7.0) on SAP NetWeaver 7.0 with enhancement package 1

So far all clear I assume. So what is this small in followed by version no 7? It actually stands for innovations. Therefore you can came across following more version of SAP Business Suite:

• SAP Business Suite 7i 2010 (SAP ERP 6.0 EHP5, SAP CRM 7.0 EHP1, SAP SRM 7.0 EHP1, SAP SCM 7.0 EHP1) on SAP NetWeaver 7.0 with enhancement package 2
• SAP Business Suite 7i 2011 (SAP ERP 6.0 EHP6, SAP CRM 7.0 EHP2, SAP SRM 7.0 EHP2, SAP SCM 7.0 EHP2) on SAP NetWeaver 7.0 with enhancement package 3

You might be curios what are those innovations within SAP Business Suite? To explore them follow shortcut link /findinnovation on SMP.

Generally speaking BS is just umbrella term for applications that are (see above) included in BS.

From technical point of view you always have to see what are versions of applications/components and what version of NetWeaver it is powered on.

Regarding “innovation” point of view BS includes all the new functionalities which are being delivered via Enhancement Package strategy.

For online documentation of Business Suite refer here.

SAP Business Suite 7 – a different approach to upgrades?

Last week SAP announced new version of its flagship software Business Suite 7. Basically it is nothing new here since it is comprises just of the latest releases of the core applications (SAP Enhancement package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0, SAP CRM 7.0, SAP SRM 7.0, SAP PLM 7.0, SAP SCM 7.0) and the SAP NetWeaver 7.0 as technology platform.

What is interesting here is a quit rush atmosphere spread around this announcement; particular in terms of “new modular design” that allows customer to deploy modules (Enhancement Packages) step-by-step mode without big pain; means e.g. having a Big5 consultancy as system integrator. This atmosphere is forced by SAP AG’s CEO Leo Apotheker expression while blaming Big5 companies about propagating negative SAP perception because sending shoddy consultants on their SAP implementation projects. So possibly this is a new way of SAP implementation/upgrade would be in future. Some CIOs (e.g. of Roche) had expressed already that new synchronized release schedule is good for them and times of millions $ budget for system integrators are gone (see more here).