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| Dean Mansfield |
Product Strategy: Simplified Suite on HANA and Business One
What I find most interesting in the SAP press release is its ambiguity on what products Mansfield will be selling into the SMB market. The first part of the announcement appears to be saying that SAP will target the SMB market with a cloud version of its Business Suite, though it does not say so explicitly:Mansfield will execute on a board strategy to redefine the SMB business solutions market by creating the next generation of simplified, integrated business applications powered by SAP HANA®, delivered via the cloud that will solve tomorrow's complex SMB business challenges.The announcement then explicitly mentions Business One (a separate system from SAP's Business Suite), which will continue to be sold and supported through partners. It also refers to a push to move those partner offerings to hosting on HANA, as a separate deployment option for SMBs:
In addition, Mansfield will lead the current SAP Business One application portfolio, which will continue to operate through the Global Partner Operations organization, and plans to accelerate the adoption of SAP Business One, version for SAP HANA, as well as the SAP Business One Cloud solution, version for SAP HANA.What's missing from the announcement? Any mention of SAP Business ByDesign (ByD).
This lack of clarity about the products that SAP will offer to SMBs was also picked up by one analyst in SAP's quarterly earnings call. Adam Wood from Morgan Stanley, noting that SAP appears to have deemphasized ByDesign, asked SAP CEO Bill McDermott what would be the main product focus in SAP going to market with SMBs.
McDermott responded, in part:
ByDesign is still part of our product portfolio and we now have ByDesign on SAP HANA, which is absolutely a game changer because everything is faster and better on HANA as you know. [Emphasis mine.]McDermott is a careful speaker, and his use of the word "still" is revealing. He wouldn't dream of saying, "The Business Suite is still part of our product portfolio," or "SAP HANA is still part of our product portfolio." The word "still," therefore, indicates that ByDesign is not part of SAP's core strategy.
McDermott continued:
We also believe strongly that Business One has been going through an indirect channel now and has proven itself to be a very successful, high growth, double-digit business with good margin. So we will continue that. But we also put B1 up on HANA in the Cloud and we go global and we think that can be a very serious category killer.So, this confirms the implication in SAP's announcement that, in contrast to Business ByDesign, Business One is strategic to SAP's SMB strategy.
Once it get into the market place and people see what it can do on HANA and we will continue innovate in that space now with a defined agenda underneath Dean Mansfield. So it's a combination of things we are going to go after the market with.
Without directly using the words "Business Suite," McDermott then implied that the Business Suite itself, running on the HANA Enterprise Cloud, would also be a product offering for SMBs:
Related to the HANA Enterprise Cloud and the multi-tenant debate, the bottom line is the HANA Enterprise Cloud and each customer wants their solutions. They want it beautiful. They want them to work and yes, we can make money on it because HANA is the great simplifier.
When you radically simplify the IT stack--I mean SAP [in context, the SAP Business Suite--ed] used to run on eight terabytes of data. Now it's like closer to 1.5. You dramatically lower your cost of operation and improve the speed of everything in the operation. So it's perfect for "Run Simple." It doesn’t matter whether it's single- or multi-tenant. What matters is the customer gets what they want at the price point in the performance and the user experience they're looking for, and that's precisely what we intend to give them.
Will SAP's SMB Strategy Work?
I would interpret SAP's strategy as two-fold. For really small businesses, starting at even five or 10 employees, SAP wants to continue its reseller channel strategy with Business One. For small divisions of larger companies, especially those already running its Business Suite globally, SAP will also position Business One, whether on-premises or hosted by partners.For midsize companies, especially those that are growing and need more comprehensive functionality, SAP wants to position its flagship Business Suite. But this product has not performed well for midsized businesses in the past, even when packaged with preconfigured industry templates as SAP All-in-One, due to its size and complexity. SAP is betting that it will be successful with its "Run Simple" strategy to turn this product into a "Simple Suite." This is what McDermott was talking about when he mentioned going from 8 terabytes to 1.5. And, by running it as a managed service on the HANA Enterprise Cloud, SAP hopes to simplify the implementation and ongoing support experience for SMBs.
In my view, there are two risks in SAP's strategy and they both involve the Business Suite. First, even if "simplified," will midsize businesses find the Suite simple enough? The early signs with SAP's Simple Financials are promising. But is that possible with the rest of the Business Suite? Second, will the experience of the HANA Enterprise Cloud be as friendly as the cloud-only ERP providers, such as NetSuite, Plex, Rootstock, FinancialForce, and others?
In recent years, SAP had a cloud-only solution in Business ByDesign that was more directly comparable to the competition. That's no longer part of the plan. Rather, SAP believes that a combination of Business One and a simplified Business Suite will be a winning strategy. Time will tell.
Update, 5:22 p.m.: Removed references to Business One on Hana Enterprise Cloud (HEC), which does not appear to be part of the solution. Thanks to Dick Hirsch for the clarification.
Update, July 18: Dennis Howlett picks up on my post and provides more analysis, including a history of ByD.
