SAP vs Oracle

Comparison SAP vs Oracle

Why SAP

SAP – Undisputed Market Leader

SAP Leads across Products & Geographies( More benefits)

SAP provides superior ongoing support at lower cost( SAP is cheaper to use – big benefit)

Companies are Increasingly migrating to SAP

SAP has superior technology Architecture

SAP has a Solid History of leading technology transitions ( Oracle is still planning Fusion)

SAP is leading the industry with its ESA vision

Industry leaders endorse SAP’s Strategy

SAP has strong and Diverse partner EcoSystem

Oracle’s Strategy poses significant Risks for customers

Technology Mergers Rarely meet expectations

Oracles challenges are immense

Customers face Risk Regardless of Oracles execution

Pains of Oracle Customers

Frequent upgrade and patches are very high due to which the stability level

of the system is very low. It is very complex from the maintenance point of view

….Oracle Customer

Any customization of reports which is linked to India localization is very cumbersome as the data is stored in two different tables, one

for base apps data and the other for localization data

….Oracle Customer..2

User unfriendly as the application information is scattered across various screens which needs extra

maneuvering by the users.

….Oracle Customer…3

Commons Issues at Oracle Implementations

Navigation through the system is very tedious across the modules ….Oracle Customer…4

Multiple windows not possible for review of multiple screen

….Oracle Customer..5

Module/Function Module Functionality

Remarks

Supply Chain Management / Advanced Planning

Significantly Superior

SAP has a very strong advanced planning solution covering Demand Planning, Supply Network Planning and Detailed Production scheduling. This is being used by a number of IM&C, FMCG, CP also and the scale of implementations in the Indian context is also significant.

Oracle has recently changed the Architecture of its Demand planning module and the implementation requires significant testing and stabilization time frame from the perspective of bug resolution.

Maintenance Significantly Superior

Oracle was earlier supporting use of 3rd party solutions like “Maximo”. Recent implementations like Hindalco are also using Maximo. There is a new module available in Oracle now i.e. EAM. However implementations of this module are fairly limited especially in the Indian context

Costing Significantly Superior

As costing is directly linked to the production process, SAPs costing solution is more tightly integrated. Inventory valuation based on supplier wise, batchwise costs and inter plant transfers. Rework costing supported will help in shaping planning as well as from MIS, controlling and improvement perspective

Treasury Management


Treasury module is a recent addition to Oracle suite and references especially in the Indian context might be limited

SAP vs Oracle : Modulewise capability assessment


Module/Function Module Functionality

Remarks

Materials Management


Batch Traceability of raw material is a strong and integrated functionality available in SAP.

Characteristic based shop floor material planning

Production Planning and Control


Comprehensive coverage of all production processes in SAP

Discrete manufacturing and process manufacturing scenarios can exist on the same system instance in SAP

Characteristics based planning is very relevant for as dimensional characteristics may vary

Oracle, supports a combination of the Process and Discrete manufacturing solution on the same instance from 11.5.9 onwards but there are very few customer references for this especially in the Indian context. This is significant in the context of JSL in terms of being a core solution requirement.

Module/Function

Module Functionality

Remarks

India localisation


Localization is not an integrated part of the core Oracle application and comes as an add-on in terms of a product patch All data entry screens for entering transactions with a localization impact are different from the base applications ones Since localization is not a part of the core base product, it can lead to integration issues especially from an accounting perspective like unbalanced journals, tax entries not flowing into GL, sub-ledgers not matching with the General Ledger etc

Project Systems

Superior Oracle does not have a comprehensive project monitoring tool as part of its Projects module and has to be integrated with 3rd party products like “Primavera” for monitoring.

SAP’s Project monitoring and scheduling is an integral part of the projects business cycle and has an impact on the overall business cycle from the project procurement to cash budgeting etc in case of rescheduling on the project timelines.



Module/ Function

Module Functionality

Remarks

India Payroll Significantly Superior

SAP-HR module is fully compliant with Indian statutory requirements

Transactional Reporting


All transactional available in SAP as part of the standard product can be modified online by the users using the report layout variants (i.e. user customizations). This is a very strong functionality which allows users to modify most of the transactional reports without any coding/customization effort. This is not possible in Oracle The planning screens are very interactive. Very user friendly screens Highly interactive

ESA Open Architecture


Open ESA Architecture has already been developed by SAP.

SAP Vs Oracle : Industry point of view

As per Technology research & analysis firm, Gartner Inc. –

Oracle’s E-Business suite vision lacks clarity and its long term product strategy is uncertain. It is likely to limit functional enhancement to its E-Business suite beyond 2008

Oracle's project Fusion – in which it plans to develop a new application suite with new architecture, makes it a highly risky proposition since the future of products currently bought would become suspect

SAP product support is better managed as its MySAP suite has far less number of batches compared to Oracle

SAPs presence in Indian context is much more proven and stable as it has experience of over 650 customers in India

SAP supports Java and works with the Java community

SAP NetWeaver provides complete support for Java technology

SAP is an active contributor to the Java Community Process (JCP) and a member of the JCP Executive Committee

SAP supports ABAP because customers want it; Oracle

continues to use its own language

• “If I am a customer and I never see ABAP, and underneath my code are robust, standard business processes that are proven in 30,000 customers around the world, do I care? If my application is built in [Oracle's] PL/SQL, is that more proprietary or less proprietary than ABAP? If my business is already running and customized by ABAP and put in the market—there is a collective $1 billion in ABAP code in the market—the last thing I want is for SAP to walk away from ABAP.”1

(1) eWeek article, “SAP’s focus: Getting Pieces To Work In Harmony” can be found at: www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1779652,00.asp (2) “CMI Alert on Oracle Q4 06 earnings” - Q4 06 (Oracle including all acquisitions) $1,630M; Q4 04 (Oracle, PSFT, JDE, Siebel) $1,767M (3) SAP Q2 ’06 Preliminary Release Press Release, 06/13/06

Oracle continues to use its proprietary language

Oracle will continue to use PL/SQL for some functionality

(Gartner, July 2005)

Oracle upgrades carry costOracle customers spent 43% more and required 39% more time when

upgrading compared to what they had expected (AMR, 2002)

Oracle is dependent on non-standards based

functionality Components of [Oracle’s] application require non-

standards-based functionality in Oracle Fusion Middleware

(Gartner, 2005)

Oracle’s data model requires expensive customization

Oracle’s model is generic without vertical industry extensions,

resulting in high customization. Oracle now has 5 separate data models as it has yet to integrate

JDE, PSFT, Siebel, & Retek

SAP NetWeaver and the service enabled mySAP business suite Are products

which are available now, unlike FusionOracle has little knowledge of the SOA landscape and is purposefully trying to

confuse SAP’s product roadmap

SAP embraces modern programming languages

[SAP NetWeaver AS] supports ABAP and Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE)

… (Gartner, 2005)

SAP actively manages upgrades to benefit customers

SAP customers upgrade less often than average and expect to

upgrade less often than average (AMR, 2004)

SAP is focused on customer data needs

SAP’s Master Data Management enables businesses to synchronize

and centrally manage data through a flexible model that allows aggregation from both SAP and non-SAP sources

ABAP is a strong, effective code baseSAP’s ABAP is a proven performer with 30K+ customers throughout the world

SAP NetWeaversupports standards

Can be extended with commonly used development tools such as Java 2

Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE), Microsoft .NET and IBM WebSphere

Oracle applications are not written exclusively in Java

The current eBusiness suite is dependent on the use of

Oracle Forms and PL/SQL — older generation technologies

with limited compatibility to new-generation SOA (Gartner, July 2005)

Oracle Misleads About SAP’s NetWeaver CapabilityIgnores SAP NetWeaver’s Successful Reality

MDM is strong with an established product

roadmapSAP was first to market with

an MDM vision and continues to develop a best

in class solution, as evidenced by our 22

success stories

Customer data hubs difficult and expensive

to implementIt is costly to link up data

hubs in environments with high process integration needs;

companies might not see ROI for at least two years

(Gartner, 2004)

Oracle continues to use its own language

Oracle will continue to use PL/SQL for some

functionality (Gartner, 2005)

SAP embraces all modern programming languages

[SAP NetWeaver AS] supports ABAP and Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) … (Gartner, ‘05)

SAP NetWeaver is a great successNetWeaver has 35,000 installations,

6000 customers using it as a strategic platform, high sat rates, 320 ISVs

powering their solutions with it and is ranked as a leader by leading analysts

The current version of NetWeaver delivers on SAP's promise to provide a comprehensive integration solution …

(Forrester, 2005)

SAP NetWeaver is designed with comprehensive Business Activity

Monitoring (BAM) capabilities SAP’s BAM capability alerts users to specified business events, enabling them to take the correct action in the

right context. More broadly, BAM helps organizations to monitor and optimize

business processes

SAP NetWeaver supports web services BPEL standardsSAP actively develops and supports open standards

SAP NetWeaver provides strong security functionality

SAP NetWeaver AS provides a single point of user administration, which can be synchronized with an external directory

server via LDAP through dozen of partner-provided alternatives

Note: Details on how SAP supports standards are in the document “Building Standards-Based Business Applications” located at: http://smart.sap.corp:1080/smart/media.asp?v=53881

Oracle has nothing new to say - standards is

yesterday’s markting msgInteroperability is hardly a

differentiator … all Aps vendors support (or pledge …) the same collection of standard and proprietary protocols (Gartner, 2005)

The security burden of proof is on OracleA new set of critical

vulnerabilities shows that Oracle can no longer be considered a bastion of security (Gartner, 2006)

Note: Gartner publicly repudiated Oracle for its misuse of data: http://ombudsman.blog.gartner.com/blog/index.php?id=2Oracle uses the following Gartner report for this ad: “ERP Upgrades Will Reflect The Uncertainty Of The Overall Market”, March 2005

Oracle is not “easy” to upgradeOracle customers spent 43% more and required 39% more time when upgrading compared to what they

had expected (AMR, 2002)

Oracle forces upgrades Oracle forced an upgrade by de-

supporting 10.7 in ‘03. The Gartner report cited in this ad

states Oracle had “driven users from v10.7 to 11i”

Upgrades carry costUpgrades cost an average of $1839 per

user and one man-week of labor for every business user (AMR, 2004)

Oracle apps are error proneOracle releases products

before they are ready. In its first 6 months, 11i had 5k bugs

(Forrester, 2001)

Oracle Misleads About UpgradesMisuses Statistics & Distorts Reality

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SAP vs Oracle