ERP, SAP B1: What’s the Meaning of All These Acronyms?
Summary
From a worker in production to the owner of the company, ERP software provides employees visibility into all aspects of your operation by centralizing your databases into a single location. The company took the name SAP from the abbreviation for Systemanalyse und Programmenentwicklung (systems analysis and program development in German). In the 1970s, SAP struggled to sell the concept of an integrated software product that could be adapted to run any company’s processes. By the 1990s, however, SAP had grown to the business software applications vendor of choice for nine of the ten largest U.S. corporations, one-third of the Fortune 500, seven of the ten largest Business Week Global 1000, and 80% of the Fortune 100 companies in software, computers, peripherals, and semiconductors. In 2001, SAP made the acquisition that would trigger its entry into the small business space with a simple yet robust product.
