SAP Business ByDesign (ByD) Cloud ERP Solution Overview

SAP Business ByDesign Overview

Find out everything you need to know about SAP Business ByDesign in our extensive, independent overview.

SAP Business ByDesign Details, Pricing & More:

What is SAP Business ByDesign? | SAP Business ByDesign Functionality & Modules | SAP Business ByDesign User Interface | SAP Business ByDesign Videos | SAP Business ByDesign Third Party Extensions | SAP Business ByDesign History | SAP Business ByDesign Deployment | SAP Business ByDesign Pros & Cons | SAP Business ByDesign Industry Fit | SAP Business ByDesign Pricing | SAP Business ByDesign APIs | SAP Business ByDesign FAQ

SAP Business ByDesign Pricing

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SAP Business ByDesign Demo

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What is SAP Business ByDesign (ByD)?

SAP Business ByDesign, also known as ByD or ByDesign is a Cloud enterprise resource planning software from German software giant SAP. It is a multi-tenant Cloud or software-as-a-service ERP tool which was designed for small to medium enterprises (SME's) offering a broad set of functionality including accounting and financial management, procurement and purchasing, production and supply chain management, project management and professional services automation and more. The solution is built around 30+ core end to end processes, however using integrations and extensibility toolkits within the solution, organisations can open up many more possibilities. It is particularly well suited to disparate organisations which operate globally due to its several out of the box localisations and inherent multi-company features.

SAP Business ByDesign is designed as a 'business suite in a box', meaning it offers a completely integrated set of modules that unite the front, middle and back office of SMB & SME organisations without the need to deploy and integrate several other enterprise business applications. This does mean that SAP Business ByDesign is a 'jack of all trades', yet a master of none. As a Tier 2 Cloud ERP solution, SAP Business ByDesign will get most businesses a very long way, but those with high complexity may need to make use of APIs to integrate best of breed sales or service management tools or look at a Tier 1 ERP solution if the core functionality doesn't meet their needs.

As a Cloud (SaaS) ERP solution, SAP Business ByDesign is hosted by SAP and also receives quarterly upgrades to the software, adding new functionality, hot fixes and changes in line with any local accounting changes. ByD has therefore proven very popular with disparate businesses operating in several countries as it allows for easy international scalability without having to worry about complying with local accounting needs.

SAP Business ByDesign users also benefit from a fairly intuitive user interface which is responsive, meaning it can be viewed on several devices, from your laptop to mobile web browser.

As SAP Business ByDesign is an SAP solution, it also provides handy extensibility in the form of the wider SAP portfolio, with many of its users also running SAP's wider stack including SAP Concur for expense management, SAP SuccessFactors for HCM, SAP Analytics Cloud for business intelligence and more. The solution runs on the proprietary SAP HANA in-memory database and features open API's to integrate other business software solutions.

SAP Business ByDesign is almost exclusively sold by SAP partners and resellers rather than via direct sales channels. These software partners often specialise in serving local markets or industries.

SAP Business ByDesign Functionality Overview

SAP Business ByDesign (ByD) is a Cloud (SaaS) ERP solution with a comprehensive set of integrated functionality. This functionality is built around over 30 core processes which can be configured towards the needs of your business.

In this section we have curated a list of the core modules and functionality which SAP Business ByDesign offers:

SAP Business ByDesign Modules

Financial Management

SAP Business ByDesign provides finance and accounting covering general ledger, accounts payable and receivable with comprehensive support for disparate organisations operating over several locations, countries and operating entities. The solution also benefits from optical character recognition technology which allows an organisation to scan documents rather than manually keying them in. The finance functionality is also enriched with dashboards and transaction drill down. This enables organisations to quickly spot problems and drill into the causes.

SAP Business ByDesign Modules

Project Management & Accounting

SAP Business ByDesign offers a lot of functionality for professional services automation, including project management and accounting capabilities that support your operational & finance teams. The project management capabilities integrate seamlessly with other areas of the system including sales, human resources, finance and billing. This allows you to operate seamlessly across departments and is useful for activities such as milestone billing, resourcing and more. The project management capabilities also extend to operational project management, allowing you to run GANT charts within the system or if you prefer, to integrate directly with project management tools such as Microsoft Project.

SAP Business ByDesign Modules

Supply Chain Management (SCM)

SAP Business ByDesign Cloud ERP enables you to optimise material flow by managing demand and supply. Design, set up, and execute flexible warehouse and manufacturing processes to fit your products and business model and gain maximum insight into your business.

SAP Business ByDesign Modules

Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)

SAP Business ByDesign Cloud ERP helps you identify and manage the best suppliers for materials and services. Gain insight into order management, supplier invoicing, and purchase requests. Enable individual employees to perform self-service procurement and streamline operations.

SAP Business ByDesign Modules

Human Resources (HRIS)

SAP Business ByDesign provides functionality for time recording, expenses management, holiday, absences and leave request management, plus an employee database with basic payroll functionality. The HR capabilities of SAP Business ByDesign are light in comparison with a best of breed HCM suite, but will allow your employees to self serve and administrate holidays and absences without burdensome input from line managers.

SAP Business ByDesign Modules

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

SAP ByDesign gives small businesses and SME's an integrated customer relationship management capability for sales, marketing and service. The solution provides the ability to manage leads, quotations and oppurtunities with direct integration through to sales order processing, project management, billing and manufacturing. The solution also provides the capability to track marketing campaigns and create target groups of customers based on parameters across the rest of the system.

SAP Business ByDesign User Interface (UI)

SAP Business ByDesign is a Cloud ERP solution which offers a modern user experience (UX) compared to older SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions such as ECC6 and R/3. Built on HTML5 technology, the solution optimises itself regardless of the device being used, enabling users to access the solution on mobile solutions as well as desktops & laptops.

Each user can also personalise the solution to their own specification, hiding or showing different work centres on their home screen depending on the specific responsibilities of their role.

SAP Business ByDesign also makes use of a useful Enterprise search function which allows users quickly locate business documents, customer records and more within the system.

ByDesign also offers mobile applications for iOS & Android devices, providing a fast window into the system for purchase order approvals, project management tasks and expenses management.

SAP Business ByDesign Videos

SAP Business ByDesign Demo

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SAP Business ByDesign Third Party Extensions

SAP Business ByDesign offers further functionality via over 70+ third party extensions to the core ByDesign ERP solution. These extensions are offered via the SAP Store and are generally developed by SAP Solution Partners or SAP Value Added Resellers (VAR's). These third party extension extend the capabilities of the core SAP Business ByDesign Cloud ERP software to offer it's customers greater industry capabilities.

Extensions cover additional capabilities for SAP Business ByDesign such as:

• Advanced Quality Management
• Contract and Utilities Billing
• Further localisation packs
• Enterprise Asset Management
• EDI integration
• Field Service Management
• Integrations into other platforms such as Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Hubspot and many more.

SAP Business ByDesign History

SAP Business ByDesign was first launched in 2007 at a time when Cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) was a very new concept. ByDesign came to market hailed as one of the most complete Cloud ERP solutions available. It is the first true Cloud or software as a service solution from Germany software giant, SAP. The product has experienced many ups and downs over that time, primarily the fact that it has been poorly marketed by SAP. Regardless of that, it remains a strong performer in the SAP product ecosystem and continues to receive strong investment.

As a Cloud ERP solution, SAP Business ByDesign continues to receive quarterly upgrades which are pushed out to customers automatically, the product continues to receive considerable new functionality every quarter, including new innovations around machine learning & artificial intelligence, small user interface changes, brand new functionality and accounting and compliance updates.

ByDesign is one of two ERP solution from SAP that have been specifically designed for SMB & SME organisations, the other being SAP Business One. Both products are generally sold by SAP value added resellers (VAR's), rather than by SAP themselves. SAP relies on it's network of value added resellers to scale the sales and implementation of ByDesign & Business One into its global customer base and into a wide variety of industries.

SAP Business ByDesign Deployment

SAP Business ByDesign is offered only as a Cloud ERP solution, in a true Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. The solution is hosted by SAP themselves and includes quarterly upgrades and product support directly.

SAP ByDesign cannot be purchased as a perpetual licence or On-Premise solution.

SAP Business ByDesign Industry Fit

Professional Services

SAP Business ByDesign offers a lot of functionality that can help professional services firms including integrated financial management & accounting, deep project management, billing, customer relationship management and more.

Discrete Manufacturing

SAP Business ByDesign provides a rock solid foundation for businesses in the discrete manufacturing industry. ByDesign supports multi-level BOMs, supply chain planning, quality management, traceability and more.

Pharmaceuticals

SAP Business ByDesign offers robust functionality for pharmaceuticals specific requirements including batch traceability and serialisation. This makes it easier for pharmaceuticals manufacturers and distributers to comply with industry requirements and complete any product recalls.

Scale Ups & Start Ups

SAP Business ByDesign offers integrated functionality which allows fast growing businesses to quickly harness their organisations and implement standardised back office processes. With support for multiple entities and with several localisations available, it supports companies with global ambitions.

SAP Business ByDesign Pros & Cons

✅ SAP Business ByDesign Pros

• Wide and deep functionality across many key business areas.
• Strong industry capabilities for professional services and discrete manufacturing.
• True Software-as-a-service (SaaS) Cloud ERP offering.
• Completely SAP developed solution.
• Business ByDesign pricing model is simple and transparent.
• Strong localisation capabilities for international businesses.

❌ SAP Business ByDesign Cons

• Configuration rather than customisation approach can limit flexibility in very agile organisations, although this is a benefit in some cases.
• ByDesign consultants are in very high demand.
• SAP has larger ERP solutions such as S/4HANA that are the companies true strategic focus.
• SAP Business ByDesign lacks productised integrations into the wider SAP portfolio compared with SAP S/4HANA.

SAP Business ByDesign Pricing

SAP Business ByDesign pricing & licensing costs are priced based on three user types:

• SAP Business ByDesign Advanced User (most expensive)
• SAP Business ByDesign Core User (medium cost)
• SAP Business ByDesign Self Service User (lowest cost)

Each user type has a variety of capabilities ranging from full supply chain and financial management through to time recording, absence management and expenses management. The pricing for each Business ByDesign user scales according to their capabilities, so the cost of your SAP Business ByDesign user licence will depend on the capabilities that user gets from the ERP system. As SAP Business ByDesign is a Cloud ERP solution, the licensing subscription is typically paid for on an annual or quarterly basis.

ERP Research has worked with hundreds of businesses that have evaluated SAP Business ByDesign and can provide you with an independent licence pricing and implementation estimate, hassle free.

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SAP Business ByDesign APIs (Application Programming Interface)

SAP Business ByDesign allows for external applications to read and write data or perform actions with SAP Business ByDesign via the use of API's. The solution features 198 API's in total which cover a variety of scenarios including:

• Calculate Price - extract price components (price, discount, surcharge, freight, product information)

• Determine product availability

• Create goods receipt confirmations

• Maintain Demand Plans

• Manage account hierarchies

• Manage bank statements

• Manage cash payments

• Manage customer contracts

• Manage customer invoice requests

• Manage contacts

• Manage employee time

• Manage leads

• Manage lease contracts

• Manage VAT entries

• Manage list prices

• Manage materials

• Manage production orders

• Query business partners

• Manage products

• Manage kit item list

• Manage labour resource cost rates run

• Manage logistics layout execution

• Manage material valuations

• Manage object descriptions

• Manage opportunities

• Manage partner companies

• Manage product designs

• Manage purchase orders

• Manage purchase requests

• Manage purchasing contract

• Manage sales orders

• Manage sales price lists

• Manage sales quotes

• Manage sales price specifications

• Manage suppliers

• Query accounts

• Query account open amounts

• Query bank statement

SAP Business ByDesign Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Is SAP Business ByDesign suitable for small businesses and SMEs?

SAP Business ByDesign was purpose built to meet the specific needs of small businesses (SMB) and small to medium enterprises (SME) organisations. The SAP Business ByDesign customer base ranges from organisations with as little as 20 employees up to several thousands.

How much does SAP Business ByDesign cost?

As with any ERP solution, ByDesign has it's own set licensing, implementation and support costs. The minimum cost of an SAP ByDesign subscription is around £20,000 annually, with implementations being 1-4x that cost.

Get an independent SAP Business ByDesign quote here.

What's the difference between SAP Business ByDesign and SAP Business One?

SAP Business ByDesign is an ERP solution designed for the Cloud, whereas SAP Business One was built for On-Premise deployments, although 'SaaS' & Private Cloud options have been developed since. Aside from this, SAP Business ByDesign offers more capabilities out of the box, whereas SAP Business One covers 'advanced' functionality using third party or partner developed, SAP certified solution extensions.

What's the difference between SAP Business ByDesign and SAP Business One?

SAP Business ByDesign is branded as a 'suite-in-a-box'. It offers a wide set of functionality in one product and it comes ready to go with business processes pre-defined within the system. On the other hand, S/4HANA is built with a best of breed approach in mind. S/4HANA comes with a great deal of functionality out of the box, but relies more on the wider SAP product set to extend those capabilities into other areas such as CRM, human resources and more.

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