The all new SAP Business One 8.8 release for the growing SMB market

The mid market adaption to ERP software is increasing every day, and so is the constant changes and new releases in the ERP provider landscape. So how can the market leader in the Enterprise Software landscape stay behind. SAP has announced its latest release, SAP Business One 8.8 for the small and medium sized (SMB) market.

With growing competition from Microsoft Dynamics and Oracle in this space, SAP Business One 8.8 has some refreshing add-ons to differentiate its product offering. One of the new features that is eye catching is the new interface which is much more user friendly with an improved GUI. Newer icons give SAP a more Web 2.0 look, however giving users an option to switch to the previous GUI.

The integration of Crystal Reports in SAP Business One gives users and partners an easy and flexible option to create and view reports. Data archiving is another new feature for SAP Business One 8.8, which enables users to archive old operational data like sales order closures, dead accounts or gives the option to deactivate certain ledgers or partner information.

One of the most interesting features for companies in varied industries; is a solution packager feature which helps companies to implement pre-packaged industry specific solutions. This gives additional flexibility to companies to add certain configurations that are specific to their industry or deploy certain industry specific add-ons.

A feature that caught my attention was even country specific customization, for example SAP Business One 8.8 lets you send an e-TDS return statement to tax authorities, in liaison with Income Tax Act, 1962 norms of India. This is an example of the localization concept and an epitome of the phrase “Think Global, act Local”.

With this release, SAP has gone one step ahead on the infrastructure and security front as well. With the help of advanced encryption algorithms and enhanced access mechanisms, the access to critical data is restricted. Better memory and cache management is another significant improvement on the infrastructure front.

Most of the times, customers have a concern of adding customized modules or need integration of SAP with some third party tools. The new SAP Business One SDK can be used to create customized applications and interfaces with third party applications with ease. Hence, giving flexibility to SAP users and adding to their convenience in using the application.

SAP has also recently announced better business network connectivity for its customers, hence empowering them to better manage their business partners and tightly integrate their various branch locations with their headquarters. With a plan to release by April 2010, SAP Business One 8.8 has some strikingly new features which have the potential to put SAP in the driver’s seat in the SMB market as well.

Some really innovative ideas like iPhone integration and increased integration capabilities with on-demand Web applications shows that SAP has its roadmap and focus attuned in the right direction. As most people say that the future is cloud computing, SAP Business One’s added capabilities shows its willingness to adapt and constantly evolve to keep pace with changing customer needs and the business environment.

How would the latest SAP Business One product fare in the SME segment is something which everyone is eager to know. It would be interesting to see how other Enterprise software vendors would react to the release. However SAP Business One 8.8 is definitely a product which reaffirms SAP’s dominance in the Enterprise Software space.