CSAP, Oracle and Microsoft are behemoth ERP vendors in this decade. When you speak of ERP system implementors, they are the blue chips of the industry. They are top 3 shorted-listed ERP systems. It means most of people consider and compare their features when selecting ERP software. In this article I’m going to present a comparison analysis between SAP and Oracle based on Panorama Consulting report.
To do this, I’m going to highlight comparison of the high level characteristics of the vendor and detail their competing products and technologies. Unfortunately the report did not tell us what kind of businesses are reflected from the 1600 surveyed correspondents. For example are they manufacturing, financial services, or service driven companies? Probably a mix bag of industries are represented.
Oracle vs SAP Comparison Study
Sometimes its necessary to step back and take a bird’s eye view of the landscape to better understand the big players and their approach and impact in ERP industry implemenation. So let us move forward with this comparison of the SAP vs Oracle comparison.
1. Market Share
Below is a chart showing overall market share distribution for the time period 2005-2009 of ERP vendor based on Panorama’s annual survey :
SAP and Oracle are the top two ERP vendors where SAP rank highest by capturing 32% of the market, followed by Oracle with 23% of total market share.
In addition to have the highest market share, SAP is also the most commonly short-listed ERP system, as the following table
The data above does not mean SAP has the highest selected ERP vendor. As the table below, Oracle PeopleSoft is selected at a high rate when this solution makes a short-list – 67% of the time it is on a company’s short-list.
2. Satisfaction
According to the chart below, either SAP or Oracle has very high satisfaction levels. Almost 72% of companies are satisfied with their SAP software; while about 74%, of Oracle users are satisfied with their Oracle software. ERP users attain that high level of satisfaction through advanced operational processes and robust functionalities, of which both SAP and Oracle are very proficient.
3. Implementation Duration
The table below shows that SAP project was longer than Oracle. This actual duration of implementation duration begin from the time of software purchasing until it was fully functional
4. Benefit Realization
The chart below indicates the benefits realized by customers of SAP and Oracle. Oracle clients have a much higher likelihood of realizing at least 50% of the expected business benefits compared to SAP clients.
5. Functional Rating by Panorama’s clients
The table below shows the average functional score based on Panorama’s client ratings of vendor demos (1= very poor functional fit and 5=Very strong functional fit). These results are average numbers for clients that included both SAP & Oracle on their short list. The cells highlighted in green represent the higher score. Based on the ratings, the strengths of SAP and Oracle are summarized respectively.
| Functionality | SAP | Oracle EBS |
| Sales & Marketing | 2.74 | 3.00 |
| Quality Control | 3.00 | 2.90 |
| Regulatory | 4.20 | 2.88 |
| Finance & Accounting | 3.98 | 4.02 |
| Logistics | 3.53 | 3.37 |
| Human Resource | 4.41 | 4.26 |
| Product Engineering and Manufacturing Engineering | 3.25 | 3.58 |
| Product Configurator | 2.51 | 3.14 |
| Product Scheduling | 3.29 | 3.06 |
| Product Development | 4.32 | 3.84 |
| Global Sourcing | 4.32 | 3.90 |
| Make-to-Order Order-to-Cash | 4.49 | 3.35 |
| Make-to-Stock Order-to-Cash | 4.22 | 3.67 |
| Procure to Pay | 4.39 | 4.48 |
| IT Architecture | 3.40 | 4.03 |
| Cash Management | 4.15 | 3.75 |
| Customer Service | 3.25 | 3.32 |
| Product Operations | 3.00 | 3.13 |
| E-Portals | 3.11 | 3.34 |
| Customer Setup and Credit | 4.10 | 3.76 |
| Warehouse and Inventory | 4.37 | 3.54 |
| Repair and Returned Goods | 4.22 | 3.40 |
| Retail | 4.45 | 4.20 |
| Tax | 4.01 | 4.00 |
Resource :http://panorama-consulting.co
Read More about SAP vs Oracle ERP:
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ERP market share and vendor evaluation 2011
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