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28 CHAPTER 2 Introduction to Enterprise Systems

The focus of this textbook is on core intra-company processes and ERP
systems. Keep in mind, however, that the emergence of inter-company busi-
ness capabilities is one of the most important developments in the modern
business environment. A fundamental understanding of the key business pro-
cesses and ERP systems is a prerequisite to studying advanced topics such
as supply chain management and customer relationship management because
those processes are extensions of the core ERP-enabled business processes.

APPLICATION PLATFORMS
Another critical component of ES is application platforms. Much like
the role of the operating system for your personal computer, application
platforms serve as a type of “enterprise operating system” for a company’s
ES landscape by allowing all of the various systems to communicate seamlessly
with one another as well as with systems outside the company. SAP introduced
its application platform, SAP NetWeaver, in 2003. SAP NetWeaver is now an
integral part of SAP ERP and the SAP Business Suite. It contains the SOA
capabilities needed to integrate SAP systems with non-SAP systems. In addi-
tion, it provides companies with a toolset to build new composite applications
or to plug in independent software vendor (ISV) applications on top of their
core ERP and suite applications. Figure 2-5 illustrates how SAP NetWeaver
interacts with the SAP Business Suite of applications.

Figure 2-5: SAP NetWeaver. Copyright SAP AG 2011

®
®
The SAP Business Suite, which includes SAP ERP, SAP CRM, SAP
®
®
SCM, SAP PLM, and SAP SRM, runs on SAP NetWeaver. You can think of
the relationship between the SAP Business Suite and SAP NetWeaver in terms
of the relationship between Microsoft Offi ce and the Microsoft Windows oper-
ating system. The SAP Business Suite consists of the applications that com-
panies use to manage and execute their business processes, just as Microsoft
Offi ce contains the applications that you use to accomplish tasks such as creat-
ing a presentation, a document, or a spreadsheet. SAP NetWeaver orchestrates
the communication among the applications, transporting the master data and
technical information needed by the applications at different points in the pro-
cess. Similarly, Microsoft Windows is an operating system that the Microsoft
Offi ce applications use to communicate with one another and to access other

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