Implementing Sap R/3: How to Introduce a Large System into a Large Organization

Here's a new edition of a hugely successful book on how to implement SAP R/3 based on real-life examples. The new edition has more coverage of SAP R/3 configuration issues and more case studies, including international organizations' implementation experiences. Many companies have used the first edition to help them establish a common understanding among members of their implementation teams, and the second edition has been improved for such use.

Frankness is a quality permeating the pages of Implementing SAP R/3: How to Introduce a Large System into a Large Organization. Mining nearly three decades worth of combined consulting experience, authors Bancroft, Seip, and Sprengel provide incisive and brutally honest insight into what it means to overhaul both business and computing practices with SAP R/3. The book focuses more on business and process reengineering than configurations or programming. Implementing SAP R/3 does manage to provide a balanced view of the technological components of the R/3 system. The authors take pains to explain what types of businesses it is best suited for, its failures and shortcomings, as well as its triumphs.

The explanation of R/3 that kick starts this book is highly approachable, detailing the philosophical and technical underpinnings of this system. The other three loosely constructed sections deal almost exclusively with the complexity of an R/3 implementation. Throughout these portions, the authors emphasize the importance of identifying and establishing project goals, a point liberally illustrated by various case studies. Additionally, a terrific glossary is tucked away in the final pages, as are four appendices. These appendices cover data-modeling and relational-database concepts, content and structure of the SAP data dictionary, and the development of Advanced Business Application Programming/4GL (ABAP4). --Sarah L. Roberts-Witt