Now that you know you need a new business management solution, you’re researching enterprise resource planning (ERP) options. You understand an ERP solution will help you gain visibility into your operations, streamline and automate processes, and achieve profitable growth. But for some, choosing an ERP solution often comes down to price. Small to midsized businesses operating on a shoestring budget must be confident they’re making the right choice, and understanding the cost of an ERP solution like SAP Business One is the only way to get true value.
While some ERP vendors advertise a low licensing price per user, that face-value number doesn’t show the complete picture. Here are a few factors that may be hiding in an ERP vendor’s SAP Business One cost-per-license quote.
SAP Business One is sold exclusively through SAP partners. SAP partners ensure successful implementations by tapping into the expertise of implementation consultants who have acquired experience over decades of selling and supporting the solution.
After you get a quote from an ERP vendor, consider their experience. An inexperienced ERP partner might result in a drawn-out, inefficient ERP implementation project, which will drive costs up. Or perhaps their inexperience led them to accept a project they weren’t truly prepared for. A project that isn’t correctly defined before it starts often results in multiple change requests to the project scope that add time and money.
Even if the price tag is higher, the right partner will offer a formal implementation strategy with your SAP Business One purchase, so you’ll know what to expect as the project progresses. The right partner will also have the experience to leverage industry best practices, minimize risk, and ensure project success.
Consider for a moment when you're in the market for a new car. A dealership offers a warranty that covers the expenses required to maintain the car and ensure peak performance. Your ERP software is similar in that it will also require regular maintenance (e.g., patches, hotfixes, and version upgrades). Software maintenance provides your business with things like disaster recovery and data maintenance, networking security, hardware upgrades, and cloud services. It’s unlikely the an ERP vendor who presents you with the lowest-priced quote for SAP Business One licenses is including these essential maintenance costs.
If a partner doesn’t offer comprehensive ERP services, it means you’ll be partnering with other parties for supplemental services, including customer support, third-party software integrations, hosting, and customizations. In addition to having no control or choice regarding the other vendors, the more third parties you partner with, the higher the SAP Business One implementation cost will climb. An ERP partner that sells the solution and provides comprehensive SAP services in-house ensures there’s a single point of contact for all your ERP needs and a lower price point.
It's never been easier or more affordable to get the power of SAP Business One in the cloud. A recent innovative approach is a multi-tenant environment (MTE), which is quick to implement and easy to use.
In an MTE, you share the SAP Business One software with other customers but have your own database(s). You can customize the setup and use of SAP Business One, and your business’s data is separate and secure.
The best news? You can get up and running with SAP Business One starting at $160 per month per user.
To learn more about MTE, download the case study below!