What is Sap ?

Question: 1 What Is Sap ?

Answer: Before knowing about SAP you must know what is ERP:

Well,earlier in a company there were so many departments with their own softwares like accounts department will have accounts software, payroll department will have payroll software, sales department will have sales software,purchase department will have purchase software,production department will have production software and so on...

In spite of working for a same company these departments will not be able to share each others data from one centralized place as they are having different softwares with different databases.same data needs to be entered in all departments which tends to data re enter mistakes and causes low data integrity.

Here comes the roll of an ERP(enterprise resource planning) software,SAP is a one of ERP software.ERP was originally used in manufacturing company but today ERP system has been applied in various companies like manufacturing,retail,oil and gas,banking,telecommunication etc.

An ERP software like SAP can combine all above softwares as a single software and a single database and hence increase data integrity creates a faster communication between all the departments in a company.That is why ERP software's source codes are
the largest codes ever written.SAP can provide customers with the ability to interact with a common corporate database for multiple types of applications in a company.

SAP is a global software company headquartered in Walldorf, Germany.

SAP was founded in 1972 as System Analysis and Program Development by five former IBM engineers(Dietmar Hopp, Hans-Werner Hector, Hasso Plattner, Klaus E. Tschira, and Claus Wellenreuther.) at Mannheim city of Baden-Württemberg in Germany.

In 1976, "SAP GmbH" was founded and the very next year, it moved its headquarters to Walldorf. In August 1988, SAP GmbH was transferred into SAP AG. SAP AG became the company's official name after the 2005 annual general meeting (AG is short for Aktiengesellschaft which is a is a German term that refers to a corporation that is limited by shares, i.e. owned by shareholders).

Now it is commonly known as SAP.

SAP full form is System Analysis and Program Development.It is the world's largest business software company and the third-largest(after microsoft & oracle where microsoft and oracle are having other products also than an ERP software)independent software provider in terms of revenues.SAP focuses on six industry sectors: process industries, discrete industries, consumer industries, service industries, financial services, and public services.

SAP Versions:SAP's main product is SAP ERP. The current version is SAP ERP 6.0(please check sap.com for latest info).Its previous name was called R/3. The "R" of SAP R/3 stood for real time(-data-processing) - even though it is not a real time solution. The number 3 related to the 3-tier architecture: database, application server and client (SAPgui).

R/1--Financial accounting system.
R/2--mainframe based system.

If you want to know more deep about the SAP versions then go to the following link sighn up for free and download the pdf file which includes detailed description to all the versions with diagrams.The link is:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13176905/SAP-Versions

Other companies providing ERP softwares like SAP Are:

Oracle Applications
Microsoft Dynamics
Ramco Systems
ABAS Software
Peoplesoft

some more are there but these are competing with SAP.

Types of Jobs For a Person knows SAP:
Basically 2 types of jobs are available in any organization for a SAPian:

(1)Implementation:You develop the program.
(2)Support:You give support for that developed program.

Deciding where to do a SAP course is a very hard job but it can become simple if you just think of you current occupation.

If you are a fresher and financially strong(can bear 3 lacks rupees) then you can do a course from Siemens(addresses can be found below).

If you are a fresher but not financially strong then can do a SAP course from any of the CDAC institutes which is a government institution and take somewhere around 40-60 thousands for SAP course.

Remember one thing that for SAP you must get experience to get a job.Siemens and CDAC both provide experience.

One another difference between Siemens and CDAC would be Siemens is Certified SAP training partner from The main company i.e SAP AG Germany whereas CDAC is not.Don't bother CDAC has got faculties from big organizations with excellent knowledge of SAP.The main thing matters here is whether you are getting experience or not and let me tell you both the institutes are giving experience.

For getting complete list of SAP training partners please visit the following link:

http://www.sap.com/asia/services/education/centres/partners.epx

If you are working somewhere then you can go ahead and join any well known institute which provide SAP training without being worried about getting experience.There are some institutes who runs only evening or weekend classes.You can find them by going to their web site from the above link.

How To Prepare For SAP Interviews:

Please visit the following web sites with taking one thing in your mind that please don't waste your time by going more deeper to these links:

(1)SAP Interview Questions 1:

(2)SAP Interview Questions 2:

(3)A huge data base of sap based FAQs:

If you still have doubt then fell free to ask it free at:

http://besthelponweb.blogspot.com/