SAP vs. Oracle

ERP implementations come down to a lot of things like risk, Scalability, cost and duration. So who comes out ahead in an SAP vs. Oracle matchup?

Many CIOs looking to implement new ERP software will no doubt end up considering the industry's two biggest behemoths: SAP and Oracle. While both vendors are the clear market share leaders and have very well-established product lines, the strengths, weaknesses, risks and product roadmaps of these two vendors couldn't be much different.

According to Panorama Consulting's 2014 Clash of the Titans report -- which summarizes quantitative results from hundreds of ERP implementations across the globe -- SAP and Oracle customers have very different results implementing and using these two products. For example, while the average Oracle customer spends less money on their implementation, the average SAP customer is able to deliver closer to expected implementation durations. This is just one of many examples we found when analyzing the results of the study.

Given that there are so many tradeoffs and variables to consider, we thought it would be helpful to narrow the differences between the two products to five key areas: implementation risk, implementation cost and duration, scalability, software functionality and customization, and cloud adoption. These areas underscore some of the biggest differences between the two products and their future directions.

Implementation risk

very executive is concerned about the risk of their implementation, which is why they are constantly craving methods and tools to help mitigate the risk of failure. Data from the Clash of the Titans report confirmed that these are indeed rational concerns, with more SAP customers claiming their implementations were a failure than Oracle's customers. Further, more SAP customers experienced some sort of material operational disruption at the time of go live, such as not being able to ship products or close the books.

While the research suggests that SAP has a higher-risk implementation profile than Oracle products, every ERP customer experiences an elevated degree of risk. This is why these two vendors have done a particularly good job of developing risk management mechanisms to address these concerns. For example, SAP's All-in-One product features best practices and pre-configurations for a number of different industry verticals, with the intent of reducing risk and accelerating implementation. Speaking of acceleration, Oracle has developed similar tools with its line of implementation accelerators and its User Productivity Kit, both designed to make testing, training, and other key implementation processes more efficient and effective.

Implementation cost and duration

When considered as a percentage of a company's annual revenue (or budget, for public-sector organizations), SAP is the higher cost option. The average SAP customer spends 4% of its annual revenue on its total cost of ownership, while the average Oracle customer spends 1.7%. This could be attributed to the breadth of functionality -- and therefore higher cost -- associated with SAP's software. It could also be an indication of large organizations botching their implementations of the product (think: Waste Management, Hershey, Marin County and other high-profile failures of recent years).

References: WWW.Techtarget.com