Both SAP AND NETSUITE offer ERP software designed to help SMB companies run their businesses better.
But how are they different?
Top 5 differentiators of Oracle NetSuite vs SAP Business One:
- Cloud Deployment and Customer Base: SAP Business One is currently transitioning to a cloud-hosted deployment model and thus far, has a minimal number of ERP customers using its cloud versions. Conversely, NetSuite boasts over 29,000 customers operating on the same multi-tenant cloud platform, establishing it as a true forerunner in this area.
- Upgrades and Customizations: While SAP Business One, a hosted SaaS solution, may or may not retain customizations with upgrades – potentially demanding redevelopment efforts – NetSuite ensures that all customizations are preserved with each biannual update. The benefit? Your ERP investment is future-proofed.
- Custom Reporting Capabilities: NetSuite offers ‘drill down’ and ‘drill through’ capabilities for custom reports, owing to its consistent data model and database. This means, even with customized reports & dashboards, users can navigate from summary level info to detailed levels seamlessly. SAP Business One, however, requires additional reporting software (SAP Crystal Reports) for custom reporting, which unfortunately does not provide ‘drill down’/’drill through’ functionalities.
- User Interface (UI): NetSuite furnishes a sleek, modern, and uniform user interface across the entire application. Meanwhile, SAP Business One, though moving toward a modern UI with Fiori, has not consistently implemented it. Furthermore, SAP needs to harness other products in its portfolio to match the features and functionalities offered by NetSuite, and each of these products is at a different stage of UI development. Most Business One customers are still operating pre-version 9.0, resulting in a dated user experience.
- Implementation and Customization: NetSuite offer a fixed price implementation, in stark contrast to SAP’s custom-build approach where costs often exceed the budget. SAP Business One projects are typically sold on a time and materials (T&M) basis. Moreover, NetSuite offers easy configurations and customizations, supporting point-and-click, standards-based application customization and swift configuration of processes, interfaces, roles, and reports that customers can undertake themselves. SAP Business One, on the other hand, requires a separate tool (MS Visual Studio) for customization and often necessitates professional services even for minor changes, thereby increasing the total cost of ownership (TCO).