Aptean Made2Manage ERP is an enterprise resource planning software solution. It is built specifically for small and mid-sized manufacturers. It includes dynamic, to-order environments such as make-to-order, engineer-to-order, assemble-to-order, and mixed mode operations.
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SAP Business ByDesign
Score 7.4 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
SAP Business ByDesign is SAP's cloud ERP suite offering, launched in 2007, designed for the SMB market. The product includes a broad range of capabilities including financials, human resources, sales, procurement, customer service, and supply chain.
Business ByDesign is a new platform, delivered entirely through a SaaS model, with functionality that overlaps somewhat with BusinessOne, which is also an SMB product, although not a true SaaS product.
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Pricing
Aptean Made2Manage ERP
SAP Business ByDesign
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Aptean Made2Manage ERP
SAP Business ByDesign
Free Trial
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Optional
Additional Details
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SAP Business ByDesign is available for a monthly software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscription, based on a base package, user types, and number of users.
For parts sales, M2M is not a good program. There are too many glitches that happen between the sales order process and the shipping process. At the same time, we have to work with outside vendors to make certain functions work in the program. Or it has to work outside the program and communicate back to the main software. Way too clunky.
I am not in the decision making group any more for this product. When I was, I along with many other managers, voted to go with a competitive product software vs re-subscribing to Aptean for this product. We were convinced by certain parties at our work that the new product was head and shoulders above the old product. While they freshened up a few things and there was an increase in some functionality areas, it was still tired.
SAP BYD work centers are consistent and easy to navigate once you understand one work center. The document flow tab that is in each window allows one to see all related transactions. Document flow is important because one is able to see the flow of transactions and can therefore reverse transactions by following the document flow in reverse. It is possible to group items in each overview screen to see what items are open. The system is working as hoped.
This software is not user-friendly nor easy to train on. I train people for various departments and had argued for the company to go with another company. I was not alone. When the time came for us to do an upgrade (necessitated by the advent of Windows 10 compatibility issues), a number of managers at our organization wanted to seek out other vendors due to the difficulty in training people to use the software. Then have to deal with so many of the user issues and lack of functionality created by the need for using an outside software programmer to bring in software that interpreted what M2M was doing and then translate it back into the program so that we had an end-user solution. This software should be robust enough to do it all. It is not. I hate to be so negative about it but anyone that has spent as many years using this software as I have should find something good to say about the platform and I struggle to do that. I had asked for the warranty section that would tie into the return authorization process. I was told it would happen. It didn't. Bad karma.
Because SAP Business ByDesign allows us to improve our work, reduce the operational steps, implement audit controls, allows us found standard reports or it allows us to create new ones if you need more than the exists are enough for your work or your needs. Overall, SAP Business ByDesign allows us to standardize our operations, enhance our work, improve our skills, work over a web environment or mobile interface.
I go back to the warranty segment of the program to help track expenses that were generated by returns and zero-dollar sales orders to resolve customer issues. I feel like I was lied to by the company. They said they would have it in there on the new release. They told the purchasing manager it would be on the new release. The purchasing manager assured me it would be on there. They even showed 'warranty loading' on the screen when you signed in. However, there was no additional component of the return material authorization process for warranty adaptation. I even challenged our upload team about it and they had no answer. It does a few functions well but in my personal experience, buy something else.
The Business ByDesign support is stablished since you contract the service with SAP. SAP resolves according to the service level agreement. Currently, we continue with the service and we are using the support channels available. We are receiving the support. The SAP support gets an incident and after that, they contact us to resolve the incident, if necessary, they set the meeting to understand it or we explain the incident
The actual implementation was no worse or better than other software updates. There were days of pain and additional training helped overcome a lot of the learning curve associated with that. However, that training came from our own internal staff vs anyone from Aptean.
I recommend implementing all workshops during the ERP selection that you need to know very well about the ERP software. It allows us to gather information to accurate the plan of the project implementation. Additionally, we must reach the high-level commitment to achieve the main goals, to define the RACI matrix and communicate to all project stakeholders.
ByDesign stacks up well against the competition. Companies that do multiple things are usually the best fit (manufacturing, distribution, and service). The more 'modules' used, the fewer competitors will be able to meet the company's needs. It is not inexpensive, but if the needs of the company have the complexity from either a global perspective and need localizations and foreign currency, or a volume perspective and need resources greater than what can be easily housed on-premise, ByDesign should be a top consideration.
I came on board after M2M was implemented so I'm not sure how it has changed from previous software. However, I do know it has the ability to grow with the company.
Positive - Access to the real-time reporting allowing for faster decision making especially when fixed price projects are heading into an over budget position.
Positive - Complex KPI can now be tracked and as a consequence intensive plans can be made to capitalise on this level of reporting. Staff also have clear visibility over their own performance.
Negative - We are a bit on the small side at 30 employees for a ByD solution so it was relatively expensive for us. It would be a much better value preposition above 50 employees.
