IFS Applications is presented by the vendor as an agile application suite that offers enterprise resource planning (ERP), enterprise asset management (EAM) and enterprise project management, handling 4 core processes: Service & Asset Management Full Enterprise Asset Management (EAM), Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) and Field Service Management (FSM) Manufacturing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) with support for process manufacturing, discrete manufacturing…
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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
IFS Applications
SAP Business ByDesign
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IFS Applications
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.
Order to cash processes and scenario are implemented natively in IFS. An HR module exists for career management also (objectives, comportments, training, mobility) but may be improved in terms of workflow validation (e.g. training to validate by a manager) or reporting.
The speed of bug fixes should be improved by the IFS after sales teams. We saw the difference of responsiveness prior to Go Live and after Go Live, with a change of teams. IFS France is working on that point, and strategically wants to innovate by acting now with two other third-party companies in early 2017, to improve the after sales experience for customers.
There is no license model between the full licenses, which gives access to all IFS features, and the light licenses, to get access to a specific module like expense sheet. As a consequence, you must acquire a full access license for one team working only with a dedicated module (e.g. general ledger). Maybe an intermediate type license would be welcome to balance the budget. IFS tries to make prices competitive but you have to consider full upgrades of the product too, where requiring full licenses can be hard on the budget.
When you have an Active Directory ecosystem with a trust relationship, users from domain B can't natively access IFS, even if AD sync is in place with domain A. It's important to improve that functionality because many companies have a merge and acquisition context, with SOX constraints sometimes, and avoiding maintaining contacts or local accounts simplifies SOX compliance, or to management of accounts within the company.
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.
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.
We have been unable to get answers to our questions, solutions to our problems, and they don't seem interested in working in the construction industry.
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
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.
Microsoft AX, QAD (in continuation of our previous ERP), Sage X3 was an out of the box ERP that was part of initial RFP. We have chosen IFS based on the compromise between costs & budget, functionality, technical features, and feedback from similar customers that gave their feedback. The project manager team and qualification level of technical or consultant teams were differentiating factors too. Finally IFS application was named in the Gartner’s mid-market ERP Magic Quadrant, along with SAP, and helped us to finalize our choice
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.
Reporting is now centralized and managed. Previously, reports were outside the information systems and there was a risk of incoherence.
Accounting controls are now in place on the overall processes, including production, which helped the company to reduce closing periods or to produce more easily official mandatory accounting files yearly.
Interfaces between the CRM forecast tool and IFS helped to keep the tools in sync, and to decrease the processing times prior to production launch.
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.
