SAP Business ONE Implementation [Paperback]

Wolfgang Niefert (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1847196381 | ISBN-13: 978-1847196385 | Publication Date: May 29, 2009

With clear instructions and plenty of screenshots, this book will provide you all the support and guidance you need to implement SAP Business One in your business. We will work with a project plan in each chapter and implement new techniques in the related case study. Alongside this hands-on approach tips and tricks are provided that you can use for your own project. This book is written for technically savvy business owners, entrepreneurs, and departmental managers. If you are a departmental sales manager you can benefit from the advanced sales stages and workflow concept in this book. The seasoned inventory and warehouse manager can immediately utilize the inventory optimization and warehouse management concepts. Your web technicians will benefit from the e-commerce information and understand how your web strategy can be aligned with SAP B1. As a business owner your key players from sales to fulfillment gain back control and you can grow your business to the next level using modern franchising concepts. If you have SQL skills you can leverage your knowledge, connecting with SAP tools and features that are built on queries. No previous experience with SAP or ERP is assumed.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Wolfgang Niefert

Wolfgang Niefert studied "Wirtschafts-Informatik" at the European Business School in Oestrich Winkel - Germany. The international management program included programs in London and San Diego with focus on Computer Science and Economics. He has more than 15 years experience with international SAP Implementations. A certification for SAP Production Planning allows him to relate larger SAP solutions to SAP Business ONE. Wolfgang also designed the N2ONE Portal for SAP Business ONE that allows the real-time management of e-commerce functionality.

Wolfgang Niefert

Wolfgang Niefert studied "Wirtschafts-Informatik" at the European Business School in Oestrich Winkel - Germany. The international management program included programs in London and San Diego with focus on Computer Science and Economics. He has more than 15 years experience with international SAP Implementations. A certification for SAP Production Planning allows him to relate larger SAP solutions to SAP Business ONE. Wolfgang also designed the N2ONE Portal for SAP Business ONE that allows the real-time management of e-commerce functionality.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Packt Publishing (May 29, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847196381
• ISBN-13: 978-1847196385
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #136,842 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Buy More Than One Copy Because The Overnight Office Elves Will Get At Least One Copy, June 7, 2009

By 

Zal (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: SAP Business ONE Implementation (Paperback)

Niefert's book is definitely one of the first books to hand to new SAP Business One (SAP B1) customers. Maybe not necessarily for what the title says, but for what the book actually does. I bought the book thinking it was going to give an improved project management tool over what SAP provides to implement its SAP B1.

Many times when a small company buys SAP B1, they have been running their business piecemeal and SAP B1 is their first "company-wide" system. This is both a blessing and a curse for the customer. On the one hand, the customer is consolidating their information and processes into one system, but then comes the realization the company now has a rather robust system which takes some time to learn and master. It is a shock for most customers to come to grips with of how much is "out there" to learn, and the flood of SAP-provided documentation can turn into a tidal wave very few customers can or want to handle. This author keeps it simple for them.

"SAP Business One Implementation" brings a good balance to understanding the basics of the system, along with some general steps needed to implement the system. Niefert uses the time-tested teaching method of telling the reader what he is going to cover, explains it, summarizes again, and sometimes gives some simple exercises. The title of this book is a bit misleading; a more direct title might be "Understanding and Implementing SAP B1" (or something like that). That title would give the reader a better idea that Niefert is providing an understanding of SAP B1 which is interspersed amongst the implementation steps and exercises.

It might be best to start with the understanding SAP B1 portion of his book and leave the project management for later.

Although the example of a lemonade stand business at first sounds fatuous, it works quite well and might move the new customer away from trying to complicate matters as they so often do.

The book can easily be used to help the customer realistically grasp how much effort and thought needs to be done before starting the actual SAP B1 implementation. And THAT, for those of us doing implementations, might be the best point of this book.

For the customer SAP B1 implementation manager, he or she gets a good overview of the project methodology, along with a short and digestible overview of the system functions. The author covers the set-up tasks and the author explains them quite well with examples. For those "client leads" (SAP lingo for business experts in individual functions or department), they get a good overview of their individual areas and can reference other areas that might be important to them without being bogged down by too much detail. And for those folks who will actually be using the system for their daily work, the book is a vastly improved introduction than what can be found in SAP's documentation. The author gives them enough to understand, but not so much that they become overwhelmed (and get scared into thinking they will be using a complicated system). Even the IT personnel can get a good taste of the topics they like which are separated into Chapters 9 and 10. The movers and shakers of the company will like the last chapters to see some ideas they might push during and after implementation. Of course, Niefert puts in a few pages about a certain "add-on" which will hopefully help him generate some business. I am certain customers will find this book the best first introduction to their new SAP B1 system and the book will be passed around quite a bit (read this last sentence as buy more than one copy since the office elves will come out at night to get one).

But what about upper management? Well, Niefert takes care of them too. This book provides an excellent high-level synopsis, and besides, what higher-up manager is going to read all the details? The details of implementing and running the system are often left to those individuals who are assigned to be "client leads". Besides, the book has at the very beginning what most managers are looking for (in Chapters 1 to 4). Which, in my opinion, is exactly where their information needs to be for the book to agree with management's average short-term attention span - not a knock on management, just a fact I have learned over the years.

And now to cover the project management part of the book. Although Niefert basically takes sections of what SAP already provides, he thankfully avoids all the counts of hours and durations found in SAP's own documentation, which can cause some heartburn and confusion if not handled properly during the sales phase. I guess he wants the customer to go through the actual process to determine realistic durations and level of effort (telling is his comments on page 98). Believe me, this is a good thing! Some suggestions he makes are great - someone HAS to be appointed to take care of the physical folder, and some thought processes (author's exercises) that relate directly to the implementation process need to be done. Nothing too earth-shattering in the implementation process in and of itself, but I like the way he works the project management topic into the various chapters for each department or area (see page 148 for an example). This combination of topic and implementation also helps to get the reader in a frame of mind to think a bit more about what is coming up in the implementation. Resources are so tight in a small company that not having good preparation or a good understanding of what is coming up creates a greater project implementation impact than anyone can imagine in a larger company.

This is really a small point, but I did not understand the rhyme or reason of when words are bolded. I found myself trying to figure out why "this" word is bolded and why "that" word was not.

I will personally suggest folks read their area/chapters of interest BEFORE implementation starts and then get with the customer SAP B1 implementation manager to provide feedback about their amount of work to be done for implementation. I don't think I will use the book as a guide (learn as you go) DURING implementation, but will definitely use the book at that time to send the users back to "refresh" their ideas about the system before the real training begins.

To use a term Wolfgang Niefert would appreciate - "huch" - I know what might be a good title! I hope I am not infringing on copyright here, but I think the "for Dummies" publications are wonderful!

This book does a good job of stepping the reader through the SAP B1 system and implementation in a straight and simple manner. How about calling it "Understanding and Implementing SAP B1 for..."? Oh, by the way - nice choice of photo on the cover ("growing" things and all).

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Detailed explanation - including data transfer from previous system(s), June 21, 2009

By 

K. Kos (Croatia, Europe) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: SAP Business ONE Implementation (Paperback)

I am new to SAP Business ONE and read this book, because the Packtpub series are always on the edge. When reading technical books especially about SAP I often feel bored with information I already know and then get confused with the sudden level of detail without the proper explanation.

In this book each chapter highlights a different aspect of an SAP implementation. The case study is continued in each chapter. I followed all the examples and did not get lost. This was a big surprise to me as many other books provide screenshots, but not as detailed.

One could argue that some chapters touch the topic rather from a high level. But the value of the book is not the detail in each chapter, but rather the completeness of topics touched.

The final chapter about the franchising framework provided a good starting point for a project I am working on with my company.

I wished the same author would publish a similar book about Microsoft Dynamics.

2.0 out of 5 stars Less than expected, January 14, 2012

By 

Danny L Turner - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: SAP Business ONE Implementation (Paperback)

I was hoping to get more detailed information that would relate directly to our implementation. It has been a few months since I read the whole thing. The "Partner" we chose was mentioned favorably in the book a few times, and this helped build my confidence of our process...wrongly. There seems to be little in here that helped us avoid major go-live issues. I handed this to our IT guy and after he tried a few chapters, he told me it was really of no use to him. So it wasn't just me. Not recommended.