SAP Industry Solutions for Mid-market Companies
Olin Thompson and P.J. Jakovljevic - May 25, 2006

Introduction

For well over a decade, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) has been offering market-leading enterprise applications software tailored to specific industries, starting with the oil and gas and the utilities industries (the original SAP industries). Other industries, such as media, insurance, chemicals, banking, and the public sectors have followed, highlighting SAP's lesser-known side as a market-oriented provider of industry-tailored solutions for midsized enterprises. For instance, SAP software has mapped standard business processes as well as particularly specific core banking processes in financial accounting since 1997, with solutions for other industries following suit. Over the years, the vendor has created twenty-eight industry-specific products, thus offering customers a mass of expertise, along with information technology (IT) solutions particular to their respective industries...