If we consider the strategy of SAP & Oracle in the last 5 years, we can easily conclude that Oracle pursued inorganic growth while SAP sticked to their proven organic growth path barring 1-2 big ticket acquisitions.
SAP became ERP system with the base of MRP. It evolved from Manufacturing Requirement Planning. Being an European Software Vendor, SAP has strong hold in the European markets and the same is the case with Oracle being an U.S company. While there were certain strong areas of each ERP system, now over a period of time, in terms of basic functionalities and the breath of areas covered is same for both the vendors. Now since both the vendors are almost equal in terms of capabilities or the Business Value Add they were providing, we would need to look at strategic directions pursued by both the companies to understand how both the ERP softwares are evolving.
Looking at Oracle, the big ticket acquisition by them of SUN technologies for $ 7.4 Billion, BEA system for $ 8.5 Billion, Hyperion, Siebel etc. The list is long, but the bottonline is Oracle is banking on buying best of breeds software solutions and integrating them with Oracle ERP.
Vis-a-viz looking at SAP strategy, apart from having handful to big ticket acquistions, SAP believes in developing their ERP system organically and doing acquisitions only when it is must or SAP products are not able to compete with best in the breed softwares, the case in point is Business Objects. Even though SAP had their Business Reporting tools like BEx Queries etc. but they were laggard compared to the market leader Business Objects. SAP realized that the with the exponential growth of data in every organization this area is poised for growth and SAP doesn't stands a chance with their product portfolio, so they decided to do the acquisition of Business Objects for $ 6.8 Billion.
Analyzing the current landscape, we can see the ERP market is balanced between both the vendors. It depends of the future products of both the companies to really create differentiation i.e. Fusion for Oracle and HANA & other in-memory applications for SAP.
SAP became ERP system with the base of MRP. It evolved from Manufacturing Requirement Planning. Being an European Software Vendor, SAP has strong hold in the European markets and the same is the case with Oracle being an U.S company. While there were certain strong areas of each ERP system, now over a period of time, in terms of basic functionalities and the breath of areas covered is same for both the vendors. Now since both the vendors are almost equal in terms of capabilities or the Business Value Add they were providing, we would need to look at strategic directions pursued by both the companies to understand how both the ERP softwares are evolving.
Looking at Oracle, the big ticket acquisition by them of SUN technologies for $ 7.4 Billion, BEA system for $ 8.5 Billion, Hyperion, Siebel etc. The list is long, but the bottonline is Oracle is banking on buying best of breeds software solutions and integrating them with Oracle ERP.
Vis-a-viz looking at SAP strategy, apart from having handful to big ticket acquistions, SAP believes in developing their ERP system organically and doing acquisitions only when it is must or SAP products are not able to compete with best in the breed softwares, the case in point is Business Objects. Even though SAP had their Business Reporting tools like BEx Queries etc. but they were laggard compared to the market leader Business Objects. SAP realized that the with the exponential growth of data in every organization this area is poised for growth and SAP doesn't stands a chance with their product portfolio, so they decided to do the acquisition of Business Objects for $ 6.8 Billion.
Analyzing the current landscape, we can see the ERP market is balanced between both the vendors. It depends of the future products of both the companies to really create differentiation i.e. Fusion for Oracle and HANA & other in-memory applications for SAP.
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