back to article Oracle, SAP, IBM: They're rubbish and charge you billions for Excel, says man

Oracle and SAP have badly let down customers by charging them through the nose, while leaving them with nothing more than Excel spreadsheets to plan budgets, claims Frederic Layulaux, the chief executive of software-as-a-service outfit Anaplan. "Despite the billions companies have invested in ERP – when it comes to …

  1. Just a geek

    And MS Project is just a glorified task manager.

    Word is notepad (or maybe notepad++) with bold and italics.

    There is certainly some truth it what has been said but it's more about the extra features and functionality that these applications bring to the table, sadly though, a lot of people don't know to use them and do indeed just use MS Project as a task manager and use SAP as Excel.....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Or an alternative hypothesis:

      There is certainly some truth it what has been said but it's more about the extra features and functionality that these applications bring to the table, sadly expensively though, a lot 99.9999% of people don't know don't need to use them

    2. Rob 54

      Our MD used to say 'the company use SAP as an invoice printer'

      This was very true because they did not understand how to unlock the value, thankfully this has now changed, but I expect this is still true of many businesses.

      1. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

        Not in my experience...

        I have worked for, at, and on many SAP and Oracle EBS client sites on both greefield and brownfield projects and programmes. Most, if not all are using the ERP tools for full BPI, Financial accounting and Treasury, SCM, FSCM and legacy data integration et al - as they are purposed to leverage the benefits these systems bring.

        I've not come across, or know of any that use ERP tools to solely print invoices.

        Yes they can be a pain to implement - but that is generally not the softwares fault.

  2. Tim 11

    exponential growth in one year?

    I think you need more than two data points to claim exponential growth.

    And with debt of £200k per employee or £2,000 per customer, I'd agree the jury is still out on the business model.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Re: exponential growth in one year?

      I really would like articles to stop referring to small companies growing "exponentially". Of course, if you start with 10 and get 20 more the year after, your growth in percentage is immense.

      But come on, you're starting from nothing. Let's not use hyperbole until it is warranted, okay ? The growth of this small company is not exponential, it is simply allowing them to transit from next to nothing to next to something. That's not so impressive, now is it ?

      Even by the guy's own words : they have 50,000 customers, they want 100 million. So they have 0.0005% of their target market. There is nothing exponential in that slice of market share.

      Come back with the big words when they have gone from 10% to 15% of the market. Then we can start talking "exponential".

  3. Alan Bourke

    Yeah, there are reasons people use Excel.

    * Finance wonks love it.

    * CFO's love it.

    * Everyone knows how to use it.

    * It's been around 30 years ... yes, and? It's mature and trustworthy.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Yeah, there are reasons people use Excel.

      * Finance wonks can only use it, and they have no idea about using a database properly

      * CFO and other executive barely know how to use it, and nothing else.

      * Everyone has a copy of Excel, legal or not

      * People believe Excel is a database

      I'm working in a company were I've been fighting the use of office documents as much as I can whenever they really don't make sense - while most people know only office apps, and try to use them always even when better systems are available.

      I've seen people working in many big companies whose job was to export data to Excel and automate Excel so someone else could access those data and manipulate them. The, sometimes, they had to re-import everything into the database. If it could have some sense in the pre-Internet era, now it's completely crazy.

      That said, as a tool to perform some *personal* calculations and financial analysis Excel does work.

      1. Grikath

        Re: Yeah, there are reasons people use Excel.

        "I've seen people working in many big companies whose job was to export data to Excel and automate Excel so someone else could access those data and manipulate them. The, sometimes, they had to re-import everything into the database. If it could have some sense in the pre-Internet era, now it's completely crazy."

        No, it makes sense.. Like you don't want to connect a server straight to the Interwebs, without any form of security buffer, you do not want the ham-fisted chairwarmers interact directly with your live, crucially important, database. You give them Excel sheets tailored to whatever-they-want-to-play-around-with-this-time, and only import the data after thorough checking.

        Yes, it's entirely possible to tailor a large DB to make this possible, even with proper fail-safes. However the likes of SAP charge an arm and a leg, plus your firstborn, to even change a line on a screen, let alone configure the user-end of a DB like that. And you have to use their Experts, as per contract, at extortionate rates, or else....

        Having a PFY whip out tailored Excel sheets for import/export to the various departments is much, much cheaper and ultimately more effective, given the tendency of Manglement to want to Tweak Stuff every other day/replacement/promotion.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Yeah, there are reasons people use Excel.

        At their core, if a program makes use of storage, it's an effing database! The wrapper around it only important in that it determines what/how you manipulate that data. And that is why I spent some time on the structure and algorithms used on my projects. [And quite a bunch of verbiage in the documentation around choies made. I knew that the software I wrote by other people from the git go.]

        1. Richard Plinston

          Re: Yeah, there are reasons people use Excel.

          > At their core, if a program makes use of storage, it's an effing database!

          For that to be true, the items in storage are required to be 'data'. In my experience with client's spreadsheets the items are not so much 'data' as numbers they made up to give the required answer.

  4. Stretch

    IE 5

    At least you can use Excel without IE5

    *cough* SAP *cough*

    1. Rob 54

      Re: IE 5

      Don't understand? Did I miss the joke alert icon...You cannot use SAP without IE5 ???

      http://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1672817

  5. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    Will a single Excel sheet

    be able to run a Multi-billion $$/££ business?

    Complete with all customer history and products SKU's and, and, and....?????

    How are you going to prove financial complaince with Excel?

    I understand that the is trying to Embiggen his product and get his biz out of a financial hole. I'm also not a fan of CRM's like SAP, Oracle (esp SAP) etc but honestly, this guy is talking out of his backside.

    1. Gordon 10
      Mushroom

      Re: Will a single Excel sheet

      Errr. He was bashing excel not bigging it up. So he would agree with your statements. He didn't say so but he was bashing the big boys Budgeting Planning and Forecasting tools - not their CRM tools.

      He's failed to grasp that there will always be a sizeable percentage medium and big corporates unwilling to put their financial crown jewels in the cloud.

      Also- having worked in this space for the biggest part of 20 years now I guarantee you that at some point Anaplans shiny SAAS planning tool is being filled from data munged in excel.

      Why? See Alans excellent summary above.

      In addition its one of the simplest but most powerful ETL tools known to end users with a lovely graduated learning curve. I would argue pound for pound its probably Microsofts best product for actually getting work done. Yes you will get dyed in the wool techies who hate it - usually because they have had to onboard/migrate a monster user application based on it - without fully understanding the sheer flexibility and utility it brings to the Business.

      If excel was deleted by a global virus tomorrow - the worlds economy would crash. I don't know one company that isn't 100% reliant on for 1 or more critical processes or conversely many minor processes that would cause a critical mass.

  6. Steve K

    That is bollocks

    That's bollocks and he knows it.

    From Oracle there are Hyperion Planning/Essbase on-premise or Cloud (PBCS). You CAN use Excel as an interface (via the SmartView addin), but you can also operate perfectly well in the web interface (ADF-based).

    I make no comment as to costs, but to say that enterprises plan on spreadsheets is just plain wrong. As background, I specialise in Hyperion Planning/Essbase/Financial Management implementations and have many FTSE100/250 companies amongst my clients in this regard.

    The challenge is to get people to store data in the relevant tools, rather than creating islands of data stored in Excel, but that's true whatever the product is.

    Steve

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: That is bollocks

      Not bollocks. Another part of anatomy. Read his product name carefully. Think for 2 seconds. No, you could not have made this one up.

  7. just another employee

    We use Analplan at my work.....

    .. I cannot figure out why as it really does seem like Excel used via a browser (except all your data is stored somewhere else....US).

    ..and you need specialists to set it up and manage it.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
      Coat

      So it's an SAP version of Excel with integrated NSA access ?

  8. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    Amen!!

    SAP is horrifying.

    If you have a different opinion, then you're an idiot.

    1. fruitoftheloon
      Thumb Up

      @JeffyPooh: Re: Amen!!

      Jp,

      Whilst an indentured serf at Network Fail, I had the misfortune to use SAP for change control and budgetary matters...

      If that experience was anything to go, and the sadists behind SAP were to design a car, the handbrake would be in the boot, the sunroof controls would be in the near-side wheel arch; and it would only turn left if the weather was rather inclement...

      Or am I being a little unfair?

      Cheers,

      Jay

      1. small and stupid

        Re: @JeffyPooh: Amen!!

        unfair, Sap is not like a badly designed car. Its like a jumble heap of badly designed components, which them have to be welded together by stone age tribesman who have heard legends of cars. And welding.

        1. fruitoftheloon
          Happy

          @small and stupid: Re: @JeffyPooh: Amen!!

          Compact and clever,

          Yup, you're probably right, I definitely shouldn't have included the word 'designed' in my post, it does suggest that they may (on a good day, with a following wind & correct cloud formations) put conscious effort into how their shit works....

          On second thoughts, NO!

          Cheers,

          Jay

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: @small and stupid: @JeffyPooh: Amen!!

            SAP is German...

            ...maybe it works better in the lab than it does in the real world.

            It sure stinks in the real world.

  9. fruitoftheloon
    WTF?

    Advertorial or what....?

    A precis:

    - everything else is shit

    - please start 'renting' our much better stuff

    Slow news day or 'product placement'?

    /cynicism

    Jay

  10. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    Everything's not a database.

    "At their core, if a program makes use of storage, it's an effing database! "

    No it's not.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cloud for Planning?

    Clearly Anaplan have missed the fact SAP have Cloud for Planning available now which provides a far friendlier, scalable and cheaper way to deliver agile saas based planning than is possible with Anaplan. And no Excel anywhere...

  12. John Savard

    And here I thought Oracle and IBM charged big money for programs that did the same thing as SQL Server - only better and faster, and hence it was worth the money. (Of course, there's always MariaDB...)

    But given the body of the article, though, as opposed to its title, the fellow may have a point; that database programs don't provide functionality X, which people use Excel for, and for which he now has a product. And this may even be a failure on the part of Oracle and IBM, in not providing good enough tools for summarizing what's in a database. (But wouldn't that be BI (Business Intelligence) or analytics, not ERP?)

  13. MarkGolden

    iEXL

    See iEXL for Excel on AS400/IBM i on power. I wish we could charge millions/billions. I would be on a yacht in the south of France or Florida now. However I'm in Berkshire, England and it's 14C/57F.

  14. PeterM42
    FAIL

    Ah - SAP.......

    The system that generates customer complaints to regulators in place of energy bills (npower and Scottish Power).

    "Sap" is often used as a derogatory term.

    SAP is ALWAYS a derogatory system.

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