SAGE X3
OVERVIEW
With all growing organizations there comes a time when spreadsheets and off-the-shelf accounting software applications no longer keep pace with the workload. When this the problems outweigh the benefit–it could be a sign it’s time to upgrade to a full featured, fully integrated ERP solution.
Softengine has created an ERP evaluation journey, we compare two leading ERP solutions for manufacturing and distribution businesses: Sage X3 (also called Sage EM) and SAP Business One. Both SAP Business One and Sage are among the top suppliers of ERP software globally.
SIMILARITIES
- Ideal for Most SMB And Mid-Market Manufacturing and Distribution Businesses
- Deploy On-Premise or Cloud Solutions
- Strong Process Manufacturing Capabilities Including Instrumentation Controls, Food & Beverage and Chemicals.
- Natively Support Industry Requirements
- Change Control Management
- Lot Traceability
- Quality Assurance
- Enable Regulatory Compliance by The FDA, 21 CFR Part 11 And FSMA
HISTORY OF SAP BUSINESS ONE & SAGE X3
SAP Business One is an ERP solution specially built for small- and medium-sized businesses, i.e. those with less than 100 users. It boasts an expansive client base of over 60,000 companies in 150 countries.
SAP Business One covers business areas including: sales, reporting, financial planning, vendor management, inventory management, project management, and customer relationship management. It also provides over 1,500 integrations for supply chain management, Ecommerce, finance, and CRM.
Over the years, SAP Business One and its partners have developed industry-specific solutions, and clients in manufacturing, retail, energy, public service, and financial service. Softengine has led in this effort developing leading top-tier solutions for Food & Beverage, Apparel & Footwear and Nonprofit industries.
The underlying architecture of Sage X3 is inherited from Adonix, which Sage acquired in 2005. As of this writing, Sage is continuing to push a rebrand from Sage X3 towards Sage EM (Enterprise Management) but you’ll still find many referring to this product as X3. X3 has been sold in the US market since 2012 and continues to be their flagship ERP offering.
SAGE X3 OR SAP BUSINESS ONE: LICENSING
Compare licensing options between the two ERP systems
SAP Business One has more licensing options for smaller sized organizations. SAP Business One offers licensing options for companies with revenues in the $5-10M range and scale up.
Sage X3 subscription licensing starts in the mid-teens per year for a handful of users with limited functionality. Sage X3 licensing model and product is designed for companies with annual revenues in excess of $30M per year according to Sage.
SAGE X3 OR SAP BUSINESS ONE: REPORTING AND ANALYTICS
SAP Business One is a clear forerunner
SAP Business One is clearly the frontrunner in terms of database management, querying, analytical tools, and overall performance. The HANA in-memory RDBMS is a definite advantage for SAP in terms of reporting and analytics.
Sage X3 customer reviews cite native reporting is rarely used and requires the use a 3rd party BI tools or crystal reports.
SAGE X3 OR SAP BUSINESS ONE: DEPLOYMENT
Learn More About How These Platform Host Your Data
SAP Business One solution has flexibility and can be hosted by SAP, or a variety of hosting providers like Softengine. With SAP you get a bit more flexibility when it comes to deployment options.
Sage X3 cloud solution is hosted only by Sage.
CONCLUSION
For SMB and mid-market sized manufacturing companies looking to scale their operations, both Sage X3 and SAP Business One should be on the short list of ERP systems to consider. We at Softengine are experts at helping companies evaluate whether SAP Business One is right for them. And if Food ERP is what you’re looking for, Food One is the best choice.
TESTIMONIALS
“Anyone you tell that you’re going to a new ERP system, they all give you that ‘pained look.’ To think that we’re on a year from when we did discovery to now three months into our live implementation, and all we’re working on is some fine-tuning. Some of these fine-tuning tasks are those little things that make our life so much easier, but this wasn’t what I expected when we went live because people told me so many horror stories. I was thankful for the effort on both Softengine and Baronet teams.”
Bruce Goldsmith, Family Owner, Baronet Coffee,
0The good news is that SAP Business One's Sales Analysis capabilities enabled us to evaluate the results of that campaign and then make adjustments for future promotions. Specifically, we can check the number of transactions, discount levels and net gain or loss per promotion and per location. We have to be very careful with how we spend our precious marketing dollars and the new system gives us the tools to optimize our investment in that area.
Denise Ost, Chief Operating Officer, Goodwill Industries, San Joaquin Valley,
Softengine has been a key contributor to our rollout of SAP Business One. The company's consultants were excellent and helped ensure that we had a successful implementation.
Jason Dugan, CFO, Trudeau Distributing Company,
We decided to find a partner we could put our trust in. Softengine is very experienced and systemized in its approach. We were very confident we’d made the right choice. Small businesses might be intimidated by SAP software. What they don’t realize is that SAP offers solutions designed specifically for small to midsize companies like ours.
Leonard Kang, Operations Manager, Christopher Lena,
We feel like we are in great hands with Softengine and the SAP Business One system they installed. It’s nice to finally put all those unreliable ERP systems and redundant procedures in the rear-view mirror.
Ray Lacorte, VP of Operations, Choice Organic Teas,
The Softengine team was able to tailor SAP Business One to deliver all the traceability Swabplus needed, including all the applicable reports. Softengine enhanced the core system to enable creation of new batch numbers if components don’t already have them and the option of batch-costing. They also added fields for escalation dates, expiration dates and additional inspection data (e.g., who inspected and when), which could be incorporated into each Certificate of Analysis.
Justin Ku, Administration & Operations Coordinator, Swabplus,
Our experience with Softengine has been extremely positive. Any time we call for assistance, they always assign someone who’s highly professional and gets the job done quickly. Interestingly enough, I’ve become so much more educated about IT-related matters since working with the Softengine team on this project. Every time we need to upgrade the system, they walk me though all the steps to make sure that I completely understand what’s happening, which contributes to the overall success of the upgrade. It’s been a pleasure to work with them.