Do ERP Systems fight against UI/UX?

Hello, Pawel here. I work as SAP Consultant and I passionately deal with graphic design for about 9 years. My passion has a ‘small update’ as for about 1.5 year I am really into UI/UX, what I am also trying to have in mind during implementation of the ERP System.

But yeah, first of all — what the heck is that ERP? For these of you, who do not have a clue, I will put some light into it right now.

So, let’s say you have a company. A big one. You produce energy drinks (healthy example though). Lots of energy drinks — about 100K/month. To have a grasp on your business, you have to track the demands, you have to monitor stocks of your raw materials and other stuff, you want to know what flavour should be currently produced. So basically, you need an ERP system, which is some kind of an ecosystem that gathers logistics, finance, HR and other things together. The biggest ERP provider is SAP.

You might ask yourself ‘Ugh, okay — but why you describe it here? At Medium?’. Let me justify myself.

This is all about UI and UX. To make this post more interesting, let me bring several examples. So below is the screen, which you are facing with once you are logged into SAP (version 6.0 ECC). Sexy? Not really — but really powerful. Fine, so on the left side we do have some ‘cool’ menu with some folders? Not folders actually, these ones are called transactions.

Figure 1.1 SAP ECC 6.0 GUI — this screen is visible for a user once she/he is successfully logged into the system. On the left we see a drop-down menu, which consists of SAP-Transactions like ‘Create Purchase Order’ and others. The list depends on authorization assigned to each user.

And now you see, why I describe it at Medium, and why this post has been written. But before hating and blaming SAP — hold a sec. SAP is a really powerful system, with lots of things which you can configure or customize. So the ‘backend’ is really good!

SAP is on the market for almost 50 years. In 2013 they have really started to push towards UI/UX. You already know such design systems like Google Material, Salesforce Lightning Design System, or Spectrum from Adobe. SAP’s design system is called Fiori.

Below I will show you two snapshots from SAP — one from an old one, and one which follows the Fiori Design System guidelines. These particular screens are used by users to create purchase orders in the system.

Figure 1.2 SAP ECC 6.0 Create Purchase Order screen (left) vs Screen according to Fiori Guidelines (right).

And what do you think? Of course, to have this new UI some prerequisites have to be met. And this is the point of the post.

Prerequisites = Changes in the IT architecture = money.

It is also not the very last challenge. Many of the SAP users are people over 45, who are familiar with old screens and their mind is like ‘You know, this new SAP is nice, but I know how to do my things, so I do not need it at all’. So, in SAP industry we do face on one hand with decisions — which have to be done by stakeholders (SAP is mostly used by big companies, big companies = lots of managers = different views and many times lack of understanding what UX is, not even mentioning UI). On the other hand, we do have users who are sometimes a bit stubborn, but can be ‘persuaded’ by skilled Consultants who are able to prove, that the new SAP is far way better and much more intuitive.

In my career I have faced many times with people with lack of willingness of discovering something new and fresh. ‘Pawel, it is fine. But I do have my own pace which I follow for years and I do not want to change that.’ That is how you develop your dyplomatic skills! To end my monolog, I would like to show you some cool stuff coming from SAP, which forms a real evidence, that they want to follow the UI/UX topics and trends as much as possible.

When it comes to mobile apps, some years back SAP has become an owner of a simple app for technicians — SAP Work Manager. I had a chance to implement that one for one of the biggest chemical companies here in Europe. But the app is now obsolete. Why? There is a new version, a completely new product — SAP Asset Manager. Just have a look at the difference. The new product follows the Fiori Design System now — do you see?

Figure 1.3 SAP Work Manager (left) vs SAP Asset Manager which follows SAP Fiori Guidelines.

So this is the world of ERP Systems, of SAP in this case. If you want to know more about this cool software, visit the official website for sure! I encourage you also to see my own website — SAPdude which describes certain SAP-related stuff in simple words with a combination of eye-catching graphics.

Cheers!