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Introduction to SAP R/3

SAP, is a German company which was founded in 1972. SAP is the world's third largest independent software supplier overall and is one of the world's premier enterprise resource planning software solution providers. SAP is an acronym for "Systeme, Anwendungen, Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung," which translates into English as "Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing." "SAP" is a trademark of SAP. Aktiengesellschaft, Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing, Neurottstrasse 16, 69190 Walldorf, Germany.

SAP R/3 is a complex enterprise resource planning software. SAP is delivered through the integration of various SAP modules. SAP has also come out with industry specific solutions (IS) catering to specific industries. The various modules in SAP deal with the different business processes in any business. Like any ERP, SAP R/3 is modelled around business processes rather than business functions.

The most commonly implemented SAP modules are the Sales and Distribution (SD), Financial Accounting (FI), Controlling (CO), Materials Management (MM), Production Planning (PP), Human Resources (HR), and Warehouse Management (WM) modules. Any basic SAP R/3 implementation includes atleast 2-3 of the above modules. An industry solution (IS) on the other hand is a specially developed modified version of SAP R/3 system for a particular industry. To take an example, SAP has specifically developed industry solution for the Oil and Natural Gas industry. This specifically developed industry solution has specific features catering to the oil and natural gas sectors which are integrated in the various modules in the SAP R/3 system.
These modules and solutions interact with each other to provide real-time data. It is this provision of real-time data that offers the business analyst complete control over the business, regardless of the company's size, number of locations, operating languages, or currencies. The programming language used in SAP is called ABAP which stands for Advanced Business Application Programming. ABAP is a fourth generation programming language.