Hey, If You Know Anything About SAP – I Need Your Brain for a SEC

2 points by Njord01 19 hours ago

Hey HN! We're a small team building supply chain optimization tools for emerging markets. One of our core focuses is public procurement – we're building modules to analyze tenders, score suppliers based on risk, performance, compliance, and even recommend matches based on the tender specs.

Now we're working on integrating this logic with SAP systems, especially around SRM and sourcing modules (think Ariba-level workflows, but more local and smarter).

If you’ve ever worked with SAP procurement, SRM, Ariba, or similar – or just have thoughts on supplier scoring, tender ranking, sourcing automation, or vendor risk analytics – we’d love your input!

We’re still early, but aiming for a modular plugin-type integration. Gotchas? Ideas? Warnings? War stories? I’d really appreciate hearing anything that might save us pain or open new doors.

Thanks in advance

GianFabien 16 hours ago

I've worked on installation of several SAP systems, most multi $M. Based on this limited subset I offer the following:

  * You need to have experienced SAP *technicians* on board. It is far too big and complex to learn as required.

  * In every case one of the Big 5 consulting firms were involved. Learn to work effectively with them. Be mindful of the fact that they might see you as a competitor that cuts into *their* billable hours.

  * SAP documentation is horrendous. It is massive. Often misleading. Version and configuration details can easily lead you astray.

  * Customization to client's requirements is the norm. These in turn are typically even worse documented (if at all).

  * As much as you might wish to avoid it, you need to work with Oracle, DB2, etc database vendors too.

  * The hardware configurations are often bizarre.  Especially when deployed in clusters with fall-back, etc.
I hope you have a VC with deep pockets and lots of patience. Your first paying client could easily become a huge time and effort sink.