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Sap Background Research Paper

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SAP is a software company whose main product is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. SAP was founded in 1972 in Walldorf, Germany under the name System Analysis and Program Development. (SAP) SAP has more than 54,000 employees with sales and development locations in more than 50 countries. Their revenue in 2010 was € 12.5 billion and based on market capitalization, SAP is the third largest independent software manufacturer. SAP has over 176,000 customers in over 120 countries and markets and distributes its products and services primarily through local subsidiaries. (SAP) ERP software is designed to model and automate many of the basic processes of a company, from finance to the shop floor, with the goal of integrating …show more content…

(Hirt and Swanson, 250) Another benefit companies receive from using an ERP is standardized processes and consistent data. This is important in the energy sector and the oil and gas industry because it allows the business to move rapidly to new markets as well as adjust workloads among offices. (Anderson et al., 119) an ERP system will provide managers with pertinent and timely information on when assets need to be replaced among others which will improve the quality of their decisions. (Anderson et al. 119) With the recent financial scandals, vendors that market ERP have taken advantage of the increased focus on internal controls that grew out of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) legislation. These vendors, including SAP, emphasize that a key feature of ERP systems is the use of “built-in” controls mirror a firm’s infrastructure. They argue that these built-in controls will help firms improve their internal control over financial reporting required by SOX. (Morris, 129) The results of this study shows that companies who use an ERP system are less likely to have an internal control weakness reported for SOX Section 404. This supports the claim that ERP systems help improve internal controls over financial reporting as required by SOX Section 404. Firms with an ERP implementation are less likely to contribute to the internal control weakness on both entity-wide and account-level controls than for firms without.

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