The SAP Business One Program
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The SAP Business One Program
The Alex G. McKenna School at Saint Vincent College offers its students a SAP Business One® program, an integrated management solution that helps students broaden their business understanding. As a member of the SAP University Alliance, Saint Vincent offers students in this program classroom training, hands-on experience and an internship using this popular business software.
Thousands of prominent corporations, ranging from Kennametal to H.J. Heinz Corp. and Sony, utilize SAP software to manage their operations, making it one of the most popular management solutions in the professional world.
Executive Summary
When it wanted to deepen students’ knowledge about how companies use IT to support operations, Saint Vincent College contacted the SAP University Alliances. SAP donated a college wide license for the SAP Business One application – a complete, integrated business management solution that students could learn quickly. Today it’s used in labs that give students hands-on experience with a leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution – broadening both their business understanding and career opportunities.
Vision
Robert Markley teaches accounting information systems (AIS) and management information systems (MIS) at the Alex G. McKenna School of Business, Economics and Government. Markley needed a comprehensive solution that covered ERP, supplier relationship management, customer relationship management and basic reporting in a seamless, integrated manner. Equally important, the software had to be very easy for students to learn.
Why SAP?
“Of all of the SME [small and medium enterprise] software solutions out there, it best fit our needs,” comments Markley. “SAP Business One offered the comprehensive functionality, centralized data and ease of use that we needed in a classroom-friendly business management application. And because key functionality was integrated out of the box, I could use it to illustrate the need for a centralized, trusted data and integrated business processes spanning multiple departments.”
Undergraduate Programs
Program Highlights
Solutions
Because of the software's ease of use, Markley can design a variety of hands-on, real-world exercises that students can complete in a week or two with no prior experience with SAP Business One. "I still discuss key concepts in class, of course, but these lab-based exercises reinforce those concepts by bringing them to life," he explains. For example, to help them understand how customer quotes eventually become cash in the bank, he has students set up customers, create quotes, input orders, create invoices and more.
Benefits
By incorporating SAP Business One into his classes, Markley gives students hands-on experience with an ERP system from the market leader in enterprise application software. Many graduating students have said that their experience with the program has helped them compete more effectively for jobs. This is particularly true for students like Claudia Arrunategui, who participated in the certification program. She was hired right after graduation by Vision33, an award-winning SAP gold partner, and is now working as a consultant on implementations of SAP Business One.
Future Plans
Saint Vincent College has a college wide license for SAP Business One, so other professors are free to incorporate the software into their classes as well. "We're definitely starting to see more of a buzz about it, and we're starting to see better adoption across our school," adds Markley. "It is an excellent complement to many of our business, accounting and management classes."
For more about the program specifics, please see the SAP Business One Schedule under the Tools section on this page.
Operational Excellence - Minor or Graduate Degree
Saint Vincent offers a highly successful and well-recognized graduate program, a master of science in management: operational excellence (MSMOE). This program, recently ranked 32nd in the U.S. News and World Report's listing of top 100 online non-MBA business graduate programs in the country, will help you learn to be an effective leader-manager by working strategically with people, your organization and its processes.
Operational excellence concepts mesh well with the SAP principles and program, including classes in:
- Change Management
- Project Management
- LEAN (pull system)
- Six Sigma
- Operations Management
- Supply Chain Management
- Statistics I and II
- Organizational Culture
- Ethics
- Leadership
You can minor in operational excellence while an undergraduate, and move on to the MSMOE program either on completion of your degree, or after you've begun your career. Remember, Saint Vincent graduates receive a 15-percent discount!
"Combining the SAP Business One and the MSMOE program was a great success and piqued the interest of many employers. I would not have been able to work at such a prestigious company as Accenture, had it not been for the MSMOE's partnership with the SAP B1 program. Although I am not currently in a SAP-focused role, the knowledge and experiences I gained from the SAP B1 program helped attract Accenture's attention and allowed me tell/share my MSMOE/SAP B1 story. That story helped me to be where I am (so thankful to be) today!"
Brandon Gernhart
Student Learning Outcomes
The major in Management is designed to:
- Understand the strategic management process and demonstrate the ability to create effective strategic plans.
- Students will demonstrate and ability to work effectively with others in a team setting.
- Understand and apply best practices in Human Resources.
- Understand and apply key ethical decision-making frameworks in analyzing business decisions.
- Know the basics of how to increase job performance, motivation, and commitment of employees.