What is Baan Corporation? Products and Technology, ERP Modules

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What is Baan Corporation?

BaaN Corporation was founded by Jan Baan in 1978, in Barneveld, Netherlands. The company offered financial and administrative consulting services to businesses. The company was strongly supported by the local Dutch Reformed Christian business people.

Later, Jan’s brother, Paul Baan, joined the company to develop its first software. With this, the company became pioneers of the ERP industry. BaaN Corporation now focused on developing ERP software for its clients. It acquired several other software companies, including Antalys, Aurum, Berclain, Coda and Caps Logistics, to enhance its product portfolio.

In 1998, BaaN Corporation faced its first big setback when the management of the company overstated the company’s revenue by booking sales of software licenses that were actually reassigned to an allied distributor.

The discovery of this revenue manipulation led to a sharp decline in BaaN’s market value by the end of 1998. In June 2000, BaaN was sold off to Invensys (a UK automation, controls and process solution) at a price of US $700 million.

In June 2003, Invensys sold BaaN to SSA Global Technologies for US $135 million. Further, SSA Global Technologies renamed BaaN Corporation as SSA ERP Ln. BaaN Corporation is now owned by Infor Global Solutions after it acquired SSA in May, 2006.

Infor Global Solutions works closely with its customers to ensure the success of each ERP system’s installation. The company enables its clients to achieve the highest level of self-reliance through its efficient systems.

The company’s most significant client base comprises industry leaders such as Boeing, Philips, Mercedes Benz, Nortel, Fujitsu Network Communications and Motorola. Infor Global Solutions focuses on ensuring that each of its customer interactions follows the “Three I” philosophy: ‰

  • Integrity in its interactions with its customers, colleagues, partners and shareholders.
  • Innovation in what it builds and how it delivers.
  • Initiative in speed and focus, which bring it close to all market opportunities.

Baan Products and Technology

BaaN Corporation, which is now owned by Infor Global Solutions, has long been a pioneer in offering ERP tools to organisations from various industries. The BaaNSeries-based product family includes the following:

  • Baan Enterprise Resource Planning (BaanERP)
  • BaanFrontOffice
  • BaanCorporateOffice Solutions

The corporation’s product range (under the umbrella name, ‘BaaNSeries’) has a modular architecture, which enables organisations to provide client-specific business solutions by using standardised components. The modular architecture, which allows flexibility of deployment and development, sets BaaN apart from its competitors.

BaaN products cover an entire range of manufacturing and business systems, including inventory and ordering, sales and customer support services, financial and forecasting systems, etc. Moreover, BaaN offers the multilingual feature with translations of its software in more than 20 languages. It has a distribution and support network in about 60 countries.

In addition, BaaN offers multicurrency support, Internet and World Wide Web functionality and support for different operating systems, including UNIX, Windows and Microsoft BackOffice and FrontOffice applications.

BaaN is the first business solution provider to receive the ‘Designed for Microsoft BackOffice’ logo certification. The corporation’s products support relational database systems, such as Oracle, Informix, DB2, Sybase and Microsoft SQL Server. Built on a promise to eliminate the complexity of IT solutions, the corporation’s products include the best-in-class components.

BaaN provides new releases on a regular basis, which enables organisations to update their infrastructure. There are three main benefits that differentiate each component element within BaaNSeries from its competitors. These are listed as follows:

  • Best-in-class components
  • Evergreen delivery
  • Version independent integration

Baan ERP Modules

BaaNERP is the successor to BaaN IV and is a verified ERP software application. BaaNERP is a fully integrated system that offers exceptional functionality across all areas of an enterprise. BaaNERP has several interdependent components that could be deployed to meet business ends.

The flexibility offered by BaaNERP through its components enables customers to enhance the benefits of the best-in class solutions as well as a fully integrated, high-performance system. BaaNERP comprises the modules shown in below:

Let us discuss these modules in detail:

Manufacturing module

This module is used for the purpose of bills of material, cost price calculation, engineering change control, engineering data management, hours accounting, product classification, product configuration, production control, production planning, project budgeting, project control, repetitive manufacturing, routings, shop floor control, tool requirements, planning and control, capacity requirements planning, master production scheduling and material requirements planning.

Finance module

This module is used for the purpose of accounts payable, accounts receivable, financial budgets system, cash management, financial reporting system, fixed assets, general ledger, cost accounting and sales invoicing.

Project module

This module is used for the purpose of project budget, project definition, project estimation, project invoicing, project monitoring, project planning, project progress and project requirements planning.

Distribution module

This module is used for the purpose of sales management, purchase management and warehouse management.


Global Support, Education and Consulting

BaaN’s services can be classified into three main components: global support, education and consulting services. BaaN’s global support services offer complete support to large- and small-scale enterprises that rely on the BaaN ERP solution for critical business processes.

BaaN’s client organisations receive the following support:

  • Telephone support: This helps in getting answers for any technical query. It is provided by the local BaaN Support Centre during office hours.

  • Critical incident support: This helps in solving high-priority issues that cannot be delayed any further.

  • 24 hours critical incident support: This deals with technical issues that create business standstills or serious disruptions of business functions, etc.

  • Access to interactive support: Consistent interactive support is offered through a website that is available 24×7.

  • Subscription to innovation: This comprises new versions, releases and system updates to a client’s current BaaN software.

Other services offered by BaaN are in the area of education. BaaN Education is a partner in lifetime learning and helps in maximising the return on investment in people and technology. Lifetime learning means that BaaN’s workforce is constantly updated with the latest technology and business developments.

BaaN Education meets the educational needs of everyone in the organisation, including new employees as well as seasoned professionals with exhaustive experience in the use of technology. The corporation offers Web-based learning modules referred to as the virtual campus. Its process-based course on education takes care of specific enterprise applications of BaaN Corporation.

In addition, the course provides an in-depth understanding of the business processes of the corporation. Thus, BaaN Corporation extends education beyond functionality and considers all conditions within which its applications are used. These include the manufacturing, sales, financial and technical environments of an organisation.

In addition, BaaN Corporation offers consultancy services to customers on various ERP tools. BaaN Consulting is committed to extending BaaN Corporation’s applications across the world. BaaN Consulting has a successful track record with more than 1000 global customers with applications to serve almost every business environment.

BaaN Consulting offers a gamut of services, including project management, business consultancy, application consultancy and technical consultancy. Moreover, it offers support to customers all through the implementation process and extends even after the customer organisation goes live with the application. BaaN Consulting interacts with its customer base through Web-based BaaN Cyber Consult offering.


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