With the introduction of Enterprise SOA, SAP has introduced the Enterprise Service Repository (ESR) supported by Enterprise Service Builder. ESR allowing the business to define the meta data and service interfaces, helps to have an orderly and uniform approach to the service building.

The evolving SAP architecture is aimed at supporting business processes from Strategy to Execution in an integrated and complaint fashion.

For customers who are entrenched in SAP, what does this linear transformation mean? To take advantage of the evolving SAP technology, customers will have to undertake

1. Migration to the new version – For customers who are in the pre- NetWeaver version, they will have to migrate to take to take advantage of the integrated platform
   
   
2. Leverage the NetWeaver / business platform – Business will have to make the investment to leverage the NetWeaver business platform. For companies which are gone for best of breed solution, this will mean additional investment in the short to medium term.
   
   
3. Understand the toolset / additional capabilities – Companies will have to make investment to understand the new tool set to take advantage of the additional capabilities offered.
   
   
4. Getting better / stable support – With the evolving technologies, companies will have to plan and have back up to enable stable support to critical processes.