From BAAN To SSA Baan - A Timely Evolution

Baan takes its name from its founder Jan Baan, who founded the company in 1978. As with the other major European ERP vendor, Baan started out as a small software company specialising in integrated company software initially for its home market.

In the case of Baan this was the Netherlands. Baan is best known for its close ties with the Dutch Reformed Church, a conservative Protestant church in Holland. They were a conservative company, employees were not encouraged to be away from the homes on Sundays and women were required to dress conservatively.

At its peak in the early 1980's, BAAN the ERP system was considered to be the best of its kind and was the ERP system of choice for most European companies. However, numerous scandals which rocketed the company resulted in a loss of confidence and an associated decline in its market share in the ERP market. Eventually in June 2000, Baan was sold to Invensys and subsequently sold to SSA Global Technologies for $135 million. Their ERP offering is no longer promoted as BAAN, but now known as SSA Baan.

Their tagline is 'Forward Faster' because they believe your enterprise cannot wait. In addition, SSA global develops and implements software solutions in shorter timeframes helping you with this goal.

SSA Baan offers an open-ended technology solution works application breadth and can be used by multinational organizations. It has the range of modules expected from a major ERP vendor such as enterprise resource planning, global financial management, human capital management, corporate performance management, customer relationship management, product lifecycle management, business intelligence, supply chain management and supplier relationship management.

SSA Baan helps companies by increasing use of productivity and reducing costs. It claims to offer comprehensive support for manufacturing operations by extending functionality for Finance, Sales, Purchasing, Manufacturing, Freight and Warehouse management. As far as ERP systems go, SSA Baan is considered easy to implement and maintain. It has a dynamic modular architecture which lends itself to implementation on a range of hardware platforms including traditional client/server systems.