For small and mid-sized businesses, the term ERP often conjures images of high costs, extended timelines, and complex consulting engagements.
And for years, that was the reality: ERPs were powerful, but the road to get there was long, expensive, and often exclusive to large enterprises.
Today, however, another approach is gaining momentum in the implementation of B2B tools. Among other benefits, it leverages out-of-the-box best practices and configurations that meet the needs of most businesses with only slight modifications.
The market supports this approach with appropriate product offerings. For example, with GROW with SAP, small and mid-sized companies now have a new option. It’s a cloud-based package that brings SAP S/4HANA’s enterprise-grade functionality and built-in best practices to businesses. Among other things, such offerings are particularly interesting for SMEs that don’t have a team of consultants or the time and resources to hire one.
Rather than building ERP processes from scratch, companies can start with SAP’s 50 years of experience already embedded in the system in the form of best practices. The result is a smarter, faster route to operational excellence.
ERP best practices are standardized, preconfigured business processes built into the software. In the past, ERP implementation mostly meant extensive customization. Consultants would spend weeks, sometimes months, conducting discovery sessions to map out a company's operations.
Solutions like GROW with SAP flip that model on its head, featuring hundreds of preconfigured business processes that are ready to go. These are proven workflows, tested and refined across thousands of real-world implementations.
The logic behind best practices is simple: rather than reinventing the wheel, start with a process that already works. These pre-built workflows reflect what successful companies have been doing for decades, whether it’s handling returns, calculating taxes, or managing production scheduling.
Adopting these standards is stepping into the shoes of entities that’ve already figured out what works. And it means organizations can start or continue strong, without having to pay to rediscover the basics.
Through GROW with SAP, companies receive a playbook that has been developed, tested, and updated over decades by SAP and its clients. From finance and sales to supply chain and compliance, it’s all there, configured and ready to use.
With enterprise-grade operations packaged for businesses, GROW with SAP enables companies to skip the blueprinting phase and proceed directly to execution.
Let’s take a closer look at how this plays out in real scenarios.
One example of built-in expertise is basic credit management in SAP S/4HANA Cloud. In a custom project, building a credit policy workflow could take weeks of design and testing, if not more, depending on the requirements. With GROW with SAP, it’s already there.
The system can automatically assess customer creditworthiness, apply limits, and block orders if necessary, protecting cash flow and reducing risk. There is no need to define the rules; they’re already modeled based on best practice.
Collections and dispute management is another strong example. This scope item helps streamline debt collection, manage overdue receivables, and resolve customer invoice disputes, all while protecting customer relationships.
The built-in tools help them document customer interactions, manage correspondence, and take action to reduce exposure to bad debt. Instead of customizations, GROW with SAP delivers it out of the box, accelerating resolution times, reducing DSO, and improving cash flow without custom development.
These are the kinds of workflows that used to require expensive consultants. Now, they come standard.
Every industry has its nuances, and GROW with SAP accounts for that.
Whether an organization is in manufacturing or retail, the system includes vertical-specific best practices.
In retail, for example, companies will find built-in workflows for promotions, markdown planning, and stock rotation.
In manufacturing, you can find production scheduling, quality checks, and BOM handling are already preconfigured.
This means that companies are building on industry-tested workflows that are already optimized and can be fine-tuned where necessary. Organizations with outdated or misaligned processes should consider whether adapting them to fit standard best practices might better support long-term growth.
Compliance is one of the most significant challenges in ERP implementation, particularly for businesses operating across multiple countries and regions. When overlooked or mismanaged, compliance issues can lead to costly penalties, reputational damage, and delays in market expansion.
With GROW with SAP, this complexity is addressed upfront.
The system includes built-in support for local tax rules, e-invoicing formats, and regulatory requirements across numerous regions and industries. Whether a company is managing lockbox cash applications in the US or adhering to digital invoicing mandates in Europe, the logic is built in.
This saves time and reduces risk. There is no need to build compliance workflows manually or rely on ad-hoc spreadsheets. It’s already there, modeled after how real companies meet these requirements.
Some business leaders worry that adopting best practices means losing what makes their company unique. That’s a fair concern; many of them understandably hesitate to change established workflows, especially if those processes support their perceived competitive advantage.
However, ERP best practices should not be mistaken for rigid, one-size-fits-all templates.
GROW with SAP promotes a philosophy of configuring standard processes instead of customizing from the ground up when it makes sense. This means aligning internal teams with SAP’s best practice frameworks wherever possible, and selectively tailoring where differentiation is genuinely needed.
This approach dramatically reduces cost and complexity. It also keeps the system agile: upgrades are easier, integrations are cleaner, and owners avoid the technical debt that slows companies down over time.
And this doesn’t mean companies are left to navigate the process on their own. Implementation partners like ACBaltica, which specialize in implementing SAP ERP solutions and helping SMEs find this balance. They know where to adapt and where to trust the system. These experts help organizations move quickly without compromising quality.
In other words, businesses don’t need to figure out an entire ERP strategy from day one. What they need is the right starting point and a partner who knows how to get them live fast, without overengineering the solution.
For fast-growing companies, GROW with SAP is more than a software package.
Instead of hiring teams of consultants to design processes that SAP has already perfected, companies can plug into decades of ERP expertise and start operating like mature enterprises in a fraction of the time, making a strategic shortcut.
In 2025, organizations are not necessarily selecting to outspend the competition in order to outmaneuver them. With GROW, they get proven practices, faster deployment, and built-in compliance, all from a platform that scales with a business.
For the leaders of growing firms, the message is straightforward: companies no longer have to be large enterprises to operate like one
Organizations can rely on the experience of global industry leaders to guide their operations and let solutions like GROW with SAP do the heavy lifting. This enables teams to concentrate on strategic growth initiatives while the ERP system manages operational complexity in the background.