Interview: The Next ERP

E3: Mr. Schumann, the topic of low-code or no-code has gained considerable momentum in recent months. Why is Tangro now taking up this very technical topic? Aren't you afraid of being too late?

Andreas Schumann, Tangro: The aim of low-code or no-code is to develop software faster, more simply, with better quality and with fewer human resources. Due to the lack of IT experts available on the market and the increasing need for companies to develop software themselves for the purpose of process optimization, this makes a lot of sense. However, as far as the timing of rethinking software development is concerned, we were way ahead of our time.

E3: In what way? So far, I have perceived Tangro as a specialist for incoming documents.

Schumann: When Tangro was founded in 1998, it was already clear that the basis of all future developments would be the Tangro platform, with which applications could be created faster, easier, of better quality, with as few developers as possible - the whole, as far as possible, without programming knowledge.

E3: So, low-code pioneering work, right?

Schumann: Back then, the Tangro platform already had a lot in common with today's low-code approaches. I am deliberately not talking about no-code applications. I think very little of the term no-code. Of course, you can develop very simple applications with a no-code platform. However, the world of business management is not simple, but very complex. Anyone who works with SAP or another established ERP suite knows what I am talking about.

E3: That means the Tangro Inbound Suite was developed with this platform?

Schumann: Right. All Tangro products were developed based on the Tangro platform. Products that came after the invoice was received, such as the document receipt for order confirmation, delivery bill and dispatch advice, were each created in a maximum of four weeks.

E3: This speed of development is very impressive. But here we are talking about applications specialized in document input. How open is the platform for other business applications?

Schumann: About seven years ago, the question arose as to which ERP system we at Tangro wanted to use to map our business processes. After a short period of consideration and the realization that there was little on the market that was suitable for a software manufacturer like Tangro, I decided to develop an ERP system based on the Tangro platform that would map our requirements and business processes exactly.

E3: The idea of pulling yourself out of the mire by the scruff of your neck, right?

Schumann: Of course. The idea of proving how powerful the platform is played a role, as did the subsequent marketing of the resulting ERP system. Last but not least was the expectation that the requirement by an ERP system would significantly advance the platform. The ERP system developed in this way has been in productive use for years and makes life easier for everyone involved. The platform has benefited enormously from this development.

E3: How long did the development of the ERP system take?

Schumann: As I said, we started about seven years ago. The developer was a former student of sports science with a focus on business administration. After two years, another developer joined the team. In the meantime, there are six employees, one takes care of the documentation, one of the recognition logic, in order to use and expand the findings from the Inbound Suite. The connection to Word, in order to be able to print offers sensibly from the ERP system, was done by another developer, among others, actually platform work, because print functions are now available to everyone, as always usable without programming knowledge.

E3: And how powerful is your ERP?

Schumann: The ERP system we use contains well over 200 transactions! Among them are those concerning absence management, the just up-to-date electronic incapacity to work processing, or eAU for short, a highly informative liquidity plan, and both the purchasing and sales sides from the quotation to the automatic creation of software maintenance documents. In total, this represents an investment of about thirty years of development. When you consider that the development of SAP Business by Design involved hundreds of developers, certainly over more than seven years, this is incredibly fast. And we have not yet reached the end of platform optimization.

E3: Thank you for the interview!