Need of SAP NetWeaver Portal:

1. Increased Productivity: From a business standpoint, the SAP NetWeaver Portal is able to provide tremendous business value
by providing the right information in the right format to the right user at the right time. With role-based content and by using iView techniques, the SAP NetWeaver Portal makes sure that the end user sees only the information that he or she is supposed to see and also ensures that the information is in the appropriate format.
e.g., Customer representatives can quickly address customer complaints because all the information is located in one place.

2. Business Packages-A Jumpstart to Implementation: The business package for users consists of iViews(readymade content) that provide internal and external news, travel information, information on people, and other self services. The business package for managers consists of worksets that deal with people management and budget management.

This is mainly important for team leads, project leads, and department
heads.

Using the people management functionality, team leads can assess the performance of their teams. E.g., of people management worksets are team overview, compensation planning, recruiting.

Using the budget management functionality, managers can make sure that the costs are managed properly. E.g., for budget management
are cost center monitors, budget alerts, and queries for training and travel budgets.

3. Portal Technology-Open Industry Standards: The technological platform on which the portal is built is based on open industry web service standards such as eXtensible Markup Language (XML), Universal Description Discovery and Integration protocol (UDDI), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Web Services Description Language (WSDL), Java Connector Architecture, and Java Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS).

It is a platform-independent solution that can work on most of the database/operating system combinations.

4. Integration with Applications: The reason for the implementation of SAP NetWeaver Portal by companies is its effectivety in integrating existing legacy and other backend systems.

5. SAP’s NetWeaver Technology Stack: SAP NetWeaver is the building block for almost all SAP applications and consists of
four layers:
• People integration layer
• Information integration layer
• Process integration layer
• Application platform

Aim of people integration layer is to bring together all the information and the functions that an employee needs to perform his or her work efficiently.

The information integration layer is about providing access to both structured and unstructured information in the company.

In the process integration layer, the SAP Exchange Infrastructure (XI) enables business processes to run across system boundaries in heterogeneous landscapes.

The application platform has both Advanced Business Application Programming (ABAP) and Java runtimes and is an extension of the BASIS (SAP System Administration) layer with greater focus on web-enabling applications and services.

6. SAP’s NetWeaver Product Strategy: The SAP NetWeaver Portal brings together all the different applications such as SAP applications, customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), product lifecycle management (PLM), and so on.

7. Single Point of Access: In today’s world, businesses requires an increasing need to provide a single point of access to various business partners such as customers, suppliers, partners, and employees. It acts as an interface not only to your own company’s applications, but also to your business partners’ applications and third-party Internet services.

8. Business Information Warehouse: The Business Information Warehouse (BW) in the portal, brings together structured, but extracted and/or processed, information.