SAP Variant Configuration (VC) - understand what it is in five minutes or less
“Car salespeople do VC all day long, dealerships might as well hire SAP consultants when recruiting for these jobs”
Think of a Honda Civic. Red, automatic transmission, grey interior. This is a variant. Now imagine all possible color combinations. Now visualize all possible model options (GPS? Leather? Sport package?). Quickly you will realize there are a zillion combinations. This is what SAP VC does. Unlike Oracle, which uses one material number per variant, SAP uses one material number with switches (called characteristics) for all combinations. That is the key difference. Take-away: SAP offers higher database performance. But it is a more complex architecture. Oracle is easier to use but it is not as powerful. That is it in a nutshell.
Of course a VC deep-dive is incredibly nuanced. Aerospace, life science, heavy industries, consumer electronics… VC is used in all these places, just to name a few. After all, what is the options combination difference between a Honda Civic and a Boeing 737? Nothing, as far as the system can tell. SAP is used to make both. It is just adding 1s and 0s.
Reach out if your enterprise needs help with this domain.
Best, SAP10x
— Proverbs 10:19