When should ALE be used?

Besides the benefits of ALE there are also reasons not to distribute:

• The functional scope in a distributed environment is restricted. Not all functionality that is available in an integrated SAP system can be used with distributed systems in the standard yet. Although ALE provides tools to create new ALE business processes or to enhance existing business processes, this does involve additional expenditure.
• Each company needs some organizational standards and data harmonization. In a distributed environment less standards are required than on a single integrated system. However, in a distributed environment the maintenance of the standards and the data harmonization is more difficult than on a single system.
• The administration of decentralized systems is more expensive. Support and service costs for hardware and software in decentralized systems are higher than these costs in a single centralized system.

ALE should be used in a company if the benefits of ALE for this company outweigh the reasons against distribution.

For this you always need to carry out a company specific investigation, in which you also should consider the culture of the company. ALE is good for some companies but not for all.