Continuing the Journey to the Business-Converged SAP Center of Excellence
After many years researching and living through IT and business convergence for IT leadership, I ran into a study that brought more clarity to the key dividing concepts. Some interesting approaches and maturity models are available for senior executives, but little direction for the delivery organization (for detailed development, see 3 Development Phases for SAP Center of Excellence Maturity).
CIO magazine established a CIO Executive Council for doing research on challenges faced by senior IT leaders. Because of this research, they developed a great senior IT leader competency model that can easily be applied to transforming the SAP enterprise. Their CIO competency also correlates well to SAP’s RUN methodology (part of the new integrated SAP ASAP Implementation Methodology).
The competency model consists of three stages:
- Internal IT Focus
- Enterprise Integration
- External Business drivers
The Chevron CIO Journey Through the States of Internal to Enterprise to External
Louie Ehrlich, former President of Chevron Information Technology Company and CIO of Chevron Corp, described his journey of discovery around the first two key areas:
The hard lesson I learned as a CIO looking to advance my role and serve as a business strategist is that one must recognize that there is likely to be a capability/expectation gap, and that this gap doesn’t go away by itself. It’s something that we as [senior IT leaders] have to close.
In my view, the expectation gap is influenced by three factors. The first factor is the state of the fundamentals of your IT environment. Is it cost effective? Is it reliable? If it isn’t, then by definition your role needs to be one of IT function leader. Without that foundation, nothing else is possible.
The second factor is the capabilities and business knowledge of the IT function. Do you have an IT employee base with the experience and ability to bring strategic business value to the company? If not, then again – much of your focus should be as the IT function leader. The first and second factors are within our control. [FN1]
Ehrlich’s experience, insight, and direction are part of The Real Reason Executive Participation Creates IT Project Success. The executive guidance provides invaluable insight, which ultimately aligns to business needs and requirements. Without executive sponsorship, making the transition from pure technical delivery to IT-business convergence will be difficult (if not impossible).
The Current State of SAP Business Transformation Needs Attention
You know you have a serious problem when the user community expresses these (all-too-common) frustrations: “The IT group just doesn’t get it!” or, “They think they know what I deal with, but they have no clue,” or worse still, “I’m sick of them putting something in and just throwing it at me and saying here it is.”
Too often, many SAP-enabled enterprises have IT organizations that do not genuinely appreciate their role in the enterprise. Many SAP/IT organizations seem to lack the critical understanding that technology in the enterprise is there to further business needs.
If you really want to find out the business perspective of your IT organization, why don’t you do an internal poll asking how true those user statements are on a scale of one to five. You might be shocked by the answer.
A Change Program for the SAP Organization
You can use SAP as a Change Enabler to achieve tremendous benefits throughout the enterprise with the right approach. However, as my former colleague and friend Michael Doane has suggested with a marriage vs. wedding analogy, SAP Implementation is an Investment NOT an Event!
Often, the consultants who have done SAP for any period of time focus on how to help the business transition to the new system. Unfortunately, in the course of the project, we rarely focus on helping the SAP support organization make the transition to business partner. Instead, we focus on setting up help desks, support, data management, etc.
To achieve Sustained Business Value from SAP Business Software, you must incorporate a Change Management Program within the SAP/IT Organization itself that is focused on Achieving Business Value from SAP Investment.
The SAP-Enabled IT Organization’s Perspective Needs Internal Change Management
As part of the approach to gain real competitive advantage in the business marketplace, you must Change How You Look at SAP to Create ROI. Some organizations are taking this approach as they seek employees who are “business analysts” rather than merely functional consultants. In other words, they are looking for employees who clearly have a business background as well as SAP experience.
The SAP organization must focus on developing depth of business skills and business collaboration. Failing to do this will only result in a loss of credibility for the SAP-enabled IT organization. As long as that is the perception of the broader user community, and especially of business leadership, the SAP/IT organization will not be seen as a business peer. In fact, until this internal frustration and distrust is addressed, the broader business community will naturally resist allowing IT to become a business partner.
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[FN1] Closing the Expectations Gap, CIO Dashboard
