In a previous post, I pointed out my discovery of an anonymous blogger who is providing a blow-by-blow of his firm’s painful SAP implementation. (SAP: Loathe It or Ignore It, You Can’t Like It http://sapmesideways.blogspot.com/. )Since that post, I...
A number of important considerations in an SAP reimplementation do not exist for a technical upgrade. As a result, the upfront planning and evaluation time will be more involved. For example you need to consider any organization structure changes. How will any new organization structure items map to old ones? Then you need to analyze how to handle old master data if the organization structure changes are so significant that they require a whole new master data paradigm. If you have done a lot o [...]
I previously noted that I would follow up with a post on doing an SAP implementation for only marginally more than a technical upgrade (see Technical SAP Upgrade or SAP Reimplementation). In the process, you should keep a few assumptions and several considerations in mind. If an SAP reimplementation is done well, you can significantly reduce the Total Cost of Ownership. You should also keep in mind that getting closer to standard functionality in non-business critical areas (or what I like to r [...]
SAP’s application landscape has the depth and breadth of functionality to handle 90% (and usually more) of nearly any business requirement. Regardless of this huge depth and breadth of functionality, many businesses still custom code and redesign the software too much (see e.g. SAP Implementation Focus, Software Engineering or Business Process Engineering?). If you are an SAP shop considering an upgrade, you may need to take a hard look at whether you should do a technical upgrade or a reimplem [...]
As long as the application consultants’ limited understanding of your business drive your SAP implementation, it will only reflect their SAP capabilities. If you want more, then your project focus must become business driven rather than vendor and consultant driven. Frequently I see or hear SAP consultants, even those who claim to be “Platinum” level consultants, who really do not understand the extent of the capabilities of SAP as a business process and systems platform. Even though these Plat [...]
Part 2 of 3 SAP Competency Center – Doing Things Right VS SAP Center of Excellence – Doing the Right Things The SAP Center of Excellence approach assumes a dynamic organization that is experiencing a fair amount of change, at a pace that causes the organization to stretch. This is usually the case with growth-oriented companies that are seeking new competitive methods and ways of operating in a challenging global climate. The SAP Competency Center approach assumes a fairly stable business model [...]
