Steps to Achieve SAP IT Convergence

By |August 22nd, 2011|

My last post on SAP IT Convergence is About Business Focused Integration provided an overview of Business - IT Convergence and why it is important. This week, we look at some of the key principles around creating SAP IT Convergence, including some steps on the path to convergence. ========================= What Is the Difference between Business to IT Alignment and Business - IT Convergence? Convergence and alignment have an important distinction. Business to IT alignment works to mature the IT [...]

SAP Consultants for Better SAP Projects

By |August 1st, 2011|

No matter what size company or organization you have, the type of consulting experience you choose will have a huge impact on the results of your SAP solution. For high-speed projects, consultants who have several small or mid-sized SAP project experiences tend to be more well rounded. They are skilled at delivering the more difficult SAP solutions with standard functionality and at a faster pace than their counterparts. Why Are SAP Consultants with Many Small and Midsized Projects Uniquely Qua [...]

Steering Committee Governance for an SAP Center of Excellence

By |July 11th, 2011|

This post is based on information from my ASUG presentation in Atlanta: Beyond Technology Alignment – Building a Center of Excellence (http://bit.ly/jJefxP). ------------------------- At the intersection of business and IT, you have convergence. At the place of convergence is where the Center of Excellence exists. ------------------------- One of the key SAP project success factors is to use a steering committee made up of key business stakeholders. They can meet once a week or once a month, bu [...]

3 Keys to Reduce SAP TCO & Move to SAP ROI

By |June 26th, 2011|

I only have a couple more posts in my series on overcoming vendor sales tactics, so I wanted to provide a brief distraction and look at a few key areas for SAP organizations to move to excellence. This post focuses on some of the considerations for SAP Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and SAP Return on Investment (ROI). One key to achieving SAP ROI is through convergence or integration of the SAP staff into the business. I have started down this path as part of a follow-up to the recent ASUG Atlan [...]

Overcome SAP-ERP System Integrator Sales Tactics 7

By |June 20th, 2011|

As we get close to wrapping up this series, we will take a short look at ERP and business software licensing. Fortunately, you have a number of strategies available to negotiate your licenses. One thing to keep in mind here is that there are two revenue streams for the software provider. The first is the license sale, and the second is the maintenance agreement. ERP – SAP – Business Software Licensing Negotiations One negotiating tip I learned a long time ago is to always ask for more than you [...]

Overcome SAP-ERP System Integrator Sales Tactics 6

By |June 13th, 2011|

This week’s post in the series deals more directly with the software selection rather than vendor selections. As we move toward the completion of this series, we need to consider a few more issues. Picking the wrong ERP business software package can be one of the factors that contribute to ERP project failure. Aside from evaluating the product fit to your business processes, you also need to carefully consider hardware, third-party software, development tools, scalability, and other factors tha [...]