Achieving Business Value from SAP Investment

By |February 27th, 2012|

As a follow-up to the previous post on Sustained Business Value from SAP Business Software, I did some research on the study authors and discovered their continued focus on this issue. Recently, Peppard (one of the authors) and a couple of other colleagues provided real business value success findings in an upcoming journal article titled “Factors Affecting the Successful Realization of Benefits from Systems Development Projects: Findings From Three Case Studies” [FN1]. While I read through and [...]

Using Your SAP Steering Committee for Business Transformation

By |March 14th, 2011|

How Long-Term SAP Steering Committee Integration Changes the Enterprise One of the biggest benefits of an SAP implementation is the business transformation it can bring. At first, the changes and challenges are uncomfortable, even downright painful. However, in the mid- to long-term, SAP brings about a business culture transformation. When ongoing steering committee involvement enables that transformation, business to IT convergence occurs. Over time, this convergence of business and technology [...]

What are SAP Best Business Practices Anyway

By |March 7th, 2011|

Over the last couple months, I have seen a few posts debating the use of software “best business practices.” The basic takeaway is that if everyone uses the standard delivered “practices,” no one has competitive advantage. While this may be true for many software applications, two components of SAP make this idea misleading. Many of these commentators fail to recognize that SAP refers to different things as "best business practices." The key types of SAP best business practices involve the proc [...]

ERP Education: Losing Our Religion

By |January 17th, 2011|

Most ERP software packages are designed around industry-accepted business practices, operating philosophies, and techniques that have evolved over many years. Today, the issue is not businesses have a body of knowledge with supporting software tools; the question is, are clients educated enough to see the value or understand the proper use of the tools? The short answer is no.   Education versus ERP software training Many have lost sight of the difference between education and software tra [...]

Toward an SAP Center of Excellence or SAP Competency Center – PART 3

By |July 28th, 2010|

Part 3 of 3 Stages and Components of the SAP Center of Excellence To wrap up this series, we will take a brief look at the post go-live or production support environment. One academic study I reviewed on ERP project success factors defined the three production stages of Acceptance, Routinization, and Infusion (see The Top 5 ERP Success Factors by Project Stage from 22 Critical Success Factors). These three terms fit the requirements for SAP production system stages as you move toward an SAP Cen [...]