3 Development Phases for SAP Center of Excellence Maturity

By |May 14th, 2012|

Before we get into the substance of how to build a next-generation IT organization that is integrated with business, we need to take a quick review. Last week’s post on SAP Service Provider to Business Peer Through Center of Excellence Maturity proposed the direct maturity of the SAP IT organization. Here, we discussed the three stages of Organizational Change Management Inside the SAP IT Support Organization. These stages create clear distinctions between SAP Service Delivery versus Value Deli [...]

SAP IT Convergence is About Business Focused Integration

By |August 15th, 2011|

Enterprise SAP IT organizations pose a problem as they are focused on SAP and IT. They lose sight of their purpose, which is to promote the broader objectives of the enterprise. An SAP-centered IT organization's whole existence is about ensuring business benefit, focusing on enterprise goals, strategies, and objectives. Somewhere between the SAP sales cycle and the SAP go-live, the concept of business benefit gets lost and is never found again. By the time you go live with the SAP application, [...]

Do You Know When To Do SAP Custom Development?

By |April 11th, 2011|

Use SAP Best Business Practices For Commodity Processes But More Carefully Evaluate Competitive Processes The debate and discussion around SAP best business practices usually assumes an “either-or” mindset. Either you use the SAP best business practices as they are, or you abandon them (for more background on SAP's "Best Business Practices," see What are SAP Best Business Practices Anyway). Several commentators suggest you should not do a software vendor’s “best practices” because you adopt the [...]

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 [...]

How “As-Is” Process Mapping Can Damage Your SAP Project

By |January 3rd, 2011|

Not only can the "As-Is" process mapping damage your project, but it also adds significant amounts of unnecessary cost. Throughout my experience in SAP projects, I have participated in the "As-Is” and “To-Be” processing mapping exercises many times. Along the way, I learned a few key lessons. First, the old “As-Is” process mapping approach was (and is) critical for software engineering projects. As-Is process mapping efforts have very limited application to an SAP implementation-- or for that m [...]

Removing SAP Project Barriers to Realize ROI and Business Benefit

By |August 2nd, 2010|

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 [...]