Agile Project Methods for SAP ERP Projects?

By |October 29th, 2012|

Looking at the "Agile Manifesto" and how Agile methods have been applied generally involves small, discrete, "digestible" work and task components. Juggling the number and complexity of dependencies on a full-scale SAP ERP project involves management and coordination efforts, which completely go against the idea of pure Agile methods. ====== ERP projects tend to have too many moving parts and dependencies for Agile, as the methodology provides too little control and coordination. The level of c [...]

Untangle SAP Software Licensing

By |July 9th, 2012|

A while back, I read a self-serving post on LinkedIn from a company that promoted how “wonderful” Oracle is for having a public price list, and how terrible it is that SAP and others do not. The main complaint was that SAP lacks transparency. However, while SAP does not publicly publish a price list, the company does have a pricing structure that is regularly updated and quite thorough. Additionally, the post failed to mention Oracle sales tactics. The company virtually gives their software awa [...]

Being an Expert Witness in an SAP System Integrator or Consultant Fraud Trial

By |May 29th, 2012|

Those who have followed this site for any period of time are probably aware that one of my passions is to see the whole business application space “cleaned up.” A recent group of comments and private messages I have received about consultants who knowingly commit fraud really got me aggravated.  I've actually received e-mails through my site from these “freshers” who would brag about having their fake resume ready and they were excited about actually conning their first customer.  Enou [...]

SAP Customer Responsibility for SAP Project Success

By |April 23rd, 2012|

Some time ago, I put together a synthesis of SAP success criteria based on academic literature and my own personal experience. The table below is part of the list of SAP Success Factors for Vender Selection – Responsibility Matrix. For a more detailed explanation of each of the vendor-related items, see the posts listed in the Series on SAP ERP Project Success Factors. In the prior series, we went through SAP success factors with shared responsibilities between the company adopting the SAP appl [...]

SAP Enabled Business Transformation for IT Leadership

By |March 12th, 2012|

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 [...]

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 [...]