Series on SAP Competency Center or SAP Center of Excellence

By |July 21st, 2010|

  THREE-PART SERIES ON DEVELOPING AN SAP CENTER OF EXCELLENCE. You probably already knew that a "Competency center" is focused on SAP application support such as help desk functions, system stabilization, troubleshooting, etc. But did you know that a true "Center of Excellence" is focused on the business and business drivers? The key goal of a "Center of Excellence" is to integrate not just the application, but the application support staff into the business. Business Transformation from [...]

Where do you Start with SAP Return on Investment or SAP ROI?

By |July 19th, 2010|

See Part 1 - SAP Implementation Is an Investment Not an Event How much is it going to cost, and how long is it going to take? That is the classic approach to SAP implementations. However, this approach is not enough today, as the marketplace is demanding more from their IT dollars. Now the marketplace has questions about measuring cost reductions, process improvements, and customer retention/acquisition. These are all important discussions. Your money has to work for you in your business-- and [...]

A New SAP Implementation Methodology and Implementation Steps

By |June 28th, 2010|

Studies have shown that projected benefits in business cases for IT investments and actual value achieved face a critical disconnect, because so many firms focus on going live with a project rather than its value delivery. An SAP/ASUG best-practice survey on capturing the projected benefits of an IT project found that 73% of companies do not quantitatively measure value post-implementation (SAP Executive Insight Series, pg. 7, 2009). Critical business benefits for an SAP project require taking [...]

Change Management Strategies and Knowledge Transfer Processes for a Successful SAP Project 1

By |June 24th, 2010|

Why SAP Process Understanding, Troubleshooting Ability, and Knowledge Transfer Techniques Are Missing in SAP or ERP Projects Because an ERP system such as SAP has a single database or a single instance of data, a full process chain of dependencies is developed. Every organizational function becomes dependent on the process steps before and after it, no matter what department or area is responsible (Kallinikos, 2004). Because of these dependencies, a data error is no longer contained in a single [...]

ERP III – Is the Integration of Collaboration the Future of Enterprise Applications

By |February 11th, 2010|

When I was at Grant Thornton in the late 1990's, and then later when the management consulting organization was sold to Hitachi, I worked on a comprehensive knowledge management model (which I will refer to later in this article). The model can be applied to integrating collaboration tools into any enterprise application. Carefully structured and planned integration of collaboration tools can produce great results. However, integration is a challenge. Many social media types aim to tie collabor [...]

ERP and SAP Business Case for ROI, Business Benefit, and Success

By |November 23rd, 2009|

Your company’s SAP or ERP business case should start before your RFP, not just at a high level. Before ever issuing an SAP RFP, you need to take some time up front to get educated and develop some key understanding. Educated software buyers are more sophisticated in their research, and the more sophisticated you are, the better results you will receive. The more educated you are: The better the quality of the ERP RFI or RFP, The better choice you will make at vendor selection, The more objectiv [...]