system vendor RFI Archives - Innovate. Integrate. Transform. Run.

Where Does SAP Offshore Development Make Sense?
Where Does SAP Offshore Development Make Sense?

Where Does SAP Offshore Development Make Sense?

By Bill Wood|October 10th, 2011|

If you are capable of providing detailed design specs without any deviation or thought required, offshore development is a great option. The instant your SAP design requires a measure of experience and insight to make judgment calls, or to look for data or processing that is not explicitly spelled out in detail, you are headed for huge hidden costs. The level of detailed spec design work by SAP functional consultants merely shifts the development time and costs to the higher-priced resources th [...]

Hidden SAP Offshore Development Costs
Hidden SAP Offshore Development Costs

Hidden SAP Offshore Development Costs

By Bill Wood|October 3rd, 2011|

My experience with SAP offshore developers is that no matter how detailed your spec, their lack of experience with standard SAP transactions and functionality prevents them from properly testing their own creations. Their results are more than just full of bugs; oftentimes, the system crashes when attempting to do even basic testing. Repeat testing by expensive functional resources happens so frequently and consumes so much hidden time from parallel project activities that entire project timeli [...]

Overcome SAP-ERP System Integrator Sales Tactics 7
Overcome SAP-ERP System Integrator Sales Tactics 7

Overcome SAP-ERP System Integrator Sales Tactics 7

By Bill Wood|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
Overcome SAP-ERP System Integrator Sales Tactics 6

Overcome SAP-ERP System Integrator Sales Tactics 6

By Bill Wood|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 [...]

Overcome SAP-ERP System Integrator Sales Tactics 5
Overcome SAP-ERP System Integrator Sales Tactics 5

Overcome SAP-ERP System Integrator Sales Tactics 5

By Bill Wood|June 6th, 2011|

You have made it through the RFP and vendor presentations, and you have narrowed your final selection down to the final two or three SAP or ERP vendors that you will hire for the engagement. What are the important things to verify that will help you understand if you will achieve benefit? Every integrator who has been in business for any period of time will have a few great references. However, just because they have a few customers who will give them a glowing reference does not mean they will [...]

Overcome SAP-ERP System Integrator Sales Tactics 4
Overcome SAP-ERP System Integrator Sales Tactics 4

Overcome SAP-ERP System Integrator Sales Tactics 4

By Bill Wood|May 31st, 2011|

This week, we will take a “mid-point” check and do a brief review of the sales tactics and scams used by some ERP or SAP system integrator salespeople. After this short overview, we will address some additional ways to ensure you get the most from your SAP RFP efforts. After this short review of the sales tactics and some additional techniques for dealing with them, we will continue this series. The next posts will cover the following topics: Qualifying vendors, Final considerations, Negotiatio [...]