The SAP Project

More Than a Survival Guide

Gerald Sullivan

• Publisher: SAP PRESS
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781592299492
• eBook ISBN: 9781592299508
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Computer Science General
• Index: Computer Science

Since you wouldn't begin a hike without a map, consult this book before starting your next SAP implementation project. Help your business team prepare for and participate in the SAP project journey! Get an early read on timelines, processes, responsibilities, and potential setbacks. Understand how your implementation, upgrade, or migration is structured, how to assemble the deliverables, and how to dodge common pitfalls. With this preview of what to expect, what questions to ask, and when to take which steps, you can execute planning, go-live, and post-go-live activities without tripping up or getting lost.

Highlights:

• Project requirements
• SAP implementation method
• Logistical tasks
• System integration and contracting
• Project planning
• Documentation and traceability
• Work stream model
• Blueprinting best practices
• Security and internal controls
• System testing
• Change management
• User training

1 Surviving in SAP Projects

Welcome to the world of SAP projects! If you are like most SAP project team members, your boss—be it the company CEO or a line manager—has tapped you on the shoulder and let you know how important you are to the company. Because of your importance, you have now been selected to work on Project X, your company’s SAP implementation project.

At first, you no doubt felt a flush of pride that others recognized your capabilities and appreciated them. After that point, some doubt may have crept into your positive outlook, as you started wondering “Just what is an SAP project?” and “How does it work?” Likely included in this train of thought was some concern about the reputation that SAP projects have for difficulty and demanding time commitments.

1.1 Why Are SAP Implementations So Difficult?

“Survival” means more than personal survival. It also means company survival. After all, SAP implementation projects have a reputation for being extremely difficult to deliver. Newspaper stories recount the struggles that companies have had with conducting accurate financial closes, processing sales orders, and accounting for inventory. SAP is an integrated software package that performs thousands of functions essential to company operations—meaning that the implementation must go exactly as planned, or your standard company processes may no longer work.

Over the past several years, the complexity of SAP solution sets has substantially increased. Numerous releases have now made available a number of supporting modules in addition to the core SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) functionality. These modules include applications supporting procurement, demand planning, supply chain management, and budget planning. The need to share data across modules with the basic ERP platform means that all solution elements must work together seamlessly. This requirement considerably raises the performance bar for implementation project teams.

However, the benefits of having an SAP solution as the “single source of truth” are fundamental. Once installed, an SAP solution means that management can access reliable information regarding company or business unit performance without the data massaging and manipulation so common to companies that lack this integrated set of systems. It also means that your company can now perform business functions on a robust and highly reliable system.

Moreover, SAP is not unconcerned with the popular view that its implementations are demanding tests for many companies. In fact, it has worked to address many of these concerns, and has offered some answers to common project struggles. SAP Rapid Deployment Solutions provides systems configured for targeted installation, and SAP Business One offers small and medium-sized businesses a standardized setup. However, for many companies, most challenges associated with large-scale implementations still remain.

In many ways, SAP implementations’ reputation for difficulty is based on fact. You can expect your project to consume significant portions of your time and that of your team members. You may work longer hours than you or your colleagues are accustomed to. Challenges and emergencies will no doubt arise and require immediate resolution by your team. Sometimes you may feel at a loss for answers and not know what step to take next. Despite all of this, the life of a project team is directed by its implementation schedule, so problems must be identified and resolved quickly. This demand usually means much more than an eight-hour day or a 40-hour workweek. At times, you can expect project needs to be all-consuming. This especially holds true in the case of global projects where time zone differences between Asia and North America make late evening teleconferences routine.

No doubt these projects can be challenging. After all, few other activities in a company involve virtually all functional organizations—from its supply chain to sales operations to financial management. Such projects are undertaken only rarely, and your company’s previous experience with projects on this scale may be limited. Virtually hundreds of company employees from IT and functional organizations will be mobilized to assess and redesign business processes. They then translate these process requirements into software configurations. Your company’s level of preparation to meet this challenge is crucial, as we’ll soon see.

You can also expect to see a very high level of attention on your project. An SAP installation for a typical Fortune 500 greenfield deployment (that is, a company that has never used SAP in any of its operations) can take several years and will certainly consume large amounts of company human resources. Further, these projects involve tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in investment. Very often, project progress and expenditures are tracked at the board-of-director level. Questions regarding project performance at the board level can become very pointed, which can be quite uncomfortable for those who are giving the answers.

SAP implementation projects can also place a company at substantial risk. The danger of implementing incorrectly is very real. Many companies transition to this heightened risk profile without foreknowledge of their potential negative impact or plans to handle specific risks. ERP implementation failures are not things of the past. Several Fortune 500 companies as well public agencies have recently reported their failures and litigated over the massive costs involved. Any company undergoing an SAP implementation places itself in a heightened risk category.

But these struggles are not limited to SAP implementation projects, as evidenced by recent experience with the Affordable Care Act website. Building and deploying a portal-based service is an extremely complex undertaking, similar to a large-scale SAP implementation. As reported in the New York Times, the ACA website experienced serious issues from the outset. As after-action analysis began to reveal the causes, they turned out to be a quite familiar list: continuing scope changes, inadequately constructed specifications, insufficient testing, and lack of an overall systems integrator, among other common obstacles.

Large-scale SAP implementation projects can encounter serious problems or even fail for many of the same reasons, such as insufficient system testing, inadequate business preparation, large numbers of SAP system customizations that degrade system performance, and the failure to integrate company operations to align with SAP constraints. These issues generally come down to a single cause: the ability of project staff to manage the implementation. This is likely due to lack of project skills in the team or among executive sponsors. Ultimately, any implementation project centers on business transformation. The company’s ability to align the SAP system to perform needed business processes—and to prepare end users to operate them—is the major focus.

1.2 Levels of Preparation Required

Clearly, the project must be done right. Assigned employees from diverse organizations must learn to operate as a well-oiled team. Company outsiders, in the form of systems integrators and independent contractors, must also learn to function as integral members of this team. They must learn to think as though they were company employees. Management structures and operating procedures must be built to guide the overall team. Only then do the risks become manageable.

Company executives assigned to oversee the project will likely have very limited exposure to system implementation methods. They will need guidance relative to project processes, risks likely to be encountered, potential impacts to company performance, and high-level methods of progress tracking. Even systems integrators and contractors who perform much of the SAP technical setup will experience continuous flows of new staff into their organizations. Integrator staff may be well-versed in their specific professional roles, but may well not understand the full project process. Everyone assigned to the project requires a “nuts-and-bolts” understanding of project mechanisms, choice points, and risk mitigation options.

McKinsey & Company reported on the results of transformation projects at the Association of International Product Marketing and Management; its report was called “70 % of Transformation Programs Fail.” Other comparable studies indicate a similar failure rate. Based on the evidence, only a few companies have figured out how to reach the necessary level of success, and most companies still have something important to learn. Remember also that an SAP implementation is a twofold transformation: first, the process changes associated with the sys...

Table of contents

• Notes on Usage and on the Screen Presentation
• Dear Reader
• Table Of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Surviving in SAP Projects
• 2 How an SAP Implementation Changes Business
• 3 The ASAP Methodology
• 4 Types of SAP Projects
• 5 Start-Up Logistics
• 6 Systems Integrator Selection and Contracting
• 7 SAP’s Role in the Project
• 8 Project Planning
• 9 Knowledge Management
• 10 Project Organization
• 11 Project Governance
• 12 Building the Right Project Team
• 13 Business Blueprinting
• 14 Realization
• 15 Configuration and Custom Objects Build
• 16 Systems Testing
• 17 Data, Reports, EDI, and Security and Internal Controls
• 18 Building System Environments
• 19 Change Management
• 20 Continuous User Training
• 21 Cutover Planning
• 22 Go-Live and Hypercare
• 23 Sustainment
• The Author
• Index
• Service Pages
• Legal Notes