The SAP Green Book: A Business Guide for Managing the SAP Lifecycle (H3215)

Description

Thrive After GoLive!

 - Overcome implementation mistakes

 - Assess your SAP maturity and your users' skills

 - Build and sustain a Center of Excellence

Breaking news: Implementing SAP doesn't help your business! - It's the actions taken after go-live that ensure continuous success. Learn how to assess your SAP maturity, how to make business talk to IT (and vice versa), how to keep your end users happy, and more.

SAP Maturity

Is your organization taking full advantage of SAP? Are your end users? In this book, you'll learn what it takes to find out.

Center of Excellence

Learn how to establish an organization that maintains success with SAP: Discover roles, responsibilities,

KPIs, and more.

Staffing and Outsourcing

What resources do you need to be successful? How do you find providers that are worth your money? How do you keep them motivated? Find the answers here.

Measure Success

Did your processes actually improve after go-live? By how much? Define indicators and measure performance to understand what you've gained.

 Michael Doane knows more about what happens when SAP gets implemented than anyone outside of SAP, and many inside. Follow his advice and thrive.

- Joshua Greenbaum, Enterprise Applications Consulting

Michael Doane has a knack for breaking the complexities of SAP into simple, elemental models for gaining business benefit. His books comprise your go-to guide for SAP success.

- Jon Reed, JonERP.com

CONTENTS:

... Preface ... 13

... Introduction ... 17

1 ... SAP Marital Counseling: Addressing the Most Common Post-Go-Live Issues ... 25

2 ... An SAP Maturity Model ... 37

2.1 ... Denial, Realization, Determination ... 37

2.2 ... From Core Implementation to Evolving Center of Excellence ... 38

2.2.1 ... Level 1: Core Applications ... 42

2.2.2 ... Level 2: Stable Applications ... 42

2.2.3 ... Level 3: Center of Excellence Defined ... 42

2.2.4 ... Level 4: Center of Excellence Managed ... 43

2.2.5 ... Level 5: Center of Excellence Evolving ... 43

2.3 ... Elements of SAP Maturity ... 44

2.3.1 ... Level 1: Core Applications Implementation ... 45

2.3.2 ... Level 2: Stable Applications ... 48

2.3.3 ... Level 3: Center of Excellence Defined ... 50

2.3.4 ... Level 4: Center of Excellence Managed ... 53

2.3.5 ... Level 5: Evolving Center of Excellence ... 55

2.4 ... Assessing Your SAP Maturity ... 57

2.5 ... Best Practices for Evolving to a Mature Center of Excellence ... 62

2.5.1 ... End-User Maturity ... 63

2.5.2 ... Business and IT Dynamic Maturity ... 63

2.5.3 ... Enterprise Applications Maturity ... 64

2.5.4 ... Value Management Maturity ... 65

2.6 ... The Overriding Importance of a Rational Business/IT Dynamic ... 66

3 ... Building and Sustaining a Center of Excellence ... 69

3.1 ... New Lifecycle ... 69

3.1.1 ... The Legacy Applications Lifecycle ... 70

3.1.2 ... The SAP Applications Lifecycle ... 71

3.2 ... Pre-SAP Implementation Strategies and Best Practices ... 73

3.2.1 ... Data Migration/Manifest Planning ... 74

3.2.2 ... Instance, Version, and Data Center Management Planning ... 75

3.2.3 ... Application Portfolio Management ... 77

3.3 ... Why Firms Need a Center of Excellence ... 78

3.4 ... Center of Excellence Organization ... 80

3.4.1 ... Enterprise Domain ... 83

3.4.2 ... Enablement Domain ... 85

3.4.3 ... Applications Domain ... 87

3.4.4 ... IT Support Domain ... 88

3.5 ... Transforming the Build Team into a Continuous Business Evolution Team ... 89

3.6 ... Building a Center of Excellence ... 90

3.6.1 ... The Methodology ... 91

3.6.2 ... Roles and Skillsets ... 94

3.6.3 ... Direction and Duration ... 100

3.6.4 ... A Note about Basis Administration ... 100

3.6.5 ... A Note about the Run SAP Methodology ... 101

3.7 ... Variant Structures for Centers of Excellence ... 102

3.8 ... Mastering the Business/IT Dynamic ... 104

3.9 ... A Word about SAP Solution Manager ... 106

3.10 ... When It All Goes Wrong: How Centers of Excellence Become Centers of Mediocrity ... 107

3.10.1 ... Leadership and Entropy ... 107

3.10.2 ... Business Process Orphanship ... 109

3.10.3 ... Super Users Cast Adrift ... 110

3.10.4 ... Burial by SAP ... 112

4 ... We Do It Themselves: Outsourcing SAP Applications Support ... 115

4.1 ... We Do It Themselves ... 115

4.2 ... Applications Are What We Do ... 116

4.3 ... Why on Earth Would We Outsource Our Applications? ... 119

4.4 ... Application Outsourcing Adoption ... 123

4.5 ... Crossing the Bridge from Maintenance to Management ... 127

4.6 ... Governance for Outsourced SAP Applications Support ... 133

4.7 ... Fee Strategies ... 135

4.8 ... Basis Is Eternal (and Can Be Done from Anywhere) ... 137

4.8.1 ... Delivery from Anywhere ... 138

4.8.2 ... The Cost of Remote Basis Support ... 142

4.9 ... Conclusion ... 142

5 ... Staffing, Sourcing, and Evolving ... 143

5.1 ... The SAP Ecosystem and the Wisdom of Crowds ... 144

5.2 ... Staff for Surprises, Not Just the Predictable ... 146

5.3 ... Be Your Own Systems Integration Partner ... 147

5.4 ... Beyond Hyphenates: Business Process Experts ... 149

5.5 ... The Relative (Un)Importance of Certifications ... 153

6 ... The Art of the Upgrade ... 155

6.1 ... The Changing SAP Upgrade Landscape ... 155

6.2 ... Types of Upgrades ... 156

6.3 ... Nine Best Practices for Upgrade Success ... 159

6.4 ... Conclusion: The Upgrade as a Competitive Weapon ... 164

7 ... Intelligent Business Intelligence ... 167

7.1 ... SAP Business Intelligence Matures ... 167

7.2 ... The Data Fur Ball and the Cluttered Toolbox ... 170

7.3 ... Sources of Truth ... 171

7.4 ... Who Generates What and How and Why? ... 174

8 ... SAP as the Engine Behind Measurable Business Benefit ... 181

8.1 ... The Daily Doughnut ... 181

8.2 ... Sitting Tight is Not a Winning Option ... 182

8.3 ... Measures of Success ... 186

8.3.1 ... Getting Past Total Cost of Ownership ... 187

8.3.2 ... Value of IT Methodologies ... 189

8.4 ... Getting Business to Take the Wheel ... 189

8.5 ... The Enterprise Applications Value Chain ... 191

8.6 ... Iterative Business Process Improvement - A Sample Exercise ... 193

8.7 ... The Deeper Green: Sustainability ... 201

8.8 ... Key Performance Indicators: A Basic List ... 203

8.9 ... Three-Point Planning ... 210

9 ... Drivers at Work: Supporting Your SAP End Users ... 213

9.1 ... Skills Gap - Training Canyon ... 213

9.2 ... Neglecting The Real Drivers of Business Process ... 214

9.3 ... The High Cost of Penny Pinching ... 217

9.4 ... From Inventory to Team Building ... 221

9.5 ... SAP End-User Maturity Model ... 225

9.6 ... Super Users Provide Super Results ... 231

9.7 ... Sources and Methods of Continuous Training ... 233

9.8 ... Conclusion ... 236

10 ... From Supplier to Advisor: A New Hat for SAP ... 237

10.1 ... SAP Life After Functionality ... 237

10.2 ... News Flash: SAP is Not a Not-for-Profit ... 239

10.3 ... Working Toward Partnership by Leveraging Your Efforts and Investments ... 240

10.4 ... Drive at Your Own Pace (and Show SAP Where You're Going) ... 242

11 ... Last Word Freak ... 245

12 ... Postscript: The House I Live In ... 247

... Appendices ... 251

A ... Sources ... 253

B ... The Author ... 257

C ... Contributors ... 259

... Index ... 261