3IAB process of evolving & deploying an S/4HANA Global Template – Key considerations
Mustafa Balsara PMP? CSCP?
Leader, Thinker, Seeker, Believer, Investor, Influencer, Force Multiplier, Orchestrator, Optimizer, R-Laner, Equalizer, Rainmaker, Connector
Socrates said, "the secret to change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new."
And Socrates was right.
Are you focusing on building the new or fighting the old in your organization?
These challenges are also faced when an Organization undergoes an S/4HANA transformation initiative. Some of these challenges could be alleviated by adopting a 3 In-A-Box(3IAB) approach to S/4HANA Global Template Rollout
Purpose of a Global Template
Every Global Organizations CXO’s wishful thinking is to have :
Based on this premise and from a system point of view, it is of utmost importance to develop one global SAP template and roll it out across different country locations in a simplified and fast approach.
An SAP Global Template (“GT”) is a blueprint to an SAP S/4HANA Implementation success, a holistic view of all elements of your SAP journey! It is a container that bundles standardized business processes and contains links of To-Be Processes, Configurations, Conversions, Integrations, Reports & test data that all countries/regions/business units will adapt to.
To get a good head start designing the GT, organizations can look at the following SAP model companies:
To achieve the promise of cost savings, rapid deployment, efficient support, and a solid return on investment, the breadth of standardization of the global template must cross the enterprise as a whole, including people, process, and systems.
Considerations for building the ‘GT’ for S/4HANA Rollouts
An SAP Global Template is much more than a business process reimagination initiative. It is an amalgamation of Process consulting, data engineering, Enterprise IT Architecture, SAP software product experience to address critical areas of:
Once the GT is finalized by the key IT + business decision makers, the ultimate challenge is then to roll-out the Global Template to the rest of the organization’s business entities. This would entail to plan, manage and deliver a complex, unpredictable and long SAP program.
Based on my experience working across multiple client engagements with client stakeholders, pre-sales, solution design, program management and implementation team members, I have summarized the key design decision approach elements learned polling industry experts across business process design and implementation expertise.
A.???SOCIALIZE & MOBILIZE – Manage the Present
Making a business case for ‘Transformation” for enablement and constantly piking the end-users and executive stakeholders' brains in the process to rally their support for ‘Change’. This should be a ‘Change & Enablement’ initiative of the People, by the people and for the people, hence making them the ‘Change Multipliers’ and scaling their contribution is key to success. Contribution is the key to generate involvement, excitement and adoption. Governance is required as a quality gate to de-risk Change & Release process. Create momentum within teams by building consensus, executive commitment & keeping the teams energized and engaged for the ‘Future to Come.’
1.????Rollout Taskforce - Roll-out is more of an execution task than a designing-development job of a Global template. Template developers are like innovators or research specialists who are working in research centers, however roll-out experts are like the ‘field force’ who are facing the real consumer or customer challenges. So the Roll-out team will need to be good at face-to-face communication, diligently bring consensus across global teams and finally rolling out the GT keeping the process deviations & country localizations to the minimum.
2.?????G_Local Team- Country specific project team as final users should be set-up to assist in the local requirements and consensus building otherwise one will face the real issues after go-live. The country specific project team should be a mix of end-users and local managers. ?Their time bandwidth would need to be sensitively and proactively to ensure no major business disruption occur during the roll-out program.
3.?????Phased Rollout- Global template rollout programs are typically executed over phases or waves. In each wave SAP is implemented in one or more business entities. The first wave termed as the Pilot wave’ is usually the most complex in terms of process design, scope functionality & duration as business and project team tries to define the global process by taking requirements from all business entities. Subsequent waves or rollouts will normally have shorter duration and lesser delta functionality. The entities are bundled in each wave depending on various factors like (i) similar business process (ii) geographical proximity (iii) language (iv) total number of users etc. Also factors like local economic conditions, any pending acquisition or mergers, other ongoing projects etc. are considering while deciding to include any business entity in a wave.
?B.????HARMONIZE & STANDARDIZE– Forget the Past to build the New
1.?????Think Local, design Global, follow SAP standards – Every enterprise or organization considers their processes to be unique than others, but when we evaluate the crux of the business processes only the 18-20% of the processes are unique to the business rest of the 82-80% processes are business standard (fit-to-standard functionality). Real success of the rollout program comes from deployment of 80%- fit-to-standard functionality. Hence the Global template should be lean, adaptable & repeatable. Make sure the template solution delivers 80% of the requirements, the remaining 20% can be taken as localization and factored into the rollout plan. This will further reduce time and resource requirements for deployment and post go-live support across the various rollout phases.
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2.?????Level of Standardization – Part of the concept of conducting the ‘Fit-to-Standard’ workshops is more than just workshops in an implementation – it is a mindset. It is a mindset that follows the idea that we should look to what is available to us- the 80% ?standard to help rolling out a pre-designed solution – The Minimum Viable Solution that needs to be adopted (“Fit-Gap”). The more an implementation can promote this fit-to-standard mindset and foster richer discussions during these workshops, the faster we can achieve the Application: Design and Configuration workstream’s goal of providing a configured solution that will help the customer realize the planned value.
3.?????Fanatic Documentation –Simply write down what you agree on, put it in swim lane diagrams, freeze it in business design templates, lock it into configuration documents, URS, FRD’s, SOP’s, Training videos, Business Process Designs, Fit-to-Standard documentations, BPML’s , training guides etc
?C.????ACTIVATE & INNOVATE ?– Create the Future
?1.????Leveraging the SAP Activate Methodology with SAP Cloud ALM
Available pre-configured ready-to-run business processes, either the pre-configuration packages from SAP or packages provides by SAP ecosystem partners is readily available for the template project team to reuse. SAP offers the following packages that project teams should use to get their projects under way:
???????????i.??Enterprise Management Layer for SAP S/4HANA Cloud – used for customers deploying RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition
???????????ii.??SAP Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud – used for customers deploying SAP S/4HANA Cloud
???????????iii.??SAP Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA – designed for customers deploying their SAP S/4HANA system in their own data center
SAP Activate methodology is a fixed part of the SAP Cloud ALM (CALM). For implementation projects, a ready-made template based on SAP Activate can be selected. SAP Cloud ALM (CALM) is a cloud native SAP Solution to manage Fit-to-Standard workshops with a business process centric , project centric phased approach suitable for multi-country global rollouts with the SAP Best practices embedded.
2.?????Mandatory, not changeable but expandable – The system settings and functions should be non-negotiable, and all parts of your business teams have to adopt them as they are laid out, without any changes. Think – Commonality of User Experience. One will need to defend these elements with tooth and nail, as they are the pillars of the overall SAP design. Examples are foreign currency handling, supply chain handling, or production process elements that must follow a corporate design. You may allow the local business to extend certain pieces of your design in a way in which the result still fits within the corporate vision.
3.?????Drive competitive advantage through differentiation: SAP’s partner & product vendor ecosystem is quite mature and there are various options available from SAP for clients to create differentiating solutions for their respective client markets. Enterprises will be able to drive business differentiation using cloud configuration capabilities and cloud extensibility (in-app extensibility, developer extensibility & side-by--side extensibility using BTP). Ultimately what matters is a solid ERP core with standardized ERP processes leveraging SAP best practices and custom BTP extension for business differentiating solutions.
The ABCD measure of Success for a S/4HANA Rollout Program:
?Measuring the success of an SAP S/4HANA project involves assessing the degree to which the project has achieved its objectives. Some of the metrics that can be used to measure the success of an S/4HANA rollout program are :
Adoption Rate - Percentage of users actively & satisfactorily using the SAP system
Business Value - Business value is determined by how the business has been able to grow its market share, CSAT scores, topline & bottom-line profitability from the sale of its products and services. Some of the KPI’s would be average profit per sale, operating margin , order value & Return on Capital Employed (ROCE)
Customer Value – A technology transformation program should be able to create 4-types of customer value which include: functional value, monetary value, social value, and psychological value of the product & services for the client market.
Data Value - Data value refers to how the data across all the enterprise IT systems could be leveraged to build internal decision making tools for business growth and competitive advantage. Success can be measured as to how the Organization can build Data-as-a-Service models for democratizing enterprise data for user enablement.
Of course, there would be more than the above benefits to be realized but the true compass of success could be measured on the Cost- Benefit value, Experience value and the overall Enterprise Platform value which the program creates for the Organization.
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?References :
Govindarajan, V. (2016). Three-Box Solution-Strategy-Leading-Innovation. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
SAP PP/QM Consultant
1 年Hello Mustafa, where can I find complete step by step process for Automobile industry in regards to S/4 Hana MFG AND QM, I see some as you attached few. Thanks a lot.