How Does SAP Activate Methodology ensure faster Implementation?
Accelerated SAP Implementation Methodology (ASAP) was widely used as SAP Implementation methodology. But, with advent of S/4 HANA, SAP Activate methodology is introduced which ensure agile project implementation. ASAP used to include five project implementation phases i.e. Project Preparation, Business Blueprint, Realization, Final Preparation, and go-live & support; mapping existing business processes done in blueprint , and assessing fit-gap analysis used to take anywhere from few weeks to months in ASAP.
In SAP Activate, business blueprint phase is not conducted, instead fit-gap analysis is conducted and leveraging from SAP best practices and rapid deployment framework to assess the feature & functionality gap if any. In addition, Activate uses four project implementation phases instead of five in ASAP.
1. Prepare:
In this phase, business users explore SAP best practices along with standard SAP Business Processes such as order-to-cash, procure-to-pay or hire-to-retire in HR module. Sample scenario is executed in SAP Sandbox server for business users to evaluate how closely standard system meets their respective company’s process
2. Explore:
Here the business & SAP implementation team agree on different configurable objects related to organizational structure & transaction data i.e. company code, plant and sales organization. A complete fit-gap exercise is carried to identify gaps that standard SAP is unable to offer. In this context, a fit-gap strategy is devised in which it’s decided if a system enhancement, a customized application or activating business add-in will address the gaps.
3. Realize:
In this phase; agreed configurable objects in explore phase are configured. In addition, company-specific scenarios are created for testing business processes. All custom-developed objects are also tested in this phase.
4. Deploy:
A detailed integration testing is done between various SAP modules/components to see data/information flow is complete & correct. User trainings are also conducted in this phase followed by cutover activities in which company transitions from legacy system to SAP.
Thus adopting above four implementation phases; project implementation timelines are greatly reduced.