How our customers gain value and speed using a dedicated methodology in their projects

Customers deploying ERP Cloud solutions in their organizations face a-number-of decisions and choices along their deployment journey. From the initial scope decisions, to deciding on specific way to handle configuration, extensibility, integration and solution adoption. SAP supports customers with a guided journey, delivered in SAP Activate methodology and powered by pre-configured business processes. In this article and the below linked blog we will highlight the principles customers follow to achieve the value and speed in their deployment journey.

Good examples of customers leveraging this guidance and ready-to-run business processes in their deployment are customers like Taronga Conservation Society Australia (Taronga) that operates Taronga Zoo Sydney and Taronga Western Plains Zoo Dubbo. Taronga is on a journey to modernize its business, they sought to overhaul its aging legacy systems, cumbersome processes, and paper-based reporting. For that they chose us as a partner and in their first step our solution that was later complemented with analytics capabilities. Taronga’s experts relied on best practices for their deployment to learn how to proceed and to follow experienced guidance.

Another customer that understands the value of following the fit-to-standard mindset (key element of our approach we will discuss later in the article) in their deployment is Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation. Their team implemented cloud-based core systems for acquired companies in just months to meet the changing needs of global technology consumers. And as Takuya Sakai, Managing Director, General Manager of Digital Transformation Division, Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation says, “Simplifying the value chain by implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud was essential to promote our overseas strategy and integrate business processes around the world.”

What principles in their deployment did these companies apply to achieve this success?

It is not magic gold dust that these companies used, their project teams relied on proven and simple set of principles and techniques detailed in the approach supported by the ready-to-run business processes we deliver to all customers. Let’s briefly look at the key components of our methodology to understand them.

Fit-to-Standard mindset

It all starts with what we refer to as “fit-to-standard mindset” or “cloud mindset” - both these terms refer to the mindset of maximizing re-use of delivered ready-to-run business processes in your project while carefully assessing where your business requires to tailor or extend the solution. This approach has several benefits, including:

?      Shorter time to value - as your team has smaller number of design decisions to make compared to building the solution from scratch

?      Faster realization - smaller number of delta requirements coming from fit-to-standard workshops lead to shorter the time to configure, extend, integrate and test the solution before go-live

?      Easier change management - as you can bring your business users into the fit-to-standard workshops where they will experience the interaction with the system for their area of responsibility in live system (plus they are encouraged to “play around” the system and try it out which is simply impossible if you are using paper-based design and not prototyping)

Strong governance (drive the fit-to-standard mindset)

Deploying with strong focus on cloud mindset requires customers and their implementation partners to implement strong governance in the deployment project to create framework for the team to follow and ensure adherence to this principle. This is especially important for customers deploying their solution in private cloud deployment mode which offers broader range of extensibility options. We prepared set of guiding principles for such deployments in 5 Golden Rules for deployment that set the framework for implementation of controls in the project. For the setup of the governance controls, we have introduced the concept of Solution Standardization Board that we encourage customers to establish in their projects.

Continue innovating after your initial go-live

In addition to the focus on re-use of the pre-configuration and strong governance, customers with high rate of success deploying their solutions in the cloud think of the deployment as a journey rather an event. Let me explain - in traditional on-premise projects are handled as deployment events - teams tend to think along the lines of “when we go-live we are done for a while”. This is not the case for successful customers deploying their solutions in the cloud, the teams embrace concepts of continuous innovation to constantly adjust their solution to best support their organization’s strategic goals. Our methodology enables this mindset and provides teams with tools for value assessment and benchmarking.  These tools and techniques help customers identify future improvement opportunities, create improvement roadmap and execute on it.

Read more and find further details here as part of the value blog series on our community.

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