Planning an SAP S/4 Initiative? Here’s What Your Strategic Resourcing Plan Should Include.

By Brian Trout , Executive Vice President of Sales, Baer

As enterprises do the necessary exploratory and preparatory work prior to undertaking an SAP S/4HANA transformation initiative, their efforts are often focused on defining their strategic imperatives and mapping their technical approach. While these are critical, there is a third essential component that requires equal consideration and planning: identifying and retaining the highly specialized expertise needed to support the initiative.

The reality is this: the right expertise can make a significant difference in the outcome of the program. It can minimize risk, speed time to value, ensure that your strategic objectives are met, and ultimately position you to use your technology to drive stronger business performance.

However, both defining the skillsets needed and finding the right expertise, at the right time, for the appropriate investment, can be challenging. Following are five key consideration to think through and discuss with you implementation partner in the early planning phases of the project.

1. What expertise will your systems integrator bring to the table?

Given the complexity and impact of an S/4HANA transformation, most enterprises will partner closely with a systems integrator (SI) that will bring strategic expertise to the table and guide and manage the process. In fact, many will have a pre-existing relationship with one that they can leverage. However, each engagement is different, and given the broad range of highly specialized skillsets needed, most enterprises will either need to supplement that engagement with additional resources.

There are any number of reasons for this—a tight labor market may mean the SI has committed their available resources, or perhaps the enterprise is looking to explore different approaches or pricing strategies. For every enterprise, their will be a sweet spot that maximizes the strengths of the SI relationship while leveraging the opportunities within the contingent labor market.

2. Who on your internal team will contribute substantively to the initiative and how will you backfill their positions to maintain your current system?

No one knows understands the nature of your business and transformation goals better than your own internal team. Because of this, enterprises often choose to move key people into pivotal roles in support of the new initiative. It’s a wise strategy, but it presents a challenge: how will you backfill their positions and keep your current systems running until your new system is live?

A mirrored capacity is one approach. With mirrored capacity, you bring in contingent labor early, and have them work-by-side with your existing team to learn the baseline configuration of your systems and customized processes as well as the nuances and culture related to how your business runs, prior to moving your internal team members to the new initiative.

3. What specialized expertise will you need to support the new initiative?

Over the course of an S/4HANA transformation, you will need to access dozens of skillsets, including expertise in emerging technologies where there are few people with theoretical knowledge and even fewer with practical experience. While these areas that are highly specialized, unique to S/4HANA, and competitive to source, you will also need a variety of broader, but still somewhat specialized skillsets. However, you will not necessarily require all these resources at once or for the entire time.

Accessing the right expertise, at the right time, for the appropriate investment will be critical to ensuring your initiative remains on track, that you meet your objectives, and that you stay within your consulting budget. An enterprise performance partner who has previously staffed similar initiatives, understands the technology, and maintains relationships with proven S/4HANA experience can provide critical guidance as you develop a strategic resources plan.

4. How will you engage your specialized expertise?

Enterprises can leverage a variety of approaches for engaging specialized expertise for their S/4HANA transformations. Many will employ more than one throughout the course of the initiative, as various approaches lend themselves more readily to different needs and skillsets. These include contract-to-hire, contingent labor, on-call support, and off-shore support.

For most enterprises, the contingent labor model will be the primary way they access highly specialized expertise. It entails engaging resources for a predetermined period or for the express purpose of undertaking a specific initiative or completing a specific project. While the resources are usually engaged full time and are fully dedicated to the company, there is not typically an expectation on either side that at the end of the project the resources will be hired as permanent employees.

5. How will you access the specialized IT labor supply chain?

Accessing the right expertise for your S/4HANA transformation can be incredibly challenging—the skillsets are highly specialized, and the labor market is tight and competitive. Just as an enterprise is well-served by partnering with an SI to scope, guide, and manage its S/4HANA transformation, it would be well served by building a relationship with an enterprise performance partner who understands the strategic directive of your initiative, has proven expertise in the types of technologies at its core of it, and can efficiently build and scale skilled teams to help you realize the full potential of your enterprise technology investment and related business goals.

An enterprise performance partner like Baer can help you develop a strategic resourcing plan for identifying and accessing the right expertise using proprietary tools such as our SAP Opportunity Edge network. Not only can we provide that expertise at the right time and in alignment with your budget, we can partner with you to see the entire program through.

About Baer

Unlike typical technology staffing companies, Baer is a true enterprise performance partner. We have a deep understanding of the scope of enterprise technology transformation initiatives and the highly specialized skillsets you will need at different stages of the process.

To learn more about how Baer can make a positive impact on your enterprise transformation, please reach out to Brian Trout, [email protected], Executive Vice President, Sales, or John Wilson, Vice President of Strategic Accounts, at [email protected].

We look forward to speaking with you and learning about your specific challenges.