Some organisations are so focused on delivering successful SAP implementations that they ignore or minimise the importance of building a successful internal support capability.

Going live with any SAP implementation is a journey and with such an investment, every company should support this investment in the most appropriate manner. Customers should consider during this period of growth how they want to be structured with controlled support strategies in place that are consistently adhered to, complete with business processes and areas of ownership/responsibility.

There are two main areas to concentrate on and these areas do need to be taken into consideration in their own right, and in the correct order.

1. Initial SAP Support Strategy

Both SAP and itelligence advise that the main approach in providing support is to create a SAP Centre of Excellence (CoE) and invest the time to analyse, design and ultimately build a comprehensive CoE to ensure that your organisation is properly prepared to both support and enhance your SAP investment and define a long-term SAP support strategy.

What effectively is an SAP CoE?

It will contain a grouping of customer users who are generally Subject Matter Experts (SME's) or Super Users who understand the business processes and provide 1st line support to end users. They will conform to ITIL standards, understand the need for system controls and data integrity and be the gatekeepers for the SAP implemented systems. The customer CoE would interact directly with itelligence, and itelligence SAP support would provide 2nd and 3rd line support across all functional and technical areas, as pictured below, in a partnership model.

What is the end game for the CoE?

Customers should aim to progress through the SAP Support maturity model as per below. The initial workshop will identify not only where you sit in this model currently but how to build on the foundation of establishing a CoE. Then growing this (over time) to allow both internal capability and processes to achieve a more robust and optimal model. This will be key as the company grows organically and through acquisitions.

Who should attend the CoE workshop?

Participants should include key decision makers relative to the CoE and ideally should include those likely to own key roles in the CoE (Business Process Owners, Service Manager, Service Desk Manager, Application Manager and Infrastructure Manager). However, this all depends on which of these roles exist at the moment.

The output of the CoE workshop should be presented to the Customer sponsor for the SAP CoE plus the resource responsible for the operation of the CoE going forward.

Information Sheet

SAP Centre of Excellence Workshop

Going live with any SAP implementation is a journey and with such an investment, every company should support this investment in the most appropriate manner.

What will the output be?

The workshop will concentrate on 3 key areas: People, Processes and Tools, and will focus on what is and is not in place across these 3 areas. For example:

People : Do you have the correct roles in place? Do you have Business Process Owners? Do you have Super Users who can triage issues and advise business users? Do you want an internal team, an outsourced model or mix of both?

Process : Do you have an ITIL-based methodology in place? Do you have a change control process? Do you have a release management strategy?

Tools : Which tool are being used to log tickets? Which tool for testing? Will this tool be sufficient as scope grows?

The recommendations from this initial stage will not only setup the foundation for your support model but will ensure you have the necessary building blocks and ability to move through the Support Maturity model, as your company grows.

2. Key Processes and Procedures

The second stage of the support strategy is around the key functional areas that will underpin your business such as the financial processes; the reporting and the consolidation procedures, amongst others.

Once you have established the CoE, there are decisions on which of the above will be the applications and processes to go forward with, and from that decision how do you support these?

There may be a requirement to determine whether to maintain multiple applications/processes or establish the best of breed amongst these, and this will require a functional and technical architecture review by one of our Solution Architect Team.

This stage can be a significant organisation change management (OCM) effort, and if this is of scale, then we would recommend engaging an OCM expert to manage the planned changes. These have a wider impact on the business as a whole, and engaging staff on a change journey can be a significant effort with a very rewarding outcome.

Pricing

We charge £3,500 for this workshop. This does not include expenses or VAT.

Register for your SAP CoE Workshop today

Email us at info@itelligencegroup.co.uk

Call us on 0207 832 1800

3. Workshop Content

The tables below define the typical agenda which we run over 2 half days. We publish a report on the information gathered with a set of recommendations. The workshop is led by our senior consulting managers with consulting support.

12 Gough Sq London�EC4A 3DW UK info@itelligencegroup.co.ukitelligence UK www.itelligencegroup.com

Introduction to CoE 13:00 - 13:30

CoE Functions

Overview/Assessment13:30 - 15:00

CoE Functions

Overview/Assessment cont'd15:15 - 16:45

Session Recap 16:45 - 17:00

CoE Concepts Overview and Evaluation (Day 1)

Break (Coffee)

CoE Functions

Overview/Assessment cont'd9:00 - 10:30

CoE Processes

Overview/Assessment11:00 - 12:00

CoE Tools

Overview/Assessment12:00 - 12:15

High Level Assessment Review 12:15 - 12:45

Next Steps 12:45 - 13:00

CoE Concepts Overview and Evaluation (Day 2)

Break (Coffee)