Promote Standardized Solution in SAP Environment

Transcription

1 Promote Standardized Solution in SAP Environment Applies to: SAP Implementation Projects, SAP Support & Maintenance For more information, visit the Enterprise Resource Planning homepage. Summary The article explores factors which will help SAP Support and Project Consultants to promote Standardized solution within an Organization. This will not only help in achieving standardization of business processes across regions but will also help in reduction of maintenance costs. Author: Deepak Kumar Company: Infosys Technologies Limited, India Created on: 26-Mar-10 Author Bio Deepak Kumar is Principal Consultant in SAP Practice at Infosys Technologies Ltd. He has over 16 years of experience in Business, IT Consulting, SAP Implementation and Upgrade Projects. He can be reached at 2009 SAP AG 1

2 Table of Contents. Overview... 3 Definition of SAP Standard Solution/Core Solution... 3 Factors for Promoting Standard Solution in SAP Environment... 3 First Perform Business Process Standardization... 3 Best Practice for Custom Developments... 3 Build Object Repository of Custom Developments... 4 KPI on SAP Support Team on Promoting Standard/Core Solution... 4 Retire Obsolete Custom Developments... 4 Control Custom Developments in SAP Implementation/Roll-Out Projects... 4 Review Latest SAP Version for Replacement of Custom Developments... 4 Conclusion... 5 Related Content... 6 Disclaimer and Liability Notice SAP AG 2

3 Overview Organizations having SAP Applications to support the business processes often try to reduce the maintenance cost of the SAP support environment. One of the ways to reduce the cost is to minimize the custom development and extensive configuration. As higher volume of custom objects also results in development and maintenance efforts, increased time for system copy and refresh activities and may result in performance issues. Most importantly, these may also signify that business processes are not harmonized across regions for the Organization. Except localization requirements which may necessitate custom development, rest of the business processes steps should be common across regions. This article discusses various steps which can help Organizations to promote use of standard SAP solution or the Core solution. This will help to control and check request for custom developments and will foster common ways of working. Definition of SAP Standard Solution/Core Solution Requirement catered by SAP standard transactions are called SAP standard solution. These are part of SAP product and are designed, developed and checked for giving high performance i.e. high response and execution time. Core solution within an Organization is a global solution i.e. meant for applicable business processes in all regions and may consist of single transaction or series of transactions of which some may be SAP standard whilst other may be custom developments. Since core solution remains same across regions, it helps in achieving standardization of business processes for the Organization. Factors for Promoting Standard Solution in SAP Environment The business processes are enabled by various transactions which are linked together. Majority of these transactions are standard SAP transaction though some of these may have developments built-in through user exits for specific requirements. Some other transactions will be entirely custom developments catering to requirements e.g. Interfaces, Reports, Forms, etc. which could not be met through available transactions in SAP Applications. Together, these set of transactions forms the business process chains and end to end execution of these forms the business process execution. Custom developments may results into performance issues or are developed separately for each country whereas single development would have catered to the same requirement. The objective should be to keep the custom developments to minimum and only wherever required. The factors mentioned below will help Consultants and IT Managers to mange custom developments and to promote use of standard SAP/ Core solution: First Perform Business Process Standardization SAP solution enables the business processes as they are laid out in the Organization. Business Processes should first be analyzed and subsequently aligned for standardization. Post analysis, Business processes may get categorized as a) Global b) Regional and c) Local. The underlying SAP solution can than be configured to be in line with the business process alignment. Because of the historical reasons and because of mergers and acquisitions business process may not be standardized across various regions and divisions of an Organization. Further each division may have their own SAP solution lines. Thus, it may not be always possible to obtain high degree of standardization in processes across regions and align the same with underlying SAP solution. In such situations, SAP Systems consolidation into one global SAP system will be the way to achieve standardization. Best Practice for Custom Developments Since the organizations are increasingly focusing on standardization of business processes, it becomes imperative that same custom development should be flexible enough to cater to business processes in all regions for the same purpose. There should not be any hard coding in the program. Development team should use separate development class or naming convention for developments which are flexible enough to cater to meet the same requirements across countries/regions. Functional Teams while analyzing requirements should also foresee that this development may be used by other countries or regions and accordingly incorporate in functional specifications. This will not only decrease custom developments but will also reduce associated maintenance costs and efforts SAP AG 3

4 Build Object Repository of Custom Developments SAP Support organization should build an object repository of custom developments which exist in the productive environment. This would help to cross-check when a new requirement comes to support team whether required custom developments already exists and if does exist than the same should be used. KPI on SAP Support Team on Promoting Standard/Core Solution SAP Support teams are monitored on multiple Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). To see how much control support team is exercising in reducing custom developments or on promoting SAP standard/core solution a KPI for this dimension should be introduced. This enable to showcase say on quarterly basis how many tickets were solved by virtue of SAP standard or Core solution. This will not only help in promoting use of standard/core solution but will also help in reducing custom developments. To keep the team motivated on this KPI, certain incentives/recognition can be given as decided by the IT Managers. This will not only reduce maintenance efforts but will also result in faster turnaround of tickets. Retire Obsolete Custom Developments Because of historical reasons or otherwise there may be multiple developments which were developed at one time or other but are not in use currently. Developments not in use for last 1 year should be marked for retirement after consulting with requestor/business owner. Migration programs should not be retired as these are used by projects/roll-outs from time to time. Control Custom Developments in SAP Implementation/Roll-Out Projects During SAP Implementation or Roll-out projects or in SAP Support project the aim should be to keep the custom developments to minimum and whichever are developed should be with objective that these can be used currently or in future by business processes in other country or regions. Project Consultants should check if the relevant development already exists in current productive environment because of an earlier golive and should try to make use of the same. Each development should be approved by Project Manager to keep a control so that only what are absolutely required are developed. Review Latest SAP Version for Replacement of Custom Developments SAP has expanded its functional and reporting spectrum over a period of time. Latest version of SAP (SAP ERP) may have functionality and reports which previously were custom developed as these were not available in previous version. IT Managers can do one time exercise so as to analyze what all custom developments can be replaced by current SAP standard feature SAP AG 4

5 Conclusion SAP Support team should aim to promote standard/core solution to support the business processes across regions and thus contribute to increase the standardization of the business processes. Custom developments should be targeted for flexibility so that the same can be reused by other countries and regions. These efforts will help in reduction of maintenance cost and improve system performance SAP AG 5

6 Related Content For more information, visit the Enterprise Resource Planning homepage SAP AG 6

7 Disclaimer and Liability Notice This document may discuss sample coding or other information that does not include SAP official interfaces and therefore is not supported by SAP. Changes made based on this information are not supported and can be overwritten during an upgrade. SAP will not be held liable for any damages caused by using or misusing the information, code or methods suggested in this document, and anyone using these methods does so at his/her own risk. SAP offers no guarantees and assumes no responsibility or liability of any type with respect to the content of this technical article or code sample, including any liability resulting from incompatibility between the content within this document and the materials and services offered by SAP. You agree that you will not hold, or seek to hold, SAP responsible or liable with respect to the content of this document SAP AG 7