SAP Management & Engagement: How Many Phases? Cost, Gain & Impact Revealed!

SAP Management: Phases, Cost, Gain & Impact

Modification, maintenance, and customization of the app are a bit complex to deal with. Along with the integration and management of configuration, SAP needs to be card and fed regularly for proper functioning.

Businesses need the target-oriented app to work round the clock with the same performance. Many companies face challenges in managing the SAP system. These challenges range from limited IT staff to lack of tech skills and business requirement shifting to geographical implication and increased pressure of business.

To handle the business demands and maintain the SAP environment, IT teams need to go with the SAP development service provider. SAP partner helps the company in streamlining the business processes; reduce the cost of ownership, and scaling up the components, and achieving the business goals.

What is SAP Managed Services?

SAP managed services offer extended support by professional experts. The SAP professionals know the technical "in and outs", which helps the organization in managing the SAP environment. SAP managed partner team works hand in hand with the internal IT team and users for streamlining the routine activities, improving the processes, and enhancing the health of SAP applications in an IT-enabled environment.

Every company and its working method are different. So is the cloud computing service SAP implementation. Managing and maintain the SAP resources require supporting SAP management services by SAP professionals. The relation between SAP application managed services and the company depends upon the basic requirement of the SAP Company and the specific area where the company requires daily support. The relation between the SAP service team and the company is more detailed with the help of the RACI matrix. RACI matrix is the responsibility assignment matrix, which is built based upon the working of the company and the requirement of SAP managed service partner.

RACI Matrix:

RACI matrix is simple and the most effective pattern of defining the responsibilities and project roles. The responsibilities and roles can be detailed in a more comprehensible manner between the SAP Development Company and the company. The matrix points out,

  • Who can take the responsibility?
  • Who needs to be accountable?
  • Who is the responsible one to consult?
  • Who will take care of every step of SAP application management?

All this improves the management of the organization that is working with SAP.

Importance of SAP Managed Services:

Working with the SAP managed service partner leaves enough scope to work for other core tasks. Business owners can focus on core IT tasks and give an ample amount of concern to businesses. The service partner company proactively supports the management and health monitoring of the SAP app. Regular health monitoring ensures perfect cloud integration services and better availability of the application. Managed service partners are recommended for developing the strategy for remediating and optimizing the SAP systems based upon the budget of the company. If the SAP application is well integrated, it can impressively accommodate the need of the company.

Maintaining the SAP landscape is a heavy task and often leads to a great fuss if it is not managed in the right way. Without broad tech skills for dealing with the technical nitty-gritty of the SAP, the team can lose a large amount of time and important working hours. Professional staff is needed for monitoring the SAP system, which adds to the company's overall human resource management and overhead of handling business operations. If the systems are down it is almost impossible to keep the plants going at the same pace. The quality hardware is strictly desired for supporting the business.

An inadequate IT infrastructure and less expertise of internal staff for implementing and managing the SAP ERP application leg the company behind instead of ample scope for SAP Development Services. An organization with lethargic hardware is unable to compete and work well. Therefore, to keep things up and well-working SAP managed service partner is needed. SAP managed services help the organization to work with reliable, high-performing, and fast SAP systems. Employees can finish their daily tasks in a smoother way. For companies operating SAP in the IT environment, stability, dynamicity, and trust are essential.

SAP operation-related activities are not one-time tasks. These need to go on constantly with the required improvement at every level. Many companies often have low staff for IT. The staff is expanded for the business demands and IT project demands. Not always it is feasible to expand the resources as the requirement arises. Having an SAP service partner can leverage with the daily arising different problems and leverage with the strategies. Organizations are guided by SAP Development Company for optimizing the tasks with0 SAP and the way to achieve goals with SAP.

Want to Hire IT Professionals? Get a Free Estimation or Talk to Our Business Manager

It is important to have the SAP service partner, who can help the company to plan, build, and implement the cloud computing service SAP implementation. Well-implemented business-critical SAP applications once run accessible 24/7 around the globe. Also, SAP partners assist companies in meeting the challenges. These challenges could be anything such as lack of expertise, not enough capacity, in-house talent shortage, etc. Businesses can ensure the smooth working of SAP and careful maintenance of SAP systems while chasing the objectives easily.

What are the Involved Components in SAP Managed Services?

SaaS development services work to meet the business requirement of a company through efficient ERP tools like SAP. For compliance, protection of data, scalability issues, and SAP application availability SAP managed service is lucrative. SAP managed services include timely updates, proper customization, standard managed services, and perfect implementation. SAP services include, but not confined to the following:

SAP Hosting Services

  • SAP basis support services
  • SAP managed security services
  • Hosted SAP HANA services

Managed SAP Remote Hosting and Services

  • SAP basis support services
  • Database administration services
  • Timely installation, update, and advancements services
  • Problem and chain management services
  • Capacity monitoring
  • OS administration services
  • Infrastructure services

SAP Service Delivery

  • Service coordination
  • Platinum
  • Hypercare
  • Service reporting
  • Single source management
  • Value-added services

SAP Maintenance

  • Maintenance support services
  • Software update services
  • Early watch alerts
  • Issue and recommendation
  • SAP marketplace

SAP Managed Services

  • App support and testing
  • App optimization
  • App enhancements
  • Break, fix, and changes
  • SAP rollouts
  • Regular upgrades
  • New Sap implementation

Read the blog- Guide To Develop A SaaS Financial Model

SAP Security

  • Strategy and planning
  • Assessment of vulnerability and management
  • Protection of endpoints
  • Firewall security
  • SIEM and SSO

SAP Business Community

  • Increased availability
  • Disaster management and recovery
  • Regular backups

Phases of SAP Management and Cloud Integration Services

There are basically six phases of SAP project implementation.

Project Preparation: In the project preparation phase, the whole project is planned. Here, the frame is prepared for the entire roadmap. The suitability of SaaS development services is checked.

Blueprint: In this phase, the whole wireframe is prepared. Workshops for the SAP are organized and the requirements gathering are done.

Realization: The realization phase lets the implementation of the business requirement phase.

Final Preparation: In the final preparation, testing, and training are done. The cut-over activities occur and all the project preparation is summed up.

Go-Live: Transition to the new system is done.

Support: A specific attention is given, up till the business is normal.

Phase1: Project Preparation:

During the project preparation phase, the early preparation activity takes place.

During the first step of an SAP project, the early preparation activities are taking place. In such a phase, the needs and boundaries of the project are defined. It is determined, what components are included in the project and which workstreams are migrated along with the process that needs to be moved, and what needs not.

Drafting: It is determined, how many plants will go live during each phase and how the quality is measured.

Phase 2: Blueprint

Before starting to leverage SAP Development Services, it is always recommended to identify the details. Framing out what needs to be done is really essential.

A series of workshops are organized, where every person on the team is involved. For ensuring the perfect project implementation, it is good to start with the project meeting. It is ensured, everybody is involved. The expectation of the meeting is disclosed and the risk factors of implementation and the loopholes of the project. It is important to set up how things are organized. The workshops can be organized by workstreams.

During workshops, the process satellites and gaps are identified, along with the necessary structure of the organization. Each gap needs to be solved before going live. If not properly tested, any of the gaps can stop the project from performing its task. Satellites

  • Satellites: Satellites are the list of programs that are not taken in SAP, but parallel used after going live.
  • Organization Structure: This is the list of information that needs to be customized in SAP for allowing any process to work. Such organizational structure involves company office, tax for the particular Geolocation, and many such meta-information.

Phase 3: Realization

After the analysis phase, it is time to implement the project. The project central team must be prepared before the realization phase. The organization information is fed in SAP. The gaps are worked on and the data input is prepared for the migration in the new system. For the predefined points of time, the SAP test system is set up with current project advancement. The project is tested at this phase. The first step goes with customization to only one system. The next step implements half of the functionalities and the next step comes with the full stimulation, a month before life.

Phase 4: Final Preparation

Final preparation goes beyond the systems. The machines and infrastructure must be perfect, but at the final stage, working resources need to be trained. Team working on the SAP needs to be trained on the project. All the processes need to be tested in the SAP system. All the processes involved in the real work need to be fully defined, tested and validated in the system.

This phase is crucial and can be called as filter phase. If the systems are not 100 percent ready for the transition, the next step of SaaS development services needs to be postponed.

Want More Information About Our Services? Talk to Our Consultants

Phase 5: Go-Live

Go-live is the critical part of the project. In the Go-Live phase, all team person involved gives their maximum attention to the process. Any small issue arising can make a significant impact on the SAP implementation.

  • Former system is stooped. Because the former system is of no use now onwards and the financial periods need to be closed. It is not possible to do any business with the old systems.
  • Final data is taken from old systems and, migrated to the new SAP ERP. The well-managed data is migrated to SAP ERP.
  • Quick tests are done, with the start of the new SAP.

A business upgrade is planned after the go-live stage. All the migration is safely done and started. Maximum attention is given to every minute part of the business and within few weeks the entire system is up and running, while the potential issues are solved by the project team.

Phase 6: Support:

Once the new SAP ERP system is up, the next is to provide support for the use of SAP Development Services. The project members are switched to new roles and the team size is reduced. The team members move to new roles and work on the next phase of the project. A dedicated SAP team is ready to help in the situation of any problem. The potential gaps, which are not met earlier, are fixed here.

Verdict:

SAP is the perfect tool for proper implementation and streamlining of many business structures. In me, anytime system can go wrong. It is important to work with the SAP-managed service partner for getting help in daily operations. The right SAP service partner is though hard to find. Therefore it is necessary to do the homework beforehand and understand the nuances of SAP.