Critical success factors


In order to successfully implement SAP in an organization, there are several things that are of great importance:

1) Choose the correct SAP Consultants to have the correct blueprint. An SAP Consultant is a professional who has the skills to speak to the managers of a company and help them creating the blueprint. For this the SAP Consultant has the business skills of the business area he/she is working with, and also masters this area on SAP. For example, if this is SAP FI (accountancy) Consultant, this person is an expert on accountancy and payments, gained through experience or by the corresponding studies at the University. Also this person knows SAP FI because has gained by the corresponding training, or the course on the SAP Partner Academy or similar. Benefits: As this person knows about Accountancy he or she will understand the needs of the business and will bring it into reality. Screening Methods to Find the Right SAP Consultant

2) SAP R/3 implementation is not an IT project, in fact is an Organization Project impacting all levels of a company. So it is very important to get the support from all the people that are involved in implementing SAP, but more important the participation and commitment of all levels, specially managers, of the company.

3) The Blueprint is the keystone used as the lighthouse who must guide the whole project. A blueprint should never be a merely mapping of IT systems. In fact a blueprint is bringing the strategy of a company into execution through defining its processes across all business areas. Many projects have failed because the focus was on having people with SAP knowledge, but with no business skills and so defining something that works...wrongly. Just remember, processes must change across time, and a manual error automated could be repeated infinitely.

4) Always consider changing the way things have been done before implementing SAP. "This has always been done like this and the Consultant should replicate it on SAP" is the start of a big problem. SAP many times could save you time and money as it allows your organization to automate many processes.

5) Test the SAP hardware and software rigorously by testing your business processes, and to ensure that the end-users are ready to use SAP before going live, because there are many known projects that failed because of a lack of support and SAP knowledge.

6) Design and execute a Change Management Program by communicating as early as needed all the information that end users should have to accept the new technology and designing and executing a training plan in order to reassure a knowledge base within the organization

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