Why is ongoing support an issue without an SAP CoE?
The three key elements of a successful SAP CoE are: People, Processes and Tools. If not planned properly, ongoing support can become an issue. There are several factors to consider such as institutional culture, the psychology behind go-live, resources and finances.
When the SAP system is implemented, users will need some time to get used to it. The business to technical relationship will change as processes would have changed and solution will look different. There is a new business role of support to help with these changes. The psychology behind go-live is that project team members see system go-live as the finish line, management expects that work is completed and users expect a fully functional product. Some departments from where team members were drafted for the project may have perceived the project as a short-term assignment and want their resources back working their regular job. But they are the best resources for support. The organization may have budgeted for maintenance agreement but resources will be needed to maintain the solution and many organizations do not account for it.
What are the different types of an SAP CoE?
When considering the best approach for covering stabilization phase and the support phase that will follow it, you should consider several models and choose the appropriate one that supports your organizations strategy and needs.
Models based on Resources
In-house SAP CoE
I was part of In-house SAP CoE while I was working at Roche Diagnostics. It has the following Pros and Cons.
Pros:
Direct control over resources
Immediate access to personnel when needed
Accumulated knowledge of the SAP system over time
Resources with deep company knowledge and relationships
Cons:
Expense of a full-time team with potentially multiple members with backups
Turnover risk of key team members
Coverage model (vacation, sick time)
Lack of resource elasticity
Limited understanding of SAP / industry best practices (They only know how your company does things in SAP)
Outsourced SAP Centers of Excellence
I was part of Outsourced SAP CoE while I was working at Convergys Corporation. It has the following Pros and Cons.
Pros:
Mitigates resource risk
Guaranteed service-level agreements (SLAs)
Cost-effective (Allows you to access various SAP skills on demand without the need for full-time equivalents)
SAP best practices and deep expertise
Cons:
Requires BPO ownership and accountability
Requires detailed project and support resource planning, both mid- and long-term
Potential for the organization to push SAP ownership to outsourced partner
Blended or Partially Outsourced Model
I was part of the Blended or Partially Outsourced Model while I was working at Phillip Morris (Basis was outsourced to T-systems)
This model gives organizations the best of the in-house and outsourced options. Organizations can leverage a partner for the stabilization phase, a decision that provides knowledge transfer for the support phase. By hiring an internal team to support key functional and technical areas in SAP, and combining these new folks with current internal-process experts, organizations create a good mix.
Models based on Function
Regular Production Support
As end users identify flaws in the system, the production support team addresses and repairs them. Depending upon the volume, sophistication, control measures, and so on, issues are identified, tracked, prioritized, and resolved. Enhancements or modifications to the system beyond error resolution are not addressed. Another team deals with them or they are simply not done. The determining factors for employing the break-fix model are internal resource bandwidth, assuming an internal IT staff performs these services, and budget.
Expanded Production Support
The scope of services is expanded beyond error resolution, for example, an organization might choose to do smaller enhancements only. Another company might do major SAP initiatives (e.g., SAP ERP Central Component upgrades, module implementation, and system integration). Some organizations might find this expanded role challenging if they chose to perform these services internally, based on the factors of budget and internal resources described above.
Help Desk
Some organizations, depending on their size and needs, might require some form of help desk.
Tier 1 - Super users that provide authoritative answers to their peers and the Help Desk which provides answers to technical questions day or night
Tier2 – Functional analysts from their business teams work with IT to answer escalated questions
Tier 3 – Collaboration between the IT organization and business teams answers the more difficult system issues. Also, included in this group are a robust Change Management Team and Operations Support Learning & Knowledge Management Team that improves and delivers ongoing training and communication.
The tier support system is illustrated below.
How do we choose an SAP CoE Model?
Now that we know we have different models to choose from, we need to decide what model we should adopt. Ask key questions such as - In-house or Outsource? Technical or both Technical and Functional? 24/7 or 5/40? Centralized/decentralized? etc. For helping make this decision, consider the Key Factors listed below for choosing a SAP CoE Model.
How to Implement an SAP CoE?
The following three requirements should be met by the SAP CoE Implementation Project Plan:
A robust methodology that ensures that the procedures, tools and people were ready to support users as soon as they went live for the first time. (the ‘what’)
A strong governance process to balance the challenging business needs between the different groups. Additional representatives may be included for IT and Operations Support focused on measuring effectiveness and benefits achieved. (the ‘how’)
A comprehensive scalable support structure which includes a three-tier approach. (the ‘where’)
Ensure that the SAP CoE Implementation Project Plan includes following tasks:
Define the SAP CoE and Production Support Strategy.
Develop the Support Roadmap, which includes the definition of the project team “Hypercare” period or initial go-live support and the subsequent transition to the CoE and Production Support organization.
Size the CoE and Production Support organization based on the scope of the SAP footprint and user base.
Create role descriptions for each position in the CoE and Production Support organization.
Create the governance framework, including the specific Service Level Agreements (SLA’s).
Define (or align existing) Change Control and Release Management processes.
Integrate SAP user requests into existing Help Desk and Incident Management procedures.
Define (or align existing) procedures for managing the SAP technical environments, including batch jobs, software patches, performance monitoring, and other system administration functions.
Confirm use of SAP document repositories (e.g. Solution Manager, Share-point, etc.) to track changes to SAP solution design.
Identify project team resources (if any) to staff the CoE and Production Support roles.
Identify CoE and Production Support roles which require external recruiting (if any).
Create and execute individual knowledge transfer plans.
Conduct IT operational readiness reviews for the Help Desk, Technical Infrastructure, Business Intelligence, and other IT support groups.
Create and execute communication plans to inform the broader organization as the project team transitions responsibility to the CoE and Production Support organization.
How do you measure effectiveness of an SAP CoE?
Use a Balanced scorecard with criteria and standards for assessing the effectiveness of SAP CoE. The criteria are written to ensure they are measurable and observable.
Notes
In House or Outsource
Contracting off-site IT services is an established practice that the mid-market employs. By using external IT organizations for SAP services (whether implementation or production support), you entrust your SAP application services to firms specializing in SAP technology. Opting to engage an external partner for COE services depends on several factors:
In-house expertise: Does your internal IT staff possess the necessary skill sets to perform COE responsibilities? If not, is hiring internal resources an option?
Bandwidth: Does your IT staff have the time?
Long-term strategy: Is your organization strategically looking to build your production support core competencies or to leave systems work to external providers?
Volume: Based on the volume, does an external partner make sense? Is it the only viable solution?
Cost: Is leveraging a third-party partner cost effective or cost-prohibitive? What is the potential full-time equivalent (FTE) cost, which likely already has a limited mid-market IT budget?
Scope
While some COEs focus on technical-related responsibilities (e.g., Basis, ABAP, security, DBA, and server storage), others expand their scope to functional-related support activities (e.g., Financial Accounting, Sales and Distribution, Materials Management, and configuration). Again, mid-market constraints influence the scope greatly. For instance, OM had to decide what the true breadth of production support for its SAP environment was. Should the company attempt to cultivate some of the skill sets in house or hire new employees to support a subset of its production support needs?
Remember, OM did not want any internal resources supporting its install. On the contrary, OM wished to focus its employees’ energies on its core business, manufacturing yoga mats. Therefore, the decision on scope was simple: Include all SAP functionality. If OM possessed some of the skill sets , such as technical ABAP and Basis resources, internally, perhaps it could have limited the scope to exclude these responsibilities, but this was not the case.
How May I Help You?
Defining the service-level agreements (SLAs) and hours of operation is fundamental in ensuring that clear expectations exist with your end clients — the SAP end users and the business. Setting clear, understood, and agreed-upon expectations ensures consensus on issue resolution. It is imperative that you involve all necessary stakeholders (e.g., project sponsors, project managers, and CIOs) in defining the service-related criteria.
Different SLAs change the vigor of your COE. For example, if your organization requires immediate attention to all issues, which is a highly unlikely scenario, someone must man the COE 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. If, however, the business only requires a response within 48 hours, which is another unlikely scenario, coverage of 5 days a week, 8 hours a day would suffice. The reality is that the SLAs for the required COE workforce usually fall somewhere in between these time requirements.
Location
Where the COE team physically resides is important. A decentralized or distributed COE team provides varying levels of COE access. Depending on your organization’s corporate culture and the actual size of your mid-market IT staff, you must define what the interaction between the COE and the organization at large is.
The corporate culture of OM is informal and the organizational structure is flat. Employees have direct access to executive management. In fact, the corporate culture encourages the sharing of ideas and discourages politics and bureaucracy. Therefore, the COE location is not important, meaning that OM could have an off-site COE. If, however, an organization possesses a corporate culture where management closely monitors employees and meticulously observes work effort, an on-site COE might be the only option management supports. Remember that no decision is made in a vacuum. Therefore, cost is always a relevant factor. In the case of OM, the company chose an off-site COE model.
If Business is not committed to establishing a CoE, put together a strong business case, highlight the benefits and cost and first build the necessary support ecosystem. After you have a strong sponsorship, proceed with below steps.
Step 1: Realign Business & IT After an SAP Implementation
In many organizations, business and IT go their separate ways once the implementation project is "complete." This is a mistake. To get enduring results, the Business must drive the ongoing improvements needed for the SAP platform. It is the Business - supported by IT - that needs to identify the process changes, reporting for decision-making and end-user needs on an ongoing basis.
To that end, you need to re-examine the current mix of your post-implementation support team. SAP CoE's must include a mix of Process Owners - the "super-users" within the business community, functional application experts and technical experts for configuration and reporting. In addition, the team needs to include people focused on new initiatives, whether for additional rollouts or new modules, which will be inevitable, as business needs change.
Overall, The CoE needs to be designed to break down the walls between IT and the business community, and establish a new way to provide sustainable support that remains business focused.
Step 2: Set up Governance
One of the most critical steps for CoE set-up is establishing Governance for the support organization. The goal of governance is to provide strategic direction, as well as accountability, for all SAP initiatives. Governance also provides a framework for the Business Units to work collaboratively, and in unison with IT, enabling process standardization and business alignment across the enterprise.
Step 3: Define Functions and Organize the CoE
No generic formula exists for the functions and roles that should be encompassed with the CoE. At a minimum, you will need to map out the roles and responsibilities of The Executive Steering Team, PMO Group (Program Management), Support Services Team, and the SAP Power Users.
Some of the key roles and functions of the CoE are -
Business Support - Business Analysts are part of the teams that form the CoE, working together with the Applications teams to support the users
Project & Implementations - Business Analysts are part of the CoE organization, working side-by-side with the Applications teams to roll out new functionality
Coordination of Development Requirements - All Development Requests are coordinated through the CoE, as well as all messages to SAP
Technical Support - Provided in conjunction with SAP Basis and Global IT Operations.
Training - To transfer SAP knowledge to the user base
Vendor/Contract Management - Usually provided in conjunction with IT Global Operations
Support Desk - CoE interfaces directly with users and super users and to provide SAP support based on agreed upon service levels, which may vary by functional area and geography
Information/Knowledge Management - CoE is the central contact point for SAP related information, enhancements and new developments
Step 4: Implement Post Go-Live Process Analysis & Optimization as the Foundation for Continuous Improvement
Reclaim ownership of your SAP business processes. Too often, the "to-be" vision turns out to be a one time exercise done early in the implementation process and then is cast aside post-live. This needs to be re-visited as streamlined business processes are as important in the post-live CoE as it was in implementation.
The CoE should perform or coordinate a review of what is working and what is not. Typically, the 5 areas that companies should address are:
Broken or flawed business processes
Deficient system design and configuration
Inability or unwillingness to use system - Manual work-arounds present
Insufficient training
Data Management issues
Step 5: Mobilize for Post Go-Live Organizational Change
The business should have a regular stream of improvement requests to support operational changes. Inability to deliver this will create frustration and a sense of stalling in the improvement process.
Your CoE should provide guidance on how best to manage change within the context of your SAP platform. An effective CoE has the appropriate knowledge, skill and time to evaluate alternatives and implications, estimate the level of effort required and provide the necessary testing, training and documentation. Changes must be made in a controlled way to ensure that the live environment is not put at risk -and implemented effectively to exploit the business benefits of the improvements.
And don't forget about the IT organization when addressing change management. The shift of "ownership" to the business has a dramatic impact on the role and function of your IT group.
Establishing the proper infrastructure, mobilizing the appropriate resources, and bringing everything together at the right time are all key pieces in developing an effective COE. Regardless of your team’s exceptional skill sets and impeccable timing, the inability to effectively manage change can be paralyzing. Two key factors, change management tools and change management processes/procedures, ensure that you have equipped your COE to deal with change.
Choose Your Weapon
Using change management tools helps in effectively managing change for a mid-market organization. Ticket-tracking systems are efficient ways to capture change requests and follow them through the modification process. Due to the constraints on the mid-market from a resource perspective, these tools — some inexpensive — can provide much needed accountability tracking. By documenting, tracking, assigning resolver groups, and managing change requests from the end-user community, the COE is able to effectively manage and report on all changes.
A host of error-resolution ticket-tracking systems are available, such as Track-IT and Remedy. These ticketing software systems provide the COE with an independent error resolution tracking tool. Such tools enable organizations to easily capture, track, and report on issues. Among other benefits, this type of tool provides invaluable information on the COE performance, the issues the organization is encountering, and the areas for improvement.
Beyond the Day-to-Day Issues
While the COE should address day-to-day issues directly, major modifications to the system require a different mechanism: the CAB. The CAB’s role is to address any enhancements, major modifications, or significant change requests to the productive environment. Depending upon the role of the COE, this may include additional projects, both small and large, for your SAP system.
The CAB meets frequently, typically weekly, to discuss proposed changes. During this standing meeting, representatives from the COE team and other vested individuals, such as external stakeholders, present requested changes to the CAB. During the requestor’s presentation, the CAB asks questions to understand fully the scope of and rationale for these changes. The CAB then assigns approved proposals a priority in conjunction with existing change requests and subsequently, the appropriate team members work on the proposals.
While managing change is the entire COE’s responsibility, its coordination and direction rests solely on the integration manager. The integration manager is crucial to effective change management.
Because the integration manager interacts with all parties, both external and internal to the COE, this individual must possess excellent customer service skills, including humility, patience, political acumen, and interpersonal, communication, and listening skills. The integration manager must also be respected and perceived as confident, competent, and fair because he or she acts as the primary gatekeeper of the production environment.
While this job description sounds like the resume for Superman, these individuals do exist. It just requires either finding them or proper grooming.
Step 6: Marketing the CoE
One of the most forgotten aspects of setting up a CoE is the marketing effort to publicize and promote the services offered. Only after users are aware of processes and services available, can widespread adoption of the CoE occur within the organization.
It would be a mistake not to expend the effort to launch an internal marketing campaign. The lifeblood and longevity of the CoE depends on the perception and service it provides to its internal customers.
Step 7: Getting Started with Setting-Up Your SAP Center of Excellence
Where to begin? Ideally, planning for your CoE begins before you go live with your SAP business platform. This way, continuity is ensured and the likelihood of matching your ROI expectations is increased.
If you are in the initial stages, budget for it now - it's a question of pay for it now, or pay for it later - and later has higher costs. If you are in the midst of implementation, raise the flag now and address it. But if you are already live, it's not too late. Take it step-by-step to identify and prioritize the areas to address.
While it is never too early to begin thinking about how your organization should implement the COE, building it out too early can result in COE-team burnout. Waiting too long, however, can result in problems. As a rule of thumb, mid-market companies should begin seriously discussing the COE approach during the realization or implementation phase.
During this time, you can assign the COE integration manager, enabling him or her to begin conceptualizing items such as the scope, services, and SLAs. Furthermore, the integration manager can start to design the organizational structure, ensuring that the team represents all appropriate SAP skill sets.
If organizations are planning properly, some form of a COE should be in place prior to go-live. Ideally, you should mobilize the core of the COE during the testing phases of the project. This strategy provides the most successful environment for several reasons:
Knowledge transfer: Bringing in core COE team members during the project’s implementation and testing phases allows them to learn on the job. This provides a deeper understanding of their ultimate support responsibilities.
Practice: The more exposure the COE team has to the system, the greater their understanding of the system’s functionality. Some organizations use their COE prior to go-live for project-related support. This works very well within the mid- market because it fosters learning prior to go-live.
Organizational acceptance: During the implementation, end users are most familiar with the project team. Sometimes these project team members transition to the COE. When this is not the case, however, end users must look to new contacts for production support. Integrating the COE into the later phases of the implementation assists in this transition and facilitates end-user acceptance.
Training: Mobilizing the COE prior to go-live assists the COE in building logistical operational experience. Phone system operation, ticketing tool system ramp-up, triage procedures, and so on are givens that your organization must master. Working with the COE team to make these procedures second nature enables the COE to focus on resolving end-user issues, not COE support functions.