Category: Virtual Consulting

There are several red flags that you should be on the look out for to ensure that you have the best SAP consulting resources and ones that you can trust. 

It has really struck home how important it is to trust the people that you are working with especially if you don’t have that expertise yourself. It's very common on most SAP projects for customers to use SAP consulting resources to assist them with their implementation or scope of work and I think trust is an underrated dynamic that plays a big part in the overall success. Trust needs to be earned over time and here are some signs that should give you some second thoughts if you see them happening with any of your consulting resources.

Just as moving an entire household or company across the country can be a pain for everyone involved, moving minor and/or major projects from offshore to nearshore vendors brings numerous challenges right alongside the numerous benefits.

In the exciting rush of transitioning your projects to a vendor that is 1 or 2 time zones and a short plane ride away, it is easy to overlook details. As we have discovered over the years, the following pitfalls can really throw a monkey wrench in that move.

Outsourcing software development has some clear advantages, cost being the one that drives most outsourcing decisions. Hiring a team of off shore programmers can cost 60% less than assembling the same level of talent in-house. Online technologies such as file sharing, teleconferencing, and virtual work spaces have swept away barriers to partnering with companies overseas. Even with the advances in development tools and communication technologies, there is no substitute for building a relationship with your programmers. The better they understand how your business runs, the more easily they can help you achieve your business outcomes. That kind of relationship takes time to build, and if that programmer leaves, the process must begin again. Smart companies recognize that these relationships are part of its value proposition, and that it takes time to build that rapport with a programmer. Their ability to provide the level of service you deserve depends in part on how well their developers know your business. They are committed to programmer retention knowing that it has a direct impact on your success.

Want to save money on your next SAP consulting engagement? Yosh Eisbart offers his three best-kept secrets that can lead to lower TCO with higher ROI. In this insightful post he suggests: SAP Hosting, SAP Solution Manager & Outsourcing as excellent levers managers can pull to maximise the effectiveness of their ERP system.

SAP Consulting Self-Service is a quick and easy way for customers to select and book an SAP consultant who has the skills and knowledge they require. Customers can search on a whole range of attributes, including project duration, industry, solution area, consultant role, region and consultant proficiency, progressively narrowing their search down until they find consultants who match their criteria. Consulting Self-Service then allows them to view detailed profiles of qualifications and experience, compare one consultant against another and, most importantly, view their availability. Once the customer selects the right consultant for his needs, he enters some information about the work he wishes the consultant to perform. The consultant calls back the customer to verify the required work and agree on the scope and effort. Once agreement is reached the consultant perform the work and enters back to the system engagement summary for the benefit of the customer. Now it’s the time for the customer to accept the deliverables and provide feedback.

An SAP developer must have the breadth of experience to understand the functions that your business needs, and the depth of experience to deliver those functions as described. And, of course, do it on time and within budget. Finding a team of developers to fit that bill is probably going to require searching pretty far afield. The best choice for many major companies is to outsource their SAP functional and technology consulting, from development through support. Evaluating SAP programmers Selecting a team for your SAP solution should be done with care. Ask questions that will help you find the right fit. Do you have experience in our industry? How many developers will be working on our solution? What is the average amount of experience they have? How will you handle data migration to avoid disruptions? What levels of training and support do you offer? Use the interview process to determine how they would approach your solution. SAP has a number of different modules made for specific business processes. Ask the team leader which modules he or she thinks you'll need, and why. Will your development team be starting with a prepackaged solution for your industry? Why or why not?

An analysis of a new SAP Consulting offer for StreamWork serves as the starting point for an examination of SAP's plans regarding StreamWork-BusinessSuite integration projects and reflections on the role of consulting in hybrid (OnDemand/OnPremise) projects.