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11 Mistakes To Avoid When Upgrading SAP
11 Mistakes To Avoid When Upgrading SAP
Ongoing business and technology changes — not 1. Ignoring “low-hanging” functional fruit in a
to mention the intense competition and cost technical upgrade.
pressure imposed by the post-recession environ-
SAP technical upgrades are “behind the
ment — are forcing businesses worldwide to con-
scenes” projects that tweak how applications
tinuously reinvent themselves. Winners in this
are processed and data flows, with minor (if
“reset economy” will require not only high-
any) changes to workflows or user interfaces.
octane global talent but also fine-tuned business
They are often triggered by technical require-
processes delivered by virtualized infrastructures
ments, such as SAP’s decision to withdraw
that save time, money and effort while maximiz-
support for a specific package or a change in
ing business agility.
the hardware running the application.
For many large organizations, SAP’s suite of busi-
Technical upgrades typically cost much less,
ness applications forms the backbone of these busi-
and take less time, than functional upgrades,
ness-critical processes. SAP
Technical upgrades regularly releases upgrades of which require greater changes to workflows
and user interfaces. Many companies thus get
typically cost much its enterprise resource plan- into a routine of performing technical
ning (ERP) software to help its
less, and take less customers leverage the latest upgrades without considering functional
time, than functional business capabilities and changes at the same time. This will inevitably
lead to missed opportunities to address new
upgrades, which remain competitive. These business processes and rapidly changing busi-
upgrades can be a valuable
require greater opportunity to maximize the ness requirements.
changes to workflows ROI of customers investing in Companies conducting technical upgrades
and user interfaces. SAP. That being said, mistakes should look for ways to perform selected func-
in the implementation process tional upgrades that will improve business
can quickly erode the value of these upgrades, or processes and the bottom line, without the cost
worse, offset the value completely by miring the and complexity of a full functional upgrade.
organization in upgrade-related issues. One client, for example, used a technical
upgrade to SAP ERP 6.0 as an opportunity to
Here are the eleven most common mistakes com-
consolidate databases and move to a platform
panies make in implementing SAP upgrades,
that would support new technologies, such as
along with some guidance on how to avoid them.
Don’t: Plan a major functional Do: Consider asking your implementation part-
You should and technical upgrade at the ner to "own" the implementation and assume
approach technical same time. Imposing this much collective responsibility for its success. Consider
upgrades as if they change on users and the building in rewards and penalties for meeting
IT department simultaneously (or failing to meet) time and cost targets.
were a whole new increases the risk of failure and
implementation. organizational resistance. 4. Failing to ensure robust test management.
Do: Ensure that even a technical upgrade pro- The worst time to find out about a problem with
vides business benefits by exploring relatively your upgrade is after it’s gone into production.
easy functions that could be enabled by the That’s when it’s most expensive to fix, and also
technical upgrade, such as a new built-in when it can do the most damage to user pro-
report or a checkbox to automate workflow. ductivity, revenue flow and credibility. Many
organizations also fail to ensure that their test
2. Not getting industry-specific consulting help. environments match their production environ-
ments, learning too late that custom objects do
Not all industries face the same challenges, have not work properly when deployed.
the same priorities for their SAP implementation
or face the same cultural, political and financial Don’t: Let your users just “dip their toes” in
upgrade challenges. You should approach tech- your development sandbox and mistake this
nical upgrades as if they were a whole new for “testing.”
implementation. Re-evaluate your Do: Provide a complete testing environment
Don’t let your technical needs, your skills require- that mirrors your production environment, sep-
users just dip ments and the extent of system
customization you’ ll require in
arate from development and QA servers. Create
a tight feedback loop to incorporate user con-
their toes in your assessing how much outside help cerns and address the bugs they identify.
development you need, as well as which consult- Ensure your testing is complete and consistent,
ant can best provide it.
sandbox and all the way from the PRD (product requirements
document) through pre-deployment testing.
mistake this for Rather than simply awarding the
upgrade project to the partner that
“testing.” handled your last big project, bring 5. Allowing scope creep.
in two or three vendors and thor- Scope creep can quietly kill an upgrade by
oughly evaluate their capabilities by having weighing it down with so many “nice to have”
them walk you through their SAP upgrade features that the “must have” features are
methodologies. never fully implemented. Freeze SAP develop-
Don’t: Make the mistake of assuming that any ment well in advance of the upgrade to elimi-
consulting firm with prior experience will be nate the possibility of development changes
the right fit for your company's upgrade. during the upgrade that could stall progress or
cause unanticipated errors.
Do: Choose a consulting partner that has expe-
rience and customer references in your partic- Don’t: Let parallel projects muddy the upgrade
ular industry and your version(s) of SAP. waters.
Ravindran Maheswaran is a Senior Manager responsible for conceptualizing and implementing pro-
grams for enterprise application services. Ravindran has more than 14 years of experience in high tech-
nology products and services, particularly in enterprise software and IT services. He has co-authored
numerous articles and papers on a variety of technology-related topics. He holds a bachelor’s degree
in Engineering and master’s degree in Business Administration from Anna University. He can be
reached at ravindran.maheswaran@cognizant.com.
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