SAP Implementation services

SAP stands for Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing. SAP is an enterprise software company that has been around since 1972. Its main competitor is Oracle. Lexprosoft Technologies offers the following SAP services for the customizable enterprise applications:

• Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
• Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)
• Supply Chain Management (SCM)
• Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)

Implementing a SAP application into your business is a massive and time consuming effort. Here is a summary of the necessary activities leading to full SAP implementation:

• Product Preparation:

  • Craft Solution Vision – Prepare a detailed statement regarding what you hope to accomplish for your business’ future by implementing a SAP solution. This statement should include detailed analyses of:
    
    • Return on Investment (ROI) calculations
    • Benefit for business’ future
    • Success of SAP solution implementation and competitive advantage
  • Design and Initial Staffing of a SAP Technical Support Organization (TSO) – the TSO is charged with addressing, designing, implementing, and supporting the SAP solution. If you are utilizing the services of an outside organization, such as Lexprosoft, this step can be whittled down to a small team that will act as the Point of Contact between your company and Lexprosoft. As such, this team should completely understand the Corporate plan. So the Initial Staff may be a person directly under a Board member, for instance.

• Sizing and Blueprinting

  • Perform Cost of Ownership Analysis: If you need server, platform, or Database Management Software upgraded or replaced in order to be compatible with the new SAP Solution, this must be factored in – cost, staffing issues, etc.
  • Identify any Emergency Plans to deal with possible downtime: Such downtime could be caused by system crash due to server overuse (infrastructure not solid enough to expand rapidly if need be) to recovery after a Disaster (such as earthquake, fire, etc.).
  • Engage SAP Solution Stack vendors: Carefully perform market research into any stack components you may need to replace, such as server, mainframe, etc.
  • Staff TSO: Staff the bulk of the TSO or decide on an outsourcing firm should you decide to go that route.
  • Execute Training. Train key staff of the SAP TSO:
    • Data Center Specialists
    • High Availability Specialists
    • Network specialists
    • Training staff for the rest of the company, all the required SAP knowledge and skills
  • Setup SAP Data Center: If you are going for a major upgrade, it may be better to build a new data center entirely, both for cost-effective temperature regulation and hard infrastructure security. If not, at least set up the room(s) in which the data center will reside.
  • Perform Installations: Install any technological foundations such as web application server or enterprise portal.
  • Round out support for SAP: Identify & staff remaining TSO roles, such as those involving clerical tasks and help desk staff, and other such Support staff.

• SAP Functional Development

  • Address Change Management: Develop a report to address the changes in day-to-day corporate life required by the matriculation to SAP. The objective is to maximize collective effort and minimize risk of implementation failure, even on a small level.
  • Address SAP systems and Operations Management: Create a SAP Operations Manual and evaluate SAP management applications, in order to create a foundation for SAP systems management & computer operations.
  • Perform functional, integration, and regression tests: Test your SAP business procedures. Execute functional tests to ensure the integrity of your business processes; integration tests to ensure that all the processes involved can work seamlessly together, and regression tests to verify that certain sets of data and processes yield consistent and repeatable results.

• Final Preparation

  • Perform systems & stress tests: Check that the expectations of your employees and customers (end users) as defined in service level agreements can be met, by planning, scripting, executing, and monitoring SAP Stress Tests. A couple of ideas are to run the system with the data center very hot or very cold, or have a large number of people log onto the system and enter data at the same time. Results should be carefully logged.
  • Prepare for cutover: The cutover is the period of time between the use of the old system and the moment when the new SAP goes Live. Finish any last minute preparations, prepare Cutover Plan (for instance, should employees be given a week off? A day? Or is simply logging off for an hour sufficient? There should be as few incidences of trying to figure out solutions whilst in the heat of problems as possible). The cutover Plan should address anything that needs to be accomplished in order to go live without incident.

• GO LIVE

  As you can see, upgrading your business to SAP is a major project that sometimes takes years to implement. Call us today for more information on SAP upgrades and integration for your business!