It is common knowledge that organisations that choose to “save” on their project budget by significantly reducing or even excluding the go-live support phase because they are certain their implementation is ready, face on-going “system” problems years after the SAP implementation. Post go-live SAP support is an integral part of a successful SAP implementation and its value should not be underestimated.

Of course it’s not just the go-live support that is important; the initiation, planning and execution phases of a SAP implementation play a significant role in determining the success rate of the go-live period. However, shortfalls in any of these phases typically present themselves during the go-live phase and it will be crucial to correct these shortcomings during the go-live. Fixing problems quickly and effectively with the right resources and being proactive in extrapolating possible other issues from a problem is essential to stave off any ill feeling building up towards the new system. The go-live support team suddenly takes on a far more important role that initially thought.

The success of the SAP implementation starts with the effectiveness of the business blueprint phase as it determines the redefined business process underpinned by the SAP solution, but people operate these new processes, and thus the change readiness assessment is another key factor which provides insight into the success of the go-live phase as it indicates the attitudes and alignment of the end users to the new system. It also determines whether a roll-out site is ready for the go-live phase. For example, a site readiness team is typically deployed to ensure the site is ready for the go- live. Based on the feedback received from the site readiness team, a decision will then be made by the project management to establish if there is additional work required or a phasing of the roll-out required to ensure success.

Consultants often experience numerous hurdles during the go-Live support period. Some of the more severe challenges are:                                                  

·          When legacy programmes need to be interfaced to the SAP solution. It is essential to make certain that these legacy programmes integrate well with SAP. For example a manufacturing company implemented SAP ~ the organisation used a system called BASIS which integrated with a distribution planning system called FLO.The organisation then changed from BASIS to SAP, which now had to now integrate with FLO. It was imperative that SAP integrated well with the legacy system (FLO) because the sales and distribution planning is still done in FLO and exported back to SAP. Failure of a successful integration will lead to a massive delay in the distribution of stock and can have a huge impact on public perceptions. A good support team will be vital if integration problems occur and there is some form of roll-back required.

·         End users often take time to adapt to new business processes, SAP support resources therefore need to play the role of a facilitator throughout the go-live phase, continually reminding uses of the new process and ensuring it is embedded.

·         End users place the blame on the SAP system because it’s “not the same as before”. It has often been found that employees do not focus enough on new business processes. This brings about confusion of what duties or functions are allocated to which users.

·         False expectations which are embedded in the minds of end users, this triggers the end users to be more resistant during the go-live phase. A good support team needs to reassure and build confidence in end-users

·         A lack of training investment, knowledge transfer and refresher courses provided to both the end users and the support team can lead to frustrations.

    Factors having a positive impact on the go-live

The following are a few things which can positively impact the success rate of the go- live phase:

·         It is vital that users are aware of their new roles and revised job tasks. Continual awareness communication of this is essential during the go-live phase.

·         Extensive support team training (if they were not part of the implementation) to ensure that they know and understand their roles as SAP support resources and likely issues they may come across.

·         The SAP support resources and end users must have a clear understanding of the organisation’s new business processes. Process based SAP training is preferable to transactional based training.

·         Pre go-live assessment periods to enable the support team to identify the end users, and to have an understanding of the end users’ daily tasks. Pre go-live sessions enable the support team to highlight obvious end-user authorisation and access errors, which minimises irritation during the go-live period.

·         A clearly defined go-live issue resolution process assists in managing issues as they arise. This is different from the project issue process and should be geared to react immediately as well as extrapolate other possible issues arising out of any other issue.

·         Make sure end-users know who to contact to avoid creating an impression that support is not readily available.

·         Go out of your way to let end-users know how their issue resolution is progressing.

Patience as well as a positive attitude are the key elements in getting the end users excited about their imminent change.

  What to avoid during the go-live phase

If done properly the go-live phase creates the opportunity for the support team and the end-users need to work together in harmony. There are several things that could disrupt the smooth running of this period:

·         Recruiting additional support resources during the go-live phase. This has a negative impact on the success rate of the implementation as not enough time is available for the new recruits to fully understand the business process of the organisation and the “catch up”.

·         Another key factor to bear in mind is that these recruits will not have enough time to build rapport with the end users. It is therefore vital to ensure that the project has sufficient resources for the various sites at the beginning of the go-live.

·         Allowing a “sink or swim” period during the go-live phase that sees end users perform their SAP tasks without assistance from the SAP support resources.

·         Support resources carrying out the end users’ daily tasks. The support team should be instructed not to perform transactions for the end users.  The support resources SAP access should be limited to display only during the go-live to minimise the impact of “over helping” the end-user.

In conclusion

The go-live phase has its difficulties and the end users are bound to be anxious and fearful of the system. The first few weeks of the go-live period should  be used to alleviate these anxieties and fears through constant communication and reassurances from the support resources.

The support team should take into consideration the imperative aspects of a SAP go-live and what to avoid during this phase. The success of the support phase therefore lies in the execution or avoidance of the above mentioned points.

The highlight of the go-live phase is when the support resources leave the sites with the confidence that the end user will be able to cope on their own and that the time spent at the sites has added value to the organisation as a whole. 

What is SAP-HR Performance Management?

                The SAP Performance Management tool is a solution that enhances performance feedback processes. This solution supports end to end processes that provide organisations with transparency and helps them to align their business initiatives and goals throughout the organisation, communicate their organisation strategy, analyse employee performance and reward employees accordingly. The solution is extremely adaptable, allowing you to custom design both the performance feedback documents and reports. Not only will it simplify your business strategic outputs, but it will ensure that your employees are measured and rewarded appropriately for their contributions and performance within the organisation.

How can it benefit you?

                This tool enables organisations to strategically align their goals with their initiatives and resources, thus assisting in closing the gap between their strategy and their method of execution. In addition, it will improve visibility to ensure that the major stakeholders are able to identify the areas of performance that require attention. From a business perspective, this tool has increased agility which will improve your business processes to improve the cycles of performance management within the organisation. In terms of your employees, you can be guaranteed a satisfied workforce that can leverage off a consistent and trusted organisational performance system.   

Now that you have it, how to successfully train your employees?           

SAP-HR Performance Management like all other modules of SAP is a tool best used to simplify your business processes and assists in enhancing your business potential. Being a system or tool, for a technologically inclined person, working on this system would be a piece of cake. However, for the majority of the workforce who are not as inclined, adjusting to the system can be quite a daunting task. The most effective method of learning how to work with this tool is through face-to-face training sessions. Training sessions provide employees with the ability to use the system and understand its functionality.  It is important to remember that the sessions can also be used as a platform to communicate the importance of such a system as well as clarifying your organisations policies, values and philosophy regarding performance management.

 It is essential that the training is closely aligned with the business processes. This has a much more effective impact in terms of a user’s experience while training. This is of utmost importance as a good understanding of this system will give employees the confidence to work effectively on SAP Performance Management. The ability to achieve this will lead to a highly motivated workforce which will mean a happier, more productive workforce. Employees will not only feel motivated but they will feel a sense of belonging. Satisfying the essential need to belong is an act that goes far beyond personal growth. Fulfilling these needs will give an organisation the ability to assist its employees with growth within their careers but also result in growth for the organisation.          

How to ensure that your employees are using the solution to its full potential?                              

Employees should be educated on how the system functions and the benefits of such a system to ensure total buy-in. It is important to bear in mind that a performance management system cannot work effectively if employees cannot see the benefit of such a system.  SAP has developed a tool that can assist organisations in identifying how their employees react towards SAP solutions and whether or not they are managing them to their full potential. It is called the SAP User Experience Management Application Tool. This tool may be used to monitor whether employees utilise the SAP Performance Tool to its full potential. It does so by providing input to comprehensive reports, pinpointing training needs, adjusting business processes and it ensures that employees are delivering all the value that organisation’s expect from their SAP solutions.

Taken as a whole, SAP Performance Management holistically ensures that together with the correct face-to-face training, it would be an asset to any organisation, as management would have a clear overview as to how day-to-day employees utilise the resources supplied to them by the organisation’s investment. The tools provided, benefit both parties being the employee and employer, as the tasks that employees are required to complete are standardised and simplified. Thus this gives the employers a conclusive result. By allowing this to flow within the organisation with effective feedback processes, crossing all boundaries, organisations have the ability to capitalise on an increase in productivity and the smoothness of business operation.

The SAP E-Recruiting application is a fully Web-enabled, end-to-end recruiting solution, delivering the recruiting management functions an organisation needs to find appropriate talent. SAP E-Recruiting accelerates and streamlines the recruiting process with a strategy that is much more comprehensive than traditional methods of applicant management. The solution lets applicants and candidates register in a talent warehouse.

It provides functions that help managers find the staff they need quickly and maintain long-term relationships with individuals registered in the warehouse. Full-fledged applicant tracking and reporting functions help organise the processing of job applications and monitor the effectiveness of the recruiting organisation. A collaboration platform links SAP E-Recruiting to external systems such as job boards, recruiting service providers, and the company’s internal systems. All these capabilities help align recruiting with corporate strategy, find top candidates, cut recruiting and sourcing costs, and improve employee retention.

Highlights of the SAP E-Recruit Module

• SAP E-Recruiting ensures that you drive up-to-date human resources management, by proactively maintaining contact with applicants, potential candidates, and consequently, with your employees.
• With a use of the talent pool, you ensure that you not only identify the best possible candidate for a position from all potential candidates, but also that you are in a position to staff critical key positions in the long term and thus safeguard the company’s success in the future.
• Job postings can be created for Internal as well as External candidates with overlapping time periods and can be published to multiple sources.
• The recruitment process can be tracked and administrator staff will know exactly what phase an application is in when queried.
• Trex provides powerful search capabilities and allows for the efficient “matching up” of candidate profiles to relevant Job Specifications in order to ensure the best possible fit.

Tips of the trade

During a recent client engagement the following challenges and tips were identified:

• You can use ALE distribution (Application Link Enabling) to import an organisation’s live org structure into E-Recruiting. This enables you to provide a complete organisational structure in E-Recruiting consisting of organisational units, positions, and jobs. Employees’ data is stored in the SAP Business Partner, which is created for each employee in E-Recruiting. The employee’s personal data, address data, contact data, employee number and relationship to the relevant user is stored here. If there is no user available, the system automatically generates a user for E-Recruiting.

• When trying to distribute qualifications the relationships were not saved. There are two OSS notes available to enable the distribution of qualifications. The notes available are:

0001049047 – Qualifications for ALE distribution into E-recruiting and
0001008056 – HRALX & Qualification: relationships not saved

• It’s of critical importance that an experienced Basis team takes ownership of the technical implementation of the Trex search engine and the Python enhancement “XML Attribute Extractor”. Depending on client requirements, if a standalone instance is needed (For security purposes and external recruiting) it is recommended that only Basis and E-recruit be installed on the separate box.

• It is recommended to use E-recruit 6. If a client is on ECC5, the system can still interface with E-recruit 6.

• The standard roles for E-recruit are quite broad with regards to access and need to be defined. This can be accomplished quite easily using a trace on a user assigned to a specific role e.g. A recruiter Role may be allowed to create requisitions and manage applicants throughout the recruitment processes.

• It is recommended that the E-recruit development team comprises of a Basis consultant, a Portal consultant (with BSP and Web dynpro knowledge), an Abap consultant, Authorisations consultant and an E-recruit functional consultant, should the client not have internal capacity in these resources.

Frequently asked Questions: Part 1

While preparing a recent proposal, the client provided us with a list of questions on the capabilities of the system. Through teamwork and some assistance from our colleagues in the USA, we were able to address all of their queries. We take pleasure in sharing these insights with you as a series of posts on our new blog!

Rob Scott : HR Strategist

Against a background of almost 17 000 science and technology professionals (about one percent of the total science and technology workforce) emigrating from South African between 1994 and 2001 and a GDP growth forecast for 2008 and 2009 set at four percent and 4.2 percent respectively, HR departments are faced with an unprecedented task of managing scarce talent within their organisations.

The situation is exacerbated by a global shortage of skills and talent, and futher fueled by demand in markets such as China and India. For example, China is commissioning a new power station every week, which gives some indication of the number of engineering and related skills that will be absorbed into that economy in the foreseeable future. As a result, global mobility of talent is also a growing phenomenon.

So how are HR departments to manage these pressures? Companies are developing tool which will help companies have much more sophisticated and accurate information of their future talent requirements and which provides defendable information to formulate action plans to ensure that they have the correct talent in place at the time the talent is required. Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) identifies where and when organisations as a whole will be vulnerable to talent shortages or excesses based on historic organisational data and quantifies the critical skills that will be required in the short, medium and long term depending on the organisations strategy and external influences. These services combines HR Strategy, HR talent management and actuarial statistical and modelling capabilities. The statistical analysis of historic data and influencing external data to do predictive modeling is an extremely value adding advantage over normal supply and demand modeling tools.

Depending on the industry, turnover rates in some companies have reached levels of between 20% and 25%. HR departments need to interrogate their standing strategies to successfully operate in this environment and need something more that trend analysis based on historic data to formulate proper talent planning

Once an organisation has a good handle on their talent gaps for the medium to longer term, they can start developing plans to address these shortages – typically this will involve a holistic and creative view of talent attraction and retention as well as HR strategies.

In the wake of this, many  companies have set up corporate universities to train up junior employees and ensure a pipeline of talent and stem the rate of attrition. Companies such as Deloitte has been successfully running the Deloitte Graduate Academy for the past three years to bridge the gap between tertiary education and the workplace.

These factors are all contributing to HR playing a far more strategic role within any organisation. New generations of employees with different expectations have meant that organisations become more flexible in their approach. Scarce skills demand flexible and innovative solutions! – the HR adage of 1 policy fits all, is a dying thought process.