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Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Top 5 ERP News and articles: Week 2019-21: ERP Stabilization

Disclaimer: The articles in this blog post are those that I found interesting and relevant to the topic of ERP and technology in general. I have no commercial association with any of the entities mentioned in this article. I may be following a few of these entities on LinkedIn and even some of these entities may be on my LinkedIn or Social Media network. These articles are selected purely based on their relevance to the objective of this blog, to promote ERP. Finally, the summary is mine. While I stay close to the points in the articles, I also elaborate a few of them based on my understanding.

The Short URL for this post is  http://bit.ly/ERP_Stabilization

The articles that we have so far covered in this series in Year 2019 are:

1. Week 2019-03:
2. Week 2019-04:
3. Week 2019-05:
4. Week 2019-06: New Technologies
5. Week 2019-07: Industry 4.0
19. Week 2019-21: Post Implementation Support and Stabilization

The topic for this week is ERP Post Implementation Support and Stabilization. The five articles selected provide different perspectives of the issue. As per the first article, Mr.Tom Miller asks that Organizations consider the post implementation support phase at the RFP stage of the project itself. He says that Organizations should ask four questions to the SI to assess their capability to deliver post implementation hypercare and regular support. In the second article from my blog, I share my experience in evaluating and selecting an ERP AMS vendor. The reader of this post might find the approach useful.The third article shift the focus to the consultant that delivers post implementation support. In addition to technical skills, a support consultant should have many soft skills including planning and communication skills.

Ms.Ausra Gustainiene has written three posts in LinkedIn on how to deliver effective hypercare. I select the second article on four key questions to be asked to ensure that hypercare is successfully completed. These include completeness and stability of solution and the effectiveness of support. The fifth article from Mr.Gary Fromer explains the dos and don'ts when deciding on managed services. He exhorts organizations not to just focus on the support costs to the detriment of other key factors.

I had asked my LinkedIn contacts to suggest articles and ideas that I can incorporate in this post. One of the member, Mr.Ramesh Narasimhaiah, pointed out that it is important for the Organizations to have a postmortem at the completion of each project. They can carry these lessons to other implementations and other managed services engagements. It is an excellent idea. Thank you Mr.Ramesh

That is it. Nice articles all. Check out the additional readings section for some more valuable articles.

Top five articles 

1. Four ERP Support question to be asked to your product vendor: Tom Miller for ERPFocus.com

https://www.erpfocus.com/four-erp-support-questions-to-ask-your-vendor-2740.html

The four questions are:
  1. What is your support process and how will it help us? This include support model (onsite or offsite), expertise in both application as well as in Industry etc. 
  2. Pricing Models: Fixed , Variable or Hybrid? Ticket based? Monthly or annual? Payment terms etc
  3. Support Guarantee: What is the Service Level Agreement (SLA)? What is their track record of meeting SLAs?  
  4. What is your renewal rates? What percentage of customers renew their support with you? Why do customers leave? Who initiates the termination etc.
Of course there are many more questions to be asked, but these are a start.

2. Selecting an ERP Support Vendor: A Case Study:  erp-consultancy blog

https://erp-consultancy.blogspot.com/2019/03/selecting-erp-support-vendor-case-study.html

This is from my blog. It is a case study of how I selected an AMS vendor for our ERP Applications. The article provides the high level considerations as well as it goes into some level of detail on the Weighted scale that we used to rank different vendors. We started off with elimination of obvious misfits and finally ended up between two worthy Organizations and selected one of them based on Price. We looked at price only as the last criteria.

Hope it helps the reader. 

3. Ten must have skills for Consultants working in SAP AMS practice: Balaji Parsewar for SAP.com blog

https://blogs.sap.com/2013/02/10/10-must-have-skills-for-consultants-working-in-sap-ams-practice/

This article goes to the consultant level and identifies the skills that is required for a consultant who is providing ERP support. It is important to know that the skills required for support are completely different from the skills required for an implementation. While this article is from SAP Blog, the skills are applicable for any ERP application.

The ten skills are:
  1. Ticket Creation: The issues will be reported formally through a ticket creation process or informally over telephone, email etc. The consultant should be able to formalize the issue by understanding the issue and creating a support ticket for the same and communicating the same to the customer.
  2. Effort Estimation:  The consultant should be able to set the expectation by correctly estimating the effort and setting the SLA. 
  3. Acknowledge the Issue: Once a consultant gets a ticket, he should quickly establish contact with the concerned user and acknowledge the receipt of the ticket. 
  4. Clarify: In case of any ambiguity get clarification from user.. Using multiple evidences like screenshots and replication of issue ensure that both are in the same page.
  5. Document the understanding: Do not depend only on verbal communication.
  6. Learn to say 'No'
  7. Learn to ask for help and support, even from customer if required.
  8. Ensure completeness of solution: A solution must be accompanied by test cases, screenshots, user documentation, configuration changes document etc
  9. Before making any changes, ensure to take backup
  10. Remember Support is not a 9-5 job. Issue resolution takes precedence over everything.
These are mostly common sense stuff, but it is nice to see on paper. And as they say, 'Common Sense is most uncommon'.

4. Four Key Questions That Will Help You Succeed in Hypercare:  Ausra Gustainiene in LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/went-live-now-what-part-2-ausra-gustainiene/

Hypercare in an ERP implementation refers to the support phase immediately after the ERP Go Live. Hypercare is the responsibility of the SI that implemented the ERP and the project is considered 'Closed' after the successful completion of Hypercare phase.

This is the second of a three part series on ERP Hypercare written by Ms.Ausra Gustainiene in LinkedIn. (The other two parts are marked in the section 'Additional Reading' below).  Hypercare should be measured based on metrics as well as established principles and should factor in both business as well as IT aspects.

The four questions that will ensure the completion of Hypercare are:
  1. Is the solution complete?
  2. Is the solution stable? 
  3. Is the solution being widely used? 
  4. Is the support stable? 
There could be three separate challenges during Hypercare. First, some part of ERP will be stable but others are not. For example, Finance may be stable, but manufacturing may not be. If SI withdraws the Finance team, that will be challenging due to the integrated nature of ERP.  Second, the SI has met the criteria, but business is not yet ready to take over, in which case it may not be the issue with SI. Third, both SI and Business have met the criteria, but application is still not stable.

Establishing a clear closure criteria upfront and sticking to it will ensure that all the above challenges have been handled expertly.

Nice article, Ms.Ausra....

5. The Dos and Don'ts of Application Outsourcing:  Gary Fromer for SAPInsder.

https://sapinsider.wispubs.com/Assets/Articles/2007/April/The-Dos-And-Don-Ts-Of-Application-Outsourcing-Best-Practices-From-SAP-Managed-Services

This is an old article but the points mentioned in this are relevant even today. So this article finds a place in this post.

The Dos are:
  • Clearly define the IT and Business Objectives before you begin: From IT ensure to determine the services required, how they will be delivered and the Service Levels required. From business side, in addition to focus on costs, ensure to demand regular process improvements.
  • Maintain control of your SAP system including strategic decision making and key user network. While the AMS partner can resolve issues, they should not be expected to regularly communicate and interact with the Business to look for process improvement opportunities. Ensure to have a team of Key Users who are equipped to handle expectations from business. Once an ERP is stabilized, the expectations can skyrocket. Own them, do not outsource them.
  • Take advantage of an integrated offsite and offshore strategy: In my company we had a mix of both Onsite and Offsite models. Look for the best delivery model. And it will be flexible. It may start off as Onsite model, but once application become stable, it will transition to offsite model with a lower cost.
  • Realize the benefits of shared resources
The Don'ts are:
  • Don't operate and support your SAP system if you do not have the requisite skill-set
  • Don't depend only on a few individuals: These in-house experts will end up spending a lot of time on day-to-day tasks rather than focusing on strategic initiatives.
  • Don't expect to outsource your responsibilities
Additional Reading

1. ERP Support:  Tom Feltham for ERPFocus.com

https://www.erpfocus.com/erp-support-1115.html

2. How to prepare for stress free Hypercare:  Ausra Gustainiene in LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/went-live-now-what-part-3-todo-ausra-gustainiene/

3. How to Overcome Post Go-Live Challenges: Ausra Gustainiene in LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/went-live-now-what-part-1-ausra-gustainiene/

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