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The thing with an SAP introduction is that one has to analyze and understand how the business actually works to adapt the system to it. However in reality nobod

The thing with an SAP introduction is that one has to analyze and understand how the business actually works to adapt the system to it. However in reality nobody really knows. There is a general idea, hopefully, but over time there are more and more shortcuts and side processes and things. Unless you analyze them an introduction of any new business software (be it SAP or Oracle or whatever) will fail. Whether it is worth it depends a lot and is hard to say. It will certainly demotivate many employees who are used to the old way, but might lead to streamlining (partially due to software, but norendue to analysis) and more insights (with risk of then optimizing the wrong metric)

hef19898 4y ago
Agree, except one point. You adapt your system to SAP, not the other way round. And tgat is actually a much better thing than it seems, because SAP is used in so many comoanies that you get a load of best practices out of the box. Adapt those core competitive advantages you have, take the rest as is. By the way, edge cases, if if they work in a legacy system, are a thing to get rid of during a SAP / ERP implementation. Most people see ERP systems as IT projects and fail. ERP projects are at least as much business reengineering projects as they are IT projects.
- jensgk 4y ago
  Yes, that is also my understanding. SAP implements "best practice" solutions, and companies adapt to SAP to get the advantages af that.
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  First part what you mention is a bit arrogant, no company wants to do that, and by doing it would lose most of competitive advantage which can very well be in those edge cases and their handling (and often they do lose their edge by going SAP way and sometimes collapse because of it). Like hearing SAP sales guy. Second part is actually correct - you have to change your way into how SAP works, its just a typical crappy legacy rigid mammoth software that requires overpriced army of devs/analysts, not much more. If it would be marketed that way, they would go bankrupt very quickly because no company willingly wants to do that, and certainly not at that cost. But anytime some c-suite manager picks up SAP, you can be sure there were some nice meetings done in ultra luxurious places and more often than not some bribes went that way, in one form or another. This is the way, if your system sucks so much it destroys companies
  - yyyk 4y ago
    >But anytime some c-suite manager picks up SAP, you can be sure there were some nice meetings done in ultra luxurious places and more often than not some bribes went that way, in one form or another. This is the way, if your system sucks so much it destroys companies The drive to ERP is understandable. The issue is that homegrown solutions suck too - most businesses aren't IT companies and can't properly maintain a custom solutions. Using a third party makes sense, and allows you to hire outside devs with experience. SAP is however usually not the best solution...
  - hef19898 4y ago
    As a rule of thumb, take 80% of an ERP system as is adopt max. 20%. If said edge cases are truely your competitive advantage by all means get them working in your ERP system. More often than not, people consider edge cases competitive advantages when they usually are just legacy stuff that doesn't really matter.
ozim 4y ago
I think most bang for the buck one would get if you start with SAP - so to say you start shipping company and you get people with knowledge that configured other such systems and you build process on top of SAP from start. Unfortunately I don't think this is realistic scenario because when you start a company you probably don't have time/money or need for SAP or anything like that.
- hef19898 4y ago
  Shipping is actually one of those cases, well logistics in general, where SAP actually isn't that good. Still usable if those are supporting functions, if thosr domains are your core business I'd use something different. If you are creating a production company some lite version SAP, there was one back the day that was light and easy (for ERP standards), wouldn't be the worst choice long term.
yyyk 4y ago
>The thing with an SAP introduction is that one has to analyze and understand how the business actually works to adapt the system to it. Anyone who's ever worked with ERP software knows the entire system pushes you to do the reverse - adapt the business to the ERP. Going against that flow is possible, but expensive. This is especially the case with SAP which was always even more difficult and expensive to customize.
max51 4y ago
>It will certainly demotivate many employees who are used to the old way In my experience, what demotivate them is that a lot of the features in the marketing materials for these types of products are lies and they are filled with bugs. The executive who chose the product typically don't use it so they think it's a great tool. When you report major problems or workflows that makes no sense, they brush it off like it's just small details that need to be ironed out in the future because aren't the ones dealing directly with them on a daily basis. The exec get sold on an AI feature and it's the intern who is then forced to deal with a search bar that take 2 minutes instead of 0.5s to search and gives you vastly inferior results.
- spaniard89277 4y ago
  I'm one of those employees and it just makes my life miserable. To the point I want to quit. It's been one year of this BS and it's clear no one cares or listens to our complains, so we just pretend to work and execs are angry because of KPIs, clients complain, etc. But seriously, we can't do it anymore. Their idea is that with this new software everything will be taken care automatically and so they won't have to educate employees anymore and technical knowledge will no longer be needed, and we'll become you regular brainless contact center but magically better because we have such good software! I hope I can get out soon.

hef19898 4y ago

Agree, except one point. You adapt your system to SAP, not the other way round. And tgat is actually a much better thing than it seems, because SAP is used in so many comoanies that you get a load of best practices out of the box. Adapt those core competitive advantages you have, take the rest as is. By the way, edge cases, if if they work in a legacy system, are a thing to get rid of during a SAP / ERP implementation. Most people see ERP systems as IT projects and fail. ERP projects are at least as much business reengineering projects as they are IT projects.

jensgk 4y ago
Yes, that is also my understanding. SAP implements "best practice" solutions, and companies adapt to SAP to get the advantages af that.
saiya-jin 4y ago
First part what you mention is a bit arrogant, no company wants to do that, and by doing it would lose most of competitive advantage which can very well be in those edge cases and their handling (and often they do lose their edge by going SAP way and sometimes collapse because of it). Like hearing SAP sales guy. Second part is actually correct - you have to change your way into how SAP works, its just a typical crappy legacy rigid mammoth software that requires overpriced army of devs/analysts, not much more. If it would be marketed that way, they would go bankrupt very quickly because no company willingly wants to do that, and certainly not at that cost. But anytime some c-suite manager picks up SAP, you can be sure there were some nice meetings done in ultra luxurious places and more often than not some bribes went that way, in one form or another. This is the way, if your system sucks so much it destroys companies
- yyyk 4y ago
  >But anytime some c-suite manager picks up SAP, you can be sure there were some nice meetings done in ultra luxurious places and more often than not some bribes went that way, in one form or another. This is the way, if your system sucks so much it destroys companies The drive to ERP is understandable. The issue is that homegrown solutions suck too - most businesses aren't IT companies and can't properly maintain a custom solutions. Using a third party makes sense, and allows you to hire outside devs with experience. SAP is however usually not the best solution...
- hef19898 4y ago
  As a rule of thumb, take 80% of an ERP system as is adopt max. 20%. If said edge cases are truely your competitive advantage by all means get them working in your ERP system. More often than not, people consider edge cases competitive advantages when they usually are just legacy stuff that doesn't really matter.

ozim 4y ago

I think most bang for the buck one would get if you start with SAP - so to say you start shipping company and you get people with knowledge that configured other such systems and you build process on top of SAP from start. Unfortunately I don't think this is realistic scenario because when you start a company you probably don't have time/money or need for SAP or anything like that.

hef19898 4y ago
Shipping is actually one of those cases, well logistics in general, where SAP actually isn't that good. Still usable if those are supporting functions, if thosr domains are your core business I'd use something different. If you are creating a production company some lite version SAP, there was one back the day that was light and easy (for ERP standards), wouldn't be the worst choice long term.

yyyk 4y ago

>The thing with an SAP introduction is that one has to analyze and understand how the business actually works to adapt the system to it. Anyone who's ever worked with ERP software knows the entire system pushes you to do the reverse - adapt the business to the ERP. Going against that flow is possible, but expensive. This is especially the case with SAP which was always even more difficult and expensive to customize.

max51 4y ago

>It will certainly demotivate many employees who are used to the old way In my experience, what demotivate them is that a lot of the features in the marketing materials for these types of products are lies and they are filled with bugs. The executive who chose the product typically don't use it so they think it's a great tool. When you report major problems or workflows that makes no sense, they brush it off like it's just small details that need to be ironed out in the future because aren't the ones dealing directly with them on a daily basis. The exec get sold on an AI feature and it's the intern who is then forced to deal with a search bar that take 2 minutes instead of 0.5s to search and gives you vastly inferior results.

spaniard89277 4y ago
I'm one of those employees and it just makes my life miserable. To the point I want to quit. It's been one year of this BS and it's clear no one cares or listens to our complains, so we just pretend to work and execs are angry because of KPIs, clients complain, etc. But seriously, we can't do it anymore. Their idea is that with this new software everything will be taken care automatically and so they won't have to educate employees anymore and technical knowledge will no longer be needed, and we'll become you regular brainless contact center but magically better because we have such good software! I hope I can get out soon.