SAP Business One Implementation – Keep the solution simple, to begin with!
SAP Business One Implementation – Keep the solution simple, to begin with!
By Dattatreya R.Kulkarni Posted July 14, 2016 In Management, Project Management
The crux of implementing an enterprise level application like SAP Business One lies in the accurate mapping of business processes leveraging the functionalities available in it. While finalizing the solution blueprint it needs to be ensured that resultant process workflow in SAP remains simple so that users find it easy to learn and follow. After all rapid adoption of the system by users is key to the project’s success, assuming all other factors governing it are taken care of.
In other words the solution needs to be kept as simple as possible, to begin with, without compromising the core business requirements. Complicated process flows discourages the end user and may lead to a delayed acceptance or sometimes even refusal to follow a particular process in the system though it may be, theoretically, best way to handle the scenario.
Users should be given sufficient time to get comfortable with the system, meaning there by, that they should be using the system 100% of the times and drawing all their reports from it. Once this happens, more steps could be introduced in the process, if needed, as users are better prepared and open to accept them.
An example of this could be the production process. Many manufacturing companies desire to track inventory of interim WIP items in real time. Whereas this may make sense from a business standpoint, it needs to be understood that users would be required to do several production confirmation entries in the system for each of the WIP stages respectively to enable such reporting from the system. The production users, in general though not all, as it is think that entering information in SAP is an additional burden on them. In many companies, production entries are made once at the end of the shift. In such a scenario, an attempt to track WIP inventory at all stages will be fruitless. So, to begin with the BOM of the finished product could be made with minimum interim stages. This not only reduces the work of creating extra BOMs but also reduces the number of confirmation points. We have seen some companies that did not adopt this approach, reversing their decision of excess levels in BOM as their users could not cope up.
Another example could be implementing Quality Management module. Whereas the company must be following the QM processes in real world, it is not necessary to implement it in phase one of the implementation. It could be taken up probably few months down the line when all other processes have settled down.
One more example could be in the context of setting up different types of validations or process locks in the transactions from day one. Its needs to be understood that users are trying to get their arms around the new system right after Go Live and they are likely to find it very irritating when system starts throwing up different type of messages and disallowing a transaction. Whereas one of the key advantages of using SAP Business One is to keep control on costs and improve efficiency, it sometimes is a better idea to enforce these business rules after a few days/weeks after going live on the system.
At Praxis we educate our customers on this aspect and in most cases they agree to keep the solution simple to begin with while implementing SAP Business One.
