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No two SAP implementations are ever the same.
Implement SD at 2 customers in the same industry in the same city and the chances
are virtually zero that you will implement the same system.
In parallel to that:
don’t assume that what you experience on one project is going to apply in
exactly the same way on the next project. More than likely it won’t. Understand the system
and know how to adapt it to your current problem.
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The more SAP you learn...
...the more you realize how
much you don’t know….
The functionality in SD alone is enormous.
Knowing
how to quickly assess new functionality and understand how it works
is a key
skill look for in your support staff.
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Business improvement shouldn’t stop at go live!
Take 4-6 months to let the users settle into the new system (and to iron out
bugs), then start searching for business improvement opportunities. The learning and
improvement experience should continue for months - and years - after go-live.
The opportunities for improvement (with accompanying financial benefits) are vast!
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You will always find something that you left out after
go-live.
No matter what the size of your implementation - or the
duration of the project - there will always be something left out that
you find only after go-live.
As part of the implementation team, your task is
to decrease the chance of that omission being a critical one!
Some of
the ways you do that is through effective documentation and focused set up of
the system with concise goals in mind.
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Quality is the first victim of a rushed deadline.
Rushing any stage of the implementation results in
late system additions, changes and unplanned updates.
These in turn lead to less comprehensive testing and ultimately, a
productive system with more bugs.
Specific focus at each stage of your
implementation is really critical!
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Consulting Quality is highly individualistic:
The quality of
your consulting representatives is not
necessarily a factor of size of the consulting company you employ to
implement your system – consulting skills, ability and quality are specific to
the individual.
Measure your individual consultants and their experience, not the company.
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You
will usually benefit greatly from greater experience.
The
configuration decisions you make in the system will have a direct and
major impact on your business, your users and their productivity.
It is far too easy to have a narrow view of the system and provide solutions
which close doors you may very well want opened in future.