Everything we once considered normal in our lives and businesses has been upended – creating, perhaps, the most profound digital shift we have ever seen.
From widespread use of work-from-home arrangements to a near-universal end to in-person events, a radical overhaul is happening, accelerating innovations that never seemed as critical as they do now.
Becoming an intelligent enterprise has never been more important. Executives face significant pressure to leverage technologies – such as the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and augmented or virtual reality – in order to automate manual activities, mitigate potential risks early on, and stay two steps ahead of their customers and competitors.
How can leaders move forward in their digital strategies to help ensure business continuity in a world where self-isolation and social distancing is the norm? At SAP, the answer is clear: off-site delivery of service and support engagements.
Experience Matters When Fueling Business Continuity with Distance Services
With a focus on delivering outcome-based results, SAP has created a highly effective standard for the off-site delivery of services. As customers face times of intense change, supporting them in any way we can is a priority for all SAP Services and Support offerings.
However, when considering off-site service delivery, chief information officers (CIOs) often question the complexity of implementing business systems without being onsite. It is often assumed that working with a remote implementation partner would require considerable planning and governance for executing a project. Most of all, they worry that the quality of the service will be sub-optimal, requiring more time and effort to scrutinize deliverables, clarify communications, and ensure proper handover.
If these concerns are running through your mind right now, they are completely valid when working with a provider that is new to this engagement model. However, SAP is different: it has more than 25 years of experience in fine-tuning off-site service delivery. In fact, 70 percent of all services executed by SAP in 2019 were delivered through this experience.
Based on decades of experience with implementations, SAP is helping customers manage a successful off-site project implementation by developing modern tools, solutions, and methodologies. These include:
- SAP Best Practices: Tailored specifically to accelerate and simplify the adoption of SAP software projects, the packages furnish preconfigured content for core business processes with a role-specific, responsive, and simple user experience.
- SAP Activate: The methodology presents an agile, modular structure for migrations and new implementations. It supports project management teams from initial planning and requirements for implementation to continuous improvement of the SAP solution.
- SAP Solution Manager: This solution manages the life cycle of an SAP solution in a distributed environment. It offers tools, methods, and process management content that can be used during the creation of business blueprints as well as configuration and implementation.
These offerings comprise the lynchpin of off-site service delivery framework from SAP. They allow the company to pull together its resources across all areas of support and expertise to create an experience that addresses customers’ unique needs. SAP uses ready-to-run processes with documents; shares prescriptive, step-by-step deployment guidance with project teams; and leverages integrated tools for configuration and deployment.
More importantly, off-site service delivery framework is designed to optimize the delivery of foundational elements of the Intelligent Enterprise – SAP S/4HANA and cloud solutions. These technologies rely on a fit-to-standard approach that prepares customers to innovate their processes, business models, and experiences faster. By following proven best practices, customers have a functionally and technically resilient platform that scales to their needs as requirements in everything from collaboration, engagement, and communication to transactional interactions evolve.
This integrated approach also takes advantage of local and industry expertise as well as technical know-how to give customers and their users the training needed to optimize the value of their SAP software investment. SAP tools and technologies record and provide training content that users can access at their convenience.
Core of Off-Site Service Delivery: Business Continuity, Customer Success
As businesses continue to face a marketplace that is hyperconnected, always evolving, and highly uncertain, technology will continue to play a distinct role in navigating today’s challenges and planning for whatever lies ahead. It is this reality that inspires my team every day.
With off-site service delivery, SAP helps ensure customers have the individualized support necessary to get through this challenging time and set the foundation for future recovery that will one day come. Step by step, the company stands by every one of them – never sacrificing quality, insight, and completeness.
Managing Risks, Supporting Business Continuity
In this time of uncertainty, we are experiencing a human moment: people helping each other in need. Since COVID-19 hit, SAP has been helping customers keep their operations going. Learn more about essential business services here.
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Jutta Behiye Schneider is the executive vice president of the Intelligent Delivery Group for Customer Success at SAP.