VALUE POTENTIAL, BEST PRACTICES, AND SAP RECOMMENDATIONS >

4 Why Update Your ERP Software? 5 Identifying the Value Proposition and Justifying the Upgrade 18 Executing an Upgrade to SAP ERP 6.0 18 IT Infrastructure Adjustments 18 Resizing the Application Server 18 Deploying New SAP Front-End Components 18 Making Network Adjustments to Maintain System Performance 18 Upgrading or Migrating Your Operating System and Database Platform 19 Converting to Unicode 5 Discovery Process 6 Essentials of an Upgrade Justification 6 Reasons for Upgrading 7 Operational Excellence 9 Business Strategy 10 Sustainability 11 Total Cost of Ownership 19 Technical Deployment...

As the business world changes, SAP develops new releases of its enterprise resource planning (ERP) software to accommodate your organizations evolving business needs and help you remain competitive. SAP has taken extensive measures to simplify the process of upgrading to the latest release of the SAPҮ ERP application SAP ERP 6.0. This ERP software upgrade should not be perceived as a necessary evil. Rather, it should be perceived as a valuable opportunity to maximize the value of your SAP investment. To take advantage of this opportunity, all that֒s required is appropriate planning and management.As...

SAP ERP 6.0 provides SAP customers with a wealth of opportunities for improv- ing their businesses. Based on customer experience during the ramp-up of this new release, SAP has determined that the following business scenarios are the most highly valued in the SAP community: > 2. Involving stakeholders The IT department and representatives of the various business units cooperate to assess the value proposition of an upgrade and build consensus. Since an upgrade justification is unique to each customer situation, SAP has developed a solution browser tool for SAP ERP that enables IT orga- nizations...

5. Test-drivingӔ new functions 6. Finalizing a justification The business units and the IT depart-ment discuss the merits, costs, and risks of an upgrade and produce a justification for the upgrade.This bottom-up approach helps to quantify in concrete terms the potential gains of upgrading to SAP ERP 6.0. ֖ The IT department sets up a demo or sandboxӔ system for trying out new functions. 3. Determining the business value of new functions 4. Organizing delta workshops IT departments organize delta work- shops with SAP software experts, who come from either SAP itself or from a partner organization....

59%51%35%32%32%22%5% 60%50%40%30%20%10%0% Return SAP software modifications and custom developments back to SAP standard functions Process improvements with the help of new functions in existing SAP software modules Use new industry-specific functions and processes Process improvements with the help of new technologies Use cross-component processes enabled by the SAP ERP application Use new SAP products that require SAP ERP as a backbone Achieve more flexibility by moving to enterprise service-oriented architecture > Figure 2: What Business Benefits Do SAP Customers Expect from an Upgrade? 7Getting...

Business Challenges SAP ERP 6.0: Enhancements Features and Functions User productivity t New application interfaces t Employee self-service t Updated role-based access t Manager self-service t Greater use of Adobe interactive forms t Employee interaction centerReporting and performance management t Better planning and forecasting tools t Express planning t Greater ability to account for investments t Business consolidation t Improved product costing module t Product design cost estimateAccounting and financial reporting compliance t Automated allocations and balancing using multiple dimensions...

Enhancement Package 1Enhancement Package 2Enhancement Package 3Enhancement Package 4*Enhancement Package 5*Role-based accessAdaptive manufac-turingHR shared servicesRetail Order to cashOrder to cashRecruitingService industries Procure to payProcure to payFast closingTrading industries Attract to performAccounting to reportingFinancial shared servicesTalent managementDiscrete industries Simplification Enterprise SOA Additional enterprise servicesTreasuryProcess industries Functionality Industries *Planned enhancement packages: subject to change > Figure 3: Road Map Showing Enhancement Packages...

Providing Continuous System Support and Maintenance With its 5-1-2 maintenance strategy (five years standard maintenance, extended maintenance for one year with the additional fee of +2% and for a further two years at +4%), SAP has introduced a concept that allows its customers to plan and use an SAP software release for up to eight years a commitment that is unique in the business-application industry. As part of this concept, customers receive ongoing support, ֓hot fixes, and regular support packages. This demon-strates the strength of SAPԒs com- mitment to making SAP ERP 6.0 a long-term solution...

Lowering the Cost of Operations Consolidating SAP software land- scapes reduces the number of SAP software systems and servers as well as the number of modifications and custom developments. This, in turn, reduces the effort needed for ongoing system administration tasks (such as providing backups or applying new support packages). And using enhancement packages to deploy enhanced functionality reduces the need for future upgrades and can also reduce the cost of operations.Beyond those cost savings, there are additional opportunities to increase the efficiency of IT operations by using the synchronized...

Step 1: Technical Upgrade > This initial phase involves a purely technological upgrade whose major goal is the implementation of the new software release as the foundation for all subsequent improvements. The impact of this phase on your business and business processes is very limited: Large organizations running multiple upgrade projects usually start with a high-level cost and effort estimation for a company-wide upgrade program. This estimation is based on results from a reference upgrade usually performed on a copy of a typical productive SAP ERP software system. SAP customers may also include...