Tips for choosing the right SI Partner : It can make the difference between a successful process or a sour experience

Partners Forever

I must emphasize the word “PARTNER”. You are choosing a PARTNER for your business transformation, not an SAP implementation vendor. Culture, ethics, and values in your SI are equally, if not, more important than industry, technology, and implementation expertise. This relationship should be no different to your personal relationships. You need trust, respect, and loyalty to be factors weighed when making a decision. What is certain is that you will have hurdles to clear on your path to a successful transformation, so consulting with experts and evaluating the pros and cons of your chosen partners is important. Having a partner who is collaborative, can compromise and will be amicable in finding solutions and mitigations to the inevitable challenges you will face will go a long way to a successful implementation. Stay clear of those integrators who display the transactional-based vendor mentality that focus solely on what’s in the commercial agreement vs. the successful outcome of the transformation.  The difference between Partner mentality and Vendor mentality, is in many ways, the number one reason for failed transformations. A partnership where accountability, responsibility, compromise, and expertise are at the core of both client and SI will certainly avoid a spiraling relationship, wasted resources, missed deadlines or worse, failed implementation.  

Transparency is Strength

SAP Business transformations are heavy, people-centric undertakings, and it is important to see transparency come through when dealing with your SAP system integrator partner. Witnessing an honest self-assessment from your integrator that highlights where they feel they are strong and where they have challenges shows strength and the kind of behavior that ensures a successful implementation and transformation. This transparency and confidence show vulnerability and will make for a great partner relationship.

The A Team

You are equally as important to the partner as they are to you. In this symbiotic relationship, your partner should be asking you to bring your “A” team to the implementation. They should want to understand your organizational structure and stress adjustments may be required to align with the transformation, the project, and the governance structure. Your executives and stakeholders must be all in for this journey to be successful and they should champion what it will take to successfully achieve the desired objectives.

 Walking in Your Shoes

Your chosen partner should be looking at the transformation from your perspective as well as theirs. Why do clients sign up for SAP business transformations? What gain do they want for the length and breadth of a transformation? Transformation with minimum disruption to your business should be the backbone of the implementation process. It shouldn’t be the lowest cost or even the quickest time to completion as it should be value driven. Your SAP system integrator and partner should put themselves in your shoes, by not purely implementing a technology but transforming your business for the better. Technology is only the tool. If they have this attitude, a clear plan, and make decisions through this lens, you will be successful.

“Looking Forward” Mentality

Many SAP system integrators initially focus on the methodology process of the project because that’s what they believe is their expertise and where they add the most value. While methodology is a very important and logical roadmap for your journey, there are other considerations that greatly influence the how, when, and who factors of your implementation. Your integrator should be “looking forward”, ensuring that a deployment strategy, as an example, enters the conversation early on. Many integrators, unbelievably, leave deployment for later simply because it’s an activity phase at the tail end of the methodology – this is not the right approach. Having your integrator look forward with a focus on project and transformation risk and urging you to do the same, you account for these considerations in current activities of your implementation. A good SAP System integrator and  partner should have this “looking forward” mentality, pre-empting what could happen vs what should happen. This constant forward thinking and evaluation of the implementation plan will help develop mitigations and strategies to adjust or course correct early, thereby ensuring ultimate success.

“Keeping it Simple” Approach

The analogy of Crawl, then Walk, then Run should be a guiding principle in your SAP System integrator’s recommendations and planning. Initially in your transformation journey you will be in team- building mode. The team will need to form, will need to learn to work together, will learn the methodology, will learn your company and project culture.  The team will begin to establish the working pace of the project which will evolve as you move through each stage of the methodology. Having an integrator who understands this and what it takes on the human side for a client and integrator to go from design to go-live will translate into realistic planning and a healthy project culture.  Layering on the complexity as the project moves further into the transformation journey is what a good integrator will do. Beware of the integrator who is proposing to do it all and only once, as that is an inexperienced and ill-prepared take on these complex projects.