Doug Kreinheder, Client Partner at CoreALM interviewed CoreALM President, Steve Okun on SAP Business Transformations. Having led some of the biggest SAP Business Transformations in North America, Steve offered advice on how to avoid the most common problems.

Step 1: Establishing Business Leadership for the Project 

SAP implementation projects deal with a lot of complexity. There are challenges with data, integrations between applications, and complicated end-to-end business processes.

Step 2: Building a Solid Business Case for SAP Implementation

Although SAP is usually an enabler, it’s not usually SAP that drives the business growth. For this reason, it can be challenging to build a business case to implement SAP.

Step 3: Gaining Business Buy-In for SAP Projects

Okun’s advice on how to gain business buy-in for SAP projects was simple. “Make them accountable,” he said.

Step 4: Overcoming the Challenge of Changing Requirements

SAP has evolved since the early days, and most companies can use the standard SAP processes. “Rather than designing a business process from scratch,” says Okun, “the project team should be asking the question ‘why won’t the standard SAP processes work here?’”

Step 5: The Role of Testing in SAP Project Success

Steve Okun warned not to assign ownership of the test scenarios to a QA Test Lead. “That’s a mistake,” according to Okun. It’s ok for the QA Test Lead to facilitate or lead the work to create the test scenarios. But the business needs to take ownership.