7 Things To Know Before Outsourcing Your SAP Environment

By outsourcing business processes, businesses have been able to concentrate on their core competencies and entrust less critical processes to third parties. It helps organizations improve their performance and reduce the time, effort, and cost that it takes to complete a specific job.

Organizations can enjoy incredible benefits by outsourcing SAP jobs without giving up their entire IT infrastructure. In general, third-party vendors who handle outsourced SAP jobs are experienced consulting firms that can assist you with your business needs and help you achieve your business goals. Thus, when businesses outsource their support services, it gives them more time to focus on their core competencies.

Nevertheless, outsourcing SAP jobs to third parties can be intimidating for many. It is important to understand that outsourcing SAP does not necessarily mean outsourcing your entire infrastructure but rather some support services such as accounting, infrastructure considerations, payroll, and more.

What Are The Benefits Of Outsourcing Sap Jobs?

Supports the infrastructure needs

The SAP environment requires a large infrastructure that is often costly and difficult to maintain. In fact, many companies lack dedicated data centers that are critical for the SAP environment. SAP vendors offer these services, and it is regularly utilized by outsourcing companies to accomplish their tasks. Also, it has been observed that even the financially stable larger companies prefer outsourcing these infrastructure needs because they are reliable and reduce costs substantially.

Relieves you of headcount concerns

Headcount is a vital concern for organizations. In case your company is trying to reduce its total headcount for SAP support, outsourcing might be a good option. Third-party SAP services have abundant technical resources that can manage your SAP system and provide you with all necessary support. Outsourcing offers the advantage of not worrying about managing SAP experts as they will be on the payroll of your outsourcing partners.

Guarantees quality of service

The in-house IT workforce may not be equipped with the right expertise to handle the SAP jobs in USA. By providing your organization with SAP experts, an outsourcing partner can bridge these skill gaps. This reduces unnecessary delivery and transactional delays often associated with low quality of service. As outsourcing partners hire consultants based on requirements, they have good control over the service quality.

Although SAP outsourcing offers innumerable benefits, there always exist concerns about whether the outsourcing partners are the right fit for your organization. Hence, organizations must make strategic decisions before investing in SAP partners.

4 Points To Consider Before Outsourcing SAP Jobs In The US

1. Be aware of their experience and methodologies

Ensure that you are fully familiar with your outsourcing partner before entrusting them with your SAP projects. Consider these factors before hiring a third-party vendor:

• Experience in the SAP industry
• Customer retention rate and duration
• Comprehensive SAP environment audit
• Consultant bandwidth
• Flexibility and scalability of solutions provided
• Process flow integration capabilities

Most SAP vendors fail to recognize how important it is to understand the real needs of outsourcing companies. Instead of comprehending the nuances of an organization, they usually force their standard services on their clients. This can significantly impact the organization’s process flow and the response time, impacting the customers significantly. SAP third-party vendors must understand how their services will impact the organization partnering with them, even if they are only working for a short period.

2. Not all affordable SAP vendors are good

Choosing affordable SAP vendors may not be the best decision every time. Outsourcers who are cheaper might not be flexible. They might lack proper expertise or may even employ consultants without proper experience. A lack of experience or the wrong attitude on the part of consultants can lead to misunderstanding and tension between the organizations and their partners, resulting in failed partnerships. Organizations should also be aware of the following concerns associated with outsourcing partners:

• Unclear goals, motives, and objectives of outsourcing
• Sub-standard corporate governance
• Lack of value-added benefits offering
• Poor workforce management and substandard delivery of job

3. Security must be a priority

Security has always been a concern for organizations that heavily rely on outsourcing. Security is critical to SAP systems, and it is often difficult for organizations to afford a highly secure SAP infrastructure. Outsourcing SAP partners must be capable of protecting an organization’s data from malicious attacks. It is therefore imperative that your partners are equipped with secure IDS/IPS and firewall solutions. Your SAP partner should also be willing to extend the same kind of security provisions you have in-house to ensure a consistent security framework.

4. Reliable liaisons with accountability

Although SAP partners can manage your SAP environment, this does not imply that you can entrust the entire responsibility. For outsourcing companies, it is crucial to hire someone who can effectively manage their outsourcing partners. This is especially important if you have more than one outsourcing partner.

SAP outsourcing has become a key practice for organizations to address IT challenges. There are various reasons why companies choose to outsource their SAP environment. Regardless of what drives your decision, take into account all the factors listed above and make an informed decision before selecting an SAP vendor.