Which major SAP modules have been most useful in your business and why?
I have found the most useful modules to be;
- SAP CAR / PSDTA: SAP CAR suite runs and supports the retails business
- SAP ECC: Classical SAP module for overall integration with other business modules like SD / MM / FICO et al.
- SAP PI: Finest SAP tool in SAP integration space
- SAP SLT: For data transition among various SAP systems
- SAP PMR: Promotions management system for the retail business
The above systems are very useful to run the day to day retail business processes. e.g - Every transactions recorded in stores, are captured in the POSDTA/CAR system through the PI integrations and the stock on hand reconciliation happens based on master received from the ECC system. This master data flows using SAP SLT technology from the ECC to the CAR system. SAP PMR is used to offer various promotions to the customers which are tagged to the CAR POSDTA system for data reconciliations. Based on all the above systems the analytics / sales reportings are built in SAP BW to understand the stores operations / replenishment operations and overall business progress.
Tell us about your career journey in tech / SAP to date?
I started my career as a SAP Enterprise Portal Developer which lasted for 6 months before I became a SAP HR Consultant + EP Administrator (1.5 years). From this, I moved on to being a SAP HR Lead + Project Co-ordinator and then into SAP Project Manager. For the last 2 years, I have been a SAP Program Leader and a SAP Project Manager both.
For me, the journey was never straight forward and smooth. It was a very fast paced journey because I have accepted multiple roles at the same time as well. Self-expectation and the expectations from clients were/are always extremely challenging to keep the fast pace going however this has also helped me to ladder up timely. Fortunate to have very helpful mentors and team working with me who always helped to achieve the bigger challenges on time.
What are the main challenges/obstacles you face in your current role and how do you overcome them?
In my role, there are constant Evolving Business Requirements. These are strongly controlled through a change management process across various dimensions like cost, scope, and time.
Another difficulty is Aligning Business to new changes, for this, I overcome them with continuous communications and learning/briefing sessions, which help to align the business stakeholders to the new changes.
How does a design thinking methodology ensure your SAP apps work well?
The following design thinking methodology principles help SAP apps work well and avoid project - rework/regret spend / delays.
- Group Thinking - engage people with different perspectives, experiences, wisdom and potentially develop new ideas to solve the problems and build the solution. Sometimes it heps to bring out-of-box creative ideas to solve a complex problem
- Design - Test - Iterate > The core principal of DEsign Thinking is Design - Test - Iterate which helps the team to quickly prototype and prove the design/concept encouraging the end users to provide quick feedback or confirmation to proceed. This whole process avoids most of the future rework and thus avoid delays in project timelines.
What are the top 3 Barriers to SAP S/4 HANA migration
- Very complex migration and at a very early stage of maturity
- Unclear business case/return of investment
- Current ECC platform is getting SAP updates/feature packs so no burning need to invest significantly on technology uplift
How does SAP S/4HANA digital core enable digital transformation?
Future digital transformations are more focused around data and the advanced analytics and machine learning capabilities built on top of it. S/4 HANA is offering all these capabilities to enable digital transformation journey for the organizations.
To be featured in our 60 seconds in SAP series, brought to you by SAPTURE, email danielle@sapture.com.au
