How CIOs Can Drive Measurable Impact Through SAP Process Improvement

One of the most impactful ways that CIOs can create true business value is through their SAP Portfolio. However, after system implementation, leveraging your investment will still require continuous SAP process improvement services.

SAP systems can affect almost every function inside of an organization, from finance to supply chain to HR; however, without sufficient process alignment, many organizations face challenges extracting true value from their SAP solutions. The opportunity here is that SAP can lead strategic and sustainable process improvement, resulting in measured impact for the organization through streamlined workflows, limited redundancies, and aligned capabilities between system functionalities and business objectives.

For CIOs, this means SAP improvements go beyond just system uptime and IT performance, to what they are then tying to actual business impact with SAP, reducing operational overhead, and using data to make more intelligent decisions. With an understanding of the improvement roadmap, CIOs can shift SAP to be a priority and directionally move away from the SAP transactional engine.

The Value of SAP Process Audits for Operational Clarity

Before organizations start any improvement initiative, CIOs must know where inefficiencies can be found. A SAP process audit acts like a diagnosis that reveals the gaps between current process performance and desired state. It identifies bottlenecks; broken workflows; module underutilization; and customizations that are no longer used by the business.

When CIOs work with process consulting SAP partners, they receive a structured overview of how their business processes interact with SAP modules. It gives visibility to enable data-driven decisions on where to focus the most needed improvements. For example, you might learn from audit findings that the permits between each of the manual procure -pay process results in order delays and other complications.

Audits are also very valuable to conduct prior to mergers and acquisitions or any digital transformation initiatives. The diagnostic audit helps to set up a smoother integration process and better automation and will not only identify issues, when leveraging a strong set of SAP analytics tools will identify potential improvement opportunities that align IT investments with business priorities.

CIOs who add a SAP process audit to the project mix are looking for a foundation level initiative that will give them a roadmap from which to conduct improvement initiatives in a focused and defined manner.

Important Areas Where SAP Process Improvement Yields Results

CIOs can create measurable value by focusing on SAP improvement projects in key functional areas.

• Finance & Controlling (FICO): automating reconciliations and period-end closings.
• Supply Chain: improving inventory visibility and vendor enablement.
• Production Planning: improving demand forecasting via real-time data.
• Human Capital Management: digitizing recruitment and employee onboarding.

Each one of these functional areas has opportunities available to optimize using SAP business process improvement practices. A manufacturing company could, for example, improve order processing by 30% by removing legacy steps in their SAP SD (Sales and Distribution) module. In a different case, a services company might improve payroll inaccuracies by 40% with improvements to their SAP HR workflows.

SAP improvement projects do not just improve productivity, they also improve customer satisfaction, regulatory compliance, and decision accuracy. CIOs who connect their SAP improvements with business KPIs will drive transformation that reverberates beyond IT.

By focusing on outcomes that can be measured, they will secure support from senior leadership for more SAP investment.

Partnering with SAP Process Consulting Experts

CIOs do not have to go on the SAP process improvement journey alone. Process consulting SAP experts provide domain expertise and fluency in the tools and technologies to drive faster results. The right consulting partner will conduct workshops, map future states, recommend redesigned processes, and implement intelligent automation within the SAP ecosystem.

More importantly, consultants who provide process improvement services for SAP can leverage benchmark data from other industries. They understand what “good” looks like and help CIOs avoid repeating the mistakes of others while implementing best practices.

Experienced consultants also help with user adoption. They bring change management tools and training modules to help employees feel comfortable and transitioned into better processes. CIOs should look for SAP partners that have certifications and industry knowledge and experience across modules.

Finding the right consulting partner will expedite the outcomes while managing the risk. In a time of increased scrutiny over digital transformation budgets, CIOs should not underestimate the value of trusted SAP process consultants.

Driving Business Impact with SAP

Any initiative to improve SAP needs to tie improvements to meaningful metrics established by the relevant stakeholders. From the reduction in cycle times, or the increase in correctness, the business effect with SAP should be demonstrable in terms of key performance indicators (KPIs) like:

• Days Sales Outstanding (DSO)
• Inventory Turnover Ratio
• Purchase Order Processing duration
• Payroll Accuracy rate
  Customer Complaint Resolution duration

The SAP improvement project should be tracked using the identified metrics prior to deploying improvements, during implementation, and following successful implementation. This will create a feedback loop that will allow CIOs to improve and modify later date strategies. For example, if workflow automation is deployed in SAP MM to reduce procurement cycle times by 25%, this will indirectly improve overall supplier satisfaction.

Furthermore, process improvement outcomes can create an impact on softer metrics like employee satisfaction and cross-organizational team or functional collaboration. The ROI with sap business process improvement is not only financial but also relates to improved strategic agility and improved resilience.

By demonstrating clear before and after comparisons, CIOs can continue to seek support from CFOs, COOs, and other relevant executives.

Best Practices for Sustainable SAP Process Improvement

Although tools and technologies are important, the sustainability or any improvement resides in governance, mindset, and methodology. CIOs should be proactively leading the development of a culture of continuous improvement within their organizations that will include:

• Governance Process Committees: Their role is to monitor performance and provide governance for making changes.
• Training Programs: Developing training programs for end-users to ensure they are ready to use the improvements.
• KPIs & Dashboards: Transparent performance tracking.
• Regular Audits: Regularly auditing the effectiveness of the improved process since implementing the improvements.

Doing sap process improvement services in a silo is not enough. The improvement must be incorporated as a part of a larger enterprise transformation framework. As part of the enterprise transformation framework, CIOs can and should challenge the leadership of a department to generate improvement ideas and measure their performance in delivering the improvements.

Finally, the next wave of sap business process improvement is already being shaped by automation, AI & machine learning. CIOs need to be aware of SAP’s changing capabilities and be able to provide scalable, cloud-capabilities first solutions that can evolve with the business.

Conclusion

SAP process improvement has evolved from a back-stage IT activity to a strategic priority which helps organizations act faster, think smarter, and serve better. CIOs who embrace constant sap process improvement services are not just saving money, they are beginning to create competitive advantage.

Every aspect of sap process improvement services must relate to business impact from bargaining auditing current workflows to talking with commission expert consultants. Whether it is reducing lead time, improving reports, or enhancing employee onboarding process, SAP process improvements can, and should be measured.

As the digital economy requires flexibility and insight, CIOs taking leadership roles in optimizing SAP process improvement services will position their organizations to succeed for a long time.

Automation and AI in SAP Process Improvement

Today’s SAP landscapes include intelligent technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and robotic process automation (RPA) that aim to further improve efficiencies in processes. CIOs are able to use information from these developments to eliminate repetitive tasks, initiate predictive workflows, and/or enhance decision making with their organizations. For example, if CIOs use AI in SAP’s supply chain module, it may be able to predict demand variations before they disrupt operations.

RPA bots may be able to clone a single task like matching invoices to vendor purchase orders in SAP FICO, which can eliminate the manual effort while reducing errors to overall efficiency. Modern tools from SAP such as the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) and Signavio are solely designed to progress their intelligent business development payroll which has never been seen before.

Integrating and embedding these tools within your SAP improvement project can increase organizational productivity in your SAP programming areas and ensure your business process framework is both prepared for the future and scalable.