Fit & Gap strategy analysis in SAP rollout

Projects
How to avoid problems during the implementation resulting from not identifying the
local needs?
How to find and properly identify the differences between the SAP template system for
the corporation and local legal and business needs?
The Fit & Gap analysis may be helpful –

A standard element of BCC Go Forward methodology for projects of Roll out type.

Many Polish companies face the challenge of implementing the standard SAP system
operating in a corporation. Increasingly, they are not only the recipient of the system used in
the international headquarters of the corporation, but they are the owner of the template
system (regardless of the fact, whether they are original Polish companies or the Polish
departments of the international corporations).

The implementation of such a project is an organizational and communication challenge both

for the parent company and for the local company, particularly if both companies are located
in different countries. The parent company is interested in the biggest possible adaptation of
the local company to the corporation processes, above all due to the requirement of process
unification in accordance with the best practices operating in the company.

The second essential aspect is also the optimization of the implementation, and hence its
costs. But regardless of how much the parent company would like to see the template as a
consistent entirety, two types of differences will occur:

 Legal Gaps – specific legal regulations, particularly in the financial, sales and human
resources area (e.g. correction invoice in Poland and credit/debit memo in Germany);
 the differences in the local business process (local gaps) – particular companies may
have own business processes that do not appear in the template (e.g. the unique
production process in the corporation) or other specific requirements not resulting
directly from the legal regulations, but critical for the business activity (e.g. special
discount system for the key customer who has a large share in the company’s
turnover).

Many people participating in the project believe that each difference will cause the increase
of the implementation budget. However, it does not have to be the case. The awareness of the
difference does not automatically mean that it has to be implemented in the system.However,
it means the possibility of selecting the method of its processing:

 implementation in SAP system,

 leaving in the external system,
 manual processing outside the IT system or organizational change that eliminates the
given requirement,

and presentation of the selected method to the persons from the local company.The
experience shows that such an attitude builds the confidence in the new system (“my needs
are not ignored”) that essentially influences the engagement of the persons from the local
companies into subsequent project activities.

Prior the Fit & Gap analysis, the parent company should determine which areas of the system
will be subject to the analysis.It depends above all on the business profile of the local
company

How to find “gaps”?

We know already that the differences definitely exist but how to define them? How to avoid
problems during the implementation resulting from not identifying the local needs? The Fit &
Gap analysis may be helpful – a standard element of BCC Go Forward methodology for the
rollout project.

Prior the Fit & Gap analysis, the parent company should determine which areas of the system
will be subject to the analysis (will be implemented in the local company as a target).It
depends above all on the business activity profile of the local company – if it is for example a
dealership, then the logistics processes will be included in the scope of the analysis, and the
production processes will be excluded.

The Fit & Gap analysis may be performed by the parent company organization or by the
implementation partner.If the partner is responsible for the execution, the trainings for the
consultants in the area of the existing template may be necessary prior the analysis
(particularly if the documentation of the template is not available).

Fit & Gap analysis is divided into three stages:

Stage 1. Preparation of a solution template for the trainings. This stage includes gathering of
the template documentation (business blueprint, manuals, technical documentation) and
preparation of the training system (e.g. on the test system). The sample data (e.g. materials,
customers, vendors) should be obtained from the new company and loaded to the training
system. It shall enable the employees of the local company to better identify the discussed
processes.

Stage 2. Training of the project team members (key users) in the scope of implemented
processes in the template system.The owners of the template business processes present the
functionality available in the system to the users from the local company.The implementation
consultants, a particularly the consultants familiarized with the local legal regulations, should
participate in such a training.

In particular cases, if there is a problem in the local company to communicate in the project
language, this stage may be divided into two sub-stages: Training of the implementation
consultants in the scope of template processes executed by the owners of the processes in the
project language, and then training of the members of the project team from the local
company by the implementation consultants in the local language.

Stage 3. Sessions of project teams devoted for the determination of the differences between
the presented processes and local needs.On the basis of the knowledge gained during the
trainings, the employees of the local company indicate the differences between the process
modelled in ERP system and the process currently operated in the company.It is necessary to
indicate all perceived differences.

The decision, whether the difference will be implemented in SAP system or an organizational
change by the company will be required or whether the process will remain in the existing
form, should not influence the fact of registering the discrepancy. The reported differences
should be registered, using the project tools applied in the organization (e.g. a list of
differences in SharePoint portal or at least common Excel sheet available in the network
directory). Each difference should be described by means of the following attributes:

 ID of the difference (GAP_ID) – numeric identifier,

 module – specification of the area, where the gap was identified (e.g.MM, FI),
 process that it refers to – specification of the process that this difference refers to (e.g.
purchase of the raw material),
 reporting person – full name of the person reporting the difference,
 business need – business justification for the existence of the given difference,
 type (legal, local) – information whether the given difference results from the legal
regulations,
 priority (high, medium, low) – information on the degree of the significance of the
difference,
 estimated workload of the implementation of the changes in the system (e.g. number
of days of the consultant work) – it allows to compare the significance of the change
with the workload for its implementation.

Additionally, the tool used for the registration of the differences should enable the changing
of the difference status (e.g. accepted, rejected, under analysis) and tracking of the change
history.

The decision, whether the difference will be implemented in SAP system or an organizational
change by the company will be required or whether the process will remain unaltered, should
not influence the fact of registering the difference

“I do not understand the standard”

During the Fit & Gap analysis, it is necessary to consider several factors that may adversely
influence its course.

In the international projects, one of the challenges is to determine the project communication
language (usually it is the English language) and the selection to the project team of the
persons effectively using this language. If one of the key persons does not communicate in
the project language, it is necessary to devote time and budget for the translation of the
project documentation to the local language and again to the project language. Additionally,
the presence of the local consultant, knowing the language, may be necessary to perform the
analysis in the given area (in this case, an earlier knowledge transfer about the template to the
local consultant is to be taken into consideration).

An essential factor negatively affecting the success of the rollout projects is the fear of the
changes that the new system brings to the company. The trainings in the scope of the
template system, which are the elements of the Fit & Gap analysis, are a good practice to
overcome these concerns.Additionally, making the system available to the members of the
project teams and encouraging them to self execution of the processes facilitate the further
communication.

Another factor is the difficulty in understanding the local circumstances by the international
consultants. “We are already integrated with this bank, so it will surely also work in Poland”
– such a sentence is often heard from the corporate consultants. They do not take into
consideration that the same bank in different countries uses different file formats for
integration. Unfortunately, we often meet with similar simplifications and erroneous
assumptions that are identified only during testing or after going live. The engagement of the
local consultant allows to minimize the occurrence of this risk.

Why do we need a local consultant?

As illustrated by the examples cited earlier, the involvement of the local consultant is one of
the key elements of the success of Fit & Gap analysis (as well as of the entire project). What
can and should be expected? Below, we present three major tasks:

 Delivery of the gap list that occur most often during the implementations in the given
country and/or in the given industry (ready material for the discussion with the local
company, checklist in order to ensure that we have not missed something that might
be important);
 Verification on a current basis of the requirements placed by the members of the
project team (with regards to the legal requirements) and suggestion of solutions
generally applied in other local companies instead of “reinventing the wheel” by the
consultants from the corporation;
 Better level of communication with the employees of the local company (elimination
of the problems resulting from the language barriers).

We have differences and what’s next?

Each of the difference registered during the analysis should be then verified with regards to
the reasons of its operation:

 Does the current mode of operation result from the legal regulations?If yes, it is likely
to take this difference into consideration in the system. In the specific cases, it may be
decided to implement the given functionality outside the system.
 Does the current mode of operation result from the local organization? If yes – what
happens, if the process will be changed to comply with the corporate one? If the
current process is better than the corporate process, two scenarios are possible:
Decision on the implementation of the change in the system, but only for the local
company or decision on the change of the template process (it cannot be excluded that
during the rollout the corporation will also learn something from its branches).

The entire Fit & Gap analysis should last from two to three weeks (depending on the
complexity of the implementation).Its result should be a list of all registered differences along
with the information on the method of their execution after the implementation.Since the
implementation of these differences may influence the processes that are already operating in
other countries, it is necessary to remember to plan tests of these processes prior going live
(so called regression tests) for other countries using this system. But this is a step belonging
to the next stages of the project that will be performed much easier thanks to the reliably
performed Fit & Gap analysis.

SAP Testing
SAP Testing and its processes are mainly clint dependent and as per the client requirement,
size and budget the testing process takes place.

Every Project has some time frame and SAP Testing phase is very crucial phase in different
stages of implementation.

SAP Testing is same as manual testing but here the applications are SAP R/3 and Enterprise
portal. Whenever there is change in R/3 and Portal and You need to design test cases
according the change request and test the application.

If you have knowledge in the module (like HR, CRM, SD, SRM), which you are going to
test would be helpful to you.

UAT means USER ACCEPTING TESTING. Suppose end user raised an issues that we
solved and send to end used it is working fine. then we get confirmation from him that it is
fine. that is call UAT.

UNIT TESTING – This is done by developer and anyone who did any customizing or any
code to ensure what they did is working properly

INTEGRATION testing – Done by tester by developing some scenarios which are most
unlikely and get the result to ensure the integration is correct

Apart from that, regression testing, functional testing and other cross functional testing are
there done by testers

In realization phase, unit testing are done by developers

After unit testing, Integration testing and other testing are done by testers/functional
depending upon the object to test.

Testing usually follows two paths. Firstly, System Integration Testing (SIT) which is
performed by the SAP team in the development client, and secondly User Acceptance Testing
(UAT) which is performed in the QA client after transport from the development client. UAT
is performed by end users or the testing team.

Unit Tests are defined and performed by developers. A process consists usually of several
functions. Each of this function usually consists of “sub-functions” corresponding to a single
method or a group of methods (if you are developing OO-based).

Unit Tests could be described as white-box tests whereas a normal tester (which should be
not identical to the developer) will test entire functions (black-box tests).
 During the entire life cycle of a SAP solution, it is necessary to test the functions and
performance of your solution. With the SAP Test Workbench, SAP provides you with an
environment for all test phases, which you can use for testing in the following cases:

• Implementation of SAP solutions

• Integration of new components and business scenarios

• Customer developments

• Function tests

• Integration tests with other components

• Upgrades, regression tests

• Importing support packages

Integration

Features

Test Preparation

• Creation of manual and automated test cases

• Management of manual and automated test cases

• Creation of test plans

• Definition and management of test series

Test Execution

• Execution of mass tests using Extended Computer-Aided Test Tool and Computer Aided
Test Tool

• Integration of test cases and test scripts of non-SAP providers

• Assignment of work lists (test packages) to individual testers

Test Evaluation

• Permanent overview of test progress and test results

• Complete documentation of test processes in the test plans (test cases, test case descriptions,
test results, test case notes, error messages)

• Detailed tabular and graphical evaluation of all test plans

• Export of test results to Office applications

• Message processing

Testing usually follows two paths. Firstly, System Integration Testing (SIT) which is
performed by the SAP team in the development client, and secondly User Acceptance Testing
(UAT) which is performed in the QA client after transport from the development client. UAT
is performed by end users or the testing team.