Question for SAP users

[Gwylan]

I'm writing an article on SAP and I have a quick couple of questions for SAP users - I know there are some of you out there, Simster has some, er, interesting views on the subject of SAP

What's the biggest pain when it comes to dealing with compliance issues when running SAP. Things like risk management, authorisation, licence management. Anything else that you can think of? How do you solve them - by using SAP or third party tools?

Any thoughts welcome

 

[Gwylan]

I thought there were a few SAP users on NSC.

Bouncing this for those who missed it earlier

 

[GoldWithFalmer]

sap? what is it.......

 

[Igzilla]

I use SAP at work, but not sure I know enough about it to be helpful. All I do know from using it at two different companies is that it can end up being fiendishly complicated when you have lots of bespoke modules. One time, finance made a change to one small module in the Live system. It caused a domino effect through the whole system, causing a catastrophic failure, which meant all our factories across the whole of Europe couldn't see how much stock they had, what orders were coming in and what we had sold. This was two weeks before Christmas. Absolute chaos.

 

[Prince Monolulu]

Was going to be a tree surgeon, couldn't bear the sight of sap.

 

[SIMMO SAYS]

I thought there were a few SAD users on NSC.

Corrected for you

 

[Gwylan]

I use SAP at work, but not sure I know enough about it to be helpful. All I do know from using it at two different companies is that it can end up being fiendishly complicated when you have lots of bespoke modules. One time, finance made a change to one small module in the Live system. It caused a domino effect through the whole system, causing a catastrophic failure, which meant all our factories across the whole of Europe couldn't see how much stock they had, what orders were coming in and what we had sold. This was two weeks before Christmas. Absolute chaos.

That's not really what I was looking for but you got me intrigued. When you say a "small change" how did that escalate? And how did that get resolved?

Mind you, a few years back, a friend of mine working for a multinational had to resolve a problem where a small change to the treasury system had led to a £13 billion discrepancy - that took a long weekend to resolve

 

[Cian]

I have to maintain the infrastructure for a SAP install that drops users if you look at a switch funny. Even if their data wasn't over that switch, it seems. Don't use it, though.

 

[Igzilla]

That's not really what I was looking for but you got me intrigued. When you say a "small change" how did that escalate? And how did that get resolved?

Mind you, a few years back, a friend of mine working for a multinational had to resolve a problem where a small change to the treasury system had led to a £13 billion discrepancy - that took a long weekend to resolve

It was all a bit hush hush, but as far as us plebs go, a change was made to some pricing structure (or something). Allegedly, it "could only be made in the Live system" (yeah, right., though the Test system does seem to be woefully managed, so there may be some legs in that argument). Anyhow, as the system updated and ran the batch jobs over the weekend, this change spread from module to module, so that by the Monday, people were reporting odd data, then on Tuesday parts of the system just refused to work and kicked people out and on the Wednesday the whole system crashed. We had to manually process each order by hand in the parts of the system that were stable enough (or we used a shadow copy or something), but it was bedlam. Every few days, Accenture would try a fix, only to see the whole system crash again. They fixed it, but it took a couple of week and the repercussions were visible for about 6 months after.

 

[Gullflyinghigh]

It's used at my place of work and whilst I can't comment on the specific areas you're looking for (sorry), I will take this chance to mention that it's utterly bloody appalling.

Whether it's actually the fault of SAP itself, the godawful company I work for treating is as a silver bullet when it's not the right system for what they want OR a mix of both (this one I suspect) I don't know but...yeah...not good.

 

[Roadrunner]

I am forced to use SAP at work and have come to hate it with a passion. A classic example of a system that is too clever for its own good, trying to be everything to everyone, but in doing so managing to make even the simplest things seem unbelievably complicated. For those who use it all the time it's probably fine, but for those of us who dip in and out of it on an infrequent basis, its a nightmare. Funnily enough, one of our group of ST holders is engaged to someone quite high up in the company (SAP) - I'm always moaning at him about what a shocking system it is!

Don't really have any experience of the compliance side of things because we have SAP 'super-users' who deal with all that stuff. Having said that, the biggest compliance issue in my industry (Pharma) at the moment is Data Integrity, and our DI expert loves SAP so I guess it must be OK in that respect.

 

[ROSM]

My 'experiences' are more with the success factors product from their stable if that is what you need?

 

[brakespear]

It's used at my place of work and whilst I can't comment on the specific areas you're looking for (sorry), I will take this chance to mention that it's utterly bloody appalling.

Whether it's actually the fault of SAP itself, the godawful company I work for treating is as a silver bullet when it's not the right system for what they want OR a mix of both (this one I suspect) I don't know but...yeah...not good.

I used to have to use it for procurement and it was amazingly terrible, whether it was the implementation we were given or because of vanilla SAP I couldn't say.

 

[Gwylan]

I am forced to use SAP at work and have come to hate it with a passion. A classic example of a system that is too clever for its own good, trying to be everything to everyone, but in doing so managing to make even the simplest things seem unbelievably complicated. For those who use it all the time it's probably fine, but for those of us who dip in and out of it on an infrequent basis, its a nightmare. Funnily enough, one of our group of ST holders is engaged to someone quite high up in the company (SAP) - I'm always moaning at him about what a shocking system it is!

Don't really have any experience of the compliance side of things because we have SAP 'super-users' who deal with all that stuff. Having said that, the biggest compliance issue in my industry (Pharma) at the moment is Data Integrity, and our DI expert loves SAP so I guess it must be OK in that respect.

Thanks for that, useful feedback.

I meet very few SAP fans - most people I know who use it hate it with a passion

 

[Gullflyinghigh]

I used to have to use it for procurement and it was amazingly terrible, whether it was the implementation we were given or because of vanilla SAP I couldn't say.

Yeah, that sounds pretty much the same as here. I'd love to blame everything on SAP (most people do) but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was simply a case of the company paying for the cheapest available version in the vain hope that it did everything it wanted (it really really didn't/only just about does after god knows how many years of IT changes since implementation).

 

[CoachVealie]

SAP

Purchased by Directors and High-ups because of its top notch general ledger reporting tools.

Despised by users for its incredibly slow, cumbersome and complicated front end.

Feared by the in-house implementation team because THEY HAVE TO GET IT ABSOLUTELY RIGHT FIRST TIME!!!

Cash-cow for the gazillion consultants needed to get it in.

Final word on SAP.....because of its ridiculous price tag you could use it for 100 years and NEVER get a ROI.

I've heard so many stories!

 

[Seagull58]

Spend And Pray. The biggest IT scam of the past 40 years. Forced on gullible customers by an unholy alliance of SAP sales people, (non-) independent consultants and IT staff who want SAP on their CVs. It is usually heavily customised to try to meet the customer's needs and is extremely fragile.Each upgrade is typically just like a new implementation.

Moulds like plasticine and sets like concrete.

Numerous legal actions against SAP, IBM, EDS,CSC etc for effectively destroying companies and public sector organisations.

 

[larus]

I'm a self-employed ERP consultant on a smaller system than SAP. I've come across it a few times, and I've heard the odd person who likes it, but most of the stories are bad.

Again, from what I've heard, it's extremely functional, but a bitch to install and modify. Transactionally, it adds an overheard to the business and slows processes down, which Is the exact opposite of what ERP software should do.

I've seen many bad implementations of ERP software and in general, it's not the software which is at fault, it is the mindset of the senior management. Thye assume that an ERP project/implementation is just the cost of the hardware/software and a small amount of training. That's the easy part.

Good ERP systems/implementations are constantly being reviewed/monitored/tweaked to iron out glitches and improve processes. The companies who get real benefits work to ensure data accuracy, and are prepared to invest. The benefits with a good ERP system are huge, but companies need to be driven from the top down, but alos engage with the users. They need to see the benefit to data accuracy in their jobs too.

 

[CoachVealie]

They used to say 'nobody ever got fired for buying IBM'. I wonder how many people have lost their jobs because they chose SAP?

 

[Gwylan]

They used to say 'nobody ever got fired for buying IBM'. I wonder how many people have lost their jobs because they chose SAP?

Not many is my guess: the people who make the decisions aren't generally people the same charged with implementing it - some other poor, er, sap would have to do that

There have been interesting comments made on this thread but I'm no nearer finding out specific compliance issues