Picking the right SAP partner allows you to reduce IT operational costs, improve the quality of your services, and save time while you focus on other aspects of your business.
It would be best to narrow down specific attributes that fit your needs to choose the right SAP partner. Doing so allows you to choose the right partner to provide high-quality SAP support services.
Benefits of Choosing the Right SAP Partner
Here are some of the benefits of choosing the right SAP partner for your business:
- Decrease management overhead while ensuring a quick resolution of issues and consistency.
- It allows you to offer a coherent and comprehensive solution.
- Enhances overall efficiency and reduces redundancy.
- Generates a robust SAP cloud solution that allows you to stay online 24/7.
So now that you know the benefits, here are practical tips on how you can choose the correct SAP support and maintenance partner for your business:
1. Know Your Company’s Needs
One of the first things to find the right SAP software support is to understand the needs of your business. Do you need any help implementing your SAP or upgrading the existing version? Are you looking for a specific solution to handle all these and more?
Knowing precisely what you’re looking for allows you to find the right SAP support and maintenance partner.
2. Evaluate flexibility
Keep in mind that every business is different. If you’re choosing between two SAP providers, pick one that gives you the flexibility it’s willing to provide you with. See the range, levels of services they offer and their rates.
The SAP support service that you choose should have enough flexibility to meet your demands and needs. Choosing someone more agile who can give you more options as you work on your solution after implementation is a good idea.
Opt for a provider that can give you plenty of flexibility, scalability, and ease of adjustment. It also helps you select someone with the technical expertise that will reflect these qualities.
3. Understand Strengths and Limitations
It’s also important that the SAP company you work with understand the products and services offered by your business. In the same way, you need to know what their strengths and weaknesses are.
The SAP should have enough knowledge and experience to help you reach your goals. You should also check for their authenticity with other people they’ve worked with and how much experience they have when providing SAP services to the market.
4. Service-level Agreement
Having a well-informed service-level agreement allows you to regulate the relationship between the provider and the client.
Usually, it means agreeing to deliver specific activities or meeting certain business goals between the client and the support and maintenance provider. Pick one that offers quality, availability, and responsibility for results.
5. Realistic Costing
Although system customization is exciting, it’s usually more expensive than the original estimate.
So, if the SAP provider offers to customize everything, ask them if it’s really needed. You can also ask how much the total cost of system ownership will be.
That way, you’ll have a good ballpark of how much everything will cost you. Usually, costing includes licenses, hardware, support, equipment, and the maintenance system.
6. SAP Partner Center of Expertise
Not every company out there will have this certification. A Partner Centre of Expertise Accreditation certificate means your company has a support center with experienced employees and infrastructure. In the same way, they most likely have the right dedication and capabilities to give you the best services possible.
This certificate is also mandatory, so you must ensure that the SAP provider you pick has this to help you with your business growth. The SAP certification that the company owns should also be authentic. In the same way, their staff needs to be trained and qualified in their field, and they need to keep up with the latest news, trends, and skills.
7. After-Sales Service
This is also another essential factor that you need to consider. Your SAP partner should provide you with technical assistance and maintenance services 24/7.
Although they have enough strength, resources, and domain expertise, many companies fail to offer technical support after integrating the software into the client’s business system.
8. Stability and Experience
Make sure that the SAP Partner you work with has a good track record and years of experience to back it up. For bigger-scale implementation, it’s always safe to pick a company with years of experience under its belt and have case studies and success stories of clients to back it up.
In some cases, you also need to review whether or not they’re a stable partner for clients throughout the entire implementation of the project and if there’s ongoing support in your area. Your partner should also understand the whole business, not just its IT software.
While focusing on only one software can be tempting, the best SAP partner will understand your business processes.
9. Future-Proof
It’s also vital to consider any partner that will require now and will need in the future. Let’s say, right now, your immediate need is support, but you have projects planned in the next 12 to 18 months. Make sure that you include this in your evaluation as well.
Ideally, it would help if you worked with someone who would cater to all your SAP needs. Thus, establishing a long-term partnership with a single partner allows you to become more efficient in both time and cost.
Over to You
So there you have it. Figuring out who to work with can sometimes be challenging. One of the best ways to ensure that you picked the right SAP partner is to run a rigorous process and set clear criteria. This allows you to know whether or not a company is innovative and uses the latest digital transformation trends to support your company’s strategy.
Although there are plenty of factors that you need to take into consideration, these pointers will make the decision-making process more manageable. Good luck!
