All For One Poland, has implemented more than 2.000 SAP projects in the 25 years it has been in business. The company joined the United VARs global alliance in January 2022. All For One Poland’s key competencies include; SAP implementation, managed services, security, and software development.
When it comes to global SAP rollouts, every company has different needs. All For One Poland is experienced in adjusting the provision of its services to best fit each customer’s requirements. The company’s SAP experts can build templates for you, be responsible for the whole rollout program, or just carry out specific tasks like migrating data and covering legal requirements for a specific country.
Below are some insights into successful international SAP rollouts from Ewa Komoroska, Sales Team Manager, and Michal Jasinki, Project Management Office. For more detailed information on this topic, you can watch their 40-minute presentation: International SAP Rollouts: Success scenarios and traps to avoid
Communicate the vision
We are living in a state of constant change. Sometimes those changes are intended because a company wants to grow. Sometimes the changes are thrust on us, as we have all experienced in the Covid years.
Companies must react to change by adjusting their business priorities and IT infrastructure so they can support or react appropriately to the changes. However, changes within an organization usually have a price tag. This means they can’t change just because they think it’s a good idea. They need to ensure the changes achieve specific business goals and justify the cost.
The individual countries involved in a global SAP rollout may not know why Head Office is keen for them to have the new SAP system. It is crucial that you communicate the purpose and vision prior to the start of the rollout to ensure that everyone is on board.
Big changes often meet with resistance, so you can counteract their concerns ahead of the rollout by informing them of the benefits they will get. These can include process improvements, greater efficiencies, harmonization between companies, the ability to report more accurately across the business to get actionable insights from their business data and become more competitive through the agility to innovate.
Data scope
Before you start the project, get clear on:
- The scope of data and who owns it
- Data strategy and whether it is managed globally or centrally
- How much time you need to collect and clean the data, to ensure that of a good quality
- Which clients or systems you will be using for the data migration
Global solution template
Most global rollouts start with a global basic template solution. This details different sets of functions that support the day-to-day running of the business in a standardized way across its international offices and subsidiaries.
However, each office or company may need localisations to be built on top of the global template due to different legal and fiscal requirements. Larger companies often have optional elements within the template. For instance, some of your companies use a warehouse management solution, but others don’t. In this case, you clearly wouldn’t need to implement warehouse management in each company.
It's important to consider how much control you want to give local companies. One approach is having a fixed template where you state “this is how it is, this is what you get, just tell us where your gaps are and if you really need them we can implement them for you”. Another approach is to allow them to have a fully customized solution that they invest their own budget into. In that case, the global template is more of a starting point that each company can adjust and expand as much as they want.
About United VARs
United VARs is a global alliance of SAP implementation partners and solution providers for the mid-market. With over 70 members in 100 countries, the alliance serves all types of SAP rollouts and integrations across the world. It provides businesses with local expertise ‘on the ground’ charged at local rates. All United VARs members work together as one team and provide a more personalized service, more suited to mid-market budgets, than other global systems integrators.
stronger than one