SAP Solution in Detail SAP Services

Customer Center of expertise as single sourCe of truth

To MAxIMIzE ThE RETuRn on YouR SAP SofTWARE InvESTMEnT

When your company establishes a Customer Center of Expertise organization, you can count on a single source of truth and hub for functional collaboration between your business and IT units and between your company and SAP. This helps you increase the transparency of business processes, minimize downtime to boost system and business process availability, and reduce total cost of ownership. A center of expertise helps stimulate innovation by keeping software up-to-date with changing requirements, providing skills training, making use of expertise on demand, and much more.

Content

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Conflicting Demands The CIOs Challenges Ensure Business Continuity Reduce Costs Accelerate Improvement Accelerate Innovation Managing Solutions Centered on SAP Software The organizational Model Collaboration That Crosses organizational Boundaries optimizing Internal Collaboration in Two Ways outtasking and outsourcing Fundamental Changes to the Existing Organizational Model Solution Documentation Change Management and Test Management Top-Issue Management End-to-End Quality Management Establishing a Customer Center of Expertise Team The Customer CoE Charter QM for Safeguarding Integration validation Analyze the Business Process from End to End optimize Performance, Data Consistency, and Technical Correctness verify: Implement and Test The Tools QM for Business Continuity Run SAP Methodology Root-Cause Analysis Standard: Speaking the Same Language A Change-Control Standard to Manage Quality Integration and Automation Standard to Realize value Standards for SAP Technical operations Solution optimization Check Solution operations Automation Check

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SAP EarlyWatch Alert Service QM for Business Process Improvement SAP Solution Management Assessment Business Process Exceptions and Monitoring Business Process Improvement QM for Protection of Investment SAP Enhancement Packages Minimized Test Effort Modification Justification Check Custom-Code Maintainability Check Customer COE Certification Prerequisites and Criteria Certification overview Primary Certification Advanced Certification Advantages of Customer CoE Certification The Benefits: Innovation and Protection of Investment Stimulate Innovation find out More Quick Facts

ConfliCting DemanDs

ThE nEED foR An EnTERPRISE-WIDE QuALITY MAnAgEMEnT PRoCESS

Increasing complexity of IT solutions and a growing number of users as well as the conflicting demands to guarantee business continuity, drive innovation, and reduce costs and risks exert pressure on todays CIos and their staff. To ease the tension and reduce challenges, an integrated overall quality management process across all business and IT units must be created to establish a single source of truth.
The Customer Center of Expertise (Customer CoE) organization, a team acting across all business units and located in a companys application management unit, will bring all stakeholders to the table to resolve challenges and issues. It helps manage mission-critical operations, providing: Solution documentation Change management and test management Top-issue management End-to-end quality management

In addition, the team manages quality gates and makes sure that innovation is drawn directly from SAP to avoid unnecessary modification. To achieve this, different roles must be in place with focus on safeguarding of implementation projects, business continuity, business process improvement, and protection of investment. The SAP Solution Manager application management solution serves as the foundation for mission-critical operations. Thus, the single source of the truth has two components: the system tracking that SAP Solution Manager provides and the methodologies used to disseminate the knowledge. The center of expertise is a facilitating organization, implementing these methodologies and reporting and enforcing them. The center helps stimulate innovation by supporting processes that help a company: Keep pace with changing requirements for example, through distribution of SAP enhancement packages Advance the general use of common methodologies throughout the corporation Increase the ease of deployment through change management and quality testing Increase flexibility through: Adoption of service-oriented architecture (SoA) heightened potential to readily integrate third-party solutions

SAP Solution in Detail Customer Center of Expertise as Single Source of Truth

Establishing a single source of truth helps an organization to manage its mission-critical operations effectively and efficiently.

The center of expertise is designed to unlock the full potential of SAP Enterprise Support services, SAPs new support offering. SAP Enterprise Support provides support through a 24x7 guaranteed service-level agreement for priority 1 and 2 incidents, remote continuous quality checks, 24x7 support advisory, access to mission-critical support centers for production downtime, and advanced support for implementing SAP enhancement and support packages. The enterprise edition of SAP Solution Manager, providing a holistic application management solution, enables proactive risk reduction while increasing the business value of the SAP solutions. In addition, SAP Enterprise Support includes the Run SAP methodology, which helps ensure a successful implementation of end-to-end solution operations, leveraging SAP Solution Manager, enterprise edition, focusing on application management and business process operations. Besides the endto-end solution operation standards and Run SAP methodology, SAP Enterprise Support also assists the setup, and it runs part of support organizations by providing role descriptions for application management quality roles. SAP Enterprise Support helps provide: Secure and reliable milestones for going live and upgrades using the integration and validation methodologies, with major focus on test management and change management

Running of application landscapes through business transformation and technology adoption via risk mitigation measures related to custom code, third-party software solutions, and software upgrades uninterrupted business process availability via proactive monitoring Business process improvements as a continuous and ongoing process to drive down total cost of ownership (TCo) while expanding and growing the business The center of expertise as described in this document is the unit within each company to drive, run, use, and handle the processes and tools provided under SAP Enterprise Support. The goal is to empower your IT team to become a best-run SAP application management operation unit.

The center of expertise is your driving force to reduce risk and cost by encouraging: Deployment of industry-leading standards throughout the solution life cycle Achievement of a near-zero downtime commitment and service-level agreements with SAP use of consistent tools and methodologies across heterogeneous landscapes

SAP Solution in Detail Customer Center of Expertise as Single Source of Truth

the Cios Challenges

PRESSuRE fRoM ALL SIDES

A normal week in the work life of a CIo could bring the following news: The project lead of the companys most important software implementation project reports that the timeline cannot be met and the project is endangered. next, he finds an e-mail from the Cfo informing him that due to cost-saving measures the IT budget for the upcoming fiscal year will be cut 10%. To top off the week, the manager of the purchasing department complains about system performance issues in the invoicing process, insisting that her staff members the users of the system will no longer accept the delays in their work these issues are causing. Then on Saturday, when the workweek for most is over, a new business unit responsible for breakthrough innovations complains about the lack of IT support for strategic engineering projects. In brief, these four pieces of information reflect some of the most painful challenges CIos face today. And if you have had comparable experiences, you may already have asked yourself, how can I avoid situations like these? how can we work more efficiently and with less stress while raising the level of our companys success and our customers satisfaction?

in large enterprises. In addition, to support their daily core business operations, many companies run complex business processes that span heterogeneous platforms and multiple integrated business applications. The applications may include software from SAP as well as from SAP partners or other software vendors, along with functionality and solutions developed by the company itself. from this perspective, it is obvious that the end-to-end operation of such landscapes is far different from the operation of simple solutions, which was the norm in the past. End-toend solution support encompasses all the methods, tools, processes, and standards that must be deployed by the IT operations department to ensure business continuity of your software landscape.

SAP provides a methodology for the implementation of end-to-end solution operations, called the Run SAP methodology. This methodology includes: SAP standards for solution operations The road map of the Run SAP methodology to implement endto-end solution operations A training and certification program Tools including SAP Solution Manager Support services

Reduce Costs
According to BMC Software Inc., downtime can cost you from uS$6,400 to $7,600 per minute.1 But low performance; inefficient system management, data volume management, and job scheduling; and ineffective incident management just as key are all important cost drivers. Adding to the

Increased Landscape Integration of SAP Software Business networks number of users

Manguistics

Ensure Business Continuity

Asked about the most important challenge in his work, the CIo of a large enterprise might briefly answer, Business continuity. If it is not guaranteed, we dont even have to talk about the rest. The number of users per system has increased tremendously, especially

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Managing high-speed innovation and integration, risk, and total cost of operations is at the heart of SAP

Figure 1: The Increasingly Complex Nature of Landscape Integration

1. Maximizing DB2 Performance and Availability with BMC Software, BMC Software Inc., 2006.

SAP Solution in Detail Customer Center of Expertise as Single Source of Truth

cost of daily operations, IT projects burden the budget as well. In short, you need the right experts, methods, and tools to reduce the costs and risks of your projects. To reduce costs, you need to integrate: Different development tools and teams into an end-to-end solution life-cycle and quality assurance process Expertise on demand from all application and technology vendors Additionally, you must standardize: Diagnostic and life-cycle management tools and processes unit and integration tests, including validation of data integrity Business process monitoring and management Data consistency check procedures Americas SAP users group and SAP benchmarking studies have shown that best-in-class IT operations have 55% lower operations costs than average performers. In addition to that, reducing TCo can free up money and resources for innovation.

Typical technical areas of improvement supported by SAP are system landscape and administration, performance, application integration, data volume and consistency, and testing. Based on our experience, the opportunity to improve data growth, response times, and business process execution times after implementation generally exceeds 30%. When you consider that, it is critical to start activities in this area. Yet the most important improvements can be achieved by optimizing the operations and automation of business processes. SAP provides tools and methodologies to diagnose and improve end-user productivity, raise the level of business process automation, improve handling of business process exceptions, and improve business process monitoring. The key objective is to provide 100% transparency of business process execution and 100% management of business process exceptions.

The center of expertise is the unit within each company to drive, run, use, and handle the processes and tools provided under SAP Enterprise Support. The goal is to empower your IT team to become a best-run SAP application management operation unit.

Accelerate Innovation
Many companies see IT as the driving force for process innovation, which can result in a crucial differentiation from the competition as well as greater flexibility. But you must be able to adapt systems readily to allow business models to be aligned with shifts in market conditions. SAP supports you in this respect by: Quickly meeting the increasingly changeable requirements of the business areas through:

Accelerate Improvement
Accelerated improvement of your solution landscape helps reduce costs and ensure business continuity. for that reason, SAP provides services, tools, standards, and methodologies that help stabilize and improve solutions, with the goal of increasing their value. Improvements have to take place with regard to business process automation and operations as well as in technical areas.

The innovations delivered in SAP enhancement packages without requiring upgrades Integration and development tools Providing a faster and safer import process for SAP support packages Providing technical upgrades between SAP releases, if required In summary, SAP Enterprise Support services provide accelerated innovation and improvements and help reduce costs and risks to business continuity.

SAP Solution in Detail Customer Center of Expertise as Single Source of Truth

managing solutions CentereD on sap software

EffICIEnT CoLLABoRATIon IS KEY

SAP customers expect their SAP solutions to be managed efficiently. They rely on a solutions high availability and continuity and expect fast and successful realization of new requirements, as well as competent control of the TCo. These expectations can be difficult to meet, especially in the face of current trends in the IT environment. for example, increased business flexibility, facilitated through new technologies and enterprise SoA, increases the complexity of individual application management tasks. And the trend to outtask and outsource requires close collaboration with service providers. Thats why efficient management of SAP solutions and efficient collaboration of all parties involved with the solutions are gaining in importance.

on the business side, most stakeholders are end users who rely on the implemented functionality to run their daily business. Some end users have special knowledge of the business applications. These key users provide first-level support for their colleagues. Another essential role is served by business process champions, who take the lead within the business units. They define how business processes are to be executed. A program management office communicates these requirements to the IT organization, decides on the financing of development and operations, and ensures that requirements are implemented. on the technical side, the customers IT organization has to ensure that services provided by the end-to-end solution are available for the business units. The application management team is in direct contact with the business units.
Business global Business Process Champion Regional Business Process Champion

The Organizational Model

The first step toward efficient end-toend solution operations is specialization. Dedicated stakeholders such as organizational units of a company, service providers, or SAP consultants are responsible for different objectives. using an organizational model, you can assign these stakeholders different roles, typically grouped into two categories: business unit and IT (see figure 2). Although the names of the organizations may differ from one company to another, their function is roughly the same. They all run their activities in accordance with corporate strategy, corporate policies (for example, corporate governance, compliance, and security), and organizational goals.

This team is responsible for implementing the business requirements and providing support for end users. To do this, the team is supported by other organizations within IT. The business process operations group covers monitoring, support, and integration of business applications and automation of jobs, while the custom development group adjusts the solution to meet customer-specific requirements with special internal developments. SAP technical operations personnel are responsible for the general administration of the software as well as for detailed software diagnostics. finally, the IT infrastructure organization provides the underlying IT infrastructure, such as network and databases. further specialization within these organizations is possible. for example, within SAP technical operations there may be individual experts for different applications.

End user, Key user

Program Management office

Application Management

Custom Development

Business Process operation IT Infrastructure

SAP Technical operations

IT
Figure 2: Organizational Model for Solution Operations in Companies

SAP Solution in Detail Customer Center of Expertise as Single Source of Truth

To maximize the potential of outtasking and outsourcing, an organization must carefully weigh which tasks can be outtasked and which process components can be outsourced. This requires a detailed risk analysis. Recommendations to keep in mind during this process are included in the SAP standards for solution operations.
Collaboration That Crosses Organizational Boundaries
Processes for operating and supporting customer solutions cross organizational boundaries. for example, if the business process operations group detects an alert, the SAP technical operations or IT infrastructure teams may be required to resolve it. A change in a business process may involve the program management office, the business process champion, application management, custom development, business process operations, or SAP technical operations. The program man-

agement office works in collaboration with the different business process champions to define specifications, budget, and timelines for any change or development requests. The requests are sent to either the application management unit or the business process operations unit. A change request is managed throughout all phases of a project life cycle, from development, testing, and cutover to production and ongoing support. The application management unit involves other operations units as needed. Because multiple organizations are involved in end-to-end solution operations processes, collaboration must be optimized among all parties involved. This becomes even more important when the involved parties belong to organizational areas that have different focuses. for example, the key focus of the business units is business processes while that of IT is technical components. Achieving optimal collaboration requires both a common collaboration platform and a clear definition of the end-to-end process. The definition ensures that stakeholders know their tasks, the service level they must provide, and what information they need to share with others. As the trend toward outtasking and outsourcing IT services continues to increase, the ability to share information becomes increasingly important.

optimization strategy defines a set of standards for solution operations. These standards describe how best to use available tools and services and how the different roles are to work together to optimize end-to-end solution operations processes. This standard framework allows customers to benefit from SAPs more than 35 years of best-in-class support experience. Second, the optimization strategy is rooted in SAP Solution Manager as collaboration platform. This provides full visibility of the customer solution and process status, while making all required information available to all stakeholders. This helps reduce costs for information gathering and keeps participants working with current information. Because the program management office and the assigned business process champions need 100% transparency and governance over all projects and tasks, project status reports and top-issue reports are circulated regularly. Each organizational unit has to define how it works with every other unit for each step in a process. In addition, each unit has to define the escalation path to be used for each potential issue. Mapping business processes with the components of the customer solution makes it easier to align business units and IT.

Optimizing Internal Collaboration in Two Ways

The SAP service and support strategy helps customers optimize their internal collaboration in two ways. first, the

SAP Solution in Detail Customer Center of Expertise as Single Source of Truth

still owned and monitored through appropriate service-level agreements. In outsourcing, the complete ownership of implementation and operation is relinquished. outtasking is the collaboration model used for SAP and SAP partner application and technology product units. To maximize the potential of outtasking and outsourcing, an organization must carefully weigh which tasks can be outtasked and which process components can be outsourced. This requires a detailed risk analysis. Recommendations to keep in mind during this process are included in the SAP standards for solution operations. The work that will be outtasked or outsourced, and the process interfaces between customer and service provider, should be defined clearly in the service-level agreement. The SAP standards for solution operations provide a template for this. In addition, the standards list key performance indicators that can be used to evaluate how well the agreements were fulfilled. Another challenge presented by outtasking and outsourcing is that the IT service provider often uses other tools than the customer for example, a different help desk. Thats why technical integration of the tools is required to ensure efficient collaboration. SAP delivers integration packages that are ready for outsourcing. for example, the service desk functionality in SAP Solution Manager provides an open, bidirectional interface to the help desks of third-party providers.

Different roles must be implemented within the center of expertise. The head of the center manages the team, oversees process compliance, and takes responsibility for the teams work.

Outtasking and Outsourcing

Efficient end-to-end solution operations can no longer be accomplished with in-house resources alone. When implementing SAP applications, customers are increasingly seeking outside resources to enhance their in-house personnel. Partners offering standard application packages can make it easier to outtask or outsource process components to manage costs, increase speed, and access skilled resources. In outtasking, a service is given away but

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SAP Solution in Detail Customer Center of Expertise as Single Source of Truth

nEW BuSInESS RoLES To ADvAnCE CoMMunICATIon AnD TEAMWoRK

funDamental Changes to the existing organizational moDel

The new challenges arising from integrated, complex, and extended solution landscapes require fundamental changes to the existing organizational model. Whats needed is a stronger integration between all the different business units within an enterprise. new business roles must be created for the application management unit at the customer site to guarantee trusted communication and tight collaboration among all parties involved. These new business roles will be part of the cross-unit team that is the Customer CoE. This team drives the quality management process for all organizations involved in implementing the processes and systems that support the enterprises business processes. The objective is to ensure a single source of truth. What is involved in establishing a single source of truth? The systems and the core business processes of the organization must be documented and understood by the entire organization. The top issues in the production landscape and any ongoing projects must be known to the entire organization along with their status and the action plans defined for the resolution of each. only by sharing top challenges in this way can the skills and competencies of all involved parties be harnessed to address them early. The quality gates for the critical implementation and upgrade projects must be defined. This includes the conditions under which a sign-off can be made of the business process

design and a sign-off of the implementation of the business processes handed over to operations. All changes that could have a major impact on the stability of the production systems must be known and properly tested before being implemented for production. The center of expertise becomes the single source of truth that disseminates the methodology, standards, technical infrastructure, and the services to support: Solution documentation Change management and test management Top-issue management End-to-end quality management

The center of expertise has the charter to provide minimum solution documentation as well as the methodology and tools required to support the entire solution. only documentation that is used by all units and stakeholders has a chance to stay current, and thats only if it is continuously updated by the center. The Customer CoE team sets enterprise-wide policies such as the standards to observe application-level security or follow auditing rules employed to check solutions for compliance. As they are using a solution to perform their tasks, the staff of the business units and functional departments will describe the business processes they are using and their requirements regarding functionality, availability, and solution performance. The IT organization must document all information relevant for day-to-day operations of the IT systems concerned and define all technical aspects of the solution landscapes.

Solution Documentation
Solution documentation is a key enabler for business, facilitates IT alignment, and can provide transparency to accelerate IT activities and improve their results. An appropriate and cost-efficient description of an IT solution for each target group is a necessary precondition for its development, implementation, successful operation, and continuous improvement. Target groups and key stakeholders reside not only in the IT organization but throughout the corporation and in all functional departments. At least minimum documentation is required to satisfy the different stakeholders information needs. All of the groups engage collaboratively to document processes and the solution landscape, and then they use the processes as they are documented.

Change Management and Test Management

one of the goals of the Customer CoE team is to ensure the normal flow of the core business processes by ensuring the stability of the production environment. To accomplish this, it is essential that changes to the solution landscape be managed carefully. The Customer CoE team has the charter to provide standards and methodologies to manage the introduction of changes into the production environment as well as to safeguard the quality of those changes by establishing appropriate

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test procedures. In addition to change request management, the deployment and analysis of changes need to be managed properly in order to execute changes without disrupting ongoing business. The Customer CoE team requires a holistic view of all the changes in an SAP solution to be able to test all components involved in an application change and release them together. This is true even if they are based on different technologies and reside in different applications. Remember that any changes to the software environment could have a major impact on business processes and solutions, regardless of whether the change is made in an application, the technology stack, a hardware system, a database, or the network. To keep the production systems stable, all changes must be tested end-to-end before release. Test management is important in this regard and should follow an integrated approach that links the project structure to test plans and test packages as well as to the actual performance of the test. To summarize, all operational units across all organizations are integrated into one quality process, which requires the following: All changes are 100% transparent. A central transport mechanism and change-control system is in place to manage changes across the technology stack and application components. A central test plan for core business processes is defined.

A central quality manager validates test execution and test completeness. Every development workbench is integrated into the central transport and change-control system.

Top-Issue Management
A top issue is an incident or a problem that has severe impact on at least one of the customers core business processes. A top issue reveals a critical challenge a showstopper or a mission-critical situation that requires the attention of top management at the customer site and sometimes at SAP. If left unresolved, it could result in serious business loss for the customer. A top issue can be either a major critical issue or a bundle of single technical issues of the same type or belonging to the same area. A top issue requires a defined action plan that reflects the solution approach to be taken. The action plan documents all single actions or tasks to be performed by the customer and those to be delivered by SAP or partners to resolve the issue. one of the first actions should be a root-cause analysis of the top issue, which would then result in other single actions or tasks to be included in the action plan. for documentation purposes, top issues can be reported in SAP Solution Manager. To engage the SAP Active global Support (SAP AgS) organization in resolving top issues, the customer must use SAP Solution Manager to report the issue to SAP and for tracking the subsequent progress of issue resolution.

The Customer CoE team also tracks top issues to provide transparency. By coordinating all the parties involved outsourced resources, implementation partners, hardware partners, customer departments, SAP experts, and thirdparty vendors the team plays a significant role in the resolution of top issues as well. In business-critical cases, the Customer CoE team can act as the moderator in the communication between the parties using a war room approach. This involves all the parties in the collaboration until the issue is resolved. Since the center of expertise belongs to the customer, the head of the team functions as the chief of the war room. Creating and driving top issues through to completion results in successful implementations and solution operation inherently a strong benefit to the customer. But tracking and following through on a customers critical challenges with a standard methodology can yield deep insight into the customers greatest business needs, enriching the expertise of all involved in the work.

End-to-End Quality Management

To ensure the stability of a system, very clear quality assurance procedures need to be defined. The Customer CoE team is responsible for defining and integrating quality gates into the methodology that check the quality of an implemented solution or of the major changes introduced by means of upgrades or enhancement packages.

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SAP Solution in Detail Customer Center of Expertise as Single Source of Truth

Many companies run complex business processes that span heterogeneous platforms and multiple integrated business applications. The applications may include software from SAP as well as from SAP partners or other software vendors, along with functionality and solutions developed by the company itself. from this perspective, it is obvious that the end-to-end operation of such landscapes is far different from the operation of simple solutions, which was the norm in the past.

A quality gate is a process performed during the project life cycle that conducts predefined checks. Quality gates are required in the following project phases: Business blueprint To check the technical feasibility of the solution Integration testing To check the end-to-end integration of the applications supporting critical business processes across all software components, including interfaces volume testing To make sure the applications and systems are scalable Solution and operational readiness To test whether the applications and systems are ready to go into production and make sure the operations of the solution have been implemented Quality gates are needed not only during implementations and upgrades but before any major change is introduced into the production environment for example, for a database upgrade. With SAP Solution Manager, the Customer CoE team has the methodology and tools it needs to manage quality for the company, with the head of the team effectively assuming the role of end-toend quality manager. In addition, SAP Solution Manager gives the team the infrastructure it needs to maintain the single source of truth. The software supports all activities involving solution documentation and change management, including change request and change-control management, top-issue management, and quality gates.

The head of the team must see to it that all feedback from IT projects and solutions advances from an exchange of subjective opinions and observations to objective reporting that focuses on facts, actionable content, and a consensus of agreed-on top issues. Equally important is establishing an environment of mutual support among all stakeholders and units. All parties must understand that reporting top issues is imperative and that only by sharing them openly can all skills and competencies be tapped to address the issues early. To this purpose, a joint project and operations mission control center is established.

SAP Solution in Detail Customer Center of Expertise as Single Source of Truth

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establishing a Customer Center of expertise team

ShIfTIng ChALLEngES AWAY fRoM ThE CIo

The main focus of the existing SAP Customer Competence Center (SAP CCC) locations lies in the area of IT, and here the highest priority is to safeguard the stable operation of an SAP solution. As already mentioned, the approach of the center of expertise is broader. It is based on the application management unit and linked to all other IT and business units to foster close collaboration for integrated quality management.

QM for safeguarding integration validation QM for business continuity QM for business process improvement QM for protection of investment The personnel structure and the size of a company determine how many employees are needed to serve these roles. In small businesses one employee may take over all roles, whereas in large enterprises two employees could conceivably be required for one QM role. To understand why these roles should be established, it makes sense to look at where they are positioned in the organization, which processes they should define and drive, and the busiBusiness global Business Process Champion Regional Business Process Champion

ness units with which they will mainly collaborate. SAP AgS equips each QM role with methodologies and tools to identify top issues. The methodologies and tools are the product of more than 35 years of SAP experience supporting missioncritical solutions.

QM for Safeguarding Integration Validation

organizations have increasingly complex business processes and IT landscapes. Therefore, keeping the IT solution available, stable, integrated in the software landscape, and performing optimally is a challenge. Customer Center of Expertise

The Customer COE Charter

The center of expertise has one clear mission: to shift all critical challenges away from the CIo. To be more specific, its duties are to: Standardize application management and establish a single source of truth Integrate all units in one end-to-end quality management process Manage quality gates, making sure that software is deployed only when it is certain that it will operate according to the companys high standards for business continuity Make sure innovation is drawn directly from SAP to avoid unnecessary modifications in code Bring all stakeholders to the table to resolve all challenges and issues regardless of ownership To achieve these goals, different roles must be implemented within the center of expertise. The head of the center manages the team, oversees process compliance, and takes responsibility for the teams work. In addition, the following quality manager (QM) roles should be created and assigned to employees:

End user, Key user

Program Management office

Integrated Quality Management, one Source of the Truth

Application Management Quality Management

Custom Development

Business Process operation IT Infrastructure

SAP Technical operations

IT

SAP Customer Competence Center

Quality Management one single source of the truth Integrated quality management
Figure 3: The Different Focuses of SAP Customer Competence Centers and Customer Center of Expertise Organizations

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SAP Solution in Detail Customer Center of Expertise as Single Source of Truth

The SAP Safeguarding for Integration validation portfolio of services follows a proven methodology to mitigate the technical risks of an implementation or upgrade, introduce solutions into the production environment smoothly, and set up its ongoing operations efficiently. The methodology is used by the QM for safeguarding integration validation in collaboration with the Customer CoE, project management office, and implementation team or partner. During integration testing and volume testing, the QM for safeguarding integration validation must see to it that the core business processes reach the performance level required to handle the planned business volume and that the data is consistent. This role is also responsible for ensuring that the core business processes work with technical correctness within the entire software landscape and across all interfaces. The QM is responsible for the quality of the implemented solutions documentation, which must describe the software landscape, the core business processes, and all interfaces. The documentation is made available through SAP Solution Manager, which provides the basis for the single source of truth established by the center of expertise. The documentation is an important tool for successfully safeguarding integration validation. It supports the QM in diagnosing critical business processes and interfaces. It is especially useful during the handover of the implemented solution from the project team to operations and business process operations. Important to remember is that

documenting a solution is an ongoing task that starts at the beginning of a project and ends only after the rollout to end users is finished. Together with the project management office and the center of expertise, the QM plans the systematic analysis of the code and systems of the core business process, focusing on performance, data consistency, and technical correctness. SAP AgS provides all tools required for tracing, analysis, and validations. The QM for safeguarding integration validation has to doublecheck if enough time was allotted for the integration test, including the test of the initial data load. The project management office plans and coordinates the integration test and, together with the QM, specifies which business processes are to be analyzed and which end users and members of the relevant implementation team must be available. The QM coordinates the service engineers who perform the technical analysis. These engineers must be experienced and certified in performance and interface analysis and optimization. Together with the engineers, the QM documents the results of the analysis and the recommendations. In case these qualifications are not available, SAP AgS offers a service portfolio providing the deliverables by support specialists. Top issues are identified and documented in SAP Solution Manager, and an action plan for their resolution is developed. The QM directs the top issues to the project management office and the head of Customer CoE.

Customer CoE certification is a functional certification that underscores an enterprises commitment to continuous improvement of its SAP solution operations. It validates the adoption of the Run SAP methodology and establishment of the center of expertise as a single source of truth.

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In collaboration with the project management office and the IT organization, the QM plans and oversees the execution of the action plan and tracks the implementation of the recommendations. The QM verifies the results and signs off on the corrected business process together with the project management office and business process champion. SAP supports the QM and the center of expertise during this time by providing all tools, methodologies, services, and expertise necessary to complete the work. The process the QM must follow to optimally support integration testing is detailed in the following sections. Analyze the Business Process from End to End The setup and review of an integration test plan requires a comprehensive understanding of the implemented solution, including the software landscape, core business processes, and all interfaces. of special interest are areas where changes were made to standard processes or standard coding. To gain the necessary understanding of the planned business process, the technical landscape, and critical-path dependencies, the QM for safeguarding integration validation has to make sure the business process is analyzed as specified in SAP Solution Manager from end to end. The business process must then be mapped to the corresponding technical systems and key integration points identified, with time and volume constraints taken into consideration. SAP AgS can support the QM in his or her tasks with the appropriate assessment services.

The documentation produced during this phase which should be maintained centrally to keep it up-to-date and consistent can serve as a valuable support during implementation, testing, end-user training, and change request management later on. optimize Performance, Data Consistency, and Technical Correctness once the documentation and analysis are complete, the key areas for improvement within the end-to-end core business process are identified (for example, the main causes of poor performance). The QM is responsible for overseeing improvements made in these areas, a task that can be supported by the different SAP optimizaBusiness global Business Process Champion Regional Business Process Champion

tion services. During the performance of these services, SAP support specialists provide recommendations for optimizing performance and interfaces. The results of the technical analysis and the recommendations based on those results are documented in SAP Solution Manager. By conducting and recording an end-to-end trace of the business process steps, the engineer can measure the overall performance, check data consistency, and verify technical correctness. The recommendations for optimization have to be agreed on with the project management office. The implementation of the recommendations is then supervised by the QM.

End user, Key user

Program Management office

Integrated Quality Management, one Source of the Truth

Application Management Quality Management

Custom Development

Business Process operation IT Infrastructure

SAP Technical operations

IT

QM for Safeguarding Integration Validation: Major implementation and deployments projects SAP Safeguarding for Integration validation

Figure 4: Quality Manager for Safeguarding Integration Validation

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SAP Solution in Detail Customer Center of Expertise as Single Source of Truth

SAP Safeguarding for Integration validation offers the process, tools, services, and expertise required by the center of expertise to reduce the technical risk and cost associated with implementing the new technology. These services, which are delivered either remotely or on-site by certified SAP engineers, focus on integration, performance, ensuring data consistency and technical correctness, and supporting the functional integration test. verify: Implement and Test After the implementation, the QM, together with the business process operations team from SAP, checks the systems behavior and measures the improvements to verify the results. Measurement, optimization, and verification steps must be repeated until the performance required to meet the business process objectives is achieved and the technical correctness, including data consistency, is verified. The improvements and achievements are then documented in SAP Solution Manager.

The Tools SAP Solution Manager is the basis for managing SAP applications and provides essential support for the performance of SAP Safeguarding for Integration validation. This centralized solution management and collaboration software provides tools and integrated content as well as a gateway to SAP to facilitate the implementation, support, operations management, and monitoring of SAP solutions. Also integrated into SAP Solution Manager is an advanced set of robust tools for tracing a user or business process from end to end and analyzing its performance work carried out as part of SAP Safeguarding for Integration validation. In addition, all diagnosed issues and recommendations are documented in standard reports after every engagement. All findings are documented in SAP Solution Manager as well, using the issue-tracking functionality. This allows the QM to follow up on the recommendations and changes efficiently. Therefore, SAP AgS can be optimally involved during the project phases of integration and cutover testing, which results in testing that is more efficient and more focused.

the availability and rapid restoration of IT services in the event of a disaster. It also enables the IT organization to operate at a justifiable cost, delivering the agreed-on level of performance and data integrity over a period of time. one of the tasks of the QM is to make sure that for each top incident the root cause is identified, prevention measures are taken, and a resolution process is defined for reference if the incident occurs again. The goal is to have any type of incident happen only once. To support mission-critical business processes, all operational units must be integrated. To preserve business continuity, all components required to run a business process must be covered by the solution operations process a process called end-to-end solution operations. To optimize endto-end solution operations, procedures must be standardized, with the experience of the organization embedded in those standards. When a solution is based on SAP software, SAP provides the standardized procedures. This helps customers avoid errors, mitigate risks, increase the availability and performance of the solution, and streamline and accelerate the process flow. In addition, standardized procedures support automation, thus reducing the cost of operations.

QM for Business Continuity

The main goals of the QM for business continuity are to maintain the availability of IT service and to support the business at a justifiable cost. The QM must see to it that a business continuity plan is drawn up and establish end-to-end solution operations standards for rootcause analysis, change control, system administration, business process integration, and automation. This ensures

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Business global Business Process Champion Regional Business Process Champion

End user, Key user

Program Management office

Integrated Quality Management, one Source of the Truth

Application Management Quality Management

tasks. By outlining courses of action, the Run SAP methodology incorporates a road map that accelerates the implementation of end-to-end solution operations. Training provides up-to-date skills for the SAP ecosystem, and achievement of specific skill levels can be certified, if desired. Root-Cause Analysis Standard: Speaking the Same Language Root-cause analysis facilitates the diagnosis of an incident from end to end across separate components and technologies. Different support levels customer, partner, independent software vendors, and SAP consultants all use the same standardized tools. This means that those at the next level of support can review the results of previous findings and continue right away with a more in-depth investigation. A Change-Control Standard to Manage Quality The main goal of change control is to achieve 100% transparency of changes. This is realized through a central transport mechanism that manages changes across the technology framework and application components. A central test plan for core business processes supplements this mechanism. A central quality manager validates the execution and completeness of tests. Every development workbench is integrated into the central transport and change-control system.

Custom Development

Business Process operation IT Infrastructure

SAP Technical operations

IT

QM for Business Continuity: Operational issues Run SAP methodology: end-to-end solution operations Resolution of issues and optimization of operations

Figure 5: Quality Manager for Business Continuity

The QM for business continuity is in the application management unit and serves as the interface to the business process operation, SAP technology operations, and the IT infrastructure unit. The QM for business continuity drives the processes to establish: one end-to-end integrated incident management and root-cause analysis solution for business processes, interfaces, and SAP technology one end-to-end integrated changecontrol methodology that identifies precisely which change impacts which core business process one end-to-end integrated capacity management solution for business processes and systems

The end-to-end integration of the business process unit and SAP technology operations SAP supports the QM for business continuity with a variety of methods, standards, tools, and services described below. Run SAP Methodology The Run SAP methodology facilitates the implementation of end-to-end solution operations. It supports best practices and provides content, services, training, and tools to perform end-toend solution operations efficiently. The SAP standards for solution operations define core end-to-end operations

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Integration and Automation Standard to Realize value The standard for integration and automation focuses on the business process operations for business-critical processes. Smooth, efficient business operations require a reliable data flow between business units. In missioncritical areas, it is important to identify problems in the data flow as early as possible, since a disruption of a business process may result in immediate financial loss. The standards cover the basics of monitoring business processes and interfaces, managing an everincreasing amount of business data, handling the dependencies of jobs and overseeing their correct execution, and checking the end-to-end transactional consistency of business process execution. Standards for SAP Technical operations System administration and monitoring are the primary focus of the technical operations organization at SAP. To better maintain and operate an efficient IT infrastructure for the application landscape, the organization groups all the activities needed to administer and monitor the IT landscape. The organization acts as system administrator. As such, it must apply all the standards outlined previously while maintaining a strong focus on the overall software infrastructure. Solution optimization Check After a solution is introduced into the production environment, SAP AgS undertakes a performance and operations check. The load profile of the installed SAP solution is analyzed.

Bottlenecks and queuing are identified, and the work is performed from the top down. This initial focus is on performance problems in core business processes caused by customer programs, moves to ineffective use of SAP standard transactions and unnecessary data processing, and then proceeds to performance problems at the level of CPu, memory, database, and storage subsystem. SAP AgS provides recommendations for eliminating these performance bottlenecks and queuing situations. Solution operations Automation Check Based on the scenarios, technology and application landscape, and interfaces documented for a business process, SAP AgS provides feedback on how to comply with the minimum required endto-end solution operations standards to run the corresponding installed SAP solution. Special emphasis is given to how jobs and interfaces should be monitored. SAP EarlyWatch Alert Service The SAP EarlyWatch Alert service is especially designed to monitor the essential technology operation areas of a single SAP solution and keep customers up-to-date on its performance and stability. Since the components of critical business processes are often supported by multiple distributed software applications, it is important to gain an overview of the entire solution landscape. SAP EarlyWatch Alert can give customers a single consolidated report for all software solutions. Top alerts are sent to SAP, which will respond with a proactive action plan to mitigate related risk.

QM for Business Process Improvement

A working, controlled interface to the different business units is vital for maintaining end-user and business owner satisfaction as well as for understanding and resolving any issues that impede business processes. To realize this, the ideal setup is to have a business process champion on the business side of the organization paired with a technical business process champion on the IT side. The IT role is assumed by the QM for business process improvement.

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Business global Business Process Champion Regional Business Process Champion

End user, Key user

Program Management office

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Application Management Quality Management

Integrated Quality Management, one Source of the Truth

tion are defined. The QM regularly reports status and results to the business process champions and stakeholders involved. Continuous improvement projects are defined and executed in the single source of truth document stored in SAP Solution Manager. Afterward, improvements are measured periodically and compared with those stipulated in the improvement plan. Business Process Exceptions and Monitoring A key objective is implementing a monitoring solution that can immediately detect business process exceptions and provide 100% transparency of business process execution. This might be a listing of orders that could not be shipped and why due to an out-ofstock situation, for example, or a complete-shipping-only order. Each new exception type that occurs must be entered into SAP Solution Manager after the second occurrence at the very latest. SAP AgS provides all error logs and process data as well as a framework for monitoring business processes in SAP Solution Manager. Business Process Improvement Mapping top issues, requirements, and challenges to the functionality that is provided on an ongoing basis by SAP AgS is another core task of the QM for business process improvement. The QM requires knowledge of SAP solutions and a solid understanding of the business process language spoken by the corresponding business unit. finally, the QM must also understand the engineering language used by the SAP experts.

Custom Development

Business Process operation IT Infrastructure

SAP Technical operations

IT QM for Business Process Improvement: Innovation SAP Solution Management Assessment Business process management Management of data consistency

Figure 6: Quality Manager for Business Process Improvement

SAP Solution Management Assessment The methodology for identifying critical issues and requirements is embodied in the SAP Solution Management Assessment service. The assessment starts with a walk through the corresponding core business processes and application and technology landscapes. Process steps are documented, and the single source of truth documentation in SAP Solution Manager is updated. Yet the focus of this assessment is not documentation. It is identifying top issues, analyzing them in the production environment, and establishing a reference case. This work is done in

conjunction with either an end user or the business process champion. The business process champion is required to analyze business process exceptions such as orders that never get shipped. The outcome of SAP Solution Management Assessment is a clear documentation of all top issues, requirements, and other challenges. The business process champion has to sign off after ascertaining that all top issues have been identified and correctly prioritized. The head of the Customer CoE team discusses the results of SAP Solution Management Assessment with all stakeholders, and measures for resolu-

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SAP Solution in Detail Customer Center of Expertise as Single Source of Truth

To assist the QM, SAP offers a service called the modification justification check. With this service the QM for business process improvement together with the QM for protection of investment checks with SAP to make sure no standard functionality exists to cover a specific business requirement. The QM for business process improvement can establish a close link to solution management at SAP for the corresponding industry solution to gain better insight into the SAP product strategy and new functionality.

ing to a later software version. Such migrations are also time consuming and costly, and they make it nearly impossible to execute innovation and improvement projects in parallel. In guarding against these pitfalls, the QM protects the IT investment while seeing to it that innovation streams into the company on a continual basis. A core value of SAP products is that they can be continuously updated to support the latest best practices inherent in all SAP industry solutions, along with the latest technologies and applicable legal requirements. These updates are delivered in SAP enhancement packages and legal-change packages. Corrections to software are regularly provided in support packages.

To realize this continuous improvement strategy, the cost and risk of applying these packages must be minimized. As mentioned above, costs are driven up mainly through the work of resolving conflicts with custom code and customspecific usage. The overall testing effort further burdens the budget. Risk due to unforeseen side effects increases as well. To generate business benefit from these packages, detailed knowledge of SAP software functionality and business requirements is required. The QM for protection of investment is the person who should have this knowledge. Part of the application management unit, the QM is the main interface to the custom development unit and is responsible for establishing:

Business global Business Process Champion Regional Business Process Champion

QM for Protection of Investment

The main goal of the QM for protection of investment is to perform regular updates to the technology stack and application components. The QM makes sure the solution remains maintainable and upgradable even if it contains modifications or custom development. By making sure no unnecessary modifications or custom development are performed, the QM reduces development costs on an ongoing basis and saves money when the time comes to upgrade the software, because the modifications are primarily responsible for driving up the cost of upgrades. In the worst case, a highly modified system cant be upgraded for a reasonable price and must be replaced by migrat-

End user, Key user

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Integrated Quality Management, one Source of the Truth

Application Management Quality Management

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Custom Development

Business Process operation IT Infrastructure

SAP Technical operations

IT

QM for Protection of Investment: Innovation Modification clearance Custom-code maintainability

Figure 7: Quality Manager for Protection of Investment

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 A center of expertise for each core business process operation A link with SAP to perform modification justification checks and customcode maintainability checks An efficient and reproducible procedure for conflict resolution Automated, low-cost testing of core business processes Minimum downtime of the production landscape Rapid creation of low-cost test landscapes
Business global Business Process Champion Regional Business Process Champion

SAP supports the QM with the methods, tools, and services described in the sections below. SAP Enhancement Packages SAP enhancement packages simplify the management and deployment of new software functionality. The customer decides which of the software innovations from SAP to implement and, using a switch framework, can activate the software as the business requires. In this way, the customer

contains the impact of software updates and brings new functionality online faster due to shortened testing cycles. Companies reduce costs and technical risks while embracing innovation. Minimized Test Effort To reduce test efforts and costs, SAP offers change impact analysis. following the test scope recommendation from SAP, the customer tests only the software program components of the business processes that have been changed. Modification Justification Check given that changes to a business process are necessary, the customer can send a request to SAP to see if the changes needed are already part of SAP standard software. SAP AgS responds within 48 hours, and if the response is positive, the customer can save time and effort for the modification by using SAP standard software instead. Custom-Code Maintainability Check If a necessary modification is not part of SAP standard software, the modification should be performed in such a way as to keep the application maintainable and upgradable. Through the custom-code maintainability check, SAP will inform you whether there are suitable standard features and which user exits you can use. By following the recommendation from SAP, you can make sure that your modification is separate from the SAP code so that it can be ignored during upgrades.

End user, Key user

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Application Management Quality Management Integrated Quality Management, one Source of the Truth Custom Development

Business Process operation IT Infrastructure

SAP Technical operations

IT Quality Management one single source of the truth Integrated quality management Accelerated innovation
Figure 8: The Customer Center of Expertise

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SAP Solution in Detail Customer Center of Expertise as Single Source of Truth

Customer Coe CertifiCation

unDERSCoRIng A CoMMITMEnT To ConTInuouS IMPRovEMEnT

Customer CoE certification is a functional certification that underscores an enterprises commitment to continuous improvement of its SAP solution operations. It validates the adoption of the Run SAP methodology and establishment of the center of expertise as a single source of truth.

Primary Certification
The primary certification validates that an organization fulfills the minimum requirements needed to provide a solid infrastructure for interaction with SAP. having this fundamental infrastructure is absolutely essential. for that reason, primary certification applies to all SAP customers and is described in the support contract SAP issues. Primary certification focuses on IT, with the highest priority being the stable operation of an SAP solution.

continuous improvement of SAP solution operations. Advanced certification verifies that a center of expertise has and uses effective quality management functions and has adopted and complies with the SAP standards for solution operations, including underlying service management processes. Advanced certification requires that a center shows expertise in the following key areas: overall consolidation of quality management inputs and establishment of a single source of truth Quality management To safeguard integration validation To improve business process To protect investment To maintain business continuity using: Run SAP methodology SAP standards for solution operations

Prerequisites and Criteria

Eligibility for the Customer CoE primary certification includes the following prerequisites: The customer is an SAP license holder. The customer has at least one SAP solution that has been in production for at least six months. The customer operates an SAP solution that is currently in mainstream or extended maintenance. SAP Solution Manager is installed and configured.

Advanced Certification
The advanced certification of a Customer CoE covers a broader scope of SAP solution operations. This certification validates that the team has mastered the use of key functions, processes, roles, skills, and use of tools based on SAP standards for solution operations and the Run SAP methodology. The team that has received advanced certification will have integrated quality management in place, bringing transparency to challenges and issues faced by the organization as a whole. This is paramount for missioncritical operations. visibility, alignment, and a common understanding of the top issues facing an organization are achieved through the centers ability to maintain a single source of truth a repository where everything is tracked and from which all information is disseminated. The advanced certification for a center of expertise is comprehensive in scope and includes an assessment of the skills the team possesses for executing integrated quality management and

. .

Certification Overview
A Customer CoE can be certified on two levels: primary and advanced, where the advanced certification is an extension of the primary certification. Primary certification verifies that the basic functions and infrastructure for collaboration with SAP are in place. The advanced certification verifies that the location follows a best-practice approach to operational excellence based on the Run SAP methodology. Thus, together, these levels offer a phased approach to the validation of a locations full adoption of the Run SAP methodology. Both levels of certification require that the center complies with the SAP standards for solution operations.

Advantages of Customer COE Certification

Certifying your Customer CoE not only provides a verification of the capability and quality of SAP solution operations, reinforcing the credibility to interfacing business and IT organizations; it also helps you achieve additional benefits through deeper levels of expertise and collaboration with SAP.

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the benefits: innovation anD proteCtion of investment stimulate innovation

The Customer CoE helps stimulate innovation by advancing processes to: Deploy SAP enhancement and support packages to keep software upto-date with changing requirements get certified and participate in skills training to establish the general use of implementation and operations methodologies Make use of expertise on demand that provides faster responses, when necessary Implement change management and quality testing to speed up deployments Enable SoA and third-party solutions to increase flexibility The center of expertise drives risk and cost reduction by attending to: Deployment of industry-leading standards that minimize complexity across SAP and partner environments Comprehensive system integration throughout the solution life cycle Achievement of a near-zero downtime commitment with SAP to increase business continuity Reduced downtime through a built-in provision of standardized diagnostic tools, integration testing, and business process monitoring use of consistent tools and methodologies across heterogeneous landscapes Competitive service-level agreements with SAP that decrease time to resolution

Find Out More

for more information about establishing a Customer CoE team at your company, please visit the SAP Service Marketplace extranet at www.service.sap.com/cccnet.

When your company establishes a center of expertise, the result is a single source of truth and central point for functional collaboration between your business and IT units on one side and between your company and SAP on the other side. This helps you increase the transparency of business processes, reduce downtime to boost system and business process availability, and reduce TCo.

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QuiCk faCts

www.sap.com /contactsap

Summary A Customer Center of Expertise organization can serve as the hub for functional collaboration between your business and IT units and between your company and SAP. The center of expertise can help you increase the transparency of business processes, limit downtime to boost system and business process availability, and reduce total cost of ownership. Business Challenges Increasing complexity of the IT landscape growing number of users heightened demand to guarantee business continuity, drive innovation, and reduce costs Services Offered Management of critical operations Centralize solution documentation, change management and test management, top-issue management, and end-to-end quality management Management of quality gates Ensure that innovation is drawn directly from SAP to avoid unnecessary modification Business Benefits An enterprise-wide quality management process to bring all stakeholders together, ease tensions among different groups, and reduce challenges A single source of truth for system tracking and disseminating methodologies A facilitating organization to implement methodologies and reporting and to enforce them For More Information for more information, please visit the SAP Service Marketplace extranet at www.service.sap.com/cccnet.

50 091 367 (08/09) 2008 by SAP Ag. All rights reserved. SAP, R/3, xApps, xApp, SAP netWeaver, Duet, PartnerEdge, ByDesign, SAP Business ByDesign, and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP Ag in germany and in several other countries all over the world. Business objects and the Business objects logo, Businessobjects, Crystal Reports, Crystal Decisions, Web Intelligence, xcelsius and other Business objects products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Business objects S.A. in the united States and in several other countries. Business objects is an SAP Company. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Data contained in this document serves informational purposes only. national product specifications may vary. These materials are subject to change without notice. These materials are provided by SAP Ag and its affiliated companies (SAP group) for informational purposes only, without representation or warranty of any kind, and SAP group shall not be liable for errors or omissions with respect to the materials. The only warranties for SAP group products and services are those that are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services, if any. nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty.