Steve Bogner is Managing Partner at Insight Consulting Partners and worked with SAP HR/Payroll since 1993. Follow Steve's thoughts on SAP HR technology, process and people, as well as the consulting profession here at the Insight Blog. Steve is also on Twitter at 'SteveBogner' and the Steve Bogner's Insight podcasts are available on the blog as well as iTunes. On Facebook find us at www.facebook.com/insightcp
| Blog: |
| Insight Consulting Partners |
Topics: |
| SAP HR, HR, IT |
Shouldn’t this just work?
I’ve heard that from every client I’ve ever worked with: Shouldn’t x/y/z just work? Why does SAP make it so hard? And I’ve heard it from many consultants I’ve worked with. Coming from clients, I can understand it since it’s not their job to know the software inside-out (though maybe SAP could do a better job educating them on the software’s capabilities). But coming from consultants, it’s painful to hear because it shows that they don’t have any real mastery of their profession. And even when I don’t hear it directly, I see the imprints that lack of consulting knowledge leaves in the client’s software.
For example, I was helping a client solve a problem they had with their 401k calculations in payroll. They described it to me, and mentioned that their implementation consultant wrote some custom rules in payroll to try to fix the issue. But it still wasn’t working correctly for their plan requirements. They had to manually monitor and fix employee paychecks and their plan funding and reporting process was much more complicated all because they were working around this error.
I know that SAP’s standard functionality works fine for all but the strangest 401k plans, so my hunch is that someone made a configuration mistake. Once I was able to get into their system to take a look around, I saw the problem: one wagetype’s cumulation class was setup incorrectly, leading to some weird results in the 401k wage base. One wagetype attribute - a simple one - was setup incorrectly and instead of identifying that and fixing the source of the problem, their consultant created a lot of complexity and still didn’t fully resolve the problem.
That consultant’s lack of knowledge created the issue, and their lack of knowledge couldn’t fix it either. The client didn’t know any better about the technical details; but they did know that they paid good money for the software and services, expecting it to be able to calculate 401k contributions. And they were puzzled about why there were issues with it. It’s 401k after all, practically everyone in the US has 401k plans so how could it be that they were having issues?
I could write similar stories about most every module of the SAP HCM software. The software works; too often it’s poor implementation consulting that breaks it. In my younger days I was more critical of the SAP HCM software than I am now, and that was justifiable when the core module was growing and evolving. Now, I’m OK with the software. It works, it isn’t perfect, but it’s good. Experience has shown me that the value clients get from SAP HCM is only partially due to the software; much of the value has to do with how it is implemented.
And that leads me to being more critical of the SAP HCM consulting profession. The barriers to entry are very low; there isn’t much to keep someone from saying they are an SAP HCM consultant. There are plenty of ways and incentives to puff-up a resume to make it look much better than the real, underlying experience supports. The chase for the lowest cost and highest margin consultants also has negative impacts on implementations - clients are better off selecting consultants who provide high value. And while I admire the efforts to build a robust consultant certification scheme, that will take years to gain traction with clients.
So yes, the software does work. It isn’t so complicated... when you have a team who knows the software well and can translate your business processes and practices into ways that provide more value than where you came from.
Copyright © 2001-2012 by Insight Consulting Partners - Contact Information
Comments
Re: Shouldn't this just... work?
Hi Steve,
A fantastic - dare I say it - insight! The pun is obviously intended :)
Putting the joking aside, this is a real concern for client value. There is often an adage - if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys - that often sums up these situations. Most of the time that I have experienced this is because the client selected the cheapest bidders. And while the upfront cost is reduced, the long-term cost becomes higher because of issues in the implementation or lack of value that the client receives - sometimes without them even knowing that they haven't received the highest value (since they only know what their trusted consultant(s) tell them).
This is a big issue in the Nakisa world and is partly down to education. There are not many experienced Nakisa consultants and without the proper edcuation they cannot offer value to their clients. It is just not possible to do this without knowing the product well and the education isn't really out there for this. But it is also down to companies providing the adequate training time and resources. When I learnt Nakisa I didn't get any significant education - I had to learn it myself. My employer gave me plenty of time and the right systems to "play" around and learn it. This gave me a good grounding. But if a consulting firm just want to get the consultants billable 100% of the time then they will not give their consultants time to learn and move towards becoming skilled in their profession. It's not always experience that counts, since if you don't get a good foundation then you're only building up average experience. 20 bad projects are not as good experience as doing 2 good projects!
Keep up the good work!
Luke
Re: Shouldn't this just... work?
Thanks Luke - love the pun! And I will remember 'peanuts for monkeys' because it cleverly sums up an important aspect of how the industry works.
Re: Shouldn't this just... work?
Excellent article Steve and a great topic that doesnt get much attention. I have experienced this first hand many times coming in during production support to solve major time sensitive SAP payroll issues many of them are due to poor consulting or implementation of SAP. I can typically tell without even looking at the system just from hearing the issue and the scary thing is that in these cases there are usually ALOT more issues coming.
In US Payroll areas like garnishments, taxes, tax reporting are all very country specific and althought the barriers of entry to call yourself a "senior US Payroll consultant" are low to really be a good consultant you need have a deep understanding of not only SAP but the underlying legal rules and regulations.
I got a chuckle out of the "Please send me all your Payroll configuration documentation" as I get that request often and loved your answer. To do what you say take ALOT of work but is necessary and it is my dream that customers start spending the time upfront to indentify consultants that really have these skills and arent configuring their system based on a series of questions they asked on the SAP community network.
A poor consultant and a good consultant cost very similiar but the damage a poor consultant can do especially around a high profile area like payroll should give pause for thought.
Re: Shouldn't this just... work?
Thanks Jarret! A good consultant has to be effective in both IT and business terms - which is often lost. THe fact is that we are for the most part solving business issues, with a mix of business knowledge and IT tools; so we have to be good at both.
Sadly, I stopped participating much in the SAP Community Network years ago because it was just too full of people asking for 'documents on how to configure' something. That is what SAP training is for!
Re: Shouldn't this just... work?
Hi Steve,
I agree with your general statement that the system works, but I think that a software vendor has also the responsibility to make the implementation of it’s system easier
(1) by providing smart configuration capabilities and
(2) by providing guidance to find the right consulting resources.
Re: Shouldn't this just... work?
Great article Steve. I did have one observation. I will use US payroll as an example. I think SAP are to blame to a great extent. In other professions, there are certifications like PHR; SPHR; CPP etc. In SAP, what is there? US Payroll has been around since the 90s yet SAP only now decides to have a certification course?? A day late and a dollar short if you ask me.
Re: Shouldn't this just... work?
I think it is important to note that some of the issues specific to Payroll are due to its strong success in the marketplace over a number of years and it being a "hot" skill set. Many "freshers" and ABAP resources have tried to transition and either didnt have the necessary skills or used their technical skills (ABAP) to solve issues in which SAP already had a functional solution hence many of the stuggles customer have faced.
If you look at the high profile failures accross all the modules in SAP many of them are in payroll and not because the functionality doesnt work as it probably the best of breed solution but because if things go wrong people are very vocal about being paid incorrectly. Some recent examples are LAUSD, City of Portland, City of San Diego, Marin, Queensland. Steve wrote a great blog last year on this.
http://www.insightcp.com/blog/why-sap-hrpayroll-projects-fail
Howard - You make a good point about certification but even if SAP did have a certification earlier it may not have helped given overall issues with SAP certification credibility as well as depth in the entry level certification. I worked with SAP to create the Payroll certification and it is global in nature therefore even folks that get it wont really be qualified to do a specific country.
Re: Shouldn't this just... work?
While I agree with your thoughts Mr. Bogner, (like how much do I have to rework previous consultants lack of insight or knowledge), let's be careful to note that since SAP is still reaching out in many new areas that both customers and consultants wish some things would just work.
Here I recall two years ago while my team was putting in MGE that what the IMG stated, well it just wasn't fully delivered yet. (The correct sharing of infotypes between HOME and HOST assignments).
Anyone who now sits between PA configuration and ESS/MSS configuration have also seen what was called by SAP trainers, "Hans was not talking to Deeter" where now there yet items that are seemless, even though we're only here talking about the 2% aren't we, i.e., the margins of issues aren't huge.
I would say that consultants should be rather careful (well seeing too that I am myself one of that crew) to throw stones at the software before they do a whole lot of self education. It is important to network with other senior consultants, to read OSS notes and SDN discussions and hangout here in the social space and learn, learn, learn.
Lastly, people need to ask a FUNDAMENTAL question..."what did SAP intend with this configuration/method?" I know of a customer whose FI box is full of serious flaws (which now has them trapped in a nightmare as they consider how to move to ECC 6.0) Yeah, the customer just decided to wing a solution without asking the fundamental question or consulting a good partner.
Re: Shouldn't this just... work?
Hi Klaus - Thanks for your comment!
The reason companies struggle to identify and hire the right resources? That's a big question deserving a long answer - maybe my next blog can address that. And as Jarret points out - I had a previous blog that addressed some of that.
I think any properly training payroll consultant could have found the issue I mentioned; it was all about knowing how to configure wagetypes and paying attention to testing results. Nothing really complicated for someone with training and some modest eperience.
It would be great to have some smart configuration capabilities; on the other hand, it would be a shame if that limited the flexibility in configuration.
SAP has tried certification schemes over the years; as well as sort of grading consultants (i.e. 'Platinum' consultants). That hasn't made much of an impact, in my opinion, on quality. If they - or the industry as a whole - put some enforcement mechanisms in place then that could make a positive difference.
Re: Shouldn't this just... work?
Hi Howard - thanks for the comment and observation!
I remember certification efforts from the past - 10 yrs ago or so I think? But there wasn't much effort put into it; it obviously didn't stick. SAP has some blame, I agree, and there's plenty of blame to go around to all the SAP partners, body-shops, and consultants themselves who oversold and misrepresented consultants to clients.
Re: Shouldn't this just... work?
Great points Al - thanks for add tot he discussion! I agree with your perspective; I was on the leading edge of Concurrent Employment implementations in the US - it wasn't fully baked when released and it showed when we went into implementation. Atfer a while, it matured and is fine now - I highly recommend it :)
Post new comment