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'.
There is no such thing as a 'plain vanilla' SAP HR implementation. When customers start their SAP implementations it's common to hear project managers and sponsors say that this will be a 'plain vanilla' implementation. Customizations and programming will be kept to a minimum, and modifications will be strictly forbidden. Those are fine intentions, but back in the real world: there is no such thing as a 'plain vanilla' SAP HR implementation.
Why can't we have plain vanilla SAP HR implementations? Because HR policies and processes are implemented differently at each customer – for good, valid business reasons. Companies vary in their recruiting, training, and hiring processes; they have different benefit plans and policies; they have special compensation schemes. Yes, much of all this is the same from one customer to another – there is a base of common policies and practices; however, the remaining differences require thought (i.e. analysis and design) to implement into SAP HR – or any other system.
A more realistic goal for SAP HR implementations is to implement their processes and policies into the standard framework provided by SAP. The system has a flexible and functional framework for accommodating a wide range of customer requirements. Companies run into implementation and maintenance issues when they go outside that framework. Knowing that framework is the job of SAP Education (who will train your company's staff) and whichever implementation consulting team you choose. Though you won't end up with vanilla, you will get your company's flavor in a good SAP HR implementation.
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Comments
Re: Vanilla is Impossible
If SAP HR had a more modern architecture, one that is only configured and with those configurations entirely doable by highly skilled business analysts with very limited if any IT support, then it would be possible to adapt via configuration only the software to the needs of specific customers without the extremes of templating etc. that you must use to approach this with SAP's MUCH older architecture. SAP HR is a great product, and I do understand that your firm has a speciality in its implementation, but there's just no way to express the complex and highly variable needs of its customers as quickly, easily or inexpensively in SAP HR as is possible and increasingly common with more modern software architectures and highly configurable -- therefore thought out well in advance and given a real user interface rather than a programmer one -- HR software. Naomi
Re: Vanilla is Impossible
Thanks for the comment Naomi. I pretty much agree with all you said. There is a difference between ease of configuration/customization and providing a plain-vanilla implementation. My point is that regardless of how easy or difficult it is to setup SAP HR, there is no one 'plain vanilla' approach that will work for the class of companies using this product - typically companies with 1,000 or more employees, and often much larger than that, multi-country, etc. If you're smaller than that, you probably shouldn't be using SAP HR, and you will also be more likely to have simpler processes and requirements that fit into a more plain-vanilla template.
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