maximize business process efficiency while minimizing process costs (a4)

7/27/2019 Maximize Business Process Efficiency While Minimizing Process Costs (A4)

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SAP Eepse Spp

Maximize Business Process EfciencyWhile Minimizing Process CostsRely on SAP Enterprise Support for Business ProcessAnalysis, Monitoring, and Improvement


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Table of Contents

MAxiMizE BuSinESS ProcESS EfficiEncy WhilE MiniMizing ProcESS coStS

4 ovem e caees BsessPess impveme

Lack of Global Transparency

Costly, Inecient Processes

Ineective Document Processing

System Clutter

5 hw Des SAP hep y Mee tese caees?Initial EvaluationBusiness Process Improvement Methodology

7 BenetsYouCanExpectGlobal Transparency

Greater Process Eciency

Increased Process Eectiveness

Clean System Thats in Sync with Your Business

9 ExamplesofPotentialBusinessProcessimpvemes

Order to Cash

Archiving

Sales Orders

E-Commerce

10 Vae-Added Seves m SAP Avegba Spp

11 csFor More Information


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Overcoming the Challenges of BusinessProcess Improvement

Faced with todays economic crisis, companies

are striving to enhance the performance of their

core business processes. The continuous quality

check service of SAP Enterprise Support ser-

vices can help by enabling you to analyze, moni-

tor, and improve the core processes supported

by your SAP software. The result? Maximized

business process eciency and a higher return

on your software investment.

Improving the performance of your organizations core busi-

ness processes can deliver a wealth of benets including

greater operational eciency, reduced cost, and increased

protability. But challenges exist. To enable real business

performance improvement, you must optimize the software

that supports those processes, strengthen the relationship

between business and IT, and address the following issues.

lAck of gloBAl trAnSPArEncy

All of a companys operational units do not necessarily adhere

to the same standardized template for each core business

process. As a result, the execution of each process can dier

across the global organization. Only by gaining transparency

across all business units can you increase process compliance

and standardization.

coStly, inEfficiEnt ProcESSES

Nonprocient system resources and inecient processes

can increase the cost of doing business. They can also trigger

systematic issues like user-handling, conguration, and master

data errors that can further increase process costs if not

detected in a timely manner. To minimize process costs, you

must automate business processes, reduce manual process in-

eciencies and human errors, and avoid systematic process

exceptions.

inEffEctiVE DocuMEnt ProcESSing

The delayed processing of sales orders, delivery documents,

invoices, or payments can lead to a decrease in customer

satisfaction and a delay or even loss of revenue. Such business

drawbacks can also occur if the proposed delivery dates are too

ambitious, the documents are incomplete, or the system fails

to generate an invoice for services or goods already delivered.

To strengthen customer loyalty and optimize revenue, you must

process such documents in an accurate and timely fashion.

SyStEM cluttEr

Failure to update the status of business documents in thesystem can lead to inaccurate planning results and business

reporting. For example, if production orders remain open in the

system, the corresponding reservations, capacity requirements,

and purchase requisitions are not deleted and the orders are

still relevant for material requirements planning. These open

documents clutter mission-critical systems and can lead to

inaccurate planning results. Documents closed from a business

perspective should also be closed in the system. The elimination

of these closed documents also reduces database volume.

focuS on trAnSPArEncy, AutoMAtion, AnD A clEAn SyStEM

caees Bsess Pess impveme

caees gas

Lack of

global

transparency

Increase process standardization

enterprise-wide

Reduce process diversication

Ensure compliance with process

template

High process

costs

Automate business processes

Reduce ineciencies and human

errors associated with manual

processes

Avoid systematic process exceptions

Ineective docu-

ment processing

Increase customer satisfaction by

eliminating delays in processing

documents related to deliveries or

shipments

Avoid nancial losses due to delayed

invoices or payments

System clutter Continually update the status of busi-

ness documents in your SAP software

Close all documents within your sys-

tem that are closed from a business

perspective


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5MaximizeBusinessProcessEciencyWhileMinimizingProcessCosts

How Does SAP Help You Meet These Challenges?

5

rEly on thE continuouS QuAlity chEck SErVicE of SAP EntErPriSE SuPPort

SAP Enterprise Support oers a continuous quality check

(CQC) service for businessprocessanalysis,monitoring,

ad mpveme. The CQC service can identify potential

improvements in your core business processes and the SAP

software that supports them specically, the SAP ERP,

SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM), and

SAP Supplier Relationship Management (SAP SRM) applica-

tions. During this service, you will get to know the tools that

support proven SAP methodology for business processimprovement.

initiAl EVAluAtion

As a rst step, experts from the SAP Active Global Support

(SAP AGS) organization conduct an initial analysis of the

business processes supported by your SAP ERP, SAP CRM, or

SAP SRM application. This helps you identify dierent problem

areas such as inactive or out-of-date documents, process design

gaps (for example, conguration errors or missed closing steps

in business documents), standardization issues, or the lack of

business-user training. Based on the results of this analysis,

you can select the specic processes such as order to cash

or procure to pay that demonstrate the greatest potential for

improvement. With the preliminary analysis, you can already

see not only the potential for improvement but also the signi-

cance of SAPs business process improvement methodology

an issue-oriented approach to measure process performance.

BuSinESS ProcESS iMProVEMEnt MEthoDology

Next, SAP AGS applies proven SAP methodology for businessprocess improvement to maximize your software ROI and pro-

cess eciency (see Figure 1). This methodology consists of the

following ve steps.

StepOneDene

During this step, you select key performance indicators (KPIs)

that support your chosen processes. We provide an extensive

set of problem-oriented KPIs that are ready to use. The KPIs

should be chosen based on business impact, probable benet,

estimated savings, and potential improvement in subprocess

lead times. During this step, you also identify the rst depart-

ment or unit for the initiative, gather requirements, and dene

target values.

Figure1:SAPMethodologyforBusinessProcessImprovement

Denesmall number of key

performance indicators (KPIs)

with process owners

(3-5 per process)

PerformRootCauseAnalysis

with process owners, IT, and

key users

Mease KPIs and review

data with process owners

and key users

impeme measures

with process owners,

IT, and key users

c and

sustain results

Bsess pess

analysis


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Sep tw Mease

Step two focuses on measuring the respective KPIs and

reviewing the results with process owners and key business

users. The measurements are drawn using the business pro-

cess monitoring and analytics functionality in the SAP Solution

Manager application management solution. During this step,

it is essential to incorporate the feedback of business process

owners as well as IT colleagues in order to nd the system

setup tting your specic needs.

StepThreeAnalyze

In step three, your business and IT stakeholders analyze

the dierent root causes for deviations and exceptions from

expected business process performance determining, for

example, what led to a high backlog. Using the detailed analysis

functionality of SAP Solution Manager, we can provide a com-

prehensive list of all documents in backlog, along with the

ability to jump directly into an aected business document

for detailed root cause analysis.

Sep f impeme

This step includes the actual change and adaptation of the

business process based on the implementation of counter-

measures to correct the underlying issues. Working closely

with SAP experts, your project team denes and executes

actions to reinstall or adjust business process designs. For

each root cause identied, one or more action items must be

created, including the assignment of deadlines and

responsibilities.

Sep fve c

The nal step focuses on controlling and sustaining results

such as reduced document backlog using the trend analysisfunctionality of SAP Solution Manager (see Figure 2). Addition-

ally, the team sets up monitoring and alerting functionality for

the respective business process to stabilize the new level of

process performance and improve process eciency and

eectiveness. This is managed by dening thresholds and

alerting the appropriately identied business person(s) in

case of critical deviations.

In addition, business process operations (BPO) dashboards

can provide an overview of a specic business topic (such as a

business process) or business area. All information needed by

the executive user is available at a glance on a single screen.

BPO dashboards can be used as a management tool to quickly

gain insight into selected KPIs. The setup of BPO dashboards is

part of the expert-guided implementation service for business

process improvement available from SAP AGS.

fe 2: red Dme Ba Pa 2

1500

1250

1000

750

500

250

Day, Month

Ordersinphasereleas

ed

10 11 12 01 02 03 04 05

Pa 1

Pa 2

Trend analysis


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Benets You Can Expect

7

iMProVE your BuSinESS ProcESSES AnD roi in SAP SoftWArE

To improve business performance, process-driven companies

like yours must maximizeprocesseciencyand minimize

pess ss. That means your core business processes

along with the systems that support them should be stabi-

lized and improvedcontinuouslyto optimize the return on

your initial investment. By relying on SAP Enterprise Support

to analyze, monitor, and improve your key business processes

and related software via the CQC service, you can achieve

these objectives and enable real performance improvements

gloBAl trAnSPArEncy

The CQC service includes internal benchmarking that reveals

how business units throughout your enterprise handle busi-

ness processes. This benchmarking makes it fairly simple and

fast to identify the best organizational units to serve as role

models in rolling out best practices. Additionally, the CQC

service provides out-of-the-box KPIs that signicantly reduce

the high manual eort normally required to gather the same

information. Consider the impact of these KPIs in nance.

All nance departments must identify open items for major

accounts before period-end closing. The predened KPIs auto-

mate the analysis of open items and let your nance teams see

immediately which accounts and which legal entities are

aected.

grEAtEr ProcESS EfficiEncy

Through the CQC service, you can increase process eciency

by identifying process steps that are currently wasting valuable

resources, like systemresources. For example, too many old

yet still open production orders have a negative impact on pro-

cessing time during period-end closing. Thats because they

will still be considered for calculations that are no longer rele-

vant, such as work in progress, overhead costs, reservation

planning, and capacity planning.

BenetsofBusinessProcessImprovementusingSAPEnterpriseSupport

Benets Examples

Global transparency Automate analysis of open items in nance (accounts payable, accounts

receivable, general ledger) across all legal entities to reduce manual eorts

Identify incomplete sales documents in all respective business units to avoid delays in the sales

and distribution process

Greater process

eciency

Identify old yet still open production orders that can negatively impact

processing time and delay period-end closing Eliminate manual steps and automate the execution of complete, accurate business processes,

avoiding a high postprocessing workload and increased selling, general, and administrative costs

Increased process

eectiveness

Improve revenue stream by eliminating invoice delays and generating

accurate invoices for all deliveries and orders

Increase customer satisfaction by conrming desired deliver dates with sales schedules

Minimize credit memos due to price corrections

Clean system Eliminate old yet still open planned orders and purchase orders that lead to inaccurate supply

chain planning

Reduce database size and cost


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Optimize the Performance of Core Business Processes

clEAn SyStEM thAtS in Sync With your BuSinESS

To achieve correct planning results and accurate business re-

porting, it is crucial to have a clean system meaning that

the systemreectsbusinessreality . For example, old yet still

open planning orders or purchase orders need to be closed

properly to ensure the accuracy of supply chain planning.

The CQC service helps ensure that all documents closed

from a business perspective are also closed in your system.In addition to enabling more accurate planning and reporting,

this also reduces the size and cost of your database.

The service can also help optimize a second valuable resource

workingtimeofemployees. By automating manual process

steps, the service helps free up time that employees can use

for vae-added aves. And by enabling the execution of

complete business processes that do not deviate from the

standard template, the service helps eliminate high manual

workload in postprocessing and decrease selling, general, and

administrative costs.

incrEASED ProcESS EffEctiVEnESS

By maximizing the eectiveness of your business processes,

the CQC service can help increase customer satisfaction. For

example, the success of your business depends on your ability

to deliver the right goods to your customers on time. The CQC

service can help ensure that your system processes all sales

orders and outbound deliveries in an accurate and timely

fashion to strengthen customer loyalty and minimize returns.

The service can also help increase your revenue stream and

minimize credit memos by enabling your system to generate

the proper invoice without delay for all sales orders and

deliveries.

During the recently performed continuous quality check business

process analysis and monitoring service, potential for business process

improvement has been identied. During a workshop, the results were

presented. However, we werent left alone with them. SAP showed us howto work with their tools in a structured way bringing business and IT

together to solve the issues that occurred in the past in a sustainable way.

Freddy Berghmans, Manager of Competence Center Applications, Fabory Group B.V.


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Optimize the Performance of Core Business Processes

SAlES orDErS

You can identify KPIs for incomplete sales orders, orders on

delivery block, orders on credit block, and outbound deliveries

overdue. Easy-to-interpret dashboards can then reveal how

seasonal peaks aect trends in backlog and throughput for

each KPI so you can take immediate action.

E-coMMErcE

If e-commerce orders are not processed promptly, it can have

a negative impact on credit card authorizations. Through the

CQC service, you can automatically generate e-mail notica-

tions when e-commerce orders are not processed within a

certain time period.

Through the CQC service, you can identify potential improve-

ments in the core business processes supported by your SAP

ERP, SAP CRM, or SAP SRM application.

orDEr to cASh

By setting up analytics for a KPI such as overdue deliveries,

the CQC service lets you identify the number of outstanding

deliveries overdue for each shipping point, determine their rootcauses, and accelerate the order-to-cash process.

The service further improves the order-to-cash process by

providing visibility into the root causes of credit memos.

ArchiVing

By providing visibility into which documents are incomplete,

open, or out-of-date, the CQC service enables you to archive

more eectively reducing database size and increasing

system performance. You can capture core statistics on open

business data and drill down into individual documents for

root cause analysis and processing.

Examples of Potential Business ProcessImprovements


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Expert-guided implementation Business process monitoring

Expert-guided implementation Stabilization (with a focus

on monitoring)

Expert-guided implementation Business process improve-

ment (with a focus on analytics)

For more information on expert-guided implementation services

from SAP AGS, visit www.sap.com/services/education

/catalog/solutionmanager.epx.

With a valid SAP Enterprise Support agreement, you also have

access to expert-guided implementation services from SAP

Active Global Support. These services oer direct guidance

from SAP experts in implementing best practices for projects

involving SAP Solution Manager. Combining classroom train-

ing, practical experience, and expertise on demand, the services

focus on the following areas:

Value-Added Services from SAP ActiveGlobal Support

Expert-Guided Implementation Services

The CQC service applies proven business process

improvement methodology from SAP enabling

you to increase business process eciency, minimize

process costs, and realize tangible performanceimprovements.
http://www.sap.com/services/education/catalog/solutionmanager.epxhttp://www.sap.com/services/education/catalog/solutionmanager.epxhttp://www.sap.com/services/education/catalog/solutionmanager.epxhttp://www.sap.com/services/education/catalog/solutionmanager.epx


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for MorE inforMAtion

To learn more about the CQC service for business process

analysis, monitoring, and improvement or about other SAP

solutions for business process management visit the SAP

Service Marketplace extranet at www.service.sap.com/bpm.

Improving core business processes while lowering the total

cost of ownership in the software that drives them is a com-

mon goal for IT and business professionals alike. By relying on

the CQC service of SAP Enterprise Support to analyze, monitor,

and improve your key business processes and related software,

you can achieve this goal. The CQC service applies proven busi-

ness process improvement methodology from SAP enabling

you to increase business process eciency, minimize process

costs, and realize tangible performance improvements. Flexiblein design, the service even supports industry-specic business

processes.

Conclusion

Ramp Up Process Eciency and Increase Your ROI in SAP Software

The continuous quality check service from SAP Enterprise

Support can unlock potential improvements in your core

business processes and the SAP software that supports

them specically, the SAP ERP, SAP CRM, and SAP SRMapplications.


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