Optimizing business processes with SAP means more than just configuring software modules well. It means redesigning the way the business works, eliminating activities that do not add value, reducing cycle times, improving visibility into operations, and increasing the ability to respond quickly to change. SAP is the tool that enables this transformation-but the outcome depends on the quality of the analysis and process redesign work that precedes and accompanies the implementation.
Why process optimization is inseparable from SAP
Many companies that implement SAP without process optimization find themselves, after go-live, with a new system but with the same problems as before–only digitized. Digitizing an inefficient process does not make it efficient: it simply makes it faster in producing its negative results.
The time of SAP implementation or migration is the best opportunity to get your processes back on track: there is management attention, there are resources allocated, and there is user willingness to change the way they work. Missing it means having to tackle the optimization work later, with much less momentum and much more friction.
Process areas with the greatest potential for optimization
Proxy-to-pay cycle: from purchase requisition to supplier payment. Typical inefficiencies are lack of control over spending, long order approval times, and manual reconciliations between orders, bills, and invoices. SAP S/4HANA enables automation of these steps and real-time visibility into the entire cycle.
Order-to-cash cycle: from receipt of customer order to collection of payment. Delays in shipments, errors in invoices, slow claims handling-these are all inefficiencies that SAP can help eliminate with automated flows and integrated controls.
Planning and Production: the ability to plan production accurately, with visibility into material availability and production capacity, is one of SAP’s strengths for manufacturing companies.
Management control: the availability of real-time data enables controlling to monitor financial and operational performance with a frequency and level of detail impossible with traditional systems.
How Technis Blu tackles process optimization
Technis Blu has developed specific expertise over time in the analysis and redesign of processes within SAP projects. The organizational and process consulting service is based on established frameworks: lead to cash, design to operate, source to pay. These frameworks represent industry best practices that are adapted to the client’s specific reality, taking into account its operational peculiarities and business objectives.
To learn more specifically about process automation, read our article onautomating business processes with SAP.
The role of Quick Assessment in optimization
Before optimization, it is necessary to measure. A structured analysis of the current SAP system can identify where there are the greatest inefficiencies, which processes are natural candidates for optimization, and which interventions have the best ratio of expected impact to implementation complexity.
Want to optimize business processes with SAP and don’t know where to start? Request an SAP Quick Assessment to get a map of opportunities. Contact Technis Blu to learn more.
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