SAP Professional Services brings new IT functionality to SA

Recently appointed director of professional services at SAP SA, Brian Twiggs, is repositioning the division to reflect the new directions in information technology (IT) that are being driven by new technologies, new IT skills and new attitudes to the business-enabling power of technology.

"The Y2K crisis triggered most organisations to update or replace their IT systems. That done, they're now able to focus on using their systems to create business value," Twiggs says.

"At the same time, as technology has matured, a great deal of new functionality has become possible. At SAP alone, 8 500 developers are writing new code every day. It's up to divisions like ours to convert that continuous stream of innovation into value for our clients. We also need to localise the innovation to fit South African circumstances and feedback to our developers changes that this market may need.

"All of which changes the way SAP Professional Services needs to operate. Headcount won't change much - beyond new heads of business strategy, IT strategy and enterprise architecture. I'm much more interested in adjusting our focus in two critical areas.

"I believe we should be packaging complete solutions for clients, tailored to their industry, sector and particular business needs. And we should be focused exclusively on adding value - through the development, base-lining and monitoring of value propositions such as advance planning and optimisation or supplier relationship management. Because we have the special insight that comes from being part of an organisation that both drives and delivers technology innovation, we have to ensure that it gets to our clients all the way through a solution's lifecycle - from identifying the need through sales and implementation to training project teams and end-users, and supporting them going forward.

"But, we can't do it on our own. There just aren't enough of us. And, in any case, most complete solutions have a number of levers that must be in place, involving a range of different suppliers. So, part of our new focus will be to keep our business partners up to date not only on new functionality - helping them get it to clients at less cost and at significantly less risk than in the past - but also the means of extracting a better return from clients' existing technology investment.

"Specifically, a great deal of the new functionality centres on planning, especially demand planning - making the future more manageable and predictable and thereby driving up sustainability and growth.

"Of necessity, demand planning impacts the procurement process, in terms both of innovative procurement and creating and managing the kinds of long-term relationships and contracts needed to make continuous, coherent demand planning actually work.

"These are new skills. So we're investing in retraining our existing 200 staff members in these and other fresh disciplines. Our people have very deep technical skills, gleaned over many years of SAP implementations in thousands of organisations in all industries. We'll combine those skills with industry insight and business strategy disciplines - to deliver the most relevant, effective solutions to clients."

Twiggs also intends exploiting the value to clients of the SAP graduate programme - in which up to 20 graduates, with an emphasis on those from disadvantaged backgrounds, are employed by SAP and fast-tracked into revenue-generating positions. "Equipping someone to generate revenue very early in their career develops to a very high degree their sense of self-worth, commitment to the organisation and, crucially, their commitment to ensuring client value. We get superb employees, they get a superb career and our clients get superb service and advice.

"Everything we will do from now will be focused on enhancing our own and, therefore, client and business partner capability and, accordingly, their ability to control the future."