Take the Guesswork Out of Your Next SAP Upgrade -
Lay the Foundation for Success with Services from SITA

As organizations look to upgrade their SAP environments, they tend to be so focused on how to do the upgrade that they forget to clearly outline why they want to upgrade. The most crucial underpinnings of a successful upgrade project, however, are proper planning and smart execution.

To help companies complete these critical steps, SITA CORP has designed Uptrak, an upgrade assessment tool that not only helps you execute your upgrade project, but build a strategic upgrade plan as well.

The 7 Tenets of Upgrade Planning

At SITA, we've found that the key to successful planning is to establish a formal upgrade assessment, which should run for two to three weeks. This will help your company:

• Decide if it is looking for a strategic, functional, or technical upgrade. Knowing this will allow you to determine more easily your company's business goals and the KPIs needed to measure their success.
• Fully assess the inventory of all specialized customizations in your current SAP environment. Uptrak scans your SAP system for these custom modifications and sorts them by development class and level of complexity. This information is important for accurately estimating how long an upgrade will take.
• Identify the new features and functions that your organization wants to implement and determine how the changes will affect your business.
• Outline a detailed project plan with scheduled tasks, making sure you leave a buffer (about 20% of your total project time) for any unexpected activities that may occur.
• Evaluate the system architecture that you will be using, including the hardware and the transport strategy.
• Define a go-live strategy, including a downtime plan and a contingency plan.
• Establish a training plan to update internal employees about the new technology or redefined business processes.

Executing the Upgrade

With years of experience dealing with SAP upgrades, SITA's team of consultants can also help you execute key upgrade phases, such as:

• Demonstrating the business value of your upgrade: Focus on business pain points and evaluate how your planned upgrade version will solve them. It's important to show your business the value it will gain from the upgrade - by activating new functionality for a pilot group to demonstrate the solution's potential, for example.
• Setting up development environments and quality assurance systems: It's wise to design parallel development and quality assurance environments in which to perform your upgrade tests. To keep a pulse on all the tasks and goals that you want to complete, we recommend using Uptrak for tracking purposes at this crucial stage of the process.
• Testing: Allocate 50% to 60% of your project time for testing, and test multiple times to reduce downtime and mitigate risk during go-live. It's also a good idea to use SAP Solution Manager as your corporate testing tool.
• Going live: This involves setting up contingency plans, backing up systems, and even setting up a call center to address any post go-live questions from end users.

Consult Experienced Advisors

There are many reasons to upgrade your company's SAP environment. And with the right tools and advisors, your company can pinpoint its goals to best plan and execute the upgrade process.

For more information on Uptrak, visit www.sitacorp.com/uptrak. And to learn more about SITA's consulting services, visit www.sitacorp.com/upgrade.html.