My SAP journey of 30 years

Thirty years (!) ago I was on the plane heading to Brussels.  A four weeks IBM SAP Consultant course was about to start. I have made a long career as a certified SAP Fico professional working as consultant, controller and in corporate IT.  Reinventing the wheel is the one thing that has astonished me most. SAP courses and online documentation were never detailed enough. Most of the SAP documents answered the question WHAT,  not HOW. Or WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Everything had to be learned the hard way relying on Google, trial and error and colleagues. When the knowledge is in the consultant's head, binders and private files, it is lost when they quit or retire.  Next generation starts from the beginning.  Only Google has gotten wiser. Google AI seems to have swallowed all the SAP documents and Community questions with answers. In most cases it gives very good answers. Just remember to specify whether you are interested in SAP erp or s/4. Over the years SAP has changed and evolved many times. Now it's time for a big jump. It is the beginning of HANA era.  

  My last project was a HANA/Fiori implementation, where my role was CO consultant. There were some challenges related to Fiori, but the CO behind that was the same as before. The database change was not visible to users. Experienced SAP users will have no problem to move over to HANA. Also the old familiar menu could be found. SAP has extended their end-of-support deadline from 2025, but staying behind and clinging to the past will eventually cost you in lack of support and higher maintenance costs. In case you own a huge data storage dating from go-live over twenty years ago, you should also give serious consideration to data archiving as first step of your HANA-migration plan.          

Where is SAP now?

The SAP user interface has changed over the years from a gray screen to sky blue and Fiori boxes. Behind the “icing” the system feels pretty much like it always did. The changed tables and table structures (faglflext, acdoca, etc) don’t mean much to users.  They can continue as before. Often without training, other than in the initial implementation project that was years ago. This trend seems not to change. The skills deteriorate gradually, when new users are virtually on their own. User instructions, if there are any, are not updated since initial implementation. I am not against authorizations, but find it odd that IT decides what controllers can do in the system. If they are entitled to the information, they should be allowed to have access to it. This is often prevented, when IT blocks transactions they don't even know. Companies pay millions for integrated erp systems and then prevent the use of it.

Many SAP customers still work with the traditional SAP ERP system. They may have updated the technical system to latest versions, but the applications are in their original state. Not all customers have new general ledger, know what document splitting is, or run new asset accounting. Not all customers have BW, BO and BPC. This creates a dilemma. SAP and SAP consultant companies and individual consultants all invest in the new. In the early days of SAP you could trust your system in the hands of almost any certified consultant. Today you should know more of the background of the consultants. Have they even seen a configuration like yours? If not, they could damage your system. Same applies to documentation.