Keeping pace with complex changes in technology is a challenge you face every day. Your current work force is burdened with supporting existing older applications. Developing future technology represents another challenge and added risk to your company's operations.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) demands that you continually look for ways to improve productivity, reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) and achieve a faster return on your technology investment. But properly trained ERP resources are difficult to find and retain. That's why you need to find a systems integrator with the skills needed to support your ERP endeavors, whether they are implementation, upgrades, consolidation or enhancement. Your ERP initiative requires a project management approach designed with a focus on:
- Usability
- Scalability
- Consideration of industry standards
- Reducing your company's total cost of ERP expenditures
Whether you need to integrate a cluster of disparate enterprise systems that are costly to maintain and support or have an enterprise application implemented to replace a less than optimal legacy application, you need a partner that can help you design strategies for reducing operating costs.
Integrating Best-In-Class Technology
HP is the partner that can help you reach your goals. Our Enterprise Application Implementation Services have the skill set, discipline and vision to provide you with the implementation, upgrade, consolidation or enhancement services your company needs. EAIS provides the business, technical and project management expertise to effectively deploy the capabilities of your complex business applications.
To meet your company's business requirements while properly and fully utilizing application capabilities, we provide the necessary deep application functional and technical knowledge. Proven HP project and development methodologies deliver accurate and timely results. Using proven ERP methodologies, fully addresses application and technical details and provides a common approach and terminology.
Your HP team includes global ERP resources, close partnerships with SAP and Oracle, and years of experience deploying enterprise systems with industry-specific configurations.
Our relationships with SAP and Oracle allow us to offer a unique combinations of tools and methods to provide the right solution for your business. In fact, HP is the only company that has access to some of SAP's own internal tools.
Our service focuses on implementations, upgrades, consolidations and enhancements of the ERP application to meet the needs of the business functions that support your company's enterprise operations. Because your company's goals and application landscape is unique, our resources work with you to establish a project strategy focused on meeting your objectives and minimizing costs.
To make sure your project is a success and cost effective, we focus on:
- Developing a project strategy that balances immediate needs and budgets with the future deployment of additional ERP capabilities
- Aligning your company's business processes to ERP functionality
- Fully exploiting ERP features to minimize customizations
- Implementing best practices as a foundation for standard processes
- Evaluating the ERP application road map in the context of your company's objectives and advise you accordingly
- Using HP offshore, near-shore and onshore capabilities to reduce cost
- Deploying ERP applications within a robust and scalable technical architecture
HP evaluates your current business, applications and technical architectures to create a road map from your current environment to your desired enterprise application environment. But our EAIS portfolio goes beyond implementation, upgrades, consolidation and enhancement; we also provide ongoing program management, including system updates and incident reporting and tracking, and other activities. We have the expertise to design, build and manage solutions that drive down your total cost of ownership and maximize your information technology's (IT) business value. Our strategy, Designed for Run™, considers the function and expense of your IT systems and applications as a whole. It also charts a complete course to meet your goals and implement a measured modernization process while anticipating the cost of operating your entire system over its lifetime.
EAIS Delivery Methodologies
EAIS uses key methodologies to provide the complete structure for our ERP implementation, upgrade, consolidation and enhancement services.
Implementation Methodology
A successful implementation project depends on a clear understanding of the approach and the project scope of the work. During project initiation and detailed planning we embed the methodology frameworks into a concise project plan. Then we detail the project plan to define the scope of the applications implemented, the supported business functions and the joint project team responsibilities.
Following a clear definition of the scope of work, we work with you to craft a project strategy that balances immediate needs with future plans of maximizing ERP capabilities.
Upgrade Methodology
HP ERP application upgrade services provide the functional and technical expertise you need to address issues associated with a complex application upgrade. Our approach to ERP upgrades addresses the following:
- Business process impact
- Technical architecture requirements and analysis
- Database administrator support
- New functionality implementation
Upgrades are conducted in four stages:
- Planning and Assessment
- Functional Definition and Technical Environment Setup
- Upgrade Execution
- Cutover
Planning and Assessment Phase
The Planning and Assessment phase has the following components:
- Project Plan
- HP develops a project plan collaboratively with you that details:
- Application scope
- Training requirements
- Functional upgrade issues
- New functionality to implement customizations to port to the new release
- Technical architecture requirements
- Considerations regarding your company's business cycles
- Upgrade processing time limits
- Training Assessment
- A clarification of the extent of changes driven by the new release and requirements for both functional and technical training. The assessment also specifies effort drivers such as:
- The number of users
- Functional and technical roles
- Business processes
- User locations
- Past training
In addition, the assessment clarifies what you want in regards to the use of future training materials and its related delivery medium.
- Financial Setup Review
- We review your requirements for the setup of the applications to reflect current and future needs for financial and operational organization structure. We work with you to fully acquaint your project team with the capabilities provided by ERP. And we inform you if the changes you need exceed the standard upgrade process.
- Functionality
- Through working sessions with your project team, we acquaint you with changes in functionality represented by a move from your current ERP environment to the new release. During this review we solidify a common understanding of what you want as it relates to expanding your use of the upgraded applications.
- Customizations
- If you've made customizations to your ERP applications, a joint examination of your custom object libraries is required to fully understand the customizations. We review new ERP release functional and technical capabilities, and make a decision regarding what steps to take for the customization's future.
Functional Definition and Technical Environment Setup Phase
The Functional Definition and Technical Environment Setup phase has the following components:
- Business Process Review
- HP works with you to define the key business processes used to validate and test the new application environment. You identify the processes and representative data used in transaction and report processing. Existing documentation is typically referenced and reused.
- Functional Upgrade Review
- As part of the overall upgrade process, specific business activities are performed within the applications. These activities technically prepare the application data for the upgrade by verifying that certain background processes have been completed or that documents, such as purchase orders or accounts payable (AP) invoices, are not a stage not addressed by the upgrade processing.
- For each functional area, HP reviews with your team members the upgrade activities required for the applications in use, when those activities are executed in the course of the upgrade process and who from your staff executes those activities.
- Technical Environment Setup
- A new ERP release may introduce needed changes to the overall technical architecture. HP assesses the current production and development environments and makes the necessary recommendations for:
- Required operating system and database upgrades
- Network bandwidth impact
- The requirements to upgrade related third-party products
- We also define requirements for temporary data storage and upgrade processing and work with your management and technical personnel to allocate or procure the required resources.
Upgrade Execution Phase
The Upgrade Execution phase has the following components:
- Customizations Tuning
- Customizations made to a current ERP release are assessed to verify they provide the same results in the new release. HP first reviews manufacturer documentation on database and processing changes to identify if updates to certain customizations are expected. We then load the custom objects to the upgraded ERP test environment and execute those objects to test their various expected results. We review anomalies and update the code to validate that the customizations produce results per their original design.
- ERP Application Setup and Test
- The bulk of activities performed by HP personnel include the setup of new version applications, load of old version application data, application of patches and process testing.
- HP team members validate the configuration of the new version applications to reflect your company's current use of the applications and agreed-upon adjustments that are required to facilitate future planned use.
- HP team members and your personnel test the application environment using test scripts and test data. Key standard reports are pulled from the existing application environment prior to each data extract support upgrade processing. We then compare preupgrade report output to postupgrade report output. Similar testing is performed for outbound interfaces.
- Iterative Upgrade Cycles
- Upgrade processing is executed within a limited time frame to minimize your company's loss of application availability. To validate that the upgrade executes in a timely manner, multiple test upgrades are executed and required tasks are timed. As each upgrade cycle is executed, the team verifies that custom objects are properly loaded, interfaces are executed with the proper import/export file versions, and general upgrade processing and software patch application occur per plan.
- Each upgrade cycle is fine tuned to execute within the allowable time frame. Typically, three upgrade cycles plus a mock upgrade cutover precede the production upgrade. The team executes the mock upgrade in real time and validates the prescribed schedule.
- Acceptance Test
- You manage the acceptance test, which uses a subset of the test scripts and the preupgrade reporting and interfaces output. At the completion of the test, you provide us with formal approval that the upgraded test environment meets your expectations.
Cutover Phase
The Cutover phase has the following components:
- Final Cutover Preparations
- The team begins preparations for cutover, including coordinating batch and interface processing with related system administrators and freezing user access to the old environment to maintain data consistency.
- Team members review the final detailed upgrade plan to confirm that tasks are fully understood, task details are documented and team members understand task execution time frames. Training materials are finalized.
- User Training
- HP establishes a training instance based on the last environment used for the acceptance test. Your project team members and trainers are coached through the pilot processes using training material developed. This represents the broad application training for your project team members as trainers and progressively validates training material. The business processes identified for piloting and acceptance tests are used as the foundation for your company's business roles application training.
- Cutover
- Production upgrade processing is a carefully coordinated series of tasks the team has executed during the iterative upgrade cycles. Depending on a variety of factors such as application database size, required database upgrades – and the extent of software patching required – an upgrade takes three or more days. The upgrade processing progresses continually during this period. At the completion of all postupgrade tasks, you perform a functional review and provide us with the sign-off.
Consolidations Methodology
When your enterprise applications are consolidated, the benefits include an integrated application that provides a consistent user experience across all organizations, standardized processes and reduced application support costs.
Experienced HP staff performs the consolidation of your company's disparate ERP applications. Standardizing and streamlining the existing business and financial process are based on global best practices and ERP recommended models.
- Assessment and Planning
- Proper planning sets the tone for the success of your project. Many early decisions are made even though activation of some ERP modules does not occur until the rollout phase. Deciding early improves overall software functionality and avoids undesirable situations that are difficult to change.
- Instance Consolidation
- In this phase the HP team consolidates your existing ERP or legacy applications into one instance. The associated conversion and interface templates and coding are completed and the configuration template is refined to accommodate your organizations. Training materials are developed and the rollout plan is refined.
- Rollout
- The rollout phase implements the global design and appropriate business process across your company's organization. This phase includes implementing ERP applications to replace the individual environments.
- This phased approach validates the consistency of design across the implementation while providing flexibility for your unique requirements. During rollout HP trains your users, sets up security and printers and converts your company's specific data.
Enhancements Methodology
Your company's success in developing and deploying ERP enhancements depends to a large extent on consistent methodologies. To achieve this consistency, we provide you with life cycle procedures for major projects. Before a project, we provide you with the following:
- Assessment of the project
- Statement of work focused on scope, resources, duration
- Costs and project plan
Alliances
SAP Alliance
Through our alliances, SAP's market-leading enterprise application software and related business process solutions are complemented by HP's capabilities to deliver sustainable business value and reduce risk, while lowering cost and improving quality.
EAIS comprises a broad range of SAP implementation services such as the deployment of HR, financial and supply chain solutions.
HP's SAP Alliance combines two market leaders: SAP, the world's leading provider of business software solutions and HP, a global leader in enterprise applications management and hosting services. SAP provides end-to-end enterprise applications services and consulting and is HP's preferred partner for leveraged HR, finance & accounting and procurement BPO.
Most recently, HP and SAP announced a unique expansion of our relationship that brings greater value to our clients through a partnered consulting, selling and delivery model.This new level of partnership expands on HP's existing SAP capabilities and provides HP and our clients with proprietary tools, training and methodology on SAP application services to enhance our ability to deliver increased value to clients.
Oracle Alliance
HP and Oracle collaborate to accelerate and deliver best-in-class application development, management and implementation, built on Oracle's database, middleware and application software. HP and Oracle develop joint offerings that combine HP's best-in-class infrastructure and hosting services with Oracle's expertise in delivering flexible business solutions. In addition, Oracle's acquisitions of PeopleSoft and Siebel have extended its applications capabilities beyond the e-Business Suite. HP has more than 800 Oracle application professionals in seven Centers of Expertise (COEs) offering global 24/7 application implementation, management and hosting support.
Functional and Technical Expertise
Your ERP project effort requires the broad range of functional and technical skills that HP can provide. This includes resources experienced with ERP project management, the details of ERP application functionality and ERP development tools, as well as application technical architecture and business process improvement.
Functional Resources
EAIS maintains skilled functional resources to conduct business process modeling, mapping and application configuration. These resources manage the functional subproject team through the life cycle phases, covering module deployment tasks such as managing technical personnel focused on data conversion, interfaces, customizations and reporting. For specialized skills or when internal resources are unavailable, EAIS maintains relationships with contracting agencies to supply temporary resources.
Technical Resources
EAIS delivers highly skilled technical staff experienced with ERP technology stack and development tools. Our application developers and administrators perform the phases of application development from production/construction through optimization.
Technical resources participate in project quality assurance activities, such as project activity reports and issue status reports. For specialized skills or when internal resources are unavailable, EAIS maintains relationships with contracting agencies for temporary technical resources.
Project Managers
EAIS maintains experienced project managers for rapid deployment. The project manager is responsible for project management tasks, including leading the project team, assigning tasks, monitoring deliverables and schedules, and interfacing with your team.
Software Procurement
A nonresource-based service available from EAIS is ERP software procurement on your behalf. Our alliances allow us to obtain special price discounts for both SAP and Oracle products.
Additional Skills
To meet your requirements for your ERP project, HP provides a variety of skills for ancillary services, including:
- Assessment
- Package selection
- Infrastructure selection
- Business process analysis
- Testing
- Training
- Change management
- Data harmonization
- Business process harmonization
- Data consolidation for reporting
Package Selection
Your company has several options when it comes to choosing an ERP application to implement. Deciding which of the available packages is right for you can be challenging and time consuming. Because of our experience and alliances with the major ERP providers, we give you an informed recommendation, saving you time and ensuring that factors in the decision-making process are adequately considered.
We take a rigorous approach to commercial package software selection, conducting a requirements-based evaluation of commercial software capabilities against your needs and objectives. Our approach focuses on:
- The key and differentiating needs and issues that drive your software requirements. This helps to select the best possible software solution that, when properly implemented, provides efficient information management and minimizes required customization.
- Short- and long-term initiatives that drive selection criteria to help validate that business and technical strategies are supported.
- Implementation strategy and plans that reflect your company's key business objectives and represent achievable schedules while minimizing implementation costs and business disruptions.
We work with you to formulate a project implementation strategy and high-level plan. Our goal is to leave you with a better understanding of system implementation and life cycle costs as well as the ERP implementation project timing.
Risk Mitigation
When you consider the scope of business activities touched by an ERP system, the single most important factor in the success of an EAIS project is the level of business user involvement, from the executive sponsors to the end users. Extensive user involvement provides detailed insight into your company's current operations and business needs. Solution guidance, timely decision making and issue resolution, and the approval of detailed solution approaches help to verify that:
- The solution meets your company's business needs and expectations
- The project is on budget
- The project is on schedule
The HP team's approach to managing risks to these metrics is to identify perceived risks, real or potential, associated with your company's project and develop a strategy to monitor and mitigate each risk before it adversely impacts the project. Managing project risk is an ongoing process that is performed by the HP team throughout the project life cycle.
Service Levels
Enterprise Application Implementation Services provides you with a comprehensive approach to meeting your application implementation, upgrade, consolidation and enhancement needs and aligns it with your company's overall business strategy.
Choose HP
With your company's future on your mind daily, you need a partner to seamlessly improve its business performance with packaged business applications. HP can deliver on-time and on-budget services that will improve your company's business processes, optimize operational costs and minimize the risk to business continuity. You'll have the solution you need to help you keep pace with accelerating changes in ERP technology.For more information about what HP Enterprise Services can do for you, submit a business inquiry.