When creating a team to deliver a complex solution such as SAP, there is a very real need to have the most suitable and experienced people working at the highest levels, to bring together both the SAP solution knowledge and the clients business engineers.
SAP under former chief executive Leo Apotheker, focused on the importance of quality consulting to ensure successful and viable delivery of the SAP product – the, now famous, off record quote from Apotheker caused offence to many consulting houses by shifting the blame from SAP itself to its two global vendors – IBM and Accenture.
When apportioning blame it should be considered that the SAP solution has been implemented in most environments and has fitted into most global legal and accounting systems – however there are a comparatively high number of cases, where SAP implementations have failed.
Senior SAP consultants are often the individuals who are at the sharp end of issues between the three parties – SAP, implementation partner and the end customer. To this end, many of the senior consultants are starting to consider what issues may arise, when accepting positions within complex or failing projects.
The reason for taking this view, is based on historical evidence when a large IT project starts to fail, it is not uncommon for consulting houses to contract an outside expert to assess how to limit the damage or to turn the project around – this was always seen as a challenging prospect as consultants would have their business and SAP knowledge challenged to the fullest extent. However, with some of the high profile collapses of SAP projects, it has become increasingly common for these consultants to become inextricably linked with the failure of the project. The result of this, can often involve extensive legal cases and this is leading senior consultants who would normally become involved at this level, to avoid the work entirely.
If hired by an end customer, a senior consultant can often be brought in to assess both the size of the issue and the specific reasons for the impending collapse of the SAP implementation – this role has many different names but the core purpose of the role, is to identify the issues that will be used in either contract busting negotiations or legal proceedings – which ever is the result, the senior consultant has to understand, when negatively assessing a consulting houses SAP solution, they will be both creating friction with that consulting house and potentially leaving themselves open to become “expert witnesses” in court cases that can last for many months or years.
Neither of these are enticing to the senior freelance SAP consultants working in the market today – the employed SAP consultants, do not generally have this option, regardless of their seniority.
The senior consultants are now, not only demanding more from their SAP projects, but also being very careful with their reputation – as representing either side in one of these cases, can be very detrimental to the future prospects of any consultant. Sign up today and build your reputation!
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