Delighting SAP Users? 40 Starting Points from IT and Business

At Mindset, we’re never confused with the classic Systems Integrator.  We speak at SAPPHIRE and ASUGs on SAP UX best practices and cases, and we’re the only SAP partner AppHaus in the US. Further, we are leading Design Thinking workshops daily somewhere. We never cut code without Design Thinking. We employ great Designers, UX design Architects, and Developers. Additionally, we have delivered hundreds of SAP Fiori and SAP-integrated apps.  

We are also gung-ho about client satisfaction.  Every project, sprint recital, and consultant is measured from a Net Promoter perspective.  Currently, we’re tracking in the 80-85 range after finishing 2018 at 72.  (For those not familiar with Net Promoter Scores, it is a widely used benchmark that measures the loyalty of an organization’s customers. The scores range from -100 to +100, so a “positive” score or NPS above 0 is considered “good”, +50 is “Excellent,” and above 70 is considered “world-class”). 

It’s simplistic to attribute our Client Satisfaction to only Design Thinking-first, or to be 100% SAP focused, or our delivery process, or another variable.  However, I think it starts with our FIRST interaction with a new enterprise client, and our ability to be relevant, concise, and valuable from the FIRST meeting.

To do this we qualify the issues a bit more than is typical, and we then assign the right UX design Architects, DevOps leaders, Designers, or others to that first call.   It’s not enough to show up and just listen – we tailor the team, and the team tailors with app prototypes, workflow, and architecture examples ready to share – if needed –  based on their pre-meeting feedback. 

As many SAP functional and technical personnel are new to SAP Fiori, or like their business partners are getting ready for it with S/4HANA in mind, they often need a little help in understanding what to think about or ask for in that first call.  We find it helpful to share a list of first call topics – here are 40 that we’ve captured over the past few years, including: 

1. Review current key & UX-focused initiatives in flight and planned. 
2. Understand architecture and business priorities.
3. Review 3 year plan for SAP and IT initiatives.
4. Develop UX decision tree with particular focus on when to use Fiori vs. other approaches.
5. Provide Fiori direction, capabilities, and roadmap information independent of SAP relative to client assumptions.
6. Outline relative strengths and applicability SAP Fiori vs Xamarin and/or React alternatives (as well as native iOS)
7. Align user research with Fiori capabilities (present and future), including SAP Client’s key modules (i.e. EWM, Fashion Management, EHS, etc.).
8. Align with model company approach.
9. Design Thinking – the role, deliverables, and business partner impact.
10. Evaluation of Real-time vs Batch-run Fiori Apps.
11. Evaluation for fit and design of offline capabilities within Apps.
12. Evaluation of standard vs custom Fiori Apps.
13. OOTB S/4 Fiori fit or assessment.
14. Mindset’s Fiori App Analyzer leverage.
15. Advisory on Fiori fit with current SAP portfolio (ie. SC, TM, MM, WM, Vistex, etc.) – including examples or ‘art of the possible prototypes.
16. UX design standards.
17. Cost and delivery timeline estimations for UX design options.
18. UX recommendations by application and recommended timing by priority and ROI.
19. Understand and align on the strategic vision for User Experience initiatives.
20. Review key technical architecture, toolsets, and patterns in place at the Client.
21. Understand existing User Experience & Design guidelines and processes.
22. How to partner with the Client UX & Creative team to ensure all deliverables align to brand and design standards.
23. Key use cases/persona for mobile apps.
24. Best practices regarding using Fiori v Personas.
25. Key issues/limitations of Fiori and how to address them within the context of the client.
26. Modern framework recommendations for integration when going outside of SAP.
27. Recommendation for the ideal toolkit to support.
28. Decision models to create/extend/go outside of SAP & other architecture considerations.
29. UX best practices in model company process. 
30. Recommendation for user research (degree of research – upfront/qualitative/user validation approach/quantitative).
31. Recommended touch-points with end users in typical process with SAP tools.
32. ROI and Payback considerations/examples.
33. Proving the value of SAP GUI v Fiori with the business.
34. How to run a Fiori Day or Lunch & Learn for your business partners.
35. Will Fiori on ECC transfer to S/4HANA, and how? 
36. Using GCP or Cloud Provider to deliver Fiori Apps?
37. How much can be delivered by a Fiori DevOps team over time, and what’s the team makeup?
38. Per Sprint delivery benchmarks (cost/time/points) of deliverables normalized across Clients.
39. How do we ramp up the skills needed for a Fiori-proficient delivery team? 
40. Change Management: some users are reluctant to move from SAPGUI – how to address this? 

To ultimately delight enterprise users with consumer-grade usability, we first need to ensure IT and their Business Partners are aware of what’s possible and practical.  Focusing on their needs from the first interaction is a Mindset best practice, and ultimately a Client Satisfaction driver.

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