Authors: George W. Anderson, Charles D. Nilson, Tim Rhodes, et al.
Publisher: SAMS Publishing (http://informit.com/sams)
Published: May 2009 (part of the Unleashed series of books)
ISBN-10: 0-672-33004-0
ISBN-13: 978-0-672-33004-9
Format: Soft cover, 888 pages (plus access to a free online edition for 45 days with purchase of the hard copy version of the book)
Price: $62.99
Implementing SAP
Although only three authors' names appear on the cover of the book, "SAP Implementation Unleashed: A Business and Technical Roadmap to Deploying SAP", the reality is that there were, in fact, a total of ten people involved in writing this book about how to best implement SAP in your organization. Those ten authors all have experience with SAP albeit in differing roles, whether it be as a SAP project manager, a senior technical consultant who is familiar with the entire SAP systems lifecycle, an enterprise IT architect with a special interest in SAP, or as a functional consultant who has been involved in various SAP implementations in areas like Supply Chain Management, Business Intelligence, and ERP solutions, and so on. Their collective goal in writing "SAP Implementation Unleashed: A Business and Technical Roadmap to Deploying SAP" was to show readers of the book how to be successful with SAP implementation by "doing it right" and by "doing it better".
In order to "do it right", the book's authors first acknowledge the pain associated with implementing SAP by reminding readers that "end users will be changing both their tools and they way they work. Managers and other decision makers will be changing processes with which they've grown comfortable over the years. Better information will drive these new processes faster, too, bringing with them a different set of issues. And behind all of this, IT organizations will find themselves deploying and managing the most critical suite of companywide business applications they've ever seen. All this change is akin to growth; awkward crawling and hesitant walking at first, followed by a bit of stumbling and a certain amount of falling and getting back up again. Like learning to walk, implementing SAP comes with its share of bruises."
The authors of "SAP Implementation Unleashed: A Business and Technical Roadmap to Deploying SAP" also remind us that "SAP is everywhere, helping companies change the way they do business, essentially changing their world." So it's a fairly safe bet that your company's competitors are already using SAP. Therefore, from the perspective of "doing it better", the book's authors stress that "you'll need to innovate beyond the business innovation that comes with implementing SAP's business scenarios and well-integrated applications. Through the very way you deploy SAP and prepare your teams to manage, use, and maintain SAP post go-live, you must find ways to innovate. You'll need to innovate on all fronts, from the way you conduct business, to technical and technology matters, process matters, and even project management approaches and methodologies; it's these innovations that together will fuel your ascent a rung or two higher than your competition."
The readership that "SAP Implementation Unleashed: A Business and Technical Roadmap to Deploying SAP" is directed at is diverse in its makeup, and includes organizations' executives and their key stakeholders, business analysts, SAP configurators, and SAP power users, as well as, of course, those IT professionals who already are, or who will soon be, involved in planning, designing, testing, and deploying the SAP technical infrastructure within their organizations. The book's authors point out that a key strength of their book is that "it contains enough material to satisfy beginners, intermediate readers, and long-time SAP experts without 'dumbing down' the content." Hence the rather sizeable length of the book that comes in at just under 900 pages.
The information contained in "SAP Implementation Unleashed: A Business and Technical Roadmap to Deploying SAP" has been divided up into four major "reading" parts, with the last section of the book being a "reference" part (an appendix) that, in turn, consists of a couple of chapters. The first of these appendix chapters contains the answers to the ongoing case study that is used throughout the entire book, with the objective of the case study being to both demonstrate and reinforce the SAP concepts, ideas and strategies being presented. The authors of the book have carefully designed the case study to provide "a real world flavor from several roadmap perspectives – project management, business/functional development, and technology." To achieve that goal, they have included, as stated in the book's introduction, "practical examples, actual customer lessons learned, real-life explanations, tips and tricks, common mistakes you need to avoid." The second chapter in the appendix consists of twenty odd pages of an assortment of both SAP and more general IT acronyms that you can expect to encounter when dealing with this particular technology. Just a few examples of the acronyms typically applied to SAP are LE: "Logistics Execution" (SAP ERP module); MII: "Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence"; NWDI: "NetWeaver Development Infrastructure"; and TDMS: "Test Data Migration Server". On a lighter note, the book's authors have also included a humorous series of explanations of the SAP acronym itself, these being "Shut up And Pay"; "Select Another Package"; "Say Another Prayer"; "Suffering And Pain"; "Salary Advancement Program"; "Scare A Programmer"; and "Slow And Pointless"!
The titles of, plus an overview, of each of the four major parts of the book's contents are as follows:
• Part 1: "Setting the Stage": Even if you have previous experience with SAP, I recommend that you don't skip the opening part of the book. That's because the information presented there builds the foundation upon which the rest of the book is subsequently built. It is also here too that the case study, mentioned above, is first introduced along with a series of opening questions about the case study. To get an immediate feel for the manner in which the book has been written, I suggest too that you take a look at the book's introduction, plus its first chapter titled "What It Means to Implement SAP", both of which are available online for reading from the site of the book's publisher, SAMS Publishing (http://informit.com/sams). Whilst visiting that site, you can also browse the book's Table of Contents plus its index.
• Part 2: "Getting Started": This is the part of the book where its readers can learn about the different managerial and technical aspects involved with a successful SAP implementation, beginning with assembling a competent SAP project management team, with the right sort of leadership in place, through to knowing about the organizational factors associated with high SAP availability and disaster recovery. Just some other examples of the technical topics covered in this part of the book are the part's last three chapters that are respectively devoted to the SAP platform sizing process; the training of SAP staff; and the development of the SAP data center.
• Part 3: "SAP Realization/Functional Development": The focus in this part of the book is on the "nuts and bolts" of SAP implementation with chapters here devoted to topics such as preparing for SAP component installations; installing SAP NetWeaver components; installing SAP Business Suite components; functional configuration change control; and functional, integration, and regression testing.
• Part 4: "Planning for Go-Live": According to the book's authors, they wrote this last part of their book to specifically address "infrastructure, technical change control, load testing, and essential operational considerations that must be addressed well before the SAP system is ready for productive use. The final chapter goes so far as to outline the events and tasks immediately preceding SAP go-live – tasks that should help create a smooth transition from the firm's old way of doing business to its new, SAP-enabled enterprise business solution."
In conclusion, I agree wholeheartedly with the book's authors when they strongly state that "implementing SAP continues to be one of the most complex undertakings in the world of business applications and information technology." However, they are also quick to stress too that, "based on the sheer number of new implementations in the past several years, the rewards apparently continue to outweigh the effort. SAP enables companies to transform themselves and, in doing so, remain both viable and competitive." For your own organization to take full advantage of the potential that SAP has to offer, I recommend that you begin, or continue, your exploration of SAP by adding "SAP Implementation Unleashed: A Business and Technical Roadmap to Deploying SAP" to your list of "must read" technical and business books.