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Value Release = Enhancement Pack = Upgrade.

The answer is performing multiple upgrades. SAP is going to be releasing two value releases a year which will include both new functionality and fixes. Although the switching functionality in SAP Business Suite 7 (ECC6) enables you to activate only the new features and functionality you want to deploy there is still a technical upgrade required. SAP has committed to this approach on ECC6 for the next 5 years to 2020. That means that there will be a possible 10 upgrades in the next 5 years. Even with a reduction in project duration (SAP claims a reduction in project duration from 21 to 8 weeks - 62%) due to the Enhancement Pack approach, this equates to 80 weeks of upgrade effort. So even with a conservative approach of one upgrade a year this is close to a year’s (40 weeks) worth of upgrade activity from multiple resources. By taking a five year view of costs we can see that even a 10% reduction in effort will result in hundreds of thousands in savings (or effort redirected to higher value activity). The savings are even greater when you begin factoring in multiple SAP systems.


So what is the call to action? As each upgrade is pretty much the same process it makes sense to design and implement a repeatable process. A best practice is to set-up a Maintenance Program of Work that can be approved once and provides the framework for supporting the repeatable activities. Along with this Program you can begin to map out a Roadmap of improvements to your Application Life-cycle Processes that will delivery even greater benefits and savings (watch out for my next post).  So with many customers gearing up for Enhancement Pack 7 in the next 6 months it is a great time to begin planning for what you will be doing for the next 5 years!


News

SAP NetWeaver 7.40 is the Last Release Supporting Non-Unicode. See Unicode Meet the Expert sessions below (replay of sessions available)

Replays of Solution Manager sessions from SAP TechEd && d-code - Las Vegas October 20-24:


EGI’s North America Schedule for November 2014:
Select all delivery methods and use the "Region" search filter to refine the search results.

Tool & Process Setup on SAP Solution Manager 7.1
Guided Self Service Execution (Also run as an EGI on below dates):Meet the Expert:
North America Schedule for December 2014:
Tool & Process Setup on SAP Solution Manager 7.1
Guided Self Service Execution (Also run as an EGI on below dates):Meet the Expert:
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