Accompanied by considerable fanfare, SAP co-CEO Leo Apotheker introduced an SAP Solution Manager module called the SAP Business Process Change Analyzer (SAP BPCA) at this year’s TechEd in Berlin. So, what’s behind it? Can the Business Process Change Analyzer fulfill the expectations that its name suggests?

The fact that SAP has even introduced the BPCA seems to indicate the value it has assigned to impact analysis. Impact analysis is, of course, a topic that has been addressed in various articles in the beteo blog.
Unfortunately SAP and its “Business Process” Change Analyzer, in contrast to beteo, deal exclusively with the technical analysis of transactions and programs. So, anyone who expects SAP’s analytical offering to include the overlying logical areas will be in for a long wait.

I have so far been unable to precisely analyze the technology behind the SAP BPCA. However, one can already make certain technological assumptions based on the available screenshots. It appears that BPCA is based on a run-time analysis, which makes it impossible to conduct impact analysis directly in the corresponding production environment. The result, in my assessment, is that only corresponding predefined scenarios can be analyzed with BPCA. Honestly, who today wants to restrict themselves to such procedures when performing analysis?

The question we must ask is why SAP didn’t turn to “standard” analysis tools like LiveCompare from Intellicorp, Panaya from Panaya Inc., RBE from IBIS or CIT for SAP from HP. These are based on “smarter” approaches to impact analysis and impact management, and their merits have been proven through real-world usage.

Summary: SAP Business Process Change Analyzer (SAP BPCA)

Once again, on paper SAP’s BPCA satisfies most of the items found on typical request for proposal (RFP) checklists pertaining to impact analysis. However, upon closer scrutiny many higher expectations that customers have regarding a bona-fide business process change analyzer have not been met.

I was fortunate to attend various presentations on the topic of SAP’s solution management at SAP TechEd 2008 Berlin.

My expectations regarding SAP solution management would be that SAP could finally take on the task of solution management for specific customer implementation scenarios, and that it would do so in a comprehensive manner. Sadly, this has not yet been achieved. Even after visiting the solution management presentations I was disappointed to find that even though the SAP Solution Manager does fulfill the requirements to manage a standard SAP system, key functions pertaining to the solution management of specific SAP customer implementations are missing.

Apparently the Solution Manager, with respect to SAP, remains primarily a gateway to the customer’s infrastructure. It allows the lifecycle management of the SAP standard software to be safeguarded in an optimized way.

SAP’s marketing, however, cleverly packages the Solution Manager as a comprehensive lifecycle management solution for specific SAP customer environments, even though basic requirements for bona-fide solution management using SolMan—such as customization version control or dependency management among individual software components—are nonexistent. This is all the more surprising because, for the standard SAP system, such functions are already implemented in the SAP CIM model.

Clever marketing messages that tout functionalities such as SAP ChaRM and SAP CTS+ produce a situation where customers pay barely any attention to the actual challenges that SAP ChaRM and SAP CTS+ must confront in regard to competing change request management and the consistent deployment of heterogeneous components. These are just two examples of individual functions through which SAP marketing attempts to convey that it comprehensively addresses the real-world, day-to-day challenges of competing operations- and project-related business transactions.

I wonder which customers truly use plain vanilla, non-customized SAP systems, since the need for changes will be obvious the moment such systems are used live. That establishes the need for real SAP solution management, meaning SAP lifecycle management. The SAP customer system does exist, but unfortunately product management for the SAP Solution Manager  hasn’t understood that yet.

Summary: Lifecycle Management with the SAP Solution Manager

It is somewhat disillusioning that SAP still hasn’t directed the SAP lifecycle management toward solution management for its thousands of different customer implementations. Despite the potential benefits for all SAP customers, the lifecycle management solution bearing the wonderful name of Solution Manager is still mainly a software logistics-specific bridgehead for SAP standard software.

One should consider that every customer implementation is unique and ultimately requires modern standardized procedures and standard solution management tools. Perhaps there is some benefit to the fact that compliance requirements are increasingly compelling customers to utilize more fully developed SAP solution management processes and solutions that implement for example customization version control. Admittedly, it would be desirable if SAP could take care of this in the standard Solution Manager. In any event, it would certainly be possible.

N.B.: beteo has implemented comprehensive SAP solution management for actual customer implementations based on standard processes and standard software, for example HP PPM. Instead of implementing SAP solution management for every customer individually, in addition to Solution Manager, it might make sense to have beteo scope out a potential Solution Manager project with SAP Solution Manager’s product management. We always consider our customers’ requirements.

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