What does a good SAP Business Assurance service look like?

For many organizations, a lack of SAP testing maturity, limited budgeting for end-to-end testing and not enough internal resources all pose a risk to business assurance as SAP continues to evolve. In the SAP Business Assurance Study, we use the findings from a global survey of SAP customers to assess these risks. We also analyze the adoption roadblocks, business assurance challenges and gaps, prevalence of automation, and much more, all of which we have covered in our series of blogs discussing the Study.

The role of external service providers

In this blog, we look at the findings relating to one last element, that of the role of external service providers. Our survey found that most organizations now realize the importance of engaging a specialized service provider to overcome the challenges faced in implementing advanced SAP versions/updates, cited by ~91% of respondents. But what does a good SAP business assurance service look like?

As the SAP Business Assurance Study reveals, organizations have specific expectations of their business assurance providers. Most organizations look for a comprehensive business assurance service that covers the entire gamut of testing, starting from understanding business requirements to providing post-production support. Here are the key findings

• 48.2% of our survey respondents say an ideal solution is one that offers comprehensive end-to-end business process testing, including complete integration
• 43.6% expect an ideal business assurance solution to deliver test scripts that aptly meet business needs — the experts interviewed for the study added that such providers may have pre-built testing scenarios and scripts that can be quickly modified as needed
• 41.4% expect delivery of the highest quality of testing
• 41% look for automated skills and tools — in an earlier blog we noted that just 23.6% of companies had completely automated their SAP change and release management.

Managing risk with end-to-end testing

Of course, effective business assurance is about minimizing and mitigating any risk to the business caused by failings in the end-to-end testing regime. This was borne out in our survey, which found that the ability to perform an exhaustive assessment of risks associated with implementation of any new release or upgrade was ‘extremely important’ for 49.3% of organizations. Thus, an ideal external service provider should also provide comprehensive, risk-oriented testing across the SAP implementation project lifecycle.

Given the challenges of a complex SAP environment and the pressing need for robust testing capabilities, our SAP Business Assurance Study asserts that the role of business assurance service providers has become increasingly vital to ensure smooth business operations.

Find out more

To find out more about how specialized business assurance partners offer organizations a solution for staying relevant and successful in a fast-changing, complex SAP environment, download the Study.

 

Download SAP Business Assurance Study here