Case - Customer saved billions with a checkmark

Background

The customer is a company in the public sector with highly complex operations and stringent confidentiality requirements.

The customer faced a significant challenge following the completion of an extensive SAP implementation spanning several years and costing billions of kronor. After the lengthy implementation, the management organization discovered unexpected challenges with a table that was growing exponentially.

The problem was not urgent, but the trend was unsustainable and would lead to SAP disclaiming responsibility for the system solution when the table exceeded a certain size. The customer was on track to reach the critical point.

Mission

The customer's partner who implemented the solution was at a loss and suggested that the only way forward was to rebuild the entire system. "Start over, do it right" was the advice given. A meeting was scheduled to discuss if there were any other solutions available as it would be very costly to rebuild.

For the meeting, a consultant from CoreChange was invited to provide advice. Quite quickly, our senior solution architect with years of experience in SAP solutions and logic understood that this was not the right approach. SAP would likely not build a solution that required them to duplicate data in another part of the system to meet the customer's needs, which fundamentally were relatively simple and standardized in terms of objects.

What should be done?

Solution

It turned out that the solution to the big problem was surprisingly simple. It only required unchecking a single checkbox. The challenge was to gain access to a complete copy of the system alone to properly test the idea. Upon reaching the implementation stage, two people and four months were needed to thoroughly test the system. It wasn't just the specific change that needed testing. The entire financial model and other processes were also affected.

Results

The result was a success and cost a fraction. The problem that threatened to require an extensive overhaul of the entire system was solved with a simple checkmark in a box. Despite the simplicity of the solution, it required time and courage to verify its sustainability. The lead time from the initial proposal to the new solution being operational was close to four years, while the actual cost was minimal.

This case demonstrates that complex SAP challenges can be solved with simple means with the right level of knowledge and experience.