Based on over 15 years’ experience, we know that developing a SAP Warehouse Management System (WMS) business case is not a simple undertaking. Each and every client we have worked with over the past decade across consumer goods, manufacturing, healthcare and food & drinks logistics has had its own unique journey with different challenges along the way.
Navigating the alignment of the WMS proposal with the business strategy and engaging and influencing key stakeholders in support of the project is a complex undertaking with a varying degree of ability spread across differing organisations. The resources may sit in-house or require external collaboration to gain buy-in from the C-suite. However, no matter the skills and know-how, there is still sometimes a heavy reliance on the SAP solution vendor and other partners, often far too late in the process.
Avoiding Business Case Failure
A leading cause of business case and IT project failure can often result from a lack of engagement with key stakeholders who don’t understand or have little awareness of the business needs. The business teams may be encouraged to support process optimisation. However, through no fault of their own, sometimes they fail to understand the unique constraints of existing warehouse management systems, related processes and similarly the need to upgrade or consolidate.
Aligning the new WMS system or IT process update with the business strategy is where complexity can enter the business case build process. Complexity can start to enter the process as there is often little or no transparency surrounding platform and functionality options compared to business requirement, resulting in little flexibility to change elements that may impact budget or future need. This 2-way transparency around matching requirements to platform functionality can become not only a budgetary stumbling block but can have a huge knock on effect to an organisation’s ability to engage with internal stakeholders.
The past decade has provided consumers with much easier access to digital product information and ability to compare with more choice and better control. The consumer revolution has seen a shift in balance giving the public much more control around how they influence their own purchasing decisions; they can compare and contrast specific product specifications with little or no interaction. Business IT and software customers continue to follow a more traditional path of purchasing software where vendor engagement happens earlier in the buying cycle and the transparency to compare and contrast functionality and associated costings is sometimes limited or out of the hands of the customer.
After helping 100s of customers make SAP WMS decisions in the past, we have developed new digital toolsets that are designed to empower business customers across the entire project lifecycle to research, size and shape solutions that are the best fit for their organisation independently and further up the project cycle.
Online SAP WMS Comparison Tool
Rocket is proud to be at the forefront of the online digital revolution and with our customers at the front of mind have developed a new platform selection suitability solution for SAP Extended Warehouse Management, which is based on a pre-defined Requirement Analysis Structure.
Lewis Marston, Rocket’s CEO, explains: “We have used our experience of helping hundreds of customers use this methodology and process to create a product that offers more independence, complete transparency and puts the customer in control of the buying process much earlier in the project.”
Gain a platform suitability rating for your business today, access your FREE personalised report.
The Rocket SAP Warehouse Management System selection tool
Our solution is a FREE online pricing and SAP Digital Supply Chain platform selection tool with 29 interactive questions the tool typically takes 10 minutes to complete, with 29 simple questions grouped by process areas (Inbound -> Internal -> General -> Outbound -> Technology) to answer that assess your requirements against the capability of the 4 different SAP WMS platforms available:
- SAP Warehouse Management
- SAP Stock Room Management
- SAP Extended Warehouse Management (Basic)
- SAP Extended Warehouse Management (Advanced)
It is ideal for anyone with IT responsibility tasked with developing or building a business case around individual and unique strategic requirements. Once the customer has completed all the questions, they receive a summary of results that highlights which SAP solution best meets their needs. This information can then be used to engage and influence key stakeholders to get buy-in for the project. Using our tool, the matches are delivered against a customer’s business need, not on the most advanced platform available from a vendor.
Transparency in decision making
Rocket uses a scoring matrix that highlights the gaps and where the solution exceeds or only partially meets the customer’s needs, so along with the product choice, users also receive analysis of why this choice has been made for them with a suitability rating and further insights. And the questionnaire can be rerun with different parameters as many times as you want so you can get a feel for which solution will work best for you, depending on your chosen criteria.
Lewis adds: “If you remember Trump cards as a child, sometimes it is not the most feature-packed solution that is the winning option. Our FREE online digital tool uses the same principle and we hope that it will help customers get the information they need earlier in a project lifecycle while prompting them to ask the right sort of questions of their organisation before speaking to an implementation partner.”
The tool is free to use, to access please click on the link below.
If after using the tool you are not sure about your requirements, please book time with an expert from Rocket. Arrange a free 1hour session with a consultant to walk you through this process.
Posted by: Rocket Consulting Ltd
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