Prepare for a More Efficient SAP Implementation: Take Data Issues
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Delivering information you can trust Prepare for a more efficient SAP implementation: Take data issues off the critical path Identify data risks before implementation with the Preliminary Data Assessment Appliance Delivering information you can trust Preliminary Data Assessment Appliance from IBM: Driving high-quality, high-margin SAP initiatives For many corporations, SAP implementations offer tre mendous benefits: streamlined business operations and consolidated data for strategic, commercial online trans action processing (OLTP) and business intelligence (BI) applications. But there are challenges. Legacy systems that run on mainframe and UNIX® environments and third-party application software—including enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems from SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Siebel and JD Edwards—are all configured separately, each supporting unique business processes source data and SAP requirements, you can offer your and rules. For these implementations, one of the biggest clients a significant value proposition for driving high- sources of expense, risk and effort lies in the challenge quality, high-margin SAP initiatives—taking data issues of integrating data from different operational applications off the critical path and instead preparing for a success across the enterprise to an SAP platform. ful SAP deployment. Data issues are frequently not fully understood until late PDAA for global systems integrators in the blueprint phase or during the realization phase of The PDAA is intended for use by IBM® Information typical SAP implementation projects. When these issues Integration Solutions global system integrator (GSI) part - do arise, the results are most often cost overruns, delays ners as a pre -sales tool to identify: in go-live dates, reduced return on investment (ROI) and reduced consulting profit margins. With no upfront knowl • Risk associated with the current state of the client ’s data edge of potential data issues, a customer implementation • ROI associated with a business case for large SAP- engagement can be prolonged, costly and at risk. based migration, consolidation and deployment projects With the Preliminary Data Assessment Appliance Using the PDAA exposes client data anomalies that (PDAA) from IBM, you can prepare—before starting pose project risks and may result in decreased margins the blueprint phase—by obtaining valuable information for GSI partners. The PDAA also creates opportunities about source data quality, completeness and reliability. for GSIs to increase profit margins and revenue and The PDAA helps identify business inconsistencies and mitigate risks, while helping customers implement data validate business rules and processes across business management strategies for master data harmonization entities. With early identification of gaps between client and management projects involving SAP. 2 Delivering information you can trust • What additional data is needed but not provided by the source systems? • Are customers, vendors and products unique? Can I create a single instance of each customer? • Is the address data complete or missing? • Is there embedded information in free-form text fields within a legacy system? • Can we meet the business objectives given the information provided in the source systems? • Who else within the organization is required to ensure a successful conversion? The PDAA consists of a data analysis approach, a • What process should be investigated to resolve close preconfigured data assessment appliance, data assess matches of customer, vendor and product data? ment accelerators and a library of deliverables that provide critical added value for your clients. During a Technical questions three- to five-day pre-sales data assessment engage • What level of effort is required to extract data from ment, a consultant can help the client team address source systems? key business and technical questions and appropriately • What hardware and software will be needed to support budget for the data management stream. The result? development, testing and production from blueprint to A more efficient and effective SAP implementation in a go-live and support? large, heterogeneous application landscape. • How many developers are required and what skill levels will they need? PDAA addresses common SAP implementation • How do we capture and document business business and technical questions requirements? Using the PDAA, the GSI consultant can help the client • Which processes are required to support compliance team address key business and technical questions, and auditing of information as it is recast and migrated including those indicated below. to SAP? • What do the logical and physical models look like for a Business questions data staging area to support the conversion? • How do I rationalize the types of customers, vendors and products across sources? 3 Delivering information you can trust Preliminary data assessment phases Executed in a three-phase approach over three to five days, the preliminary data assessment identifies data issues that can cause project risks. The diagram below categorizes the analyses conducted in each phase of the preliminary assessment process. Preliminary data assessment phases Alignment and harmonization Source system analysis SAP target analysis analysis • Frequency distribution • Attribute gap analysis • Standardization analysis • Default value analysis • Data validation gap analysis • Master data linkage (matching) analysis • Unused columns • Master data structure analysis • Matching remediation analysis • Constant candidates • Field length analysis • Attribute alignment analysis • Structure analysis • Cross-functional requirement analysis • Data relevancy analysis • Column content analysis • Data migration scoping • Blueprint validation • Embedded business rules • Cross-functional completeness • If any of the source systems are • Business/technical documentation analysis SAP OLTP, then a source-to-target configuration analysis is • If one of the sources is an SAP • Target configuration analysis conducted OLTP instance, then configuration analysis is conducted • Data loading analysis (such as analyzing data load structures) Each phase of the preliminary data assessment reveals valuable information and captures knowledge from business and technical experts for use in developing program proposal bids for all or each phase of the program. In a short time, key project team members will understand: • The state of core data in critical source systems • Information gaps in the data • Strategies required to address several key data issues 4 Delivering information you can trust PDAA components Through an easy-to-use GUI and capabilities that The PDAA includes preconfigured hardware and uses can be customized to your organization’s business the following IBM Information Server capabilities: rules, QualityStage provides control over international names and addresses and related data such as • IBM Information Server DataStage® integrates data phone numbers, birth dates, e-mail addresses and across multiple and varied types of data and high other descriptive comment fields. It can help discover volumes of data sources and target applications—in relationships among this data in enterprise and Internet the time available. environments as well as in batch and real time. From • IBM Information Server Information Analyzer disparate source data to high-quality information about automates data source analysis, including column, core business entities, QualityStage analyzes data at table and cross-table analysis. It helps reduce time to the character level, revealing anomalies and buried value and helps minimize overall costs and resources data before transforming it for database loading or for critical data integration projects. transaction processing. Data from disparate sources • IBM Information Server QualityStage™ helps ensure is standardized into fixed fields using business-driven that your strategic systems deliver accurate, complete rules that can assign the correct semantic meaning to information to business users across the enterprise. input data, which facilitates matching. 5 Delivering information you can trust Other PDAA components include: PDAA benefits for systems integrators • Master data and core attribute models for key master data objects • Provides early value proposition for your • Prebuilt data assessment accelerators for all phases of clients the assessment engagement • PDAA demonstration • Helps identify budget and resource • Process approach for execution requirements for appropriate data • PDAA pre-execution checklist management stream • PDAA training • Offers increased client knowledge and • Project plans for executing and extending the PDAA to accuracy for project proposals include additional client-specific attributes for technical and cross-regional analysis • Facilitates the identification of requirements • Template documents for an executive summary, for the blueprint phase presentation and detailed assessment report • Provides opportunity for master data quality PDAA deliverables assessment engagement • Template for rapid understanding and quick view of information assets across the enterprise • Helps reduce project risk because of poor • Executive summary of opportunities to increase data understanding business value • Provides opportunities for master data • Reports highlighting business rule and data standard management engagements tied to strategic issues that can support developing a business case client initiatives