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refresher courses for all members. Sometimes, when the SAP CRM project is reaching critical mass,
the user community as a whole might be disadvantaged because of a time lag between the actual
training and the commencement of SAP CRM going into production. In such cases, refresher
courses might have to be undertaken either very close to the actual commencement of implemen-
tation or, if all sites and offices go live on SAP CRM, on a staggered schedule. Again, top manage-
ment should allocate a good contingency training budget in light of the fact that when SAP CRM
goes into production, there is no fallback arrangement; once launched, it has to reach
critical mass
.
6.4.12 Scheduling and Managing Interface of
SAP CRM with Other Systems
There are many legacy systems, non-SAP systems, external systems, and even manual functions
that might be considered out of the scope of the SAP CRM project. SAP CRM does not address
all the functional requirements of a company. This might be involved with solutions for secu-
rity and access, e-mail, CTI, digitizing system, and so on. SAP CRM has a complete program
of interfacing with, and qualifying, third-party products to leverage on companies with special
expertise and products (see Chapter 5, Section 5.2.12 “Comprehensive Application Development
Environment”). Interfacing these systems should be scheduled in such a way that the interfaces are
operational when SAP CRM goes into production.
In cases in which a peripheral or support system could be replaced by some functionality pro-
vided by SAP CRM, the steering committee must make the judgment as to the schedule of that
functionality's implementation in SAP CRM. Considering the onerous agenda of the SAP CRM
project itself, the committee could decide to continue using the earlier system and transit to the
functionality in SAP CRM at a more appropriate time.
6.4.13 Transition Plan for Cutover to SAP CRM
The company must have a subsidiary project plan for transitioning from the earlier systems,
whether they are computerized or manual, to the SAP CRM system. This might entail uploading
data in a timely fashion into the SAP CRM system. The timeliness of the data might be dictated
by whether it is master unchangeable data or transaction data, or it might be like opening bal-
ances for general ledger (GL) accounts and party ledger accounts. It could also be processing jobs
that are done on a periodic basis, which might have to be transferred to the SAP CRM produc-
tion system. Because everything cannot just be transferred automatically to SAP CRM, a phased
approach starting with uploading of data, to transactions, to posting statuses and subsequent
processing steps might have to be designed and executed.
6.5 implementation Strategy
In this section, we consider strategies that should be adopted by an SME for its SAP CRM
implementation projects.
6.5.1 Big-Bang Implementation of SAP CRM Components
The organization should consider a
big-bang
implementation of SAP CRM, wherein all the base
components of SAP CRM (relevant to the enterprise's area of business) are implemented and put
in production together. By implementing only certain components of the system, the company