The name itself implies speed; Rapid Deployment Solution. After all, it’s not “Inexpensive Deployment Solution” or even “Easy Deployment Solution”, although lower cost, simplicity, and lower risk are naturally results of the approach. No, the one word chosen by SAP to describe these solutions is “Rapid”.
It’s no secret that SAP has the reputation that, no matter what we are deploying – ERP, CRM, Analytics, Etc. – it’s going to take a long time and it’s going to be difficult. Thus the funny graphic:
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The simple fact is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Our customers can select an easier path, and that path is SAP Rapid Deployment Solutions.
How does SAP Rapid Deployment Solutions bring us speed? The foundation is SAP Best Practices, which is the documentation that describes the best practice of a business processes SAP has observed in our customers over the years, as well as documentation that describes how to configure and deploy that best practice. It’s not always easy to accept a “best practice” because we often times think that our business process is special. However, we have to realize that not every business process is “special”, which allows us to avoid an intricate configuration of software to support it. For example, the process a Sales team uses to qualify a ‘lead’ isn’t that unique. Nevertheless, a customer can always add on complex customizations that are unique to their business after they implement these best practices.
What we’ve done with SAP Rapid Deployment Solutions is that we built an accelerated implementation around the best practices for certain areas, thus allowing the rapid-deployment of these best practices. This is best described in this video about engineered services (SAP Rapid Deployment Solutions are engineered services):
The result is a program that is at least 40% shorter than your traditional project. For those of you familiar with the ASAP methodology for implementing SAP, we achieve this by (almost) eliminating the blueprint phase. After all, when we know what we’re going to deploy, we don’t need to re-create a blueprint because we already know what functionality we’re going to deploy. In addition, we can usually cut the realization phase at least in half because we can usually deliver the configuration through business configuration sets (if we think about configuration of software as conceptually being turning ON/OFF a thousand light switches, think of BC sets as the ability to simply flick one switch which automatically flips the thousand switches to the right position). Lastly, the testing phase is dramatically simplified because our testing is highly templated and simplified.
At a high level, think of it this way; when you know exactly what is going to be done before you do it, you can put together a step by step guide to deliver it flawlessly every time. This is another accelerator we have; the Step-by Step Guide.
Ultimately, a key part of the value proposition of anything is how long it takes to get the value of it. SAP is on a mission to help our customers run better in only weeks using SAP Rapid Deployment solutions. So if you have to address an urgent business need on a limited budget or on a tight schedule, or you want faster time to value while limiting risk, SAP Rapid Deployment solutions can help ensure you get just what you need, when you need it. With a wide array of modular, yet integrated business solutions based upon SAP best practices, you can extend your business capabilities as your requirements dictate while choosing the solution, deployment, and licensing options that best fit your needs.
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