New SAP Model Company Services: Better Than Homemade

Industry-specific reference solutions accelerate SAP S/4HANA implementations and help capture the full potential of SAP's cloud strategy.

SAP Model Company services: An explanatory video compares the concept with the work of a gourmet delivery service that provides the necessary ingredients and recipes, together with committed staff, to conjure up delicious dishes at home - quickly and with guaranteed success.

SAP Model Company, from the SAP Digital Business Services organization, includes preconfigured end-to-end processes, business content, and accelerators for industries and business areas, which speed up the implementation of SAP S/4HANA or individual suite components such as SAP SuccessFactors.

If you're thinking the 'culinary academy' is only something for between-meal snacks, you should know that this extensive tool is now available for 15 industries and 10 lines of business. Six further model companies are in planning. In addition, the new SAP Model Company has been integrated in the 'top catering services' from SAP Digital Business Services, such as new SAP MaxAttention and SAP Value Assurance services.

For some time now, many internal specialists have been working on a variety of workstreams within the program to establish SAP Model Company as the future market standard for SAP transformation projects. SAP Model Company should be seen as an 'end-to-end offer from SAP to its customers,' emphasizes Stephan Klein, head of SAP Model Company, praising the interdisciplinary interchange.

Undisputed Benefits

Many companies are happy to accept the offer, including Festo, which used SAP Model Company for R&D/Engineering and Sustainability. The mechanical engineering company from Baden-Württemberg reports that its implementation went nearly 50 percent faster than a normal implementation, and that 80 percent of the IT requirements were implemented without customizing.

Zambon had a similar experience. SAP Model Company for Finance enabled the Italian life sciences company to skip practically the entire first phase of the implementation. This made it possible to illustrate the processes immediately, enabling Zambon employees to concentrate on the important things such as process simplification and harmonization.

According to a market analysis firm report, 80 percent of surveyed SAP customers appreciate the faster implementation speed, while 50 percent praise the higher 'fit to standard.'

Ricardo Lozano, director of Business Transformation, points to La Europea, a gourmet Mexican retailer: 'The customer experience begins with the experience for our employees. SAP Model Company enabled us to implement SAP SuccessFactors in just a few weeks. We were also able to improve our configuration and onboarding processes and reduce our fluctuation rate dramatically.'

Big Plans

What began as a continuation of the original rapid-deployment solutions and best practices around two years ago has now reached a level of maturity that enables SAP to take the next step. In addition to its existing role as an implementation accelerator, the new SAP Model Company services will, above all, drive SAP's new cloud industry strategy forward.

The goal is to host SAP Model Company services in a cloud environment and give customers greater flexibility in an assemble-to-order approach, so they can identify the best possible pre-configuration.

To enable this greater flexibility technically, Klein's team developed a new unified stack together with the Products & Innovation (P&I) organization. It guarantees the fundamental ability to migrate from single-tenant to multi-tenant architecture, a prerequisite for potential operation in a public cloud.

Selected solution partners have also been asked to contribute their own content and best practices to the new SAP Model Company services. Five partners, including Accenture and IBM, are already on board. SAP hopes to recruit around 15 overall. Klein says: 'The framework that we're creating for this will be the most comprehensive one that SAP has ever designed for partners.'

Transfer to the Digital World

In contrast to rapid-deployment solutions, SAP Model Company has been modeling consistent, end-to-end processes using a variety of SAP solutions since 2017. The focus is now shifting increasingly to hybrid scenarios, as combinations of on-premise, cloud, and satellite solutions become more popular. The expanded offerings have to take changing customer behavior into account.

In addition, SAP C/4HANA will also be supported in future. What's more, the new SAP Model Company services will benefit from innovative SAP Leonardo services, which will be integrated in SAP Model Company through industry-specific contents. This is why proponents of new SAP Model Company prefer to call them 'next practices' instead of 'best practices.'

If Klein's wish comes true, the new SAP Model Company will combine everything customers need for their transformation to an intelligent enterprise, whether in a private or public cloud. P&I already recommends the tool (single tenant) as an implementation template for SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

The new SAP Model Company services, which will be expanded progressively in phases through June, is part of the SAP S/4HANA Movement program and is also available in the new demo store - a tasty appetizer before the later feast.

Learn more about SAP Model Company.