Stop Wasting Money, Start Using Solution Manager
By Sam Sliman, President, Optimal Solutions Integration

 

Based on our own admittedly unscientific survey, if you’re an SAP customer, chances are you’re wasting money – if you’re not using Solution Manager, that is. As we at Optimal travel from SAP site to SAP site, we’ve noticed on far too many occasions that SAP customers are under-utilizing Solution Manager – if they’re using it at all.  Yet, in most cases, the ROI of Solution Manager is off the charts.  What gives?

 

Blame it on people being too busy. Blame it on a lack of understanding of what Solution Manager can do. Blame it on the stealth way in which Solution Manager is often introduced into a company. Blame it on organizational momentum or sunk costs. Just don’t blame it on Solution Manager, because this is one component of the SAP stack that is ready for prime time. And every SAP customer should be using it to its fullest potential.

 

What is it?

 

SAP Solution Manager is a comprehensive application lifecycle management tool set for lowering total cost of ownership, optimizing performance, and reducing risk associated with implementations, upgrades and additions to your SAP landscape. It enables execution of routine maintenance activities such as patches, updates, and system monitoring, etc., and serves as a central repository for all IT and business process documentation.  So yes, it sounds like an IT tool – but it comes with big benefits for the business.

 

SAP Solution Manager is included in both Enterprise Support and Standard Support maintenance programs for all SAP solutions. (Enterprise Support customers are entitled to more functionality then Standard Support customers.) With so much to offer (and at no extra cost), every SAP customer should be using this powerful solution.

 

But the reality is that most SAP customers are using other software packages (at additional cost) that directly duplicate features included in Solution Manager (did we mention it was free?).  Still looking to reduce costs after 3 brutal years of cost-cutting?  Look at the overlap between Solution Manager and the various other tools in your organization’s stack. My guess is that somewhere in there is a business case for replacing those extra tools with one you already own…

 

A few of Solution Manager’s key benefits:

 

Central administration, monitoring and maintenance

 

According to a recent Panaya survey, central system administration and system monitoring are the top two reasons customers use Solution Manager. Controlling recurring administration tasks centrally and keeping a detailed record of these tasks greatly simplifies the system administrator’s job. The Maintenance Optimizer for installing patches, updates and support packages is perhaps the most utilized feature in Solution Manager, ensuring peak performance and reducing operational costs.

 

A single version of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth

 

At its core, SAP Solution Manager serves as a central repository for vital documentation covering all systems, business processes, maintenance records, customizations, technical & functional enhancements, service-level information, project information, training materials… the list goes on.

 

Suffice it to say, Solution Manager houses that essential, single version of the truth about your entire SAP and non-SAP technology landscape without which upgrades, additions, customization, process improvements and even basic maintenance activities are easily derailed, take longer than expected, bust budgets, and fail to achieve expected levels of performance.

 

Broad appeal

 

Solution Manager is more than just a library. It includes a broad array of tools, templates, roadmaps and industry best practices that facilitate all key aspects of solution deployment, operation, and continuous improvement.

 

At Optimal, in conjunction with strict adherence to the Run SAP methodology, we rely on Solution Manager as the cornerstone for all of our application management services, using it to deliver support across life cycle design, set-up, operations and optimization, and leveraging it to manage our customers’ SAP landscape more efficiently and at a lower cost.

 

Vital, customer-vendor communication hub

 

We also position Solution Manager as an important component for virtually all of our SAP customer engagements -- from implementations to upgrades to customizations to business process improvements, etc.

 

In addition to the helpful tools and templates mentioned above, and of course, access to vital system information, Solution Manager’s Project Administration/Work Centers feature provides the structure, discipline, visibility, transparency, accountability, measuring and monitoring all successful projects and supplier-customer relationships require.

 

Well worth the effort

 

Solution Manager requires long-term planning and vision. It requires upfront time and effort to learn about the solution and map out an incremental, prioritized plan for implementing its various processes and capabilities.

 

But as Optimal has demonstrated to numerous SAP customers, Solution Manager yields significant, measurable value over the lifecycle of their evolving SAP landscape and business environment.  And you can’t beat the price.

 

In support of the benefits above, here’s a bit more drill down we typically share with SAP customers when making the case for Solution Manager:

• Reduce the complexity of managing a diverse landscape of SAP applications   -- ECC, BW, SRM, CRM, EP, XI, PI, MDM, BOBJ, etc., with one tool

• Manage systems, processes and transports for the diverse landscape with an audit trail for SOX compliance

• Reduce downtime with RCA Diagnostics (Especially Portal/TREX etc)                      

• Reports and Dashboards using Solution Manager’s BI component

• Automate monitoring, maintenance certificates and transports

• Service Desk -- ability to raise a ticket from within the SAP GUI

• Change Request Management -- audit and tracking and transport of all changes to the sap system from a single ticket
• CTS+ to move ABAP and non-ABAP transports
• Retrofit – for clients with “n+1” landscape

• Business Process Alerts and Monitoring – for critical transactions

• Business Process Change Analyzer – Impact analysis of hot packs/support packs on the transactions

• Custom Code Management Cockpit – to manage custom code

• Template Management

• Configuration Management

• Upgrade Management

• Test Management

Visit the SAP website for a full listing of the components and tools of SAP Solution Manager.

 

For comprehensive Solution Manager support documentation, visit the SAP Help Portal for Solution Manager

 

For training materials, visit SAP Solution Manager Training Catalogue

 

For a roundup of recent articles and other helpful resources on Solution Manager, visit the Optimal SAP Blog.