Strengths
Multiple End-to-End Greenfield Implementations
In my SAP Consulting career spanning over 25 years, I have worked on multiple end-to-end greenfield SAP implementations. In some, I served as the Basis Team Lead, where my efforts began with drafting the Request for Proposal that lead to the multimillion-dollar purchase of the comprehensive SAP Landscape infrastructure, continued with supporting the technical landscape for the Implementation Team, and ended with providing Post Go Live Support. In others, I served as the Deployment Lead, responsible for the configuration, implementation and administration of SAP ChaRM, and the deployment of every Transport created by each of the Functional Team members.
I have extensive experience interacting with customers whose knowledge of SAP ranges from limited, to nonexistent. I have extensive teaching experience to help bridge the gap between new organizations investing in new technology, and Systems Integrators hired to deliver new functionality. I have taught SAP courses for audiences of over 100 people. I have interacted with every level of the organizational hierarchy, from the Shop Floor to CIO. I have seen every aspect of an SAP software implementation multiple times, in multiple industries. And I understand the Consultant's challenges as well as the Customer's frustrations.
Extensive Experience with SAP Product Support & MaxAttention Contracts
With SAP's push back into Cloud Hosting (HEC, RISE, and whatever brand names may follow), customers are faced with a myriad of choices when it comes to Cloud Infrastructure provisioninig. Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and the rest of the major Hyperscalers offer a comprehensive solution with seemingly infinite complexity.
SAP is supported on each of these complicated technical solutions. And having worked as an SAP Full Time Employee for seven years, in Field Consulting as well as SAP Product Support, I know the ins and outs of the SAP support infrastructure responsible for the health and well being of your SAP Enterprise Software Solution. I've delivered the Roadmap Sessions. I've hosted the talks, the Dog & Pony Shows, the MaxAttention Support Services. I drank the Kool Aid, as they say. And I know the difference between the promises and the reality. I can help any organization navigate through the complexities and see through the hype. And I can make a profound impact on your implementation.
Extensive Experience with ChaRM-based Deployments
I've worked implementations in the late 1990's and early 2000's where over 2,000 Transports organized in spreadsheets were organized in meticulous sequence to build the Quality Assurance, Staging and Production Environments. I've been personally responsible for the sequencing and importation of those Transports. I've spent late nights and long weekends diagnosing and resolving import errors.
When ChaRM entered the Deployment Arena, I was skeptical. In Solution Manager 7.1, ChaRM was more Hope and less Strategy. It worked, within constraints. But it lacked the flexibility that an Implementation Team demands. With Solution Manager 7.2, and the Support Packages that have followed since its General Availability in late 2016, ChaRM has become a stable, reliable and valuable tool capable of streamlining and organizing the Transport Management and Deployment process for a comprehensive SAP implementation.
I have served as the ChaRM Implementor and Administrator in multiple SAP implementations. I have been the Deployment Lead, relying on ChaRM for all Transport Management and Deployment tasks. And I am intimately acquainted with the Configuration, Implementation, Administration and Operation of ChaRM. I can guide your Implementation Team and all of your Functional Teams to a state of ChaRM Operational Readiness. And I can manage the Deployment Process to ensure reliability, accountability and technical quality.
Extensive Experience with the Solution Manager Toolset
I joined SAP America as a Full Time Employee in 2007 after a brief hiatus as a Technical Consultant for Mercury Interactive. In the roughly two years I spent at Mercury, SAP had been quite busy altering their product selection and changing their terminology. They do that from time to time. You get used to it.
After I joined SAP America, I learned of new terminology like "Usage Types," and familiarized myself with new manner in which SAP functionality was to be installed. In the process, I learned about SAP Solution Manager, the new software title that was the brainchild of SAP Support Leader, Dr. Uwe Hommel. Created to be the Hub through which SAP Support would apply its expertise, Solution Manager was more Promise than Product at the time. But it slowly evolved to become the Hub of Operations that SAP designed it to be. With Solution Manager 7.1, Feature Pack 2, Solution Manager started to live up to its promises.
With Solution Manager 7.2, all of the Application Lifecycle Management and Application Operations / Business Process Operations tools became a valuable reality. And I have implemented most of them, and am articulate with all of them. I was one of the first Consultants in the United States to work on Data Volume Management, and collaborated with SAP AG to configure it for the first time. And I was one of the first Consultants in the United States to implement Usage & Procedure Logging (UPL) for the Enhancement Pack Scope & Effort Analyzer. I possess extensive expertise implementing all of the Technical Monitoring capabilities in Solution Manager, whether you're talking Garden Variety System Monitoring or branching out into extended monitoring capabilities like Process Chain Monitoring, PO Monitoring, or the various Cross-Application Monitoring opportunities available in the Key Figures found in Business Process Monitoring.
I have guided numerous SAP Customers through Solution Manager's functional opportunities, and technical complexities. I have walked them through the toolset in its entirety. I have described the interactivity between the tools, while emphasizing the long-term importance of some, and being forthcoming about the inherent value of others. I've memorized the SAP Playbook. And I can use the knowledge to guide your organization.
Uniquely Positioned to Offer ChaRM Migration Guidance
SAP has announced its plans to end the Solution Manager lifecycle. The latest update to that announcement indicates that Mainstream Maintenance for Solution Manager 7.2 will be available until the end of 2027. But customers who choose the optional extended maintenance for SAP Business Suite 7 (until the end of 2030) will receive extended maintenance for SAP Solution Manager 7.2 at no additional cost.
For customers relying on Solution Manager for Application Lifecycle Management, Application Operations or Business Process Operations, there will invariably be alternatives. For Technical Monitoring, you have Focused Run. But Focused Run comes with additional licensing fees. And if you're not Exxon Mobil, you probably don't have a landscape requiring the horsepower Focused Run offers. Many of the other tools in Solution Manager have - or will eventually have - Cloud-based alternatives.
Because ChaRM represents the Long Pole in any Solution Manager Implementation Tent, SAP will either have to provide a Transport Management / Deployment Management tool capable of replacing ChaRM, or risk leaving their customers twisting in the proverbial breeze. ChaRM was the reason there was an Upgrade Path to Solution Manager 7.2. If you weren't using ChaRM, you wouldn't have bothered to go through the Content Activation Headache. You would have simply re-implemented Solution Manager.
ChaRM is the tool that makes Solution Manager a Tier One Landscape Component. If ChaRM goes down, Transport Management goes down with it.
When the time comes to find a suitable replacement for ChaRM, or to adapt your organization to whatever Cloud-based tool SAP cobbles together to replace ChaRM, I have the Deployment Management skills, the ChaRM skills, and the Transport Management skills to guide you through the ChaRM migration challenges you're likely to face.