SAP offers benchmarking database for free

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SAP has taken the unusual step of offering free access to its prized database of over 3000 actual client case engagements to help customers deliver their projects on time and on budget.

The move could potentially save SAP customers between $50,000 and $100,000 in fees they would have paid to external consultants for benchmarking projects.

The repository is a culmination of nearly seven years' worth of work within SAP globally, where each customer's project experience has been detailed to the tee.

The benchmarking exercise looks at best practice in more than 20 functional areas, and is aimed at giving existing and potential clients peer-to-peer insight of potential pitfalls when embarking on SAP projects.

It will also give some of SAP's largest users tips on key performance indicators that other companies have used to benchmark their projects.

The German software giant began collating the information because it found most customers could not articulate the value of projects to match their business case, said SAP chief value officer Chakib Bouhdary.

SAP found that business cases were merely done for the initial approval stage, and there was no proper follow-up later.

Mr Bouhdary said most projects were not completed on time and on budget, and when they were finished no-one properly evaluated the value that technology had brought to the business.

"Many IT departments would celebrate after a project goes live; after that, nobody took a step back to gauge the actual value the project had delivered," he said. "So IT departments didn't really deliver on what was in the business case.

"We're now working with customers to help them identify and understand the impact of new investments before they commit to them, because it is a major investment and in this economy businesses need to be very careful where and how they spend their budgets."

To tap into SAP's treasure trove, selected customers will be invited to a two-day event -- dubbed value academies -- in Brisbane and Melbourne over the coming months.

SAP decided against charging customers for the service because it hoped to become a client's partner, rather than maintain a purely transactional relationship, Mr Bouhdary said.

"The market rate for benchmarking usually runs between $50,000 and $100,000. We're already charging them software licensing and maintenance fees so there's no need to make them pay for this service," the Philadelphia-based executive said.

"We're doing this for free because in a bad economy it becomes even more important to take care of customers."

SAP ran two pilot value academies earlier this year for private and public sector senior executives.

The workshops are broadly aimed at providing customers with tools and methodologies to identify, deliver and measure the value of IT projects, Mr Bouhdary said in Sydney yesterday.

SAP's local clients include Australia Post, Commonwealth Bank and NSW Education Department.

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Fran Foo | July 14, 2009 | AustralianIT

SAP'S move to offer free tools worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to measure the value of technology projects could become an industry standard in five years, a senior executive said.

Select SAP Australia customers will be given free access to benchmarking tools and key performance indicators that form a knowledge base of 3000 real-life client engagement cases.

The offering, dubbed Value Academy, aims to show customers how IT can justify increasing budgets with returns to the business.

"We are taking the lead to create a framework, standardise it globally and offer it to companies -- this to us is a no-brainer," SAP global chief value officer Chakib Bouhdary said. "This is not about customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning or which application your project is using, it's about how IT can show value to the business."

By 2014, he said, SAP's competitors would have to follow in its footsteps to remain relevant to customers.

"I don't think they will have a choice. It's not just about software licensing fees any more."

SAP was perceived to be expensive because "the scope of what people do with its products are very broad", he said.

"But the cost is irrelevant if chief information officers can prove that the value to the business is higher ... Value Academy can help them with that."