Are you training your top SAP Talent to leave?
In the dark ages, those with knowledge were puppet masters of their kingdoms. A smart king would never think of educating his people, lest they rise up and boot him to the curb.
While knowledge today is only a click away, expert SAP knowledge is still ruled by the elite few. Like kings of old, IT directors secretly fear if they over train their staff, it could trigger a mass exodus of talent.
What does a wise IT director do to ensure bliss in his SAP data kingdom?
First let’s be clear. We’re not advocating you hamstring your people’s careers to keep them working like destitute sharecroppers. We hope you’re a benevolent king who knows when your people prosper, so do you.
Yet, no kingdom has unlimited resources of time and money.
That’s why you want a “divide responsibilities and conquer issues” training strategy
Any prosperous kingdom is efficient. It also relies on a hierarchy of authority to run smoothly. From regents to governors, each leader has responsibility — and is empowered — to build a team to keep things in harmony with the kingdom’s values.
When you train key users in each department to resolve issues of their department, you do the same thing. And what happens when you improve training levels within a department? Improved interaction between team members to solve their problems without you refereeing every squabble.
Don’t keep your IT staff in the dark ages either
If there’s one group you don’t want to leave in the SAP dark, it’s your IT staff. With a little bit of SAP training, they can fill your coffers with unexpected savings. Any SAP savvy IT staff can handle basic user support issues. This ensures faster resolution of user issues, without having to bill out external contractors to get the job done.
Why you should also train your external contractors
I can already hear you saying, “Wait a minute, aren’t our external contractors supposed to know what they’re doing? That’s why I hire them!” Yes, they should. But you’ll have far less headaches, and less billed hours, if you train them how to work with you and your team from day one.
The first step is to make sure you have a SAP service provider who understands your industry and is eager to learn your business processes. This is the part where most outsourcing companies fall flat. They try to impose their methods on you. This goes over as well as a forced marriage between sworn enemies.
To ensure a happy outsourcing union, it’s important you start small, have clear expectations, define SLA (service level agreement) on solving issues and establish a good communication method so that this strategy is successful.
Knowing who and how much to train makes you look as smart as King Solomon
Training to make everyone in your realm a SAP expert is silly. Strategic SAP training is what you’re looking for. Provide training to the key people in departments, and IT staff and your team will be both thankful and loyal. If you do, your IT director brethren will wonder why they can never steal your talent.
Train your external contractors as well, and border wars between your team and multiple vendors will seldom happen.
To ensure a happy outsourcing union, it’s important you start small, have clear expectations, define SLA (service level agreement) on solving issues and establish a good communication method so that this strategy is successful.
Next Step
If you’d like some help putting these steps into practice, give us a call (or fill the form below and send to us). We’re happy to meet and discuss your situation.
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