10 Tips for Selecting Your SAP SuccessFactors Support Partner!

Whether you're implementing for the first time or an existing customer looking for ongoing support, selecting a Partner (SI) is one of the most important decisions you will have to make as part of your SAP SuccessFactors journey.

SAP SuccessFactors is delivered to the market through SAPs extensive Partner network, which provides customers with a number of benefits, such as a variety of services, global expertise and innovative solutions. Yet, sifting through different partner offerings, industry experience, varying levels of expertise and weighing up the best Partner to fit with your organisations culture can be a minefield.

For a solution such as SAP SuccessFactors, a successful partnership with a System Integrator (SI) is critical to ensure that you continue to get the most out of your system and ultimately, your investment.

Here are 10 Tips for selecting your SAP SuccessFactors Support partner:

1. Find a Partner that will Challenge You!

The role of a Support Partner shouldn’t be just to take your requirements and configure the system - it should be to provide guidance, industry knowledge, leading practice and most importantly, challenge your way of thinking! If your approach or decision will have negative implications down the line, maybe there are more efficient alternatives or your approach doesn’t seem to align with your People Strategy, then you should be informed. One of my favourite Steve Jobs quotes comes to mind on this one...

2. Flexibility is Key!

The support you need today will likely be different from the support you need in 6, 12 and 18 months time. Avoid situations where you're locked into an agreement that doesn't allow for flexibility and ramping up to align with your changing support and business needs. A partner should work with you to plan your peaks and troughs in terms of support so it aligns with your HR Cycles and the evolution of your SuccessFactors landscape and road map. Change is inevitable; employees come and go, business goals/objectives change and unprecedented events can occur. Don't get stuck in a situation where everything is changing aside from your SAP SuccessFactors support agreement!

3. Understand the Full Offering Beyond Support

Even if you're evaluating Partners purely for Support, its always recommended to understand what every partner brings to the table for Implementations, Payroll, Product Extensions, HR Applications, Change Management and wider Advisory Services. Although you may not have a need straight away, you almost certainly will at some point in the future of your SAP SuccessFactors journey. If you are looking for a "Partner for Life", you'll want to try and avoid a situation where you have to go out to RFP for every piece of work. A few suggested things to find out:

1. Project Management - A fundamental element to the overall delivery of on-time and on-budget implementations. Therefore, its worth digging a bit deeper into how a Partner manages and tracks projects, as well as the reasons why any given approach is used.
2. BAU vs Configuration vs AMS Support - As outlined in tip 2, the support you need today is likely going to be different from the support you need in 12 months time. Therefore, make sure you understand all the support offerings which a Partner provides (including Payroll and BPO), their experience providing different levels of support and how easy it is to adjust your overall support strategy if needed.
3. Implementation Methodology - How tried and tested is the Implementation approach and which elements are a Partner providing that are unique? A great question to ask is how Support is viewed within the Implementation Methodology. Is support a work stream or is the approach lets deal with that when we get there? Support absolutely should be work stream n a project and included in any implementation discussions you have to ensure a smooth transition to BAU.
4. Payroll Capability - Does the partner have global capability to provide payroll advisory, implementation, support and BPO services? Payroll may not be on your immediate agenda but absolutely should be if you are looking to future-proof with your selection of partners.

4. Ask to Meet the Team

In the same way that you wouldn't purchase a software product without first seeing a demo, don't commit to a Support Partner before speaking to some of the team you will be working with. Of course, from a Partner perspective, it isn’t always possible to get everyone on a call due to conflicting projects and client engagements. With that said, I've never been unable to arrange a call for a prospective client who wishes to speak with some of the team prior to any contractual commitment.

Ultimately, if you're truly looking for a Partner for Life, then surely it warrants a short call with those whom you will be working with on a daily basis!

5. Reference Check

• Don’t limit yourself to the 2 or 3 reference options that are put forward on the initial proposal deck. As a Partner, I would expect to provide a list of examples to enable YOU as the prospective client, to tell me whom you would like to speak with.
• Utilise your relationship with SAP. If I was an SAP SuccessFactors customer evaluating support options, one of my first actions when evaluating a shortlist of Partners would be to try to speak with SAP SuccessFactors team members with whom the Partner has worked.
• Check external Partner and Project review. Check out independent review sites, such as Raven Intel, which provide customer-derived ratings and insights into past implementation projects/engagements. Definitely worth checking out if you haven't already done so.

6. Validate Expertise

It goes without saying that selecting a Partner with the relevant expertise for your SAP SuccessFactors landscape is an important consideration. A few things to look out for:

• Focus on Employee Central? SAP SuccessFactors is a Start Anywhere, Go Everywhere solution, meaning its modular in nature and allows you to implement it in the way that works best for your business. That said, Employee Central is core to the framework of SAP SuccessFactors and this foundational understanding is key to delivering successful projects and ongoing support in which Employee Central is involved. Look for a Partner that has consultants with the fundamental knowledge of Employee Central, irrespective of their other areas of focus, such as Talent or Learning.
• Associate vs Professional Certifications. The key difference between the two is that a Professional Certification requires validation of 3 successful implementation projects. Although in most cases this is a great indicator of a consultants overall experience, it isn't perfect as it doesn't account for the size and complexity of a project. Therefore, be sure to dig into past project experience and the specific roles of any consultants proposed as part of a team.
• Experience in HR? Although experience with the solution itself is vital, industry and HR experience is equally important to ensure that you truly get the most from the product. Ultimately if any system is configured without an understanding of your business, industry, employees and HR in mind, then it will never work optimally.

7. Assess Cultural Fit

When looking to establish a partnership, culture should be an important consideration. Does the partners internal values, company mission and way of working match up and complement how you and your team operate? Ask questions to dive into the core principles of the partner and what they consider important when searching for and hiring talent. The best way to do this is to speak with some of the team members and consultants, so this is partially intertwined with tip 4.

8. Approach to Release Management?

One of the biggest advantages of adopting SAP SuccessFactors is that you are able to reap the benefits of a continuously improving solution. For this reason alone, taking advantage of SAP Releases is key to ensuring that you continue to get the most out of your investment.

You have invested in a world-class solution in SAP SuccessFactors. It's constantly evolving with every release, so it's vital that you work with a partner that will work with you to make sure that you continue to review your current Business Needs and Processes against System Capability.

Ask your prospective partner about how they approach releases internally to ensure that their consultants stay up-to-date on the latest and greatest that SAP has to offer. Then follow up on how the partner ensures that this knowledge is passed on to their customers. What practices, processes and materials does the partner provide to enable their customers to evolve their utilisation of the solution in line with new releases? I would always suggest clarifying if/what is provided as part of any standard offering (no cost) and what you would be expected to pay or use support hours for (additional cost).

9. Ask about Engagements that didn't go to plan...

It simply isn’t possible to be perfect at everything and SAP SuccessFactors Partners are no different. What is key is learning from each and every experience to create an environment of continuous improvement. When shortlisting Partners, ask for examples of engagements that didn’t go to plan! Again, it seems obvious, but you would be surprised just how little this question gets asked.

A lot can be learned from a simple question and response. If something isn't going to plan, then you need a Partner to be upfront and transparent. Not sweep it under the rug.

Ultimately, there are always hurdles that require a collective approach to resolve. Make sure that you find out what these hurdles were, how they were resolved and whats been done to ensure that they don't happen again.

10. Future Proof

With any evaluation, it is important to consider any partner against what you require now and what you will need in the future. For example, your immediate need maybe support, yet you may have projects planned in the next 12 - 18 months. Always consider the big picture, be sure to include this in any evaluation. In an ideal world, you would work with a partner who can cater for all your SAP SuccessFactors needs; whether that is support, implementations, payroll or advisory. Establishing a long-term partnership with a single partner will ultimately be more efficient from both a time and cost perspective.

If you've managed to make it this far and found this somewhat helpful be sure to like, comment and and share!