Application Management Services (AMS) have become increasingly important for international companies to comply with country-specific markets and regulations. The client selected YASH Technologies to provide SAP AMS. YASH had been a primary partner for the enterprise and had a strong history of providing customer-centric solutions and flexibility, a key component the client was seeking in a partner.
Linked Data in Production: Moving Beyond Ontologies
Outsourcing Application Management Provided Predictability and Tangible Cost Savings
1. SAP® Application Management Services (AMS)
Success Story @ YASH
Industry The Client
Manufacturing The client is a world leader in providing advanced products and services for agriculture,
forestry, construction, lawn and turf care, landscaping and irrigation. The client also
provides financial services worldwide and manufactures and markets engines used in
Geography heavy equipment. Since it was founded in 1837, the company has extended its heritage
of integrity, quality, commitment and innovation around the globe.
US
Outsourcing Application Management Provided Predictability and Tangible Cost Savings
In today's competitive global marketplace, Application Management Services (AMS) have become increasingly important for
international companies to comply with country-specific markets and regulations, and ensure high-quality operations of SAP solutions
in a sustainable, cost-effective manner.
As a leading global manufacturer, the client sought to extend their current SAP footprint to locations in India and South America. In an
effort to standardize and rationalize IT systems, the client also wanted to assimilate most of the peripheral legacy systems, as well as
non-standard SAP environments, into a centralized SAP environment.
As the client's SAP ECC 6.00 landscape was customized to its business environment at different locations worldwide, maintaining this
infrastructure was a challenging task. Ensuring high availability and performance of these systems was a critical necessity, due to the
high dependency on these applications for running day-to-day operations. While the client had an internal SAP support team in place,
it realized that the sheer complexity and critical nature of the existing and future SAP infrastructure made it difficult for the company
to cost-effectively maintain it. Outsourcing the management of its applications would enable the client to provide predictable and
sustainable high-quality support services to the growing user base through this expansion phase. By realigning critical internal
resources to strategic initiatives, they would realize tangible cost savings.
2. Establishing a Robust AMS Model Allowed for Future Innovation
In order to cater to added bandwidth needs spurred by organic knowledge about the multiple system landscapes and set
growth, the client selected YASH Technologies to provide SAP up a centralized support center that could provide
AMS. YASH had been a primary partner for the enterprise and support across different units. Beyond trouble-shooting
had a strong history of providing customer-centric solutions problem tickets, the client wanted YASH to assume
and flexibility, a key component the client was seeking in a responsibility for SAP Functional and Technical
partner. Known for their ability to quickly understand client Administration and deliver enhancements for SAP. Most
environments and become a true extension of the client's IT importantly, the client selected YASH for their ability to
department, YASH required little or minimal intervention from take a proactive leadership role in establishing a robust
the client to resolve issues. This allowed the client to focus operational model for SAP support by providing a set of
more on strategic activities and allocate more IT spend on infrastructure, processes, methodology, resource
innovation necessary for growth. planning, and team management without any adverse
As an SAP-certified global provider of application management impact on the quality of delivery.
services, YASH was able to understand and assimilate the
Rapid Integration into the Client's Environment Increased Return-on-Investment
from Initial Stages
YASH conducted an intensive five-week Assessment and stages. YASH leveraged SAP Best Practices for operational
Knowledge Acquisition of the client's current support and execution and the Solution Manager tool set to deliver
maintenance processes that included system configuration, best-in-class services and solutions for application
process standards, and various customizations done to the management.
standard SAP environment. The initial objective of the project The biggest challenge of this initiative was the extremely
focused only on supporting the recent Go-Live environment at tight deadline of five weeks for the transition to provide
the client's business centers in India. support. YASH delivered a clear and defined methodology
YASH consulted with the users to understand the details of what and process structure to acquire, document, and
needed to be implemented and how the Indian tax system assimilate the knowledge acquired during this period.
would interact with specific financial transaction categories. Although understanding the client's system was
YASH provided holistic solutions that required SAP knowledge in paramount, the other critical success factor was the
the context of India's business regulations, while adhering to acceptance and approval from the client's different
the core principles and framework held constant in the central stakeholders. YASH focused on gaining trust and
SAP environment. This approach reduced the overall scope of acceptance through the 'playback' sessions and proactive
what needed to be implemented. More importantly, this solution provisioning with minimal or no involvement
critical project was executed two months ahead of the project from the client's internal IT team. By meeting on a daily
deadline, which allowed the client to optimize their portfolio basis to review the project status, YASH kept the vision
by balancing the business impact and cost of their applications. and goals top of mind for all parties involved to
Additional operating efficiencies resulted from YASH's accomplish the objectives within the short timeframe.
collaboration with the client's internal SAP support team. With The SAP Functional and Technical support that YASH
minimal disruption to the regular work schedule of the core provided in a flexible resource engagement included:
team members, YASH provided 'playback' sessions (literally
showing part of the new working system) to the internal team • 24x7 support to India, South America and US
that included information on what was discovered by the YASH • ABAP and Java Technical Support
team during the intensive three-week knowledge transfer • Enhancement and Bug Fixes
period. These 'playback' sessions were used successfully by
YASH to demonstrate the results and project plan for the
• Level 1, 2, and 3 User Support
aggressive timeframe. The ability of the YASH team to compile • Application Neighborhood Support
and process enormous amounts of complex information about • End and Power User Training
the client's central environment was crucial to the overall • Security and User Management
project success. YASH utilized the standardized components in
Run SAP methodology to quickly align internal processes, and • System Performance Tuning
enhanced the client's return-on-investment from the initial
3. “The value that YASH provides extends beyond cost savings. As our relationship has grown over the years, we have
continued to experience the high level of commitment and resourcefulness that they provide in their client
relationships. Their ability to ramp up on our environment and have effective methodologies for seamless knowledge
transfer is really indicative of the flexible nature and their high level of capabilities.”
-Global IT Director
Collaborative Partnership Allowed Client to Achieve Greater Value from Current IT Investments
As YASH’s flexible delivery model supported each unique Other operational benefits that were derived from YASH’s
situation that arose during the knowledge transition period, SAP Application Management Services included:
the client benefitted from the ability to adjust service and
pricing levels to better align performance with their Total • Improved performance and business value
Cost of Ownership. throughout the enterprise
YASH established a centralized Center of Excellence (CoE) • Industry-leading solutions designed to provide
model for the client that enabled YASH to leverage the predictable costs, control, application visibility,
knowledge gained across multiple support and project and rapid integration into their environment
engagements without any additional cost or resources for the • Flexible, scalable, and transparent services-based
client. This model will be used to execute various projects using model with measurable service performance
dedicated knowledge personnel, who will then seamlessly linked to key business performance indicators
transfer into support with no loss of knowledge. The client will • Low impact and disruption to business processes
realize a tangible cost-savings of 30% in project execution and • 24x7 support reduced issue resolution time and
support transition through this CoE model.
achieved faster realization of strategic objectives
Because YASH was able to ramp-up on the client’s business and
The client hopes to utilize SAP AMS to sustain and
SAP knowledge in a very short five-week period, they were able
evolve their SAP environment in many more global
to rapidly reduce the open ticket volume by 15% in less than 2
locations.
months. The client’s business team in India can now rely on
YASH as a subject matter expert for ongoing mini-projects and
enhancement needs.