For the end users, the system should be a benefit and a tool – not a burden.

For this reason, it is important to bear the end users in mind all the time during every SAP implementation. Not just by focusing on the processes they are to carry out, but also by simultaneously understanding their work processes, taking their level of knowledge into account, and supporting precisely their needs.

An integrated system such as SAP, which has so much to offer, can tempt the management into being overambitious. “When you can … then let’s use it!” That is why it is so important to keep asking the question: how will our end users view this process? It is a good idea to involve the end users actively as a part of the project.

If you initially succeed in limiting “overambition”, it may well be that the end users themselves subsequently ask for the scope of the system to be extended.

In this context, we play the role of “Devil’s Advocate” and oblige ourselves or others who may be surfing a wave of enthusiasm to remember our end users.

The evening prayer of the SAP consultant (and the SAP executive) should therefore be:

“Lord, help me to remember my end users”.