Evaluating Customer Requirements

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to listen carefully and question customer requirements in order to propose the best approach

Introduction

During the activation and implementation of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, as a consultant, while presenting SAP Best Practices scenarios, you face the reactions and requests of your customers. 

Being able to propose the right configuration option for a specific customer need can significantly increase customer satisfaction while reducing implementation time, as it allows you to avoid more time-consuming and costly extensions.   

There are certainly not configuration solutions for all customer requirements, but it is important to investigate them. Take the time to question, review, and understand a requirement. It is worth it.

Example of a Customer Scenario

The following video provides an example of a typical situation in a fit-to-standard workshop where your customer has doubts and concerns about a process.

We have seen that your customer may have objections or doubts when you present a standard process in the system. How would you react? Explore the following options:

  • Option 1: You minimize the customer's objections and propose a workaround.
  • Option 2: You immediately propose an extension.
  • Option 3: You explore configuration options.

Note

In the following videos, you will see different reactions and answers from the consultant and receive feedback. For the incorrect or partially incorrect answers, we explain what mistakes you should not make.

Option 1: Minimize Objections and Propose a Workaround

Let's discover and investigate the first option in the following video.

We've learned in the previous video how important it is to respect to the customer's objection and not dismiss it immediately.

Option 2: Immediately Propose an Extension

Let's consider the second option in the following video.

We have learned in the previous video that the first choice is always to use the system's configuration and avoid extensions, wherever possible. However, this is not always possible. If configuration leaves requirements open, you have several options in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition:

  • Key User In-App Extensibility in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, using the built-in capabilities
  • Side-by-Side Extensibility through the SAP Business Technology Platform
  • Developer In-App Extensibility through the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, ABAP environment

Option 3: Explore Configuration Options

Let's discover the third and best option in the following video.

Remember that you should always try to use system configuration to improve processes and avoid extensions wherever possible; start by asking the right questions to understand exactly what your customer wants. If the configuration doesn't offer anything, there's always time to explore workarounds and development options.

Importance of Configuration Knowledge

We hope we have given you an understanding of how to approach configuration requests.

Just remember this example during your fit-to-standard workshops.

However, this approach to customer questions assumes that you have a good knowledge of the configuration options for your business processes.

Later in this course, we will discuss the most common configuration topics related to supply chain processes in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition.

Note

We would also like to remind you of the Business Driven Configuration Questionnaire in the SAP Roadmap Viewer, which can provide additional support.

There you can find configuration values that need to be defined for each business process. The initial values (marked with L2 in the questionnaire) should be collected before the fit-to-standard workshops. The remaining values (marked with L3 can be gathered during the fit-to-standard workshops.

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