If your answer is one week and at no cost, then you are already a Sovos customer.
I am hearing from many people that they are continuing to throw resources and money at this constant SAP maintenance problem due to the changes in legislation. And this is not the last change, you should already be preparing for the eSocial implementation. The reason for the costs is directly related to the complexity of the systems installed.
A Hybrid Cloud Architecture as discussed in previous articles is reducing Nota Fiscal 3.1 migrations to a week with no need for internal resources — versus — many on-premise solutions that we are seeing proposal of 2-3 months requiring multiple external and internal resources. By providing the best of both worlds, SAP COE are using this upgrade to implement a longer term model . . .(Invoiceware) . . . that eliminates change management, so they don’t wind up in the same position in 2015, they did for 2014, 2013, 2012 – all the way back to 2007 when the legislation first came about.
So how does a Hybrid Cloud model eliminate SAP change management issues in Brazil?
The hybrid model has an on premise component that:
- Manages the unique configurations of an end user’s SAP system
- Buffers the centralized SAP system from forced upgrades when the government announces changes
- Relieves the SAP COE from having to understand, interpret and implement the local changes into the corporate SAP system. This on premise component manages the “Delta” and change management so you don’t
- Manages the internal printing network & allows “Contingency” printing if the network is down
Combined with the power of a network which brings:
- Economies of scale to the operating cost (i.e. all companies use the same government web services) – why would you want to support those and monitor those connections on your own.
- Support infrastructure for the entire process – so your local teams can access support in a local language and your SAP COE can call in English. And most importantly, the hybrid provider is a Single Source for Support – no finger pointing.
- Guaranteed compliance – the service monitors the changes and will implement them so you don’t have to throughout the year
- Some networks even connect to multiple country governments, so with one connection to the network, you can comply with the mandatory requirements in Brazil, as well as Mexico, Argentina and Chile.
The Issues of Legacy implementations
- On Premise is expensive to maintain, disrupts the change management and COE standard upgrade policies, and doesn’t take advantage of any economies of scale which creates out of control costs
- A 100% cloud offering still leaves your IT team supporting 80% of the work (i.e. figuring out how to get your SAP system integrated with the government processes), has no way of providing on premise contingency (i.e. means that if the network is down – you can’t ship), and still requires you to implement all the ERP support notes everytime there is a regulatory change.
Hybrid Architecture – is the way forward
- Eliminates SAP issues
- Eliminates the IT staff from having to react to constant changes in legislation
- Allows for on premise contingency
- Takes advantage of economies of scale
- Provides the benefit of the managed service support so you have help when something goes wrong
- And when you add it all up, the Hybrid model lowers the total cost of maintaining SAP in Brazil (as well as in other Latin American countries) especially when running a centralized version (i.e. COE – Center of Excellence)
So with the Brazil 3.1 project upcoming, will you turn to a Hybrid Cloud deployment so you can stop the change management chaos, or will you continiue diverting resources, budget and time to maintaining the changes already coming down the tracks in Brazil? Many of the world’s largest companies have already made the move to Invoiceware. . . at the very least, you should understand your alternatives.
