External Support for SAP - Open Discussion

[Former Member]

Hi All,

Lately I have discovered that there are some companys in the market that offer to change the official Maintenance Support from SAP to an external support for the SAP products (ERP, BW ..) Even they offer the same service for the database managers (Oracle, DB2 ...). Honestly I've never heard about it till now.

We can say that is like "Detach" SAP from SAP so at the moment that you go to this way you don't have maintenance support from SAP anymore and you will deal your maintenance with the other company. They should solve all your issue instead of SAP or Oracle, IBM ..

From the finance point of view you can save money with this approach because this companies offers prices obviously lower than the official vendors,

But to be honest I don't care about the finance component, I'm more courious about how to work with this model from the SAP System Administrator point of view.

Please feel free to share all the thoughts and, of course, your experiences in this kinf of models. As you can see I have not mentioned the names of these companies to avoid any commercial discussion by both sides so please try to focus in technical discussions.

Kind Regards

Jose

[Lluis]

Hello Jose Manuel,

I was surprise with your initial post, i don't understand how a company that offer service to a SAP customer can give support avoiding SAP maintenance...

If customer read their "Exhibit for SAP Enterprise Support" or "Exhibit for SAP Standard Support", both maintenance have this on their lines:

How a third company give support to SAP customer's without a Solution Manager ? With Solution Manager, you are not available to give support to customer's than't don't have their maintenance up-to-date; and if they do their are getting in trouble that SAP Customers.

As my own experience after working in a SAP Support department where we offer SAP Support to more  than 300 customers, I can't believe how that offer "External Support".

Think about that:

- Legal changes in countries like SEPA, 340,etc.. in Spain or other countries: That type of changes/fixes/corrections delivered from SAP and need to be implemented on SAP customer's System is trough hard coding, have you think about hard coding around 20 sap notes corrections ? Without the release check ? ....

- That SAP customer's can't get SAP early Watch report from a Solution Manager, because the ewa report always check if the license maintenance are up to date, so they will not have access to ewa recommendations.

- If in SAP customer's specific country change any payroll detail that need to be added to HCM system for legal requirements, will that customers endanger their on Salary ¡

-  External support will not able to report support message to SAP to give support from experts if SAP customer found a problem in SAP system normal functionality.

- SAP-OSS will not work anymore...

- You can use Maintenance Optimizer to approve downloads or create XMLs software stacks.

- Each customer owner with a Standard or Enterprise Support Maintenance are able to download and use SAP Solution Manager; that customer's that don't have they maintenance up-to-date are not able to download or use it, and of course any external company can't offer support from external Solution Manager to SAP Customer's without a Correct Maintenance.

I can't stop writing inconveniences to any company that use External Support detaching SAP from SAP...

Thanks Jose Manuel Salgueroto open a discussion like this to allows customers in that situation to see what they are losing, and the risk that this can afford to most important and critical business process for their business.

Regards,

Luis

[Former Member]

Hi Lluis,

Many thanks your valuable feedback.

Just one clarification here, I'm not taking about a Partner without SAP Support, these companies to switch the current SAP Support to them own support.

In addition you can have as many partners you want (Basis, Development, Application Support ...) but as you don't have contracted any support with SAP they cannot use the SAP support services for you.

In summary, if you have a problem in your SAP landscape, instead of open a message to SAP, you have to open a ticket to this company and they should be able to solve it by their own.

I know that it sounds odd but it is like that.

Actually my goal with this post is to raise all the risks and benefits, if there is any, of this model and above all to get the feedback from people that are working with this model.

Kind Regards.

[Lluis]

Hola Jose Manuel,

Thanks for your clarification, it sound really dark what I understand on my first read

On a scenario like you comment:

..n't have contracted any support with SAP they cannot use the SAP support services for you....

For my understanding, any SAP customers, are forbid to contact SAP trough SAP support services, like oss message/incidents, mopz, etc...

Thinks on that 2 types of contracts:

1.- Direct Customers:   They are able to Send OSS support message or request SAP service trough marketplace (that will change in the future), the best is to use their own SAP Solution Manager for that,

2.- Channel Customers:   They are able also to Send OSS support message or request SAP service but they have to use "VAR" Solution Manager, because that VAR is the SAP partner that manage that type os customers license. That customers open solman tickects and if it is necesary Partnner have to send the incident to SAP.

3.- there are more type, like Large customers, etc.. but they use option 1 also, SAP partner is not responsible of SAP services.

I work at Seidor on the setup of VAR scenario with Solution Manager to allow all our channel customers to contact or request SAP services trough our SAP Solution Manager.

I think that this can answers you, anyone of that customers are on Risk to contact SAP Support, if you need more information you can contact me trough private message and we can talk trough mail.

Regards,

Luis

[Former Member]

HI Lluis,

Customers are allowed to have a SAP system without the Support of SAP AG. Every customer can contract the support with a third-party supplier to get the technical support. This also applies to others SW like Oracle, JD Edwuards .....

Of course you still have to pay the license of use for the SW but not the Support part.

This is the case that I have raised in this Blog. The point is not the way you access to the SAP support but who gives actually the support.

Kind Regards

[Lluis]

Your are Right Jose Manuel, I only try to explain you my point of view. we are talking about 2 different support options ;-). Maintenance Side and License Side.

Regards,

Lluis