
(Posted on behalf of Bjoern Bernard)
When they hear the word 'Adoption' most ordinary people will think - as defined by Wikipedia - of 'the legal act of permanently placing a child with non-biological (adoptive) parents other than the biological (natural) parents.' Personally, this concept became very real for me as my 2 kids are adopted children.
In the software world 'Adoption' has a very different meaning or meanings. Looking at the 'legal' definition above and applying this to software, one could make the case that implementing software in an organization is like 'implanting a foreign object into a living and breathing organism'.
In some sense this is true and like in the medical world implants are often rejected or take years to become 'one' with its new owner. With any new software or technology the organization needs to adjust to new processes, digest the change and 'adopt' new behaviors. Otherwise software projects are doomed for failure.
With SAP TM this is no different. Organizations in the case of transportation processes very often still operate in highly rudimentary or outdated environments such as...
One of SAP Transportation Management's primary goals is to digitalize these tasks and at the same time try to automate processes, effectively reducing manual intervention and human errors. The TM solution inherently provides tools that help with these tasks. In the case of replacing legacy systems the task at hand of course is much more difficult as business users will have a hard time accepting new tools that might not look&feel like the incumbent system.
I would like to circle back to the 'Adoption' concept and talk about market adoption of SAP TM. Arguably my opinion is biased as I worked at SAP on the topic for a number of years during the Market Introduction phase. Still, from my vantage point the adoption rate of SAP TM will be quite steep - at least compared to some of the other business suite solutions that SAP introduced over the last few years.
Several factors can be listed as indicators -
In ending I would like to challenge SAP to do its share in this Adoption process. For SAP to truly capitalize on its large installed base SAP TM processes need to be adopted in a multitude of other solutions - Global-Available-to-Promise, EWM, CRM, TSW, SNC - just to name a few. I recently blogged on GOPA ITC's own SAP TM blog site about the Alphabet Soup that exists in SAP's solution footprint. We would welcome others to join the community at http://blog.gopa-itc.com.
SAP has a very solid roadmap that commits a lot of resources in the coming years to SAP TM and Supply Chain Execution. We all hope that SAP TM will become the default choice for any customer looking for a TMS solution and as a result SAP TM will be a poster child of successful 'software adoption'.
Bjoern Bernard
Vice President - SAP SCM/TM Practice
GOPA IT Consultants Inc.
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