One of the
key tasks for the
TM Partner Office is to
provide our partners enablement, especially when a
new product gets launched.
In
Transportation Management we recently had this situation with the
release of the
S/4 HANA 1709 Supply Chain for Transportation Management.
Our partners know the processes and functions of the
TM 9.x versions, and some of them even had
first insights in S/4 HANA. The task now was to
provide them information and hands-on experiences of our new version of TM which they can use for their customers.
Of course we deliver many kinds of
documentation for that matter. But we all know that the best way to learn is to
make experiences!
Therefore we at first invited TM partners to a
scenario acceptance test right after development close as we always do before publishing a release. Our TM Partners know and appreciate this opportunity to be the first one outside SAP to
see the new features of a new release, or even a new product in this case. And for us it’s a perfect way to get
first feedback.
With the start of the
TM Partner Office we offered another format to our partners, the
‘TM Partner Enablement Week’:
- We provide the participants SAP laptops and give them configuration guides.
- Within a week they then have to setup a scenario in the system by themselves and also test it.
- They do this in self-study style in working groups of two or three people.
- SAP experts are in place but only to support in case of severe issues or technical obstacles.
This simulates the
situation at a customer where you have to build up the processes and scenarios as required.
For the
participants this means:
- It differs from a training as our support is limited to a minimum
- We require for the attendance at least one TM training as prerequisite
The
‘perfect target participant’ is a consultant being rather new in TM with maybe one basic training and now requiring some hands-on experience in the system. But
more experienced participants are welcome as well. One of the
key factors shows to be the
perfect mixture of different levels of experience within the working groups.
According to the feedback of the participants they
appreciate this format a lot because of:
- A full week of working in the system by setting up a given scenario and enough free space for own variances
- Great networking opportunities with other partners and SAP people
That all together leads to the situation that the whole group of participants sees itself as a
team, supporting each other across the borders of the working group or even the company.
So in every edition this
special ‘spirit’ is perceivable which gets supported by an evening event.
Because of those positive experiences with the format we now invited even to
three such events to enable as much partners as possible very early after the release of the product: In Sao Leopoldo (Brazil), Bangalore (India) and Walldorf (Germany).
We overall had
55 consultants from 25 companies participating. And the
feedback from every edition was very positive, many of them
asking for more events like that. All of them where so thankful not only to read tons of documentation but to
make experiences and discuss with other partners and SAP experts.
And for us it was also of much value to get such a
broad feedback from that many consultants with many different kinds of customers.
The task for the future is now to
continue with the partner enablement for S/4 HANA 1709 SC for TM because new partners will come on board and we will deliver additional functions.
We will do that by
regular information calls (e.g. a monthly so-called ‘TM Partner Café) and our group in
SAP Jam.
But surely we will offer again
testing opportunities and invite to
enablement weeks as our partners regularly ask for it.
You want to learn more about the
TM Partner Office? Or you are a partner and
like to be part of our community?
Please
write a mail to
mailto:saptmpartneroffice@sap.comand we’re happy to welcome you!
