Single Global Instance - Issues and concerns

[Former Member]

Hello Guru's

My client has recently acquired multiple companies and now we are a global implementation. So the business has decided to go for a Single Global instance of SAP-R/3

The SGI is going to be live pretty soon.

I am a BW Analyst and I am concerned as how the changes can affect the BW system.

As of now I have no idea of what has changed, but I am in the process of searching scenario's as what could change and how it could effect the BW system

This is one of my attempts to pursue it. if any of you BW guru's have encountered/worked/have knowledge of, such a situation please could you please direct me in the direction as of how to approach it.

Is there any documentation available where i can browse through and prepare a pre-GAAP analysis document.

Thanks in advance and points will be awarded generously to every useful documentation.

Nagaraju

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Nagaraju,

Usually in a Global Implementation , there will be regional differences which in the backend are consilidated. For example tax structures built into billing , Inventory process , Depreciation accounting , Manufacturing ( excise duty etc )

When you try and integrate the same into one global BW implementation, you will have to watch out for these differences. It is basically mapping all the process ( which will take a very long time ) and ironing out the differences. In view of this , usually what companies do is to go for a global instance of their common processes - manufacturing , procurement etc and have localized versions of Finance etc. Also the reporting needs of each geography will vary with reports becoming regionj specific. What you could look at is a Single BW implementation for the common processes and then do the same for the individual regions providing them region specific reports. That way the performance will also be good ( assuming huge volumes of data and connecting to Switzerland from Manila for a single report )

My 0.02

Arun

[Former Member]

Hello Arun,

Thanks for your response. It was useful input. As of now the only change I have been aware of is the master data changes, like plant and material numbers have changed from numeric to Alpha Numeric and associated master data also has changes in the type or length.

To account those changes into BW, do I need to delete the existing master data since it is no longer valid. If so, would I need to delete the whole transactional data from the cubes and ODS objects to acheive this.

Is there any alternative approach to encounter this situation? Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Thanks

Nagaraju

[christian_wohlfahrt]

Hi Nagaraju!

Why do you need to change the data types? MARA-MATNR was all the time a character field - if you use characters or not. If you had a different definition in BW, then you need to change the type -> convert the data -> deletion is needed. Then also transactional data has to be deleted.

You need anyway load the data of the additional systems completely; just tread the 'original' system in the same way (meaning to start with an empty system and a complete data upload).

Do you use in future master data for several countries or does every country have it's own data (e.g. in different number ranges)?

In case same data has to be used, not just an additional translation is needed - the other values might be different in current systems, but can't in the future.

Have a look, what problems the central migration project is facing -> this will be yours, too.

Regards,

Christian

[Former Member]

Nagaraju,

Will you have a requirement to report out of multiple R/3 Instances where the definitions are different.

Some things that can be done are :

1.Create a Consolidated Logical Data model of a CDM ( Corporate Data model )

2. you could look at metadata management tools to manage the definitions , maybe SAP MDM

My 0.02..

Arun