Working together with customers, understanding their needs and pain points regarding our products is an extremely exciting and valuable task which every
developer in IMS is looking forward to.
I had the privilege to work in one such project with the German-Speaking User Group (DSAG).In this context I had the chance to work together with SAP
colleagues from Consulting,Solution Management and Product Management in order to deliver an important improvement to our customers.
Early in 2015, the DSAG group for our FS-CMS (Collateral Management System) solution reported several issues regarding the calculation logic in our "Suite Edition" . FS-CMS is offered on two platforms - the ERP-based "Suite Edition" and the FS-platform based "Banking Services" version.
The product owner quickly reached out to the IMS team,which is well known for its product expertise.As IMS responsible for FS-CMS, I analyzed the DSAG request together with experts from Consulting and Solution Management.During this analysis I had to clarify questions with customers.
At first this just seemed to be a pure consulting issue but as we drilled down further and compared the logic in Banking Services version, we came to know that there was a huge difference in the logic between the two platforms.This logic served their purpose to some extent but didn't solve their issue completely.Then after few iterations we arrived on the conclusion that the DSAG requirement can be achieved with a Business Add-In (BADI) on top of the Banking Services logic.
Now we had the herculean task of convincing our customers.I prepared a POC (Proof of Concept) in one of our systems together with a colleague from SAP Consulting.During the next meeting with DSAG customers, we presented the POC.
I participated as IMS expert.It was a great experience.The POC was presented to the customers and they were very impressed.I was able to clarify their questions.At the end of the session we were asked to provide the presented solution.
This is an excellent example of how various SAP units - IMS,Consulting,Solution and Product Management - can work together in the spirit of One SAP, in order to serve our customers.It was a great learning experience for me to be involved in this process and to interact with our customers.
