How to Choose the Best SAP Change Automation Tool

While most of the IT world has been furiously keeping pace with modern approaches to software delivery, SAP is woefully behind the times. It’s the backbone of many enterprises, and most IT professionals prefer to rely on cautious, traditional waterfall approaches when making changes to these critical systems. But old-school manual methods are slow, inefficient, and prone to error.

Businesses can dramatically reduce the risks and costs associated with SAP change delivery through the adoption of automation.

Why Companies Need SAP Change Automation and the Benefits

The modern business landscape presents many challenges for companies: from volatile markets to high customer expectations. Adopting change automation for SAP enables businesses to react quickly and efficiently to these shifting demands and maintain a competitive edge.

Some key benefits of SAP change automation are:

Accelerated Speed of Change Delivery

Speed is the name of the game when it comes to thriving in today’s competitive business environment. Quarterly or even monthly SAP changes just won’t suffice. Automation enables a ‘release when ready’ deployment approach, allowing customers to confidently deliver SAP changes on a weekly or even daily basis.

Saves Your Team Valuable Time

Imagine never having to crack open that big, messy spreadsheet ever again. Introducing automation removes time-wasting manual labor that slows down the change delivery process. Global building solutions leader Kingspan managed to cut the effort involved in their change management process by 50% after switching to Basis Technologies’ ActiveControl automation, delivering change twice as fast and eliminating serious production incidents.

Dramatically Lowers Costs

Basis Technologies customers frequently cite cost reductions of 50% after switching to SAP change automation, thanks to the massive cut-back in manual effort and the sharp increase in quality, which further reduces the need for tedious corrections. Companies that introduce automation will dramatically increase efficiency, delivering more and better for less.

Reduces Human Error

By eliminating most of the manual effort associated with SAP change delivery, automation tools also cut down on potential errors. Automation tools have the added benefit of complete recall as well so that you can immediately correct any failures. Basis Technologies’ automation tool, ActiveControl, has an instant backout option which can reverse errors from production systems with a single click.

Lowers the Risks of Business Disruptions

Outages occur all too often when companies take the manual approach to SAP changes, and freezes can be hugely detrimental to your business. Many Basis Technologies customers report a 70% reduction in production incidents and downtime after switching to SAP change automation, with some even claiming to have eliminated these problems entirely.

What to Look for in an SAP Change Automation Solution

Not all automation tools are created equal. Here are 7 key things to look for when selecting the best SAP automation solution:

1. Powerful Analysis and Shift-left Support
   Maintaining complete control over the SAP change delivery process is essential to smooth business operations. The best solutions offer powerful analysis and workflow tools, as well as robust user control options and approval processes to reduce risks. Ideal solutions will also inspect your code while it’s in development and alert you to potential issues before it’s too late. ActiveControl provides over 70 such analysis tools for maximum control over change delivery.
   
   
2. Multi-system Support
   Dual maintenance is an integral part of managing any complex SAP environment, but the traditional manual method is fraught with risks, high costs, and delays. Your company can mitigate these issues by automating the management of parallel landscapes with intelligent tools, such as ActiveControl, which can seamlessly manage complex changes between multiple systems, preventing unacceptable production freezes.
   
   
3. Third-party Tool Integration
   Your SAP change delivery tool needs to ‘play nice’ with your favorite third-party applications, such as ServiceNow, Jira, Jenkins, and GitHub. These are essential tools for building and deploying software across your company, and the SAP automation tool you adopt needs to integrate with all of them seamlessly. ActiveControl comes ready to support all of the most popular enterprise applications right out of the box.
   
   
4. Support for Major SAP Projects
   Are you in the process of an SAP S/4HANA migration? Businesses undertaking large-scale SAP transformations can dramatically reduce costs and the risks of manual effort by investing in a change automation tool that enables project acceleration without sacrificing quality. ActiveControl supports even the most complex, multi-year projects with the necessary automated checks and quality controls and the ability to manage changes across different development tracks.
   
   
5. Auditability
   Companies have a lot to look out for in today’s complex compliance landscape. As the number of regulations increases, so do the risks. The old-school, manual audit reporting process just won’t cut it anymore. Modern businesses can shrink this whole process down to simple 1-click reporting with an SAP automation solution, such as ActiveControl, which enforces the necessary processes and procedures every step of the way.
   
   
6. Risk Mitigation
   Errors are inevitable, even when using top-rated SAP automation tools. The fallout can range from small blips to massive freezes. ActiveControl is the only tool on the market that offers an instant, one-click backout option to reverse errors from production systems, allowing companies to move faster and more confidently when deploying critical SAP changes.
   
   
7. Support for Agile and DevOps for SAP
   As companies face mounting pressure to deliver high quality software at ever-increasing speeds, agile development and DevOps for SAP are essential facets of any IT organization. Your SAP change management tool should support these methodologies, enabling organizations to keep pace with the demands of the business, improve collaboration and speed up release cycles. Vistaprint uses ActiveControl automation to deliver critical changes to their systems as often as every 15 minutes.

Automate SAP Changes and Boost ROI with ActiveControl

Companies that adopt SAP change automation enjoy a multitude of benefits, including faster innovation, reduced costs, lower risks, and higher efficiency. No more wasting valuable company resources on tedious, manual tasks that are prone to error. Employees can focus instead on high-value strategic projects, keeping your business cutting-edge competitive.

ActiveControl can help you deliver automated SAP changes with absolute confidence, with strict approvals workflows, dependency checks, and a unique one-click backout function that allows users to reverse an erroneous change instantaneously. Delivering changes quickly and efficiently has never been easier.

To learn more about how ActiveControl can modernize your SAP change delivery process with automation, check out our free demo, webinars, and further resources.