Partners: procure consulting assistance from SAP Services online and read our reference story

[Amin-Hoque]

Are you a partner bidding for a project that includes an SAP solution that your team has not implemented before?  You have done the training and certification but need more guidance. For example, SAP Group reporting, SAP Analytics Cloud or SAP Business Technology Platform?  Do you have a project underway where an SAP expert who has delivered a project end-to-end could help?

Partner Mentoring

An experienced designated mentor from SAP Services can help you.  The Partner Mentoring service includes a one hour remote meeting every week for 3 months.  For each 1 hour call, the mentor is allocated more than 1 hour for preparation/follow-up. We can work in many languages anywhere in the world. You can choose a Project Manager, Solution Architect, Technical Architect or Integration Advisor. The mentor will prepare customized guidance before the call and produces minutes afterwards.

You can buy partner mentoring online for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, CX and SuccessFactors in the partner benefits catalog. For other SAP solutions, email us at partner-services@sap.com  Login to https://partnerbenefitscatalog.sap.com with an S-user and search for "mentoring". (If it is your first time purchasing through SAP Store you will need to create a support request to become an "authorized buyer".  We will turn this request around quickly).

Partner Coaching

We have a sister service called Partner Coaching. This allows you to talk with different coaches based on your topic as and when you need them. The service covers a wider set of topics including technical, functional, integration and project management questions. It is delivered in English (other languages e.g. Chinese are possible). You have ten 30 minute slots to use over 6 months. Slots can be combined for longer questions. For each 30 minutes request, the coach is allocated more than 1 hour for preparation/follow-up.  Some requests will require less time than this and some requests will require more. Fill in a short online form and you will be allocated one of our coaches based on your question.

It is  available to buy online for CX and SuccessFactors in the partner benefits catalog. Login with an S-user and search for "coaching". (If it is your first time purchasing through SAP Store you will need to create a support request to become an "authorized buyer".  We will turn this request around quickly). There is also a version of coaching for SAP S/4HANA Cloud and On-Premise. Email us at partner-services@sap.com

Reference Story

Read the reference story about how we worked with the partner Blueprint Technologies in India. They have a broad cloud consultancy capability that includes SAP CX and SAP SuccessFactors.

There is a lot more detail about Partner Mentoring and Partner Coaching in this related blog: https://blogs.sap.com/2021/04/29/sap-services-to-assist-sap-implementation-partners/

I hope you found this blog informative

Amin Hoque

Amin Hoque
Application Architect at SAP Services UK

[Pazahanick_Jarr]

From #SAP "Are you a SAP PARTNER bidding for a project that includes an SAP solution that your team has NOT implemented before?" http://ow.ly/40fz50ETOU2  <- This is such a classic tone deaf "Wild West" non-customer focus thing they support/allow #Shameful #DoBetter 🤡🤡🤡🤡

[Amin-Hoque]

Hello J

SAP partners get training and their consultants get certified before implementing a SAP solution.  Many partners will recruit consultants that have implemented the solution before taking on a project. A partner may have experience in one country but their team in another country may not have go-live experience yet.

These services offer assistance for partners new to a solution.  For new SAP solutions and new releases, SAP already has processes in place to work closely with the implementation partners.

Kind regards

Amin Hoque

[Pazahanick_Jarr]

Few to many "may" in your answer as opposed to "must" as SAP owes it to customers to demand that CONSULTANTS and Partners have the necessary experience and not just a multiple choice test (that has answers for sale on black market) and "hope" that partners/people will do the right thing as that has not occured as much as it should and customers are the ones that suffer.

[Amin-Hoque]

We agree with you and would love it if every Partner team and individual consultant had proven experience before implementing for our customers. We strongly encourage customers to choose our reference partners, who do have a proven track record. However, it’s not uncommon for top notch partners who have an ongoing relationship with a customer to be asked to implement a solution they have not implemented before. That’s the customer’s decision not SAPs. We also recognize that with new technologies there are often zero Partners in a geography with experience. That’s inevitable as we continually innovate our solutions. To address these situations we strive to fill the gap between class smart and street smart. First, encourage the customers to choose their Partners carefully. Second, fill the skill gaps through education, certification, mentoring, coaching, and collaborative services like Value Assurance.

[Pazahanick_Jarr]

"We agree with you" - Excellent, now do something to fix it as been a problem for years

"We would love it if every Partner have proven experience" - You are the VENDOR and get to decide who implements your product!

"We strongly encourage customers" - Again another ridiculous statement as this is NOT true

"Who do have a proven track record." - Where exactly should customers look to verify the PROVEN track record.  I only know of one independent 3rd Party (Raven Intel) and they only cover SuccessFactors.

"Top notch partners who have an ongoing relationship with a customer to be asked to implement a solution they have not implemented before"  - Where is the list that shows the "Top Notch" and imagine a patient asking a hospital to allow a surgery by a non-doctor they "liked",  imagine of courthouse allowing a person to be represented by a non-lawyer they "liked".

"That’s the customer’s decision not SAPs." -  Wow, just wow! Do better SAP as you control who helps your customer be successful and get value from their software purchases.

"new technologies there are often zero Partners in a geography with experience" - Then have SAP PS do project as no other option makes sense if you truly care about customers

"class smart and street smart" - 80 question multiple choice smart and never done it = disaster

"encourage the customers to choose their Partners carefully" - Please point to the communication that outlines how customers should do this.

[Jelena]

Thanks for sharing! I have a few questions on this.

1. Why two different services? The principle seems the same, it's just the schedule and subscription system (?) is different.


2. Related: why is there yet another web site for this? We already have Partner Edge.


3. Why are these paid services? In particular, it feels wrong that "mentorship" must be paid for. I was part of SAP Mentors for several years and invested a lot of my time on the program. All we got from that was a t-shirt and an occasional TechEd ticket. Maybe it's a poor choice of verbiage but I feel traditionally it implies that a mentor is not someone getting paid for the mentorship. If someone is getting paid then they are a coach. This takes us back to p.1 above.

For full disclosure, I work for one of the SAP partners. Personally, I'm not much involved in the partnership business but I visited Partner Edge website out of curiosity and was disappointed to find that there was not much interesting or exclusive content (I searched for RPA-related materials, for example).

There have already been rumblings about SAP RISE sort of side-lining the SIs/partners (source of info: ASUG call with partners and social media). SAP still charges pretty penny for certification. And now more paid services. Maybe it's just me but it's not what I'd envision when SAP is talking about importance of partner relationships.

Thank you.

[Amin-Hoque]

Hello Jelena

First thank you for your questions.

1.  Why two services?  Partner Mentoring provides focused advice for one role e.g. Technical Architect while Partner Coaching is broad covering any topic or role related to a solution. With Partner Mentoring you talk every week with one mentor who gets to know you and your project.  They can provide proactive advice.  Partner Coaching offers reactive advice from various experts just when you need it.  With Coaching you can call off a coaching session as required.


2. Why two web locations (Blog and PartnerEdge)?  We found that many consultants do not have a PartnerEdge login or active S-user.  This blog is available to everyone: partners without a login and customers.


3. Why are these paid services?   SAP Development and Partner Organizations do provide free advice for many new SAP solutions and sometimes major new releases.  SAP Services do implementations and have the most experience but Services is bound by 1) competition rules (governing discounts/free advice) and 2) margin targets. That is why the services are billable.

Regarding RISE with SAP.  SAP has no plans to create implementation services for customers to buy that  will be delivered alongside a partner.  SAP will offer assistance to the partner instead.  The partner can choose whether to lean on SAP or not.

Hope that helps

Amin Hoque.

[Jelena]

Thanks for a reply,

To clarify, by two websites I meant PartnerEdge and this one mentioned in the blog: "Login to https://partnerbenefitscatalog.sap.com with an S-user [...]”

It says right here it needs SID. PartnerEdge also requires SID, so that's why I'm confused by the addition of another website to bookmark. Is there some problem exposing this on PE directly?

[Amin-Hoque]

Hello Jelena

The Partner Benefits Catalog is a web shop that is within PartnerEdge.  Once you login into PartnerEdge you have access to the Partner Benefits Catalog.

Kind regards

Amin Hoque.

[Amin-Hoque]

Here is an example of free advice available to qualifying partners for SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

https://blogs.sap.com/2020/08/25/welcome-to-the-sap-s-4hana-cloud-expertise-services-community/