Is IT Consulting Distinct From SAP BW Consulting?

 

When you deal with a SAP project, you will quickly learn that it is generally a Business Project, not an IT project, or so SAP will tell you. 

 

 

 

 

I would say that it is a bit of both, but that if you wanted to compare an IT Consulting Project to a SAP BW Project, you would come up with the following list of similarities and difference

 

 

Though Similar an IT Project is different from a SAP BW Consulting Project

 

 

Similarities	Differences
Both involve computers:) An IT project can be both a stand-alone type project, i.e., Facebook or involve an embedded system, like a embedded chip within a car.	SAP BW generally involves both IT and a deep knowledge of how a business process works.  A Rock Star SAP BW Consultant will come to understand a business process end-to-end and be able to make improvement recommendations to the business process based on knowledge gained from numerous industries.
Both have a variety of highly evolved, very formulaic implementation methodologies. Lean, ASAP, Iterative, Waterfall, Agile, etc.,	Business Intelligence projects generally do not actually have highly fixed requirements in terms of reporting when they are initiated.  However, these types of projects, almost by definition, have evolving requirements
Can be anything from an embedded system to a web based service like Facebook.	Almost highly or totally focused on delivering analytics of a business system.

 

A list that compared and contrasted all the differences between IT Consulting and SAP BW in general might go on for a  very long time. 

 

However, my point with this blog was to focus on how SAP BW Consulting is more a business project than you typically find with a IT Consulting project.

 

This does not mean that an IT Consulting project should not or is not done for solid business reasons.  

 

In fact, the smart CIO makes sure that any IT expenditure has a solid value case these days, using one of the Business Case Development Methodologies. This is one key aspects of future-proofing modern business operations.

 

But, we have a found a surprising number of companies that don’t actually have a formal business case process they subject IT projects to!  The most successful SAP Clients not only build a business case for ever project, they provide process documentation to ensure the development and presentation a project's business case follows their best practice standard.

 

SAP BW Project Management

 

Based on our company's vast experience with running both SAP projects and IT Projects, we've been able to produce a series of SAP Project Management Guides, which you can get by clicking the button.