This two-part blog is based on our real-life experience in the first SAP Cloud for Sales project in Nordics we implemented for our customer within schedule and even below the budget in Q1 2014.
I will let my colleagues explain about the real benefits and processes of a cloud-based CRM solution itself, and I will write a practical list of DO’s and DON’Ts based on the insight we gained in this implementation project instead. Integration topics in SAP SaaS Cloud integration seem to be a point of great interest and an area with more questions than answers.
So, here goes, a list of DO’s and DON’Ts for SAP Cloud SaaS integration, first the DO’s:
- Get a high-ranking sponsor for the project! We were lucky to have the CIO of our customer involved in the project. This is beneficial, because there are many aspects within a rapid cloud solution implementation project that do not go by the current (on premise) corporate IT governance and IT service management. This does not mean breaking the rules, but having someone on the customer side to back up the speedy process and sometimes maybe bending the rules.
- Respect the infrastructure! Network architecture, secure connectivity to the internet and customer’s networking policies are some of the first things to check in a cloud integration project! It is good to keep in mind that even though SAP provides a proper reference architecture for implementing the cloud integration network infrastructure, the customer most likely has the required network components (such as proxies, load balancers) in place already. Rule of thumb: integration outbound to the cloud is more straightforward and simple than integration inbound from the cloud!
- Respect the standard! SAP SaaS based integration is in large a collection of standard components in the SAP on-premise backend (ECC, CRM) and the SAP integration platform (on-premise PO, PI or Hana Cloud Integration). Because these components are to be used as efficiently as possible without going into a cowboy/hero mode of implementing integration from scratch and bypassing everything that is already available!
I will post our list of DON’Ts next week – stay tuned!
