Big4Guy

Companies implementing SAP R/3 often stumble upon the question as to how long will it take to implement SAP? The answer can vary from one month to a couple of years depending upon the scope of implementation, modules implemented, client's business etc. A more realistic approach to finding out how much time it will take to implement SAP would be to divide the SAP R/3 implementation project in phases. Companies can then identify the time required in each phase and come up with the project duration.

Normally the phases in a SAP R3 implementation project would be the following:

- Project Preperation
- Business Blueprint
- Realization
- Final Preperation
- Go Live

To clarify things further, let me take an example of a client for whom we implemented SAP R/3 recently. I am listing down the project duration for each of the stages mentioned above.

Project Preperation - This involves project planning and scoping. This normally takes 10% of the entire implementation time.

Busines Blueprint - Business blueprint covers defining what authorizations are required, reports needed, interfaces, organization structure, defining business processes etc. This stage normally takes 15% of the project time.

Realization - Realization is the stage where the baseline SAP R/3 configuration is setup, Final configuration is done and intergration testing is done of the final configuration. This represents the lengthiest phase of the SAP implementation project and normally takes up 50% of the porject time.

Final Preperation - This project phase involves testing the system configured with test plans, test data, and creating the GO live plan. This takes up almost 15% of the total time.

Go Live - The final stage in a SAP R/3 implementation project is the Go Live phase. In the Go Live stage SAP production client is rolled and the system is officially running. Normally system performance testing is undertaken in this phase. Go Live stage normally takes up 10% of the entire project time.

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