Customise your build
Out-of-the-box functionality refers to features and content that are immediately available at deployment without the need for any modifications or technical work.
That’s all well and good, but who doesn’t like the option to customise or personalise to improve their user experience and derive the maximum value from a purchase – from computer desktops and home screens on smart phones, to creating playlists in music streaming services. The experience is better if the features and content you use or enjoy are the most accessible – even more so if the purchase can be tailored to deliver exactly what you require.
Because every organisation is unique in its KPIs, it is unrealistic to expect a given software solution to be ideal for all organisations out-of-the-box. SAP solutions come with pre-delivered content, but understandably this content doesn’t always meet an organisation’s specific requirements. Instead, SAP solutions allow for the building of the right content to meet business needs – so you can.
Working for a system integrator myself, here’s a selection of recent bespoke projects, innovations and customisations we’ve carried out for clients to help them to maximise the return on their software investment:
1. Within a recent SAP Process Control implementation project for an oil refining and petrochemicals company, bespoke functionality allowed Users to complete control-based assessments both online (within the tool itself) as well as offline (using PDF assessments), delivering greater control over scheduling their control-based assessments, and enhancing their compliance with the local SOX-equivalent requirements.
2. An organisation delivering utility infrastructure services came to us looking for a bespoke set of user-friendly, easy to understand SAP FIORI reports so that Emergency Access data could easily be searchable (with customised field selection options). SAP SuccessFactors user access reports were also requested, which could be drilled down to levels of Group, Role, and Access. Resulting benefits to the organisation were:
• Management and Internal Audit teams gained full and complete insight to all SAP GRC Firefighter access requests, request statuses and approvers’ details for enhanced auditability, increased audit speed, and greater assurance to risk visibility.
• Follow-up with Firefighter request approvers or log approvers significantly expedited, leading to improved SLAs, greater user and business satisfaction with both the process and tool.
• The SuccessFactors report on GRC status displaying employee data, can be used by management/administrators. A faster and more efficient solution (relative to the time/effort required to extract the less intuitive standard GRC reporting).
• Performing Audit checks simplified, with information received in one scheduled and automated report.
3. Alongside an SAP Audit Management deployment, a global chemical supplier wanted entirely bespoke content to optimise their reporting capabilities. The solution comes with two standard out-of-the-box reports utilising Adobe forms; however, the client requested audit reports with customised styling, formatting, and data. ABAP developments facilitated the replication of custom forms, which created the basis for producing custom reports.
4. Providing bespoke packaged content and controls was part of a further engagement with the global chemical supplier, including the development of content for ISO Standards & Hazardous Waste Standards as well as building out Continuous Control Monitoring (CCM) for their highest risks.
5. Our team delivered a custom GDPR content framework for a leading consumer goods manufacturer, alongside a SAP Process Control system design and implementation project. This included 13 overarching data protection and privacy processes, to give 140 data protection-related controls which were deployed across the business, for the purposes of self-assessments and policy and control documentation storage.
6. Custom dashboards and a reporting redesign project for a client in the energy sector included:
• Customised logic built into SAP Process Control for data sets.
• Use of SAP BW to present SAP Process Control data, including transactional, hierarchical, Master Data, data flows and process chains.
• Dashboards were built using SAP Process Control source data in SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC), including reports for Status summary, Monthly performance trends and tracking against Business Processes performance, Issue tracking and remediation timeliness.
• Dashboards were customised to support differing end-user requirements (i.e. Risk & Compliance team, CFO, etc.).
All of these ideas and benefits can be achieved by leveraging SAP FIORI or SAP Analytics Cloud to maximize the return on your software investment and improve the UX.
Don’t feel you have to accept a solution the way it’s deployed. Think outside the box and leverage SAP FIORI or SAP Analytics Cloud to create bespoke content to meet your organization’s needs.
From bespoke management reporting to enhanced data visualisation/dashboards through a range of packaged regulatory content, there are many ways to deliver additional value for your organisational needs, turbo-charging your GRC solutions. To find out more visit our Innovation page, or get in touch to discuss your organisation.
