The following table provides a summary of all of the activities that form the SAP implementation process. These activities will be described with more detail and elaborated with examples in the rest of this entry.
| Activity | Sub-Activity | Description |
| Project preparation | Craft solution vision | Refine and communicate a SOLUTION VISION of the future-state of the SAP solution, to sketch a design that meets both business and financial requirements. The focus should be on the company’s core business and how the SAP solution will better enable that core business to be successful. Some of the guidance and key requirements for how to put together an ERP and SAP business case for ROI, business benefit, and success includes focusing on competitive pressures, value propositions, and how the solution enables success. |
| Design and initially staff the SAP TSO | Design and staff the key positions of the SAP Technical Support Organization (TSO), the organization that is charged with addressing, designing, implementing and supporting the SAP solution. | |
| Sizing and blueprinting | Perform cost of ownership analysis | Perform a COST OF OWNERSHIP ANALYSIS to determine how to get the best business solution for the least money i.e. to determine where and when the costs are incurred within the context of the SAP solution stack. |
| Identify high availability and disaster recovery requirements | Determine all HIGH AVAILABILITY and DISASTER RECOVERY REQUIREMENTS, to plan what to do with later downtime of the SAP system | |
| Engage SAP solution stack vendors | Select the best SAP hardware and software technology partners for all layers and components of the SAP SOLUTION STACK, based on a side-by-side sizing comparison | |
| Staff TSO | Staff the bulk of the TSO, i.e. fill the positions that directly support the near-term objectives of the implementation, which are to develop and begin installation/implementation of the SAP data center. | |
| Execute training | Train the various members of the SAP TSO, like data center specialists, high availability specialist and network specialists and train the end-users to give all the required SAP knowledge and skills | |
| | Build a new | |
| Perform installations | Install the (My)SAP components and technological foundations like a web application server or enterprise portal. | |
| Round out support for SAP | Identify and staff the remaining TSO roles, e.g. roles that relate to help desk work and other such support providing work. | |
| SAP functional development | Address Change Management | Develop a planned approach to the changes in the organization. The objective is to maximize the collective efforts of all people involved in the change and minimize the risk of failure of implementing the changes related to the SAP implementation. |
| Address SAP systems and operations management | Create a foundation for the SAP systems management and SAP computer operations, by creating a SAP OPERATIONS MANUAL and by evaluating SAP management applications. | |
| Perform functional, integration and regression tests | Test the SAP business processes, by executing functional tests to ensure that business processes work, integration tests to ensure that the organization’s business processes work together with other business processes and regression tests to prove that a specific set of data and processes yield consistent and repeatable results. | |
| Final Preparation | Perform systems and stress tests | Plan, script, execute and monitor SAP STRESS TESTS, to see if the expectations of the end users, defined in service level agreements, will be met. |
| Prepare for cutover | Plan, prepare and execute the CUTOVER, by creating a CUTOVER PLAN that describes all cutover tasks that have to be performed before the actual go-live | |
| Go Live | Turn on the SAP system for the end-users | |